While the Vatican assesses potential miracles attributed to the intercession of Pope John Paul I, a new books sheds light on events surrounding his death, writes Michael Kelly   It’s no coincidence that Dan Browne – author if The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons – chose the Catholic Church as the backdrop for…

If ever there was a precise date we can point to and say that it changed the world, October 31, 2017 would surely be a contender. Then it was that the young German professor, the Augustinian friar Martin Luther, gave notice of an academic debate around 95 ‘theses’, signalling the beginning of what we now…

Luther was by no means the first Christian to claim to be a reformer, Carlos Eire tells Greg Daly   Until the 1970s almost all historical writing about the Reformation was written from a confessional standpoint, according to Yale’s Prof. Carlos Eire. Since then, though, serious efforts at objectivity have been more commonplace, he says,…

The modern world was born with the publication of Luther’s 95 theses, writes Fintan Lyons   The year beginning October 13, 2016 was chosen to mark the fifth centenary of the Protestant Reformation because of Martin Luther’s posting of his theses against indulgences on that date in 1517, putting him squarely at the heart of…

There was a common belief that the Reformation would blow over, writes Rory Rapple   Western Europe may be post-Christian, but the effects of its sectarian divide are everywhere to be seen. Ask almost any Bavarian what makes her different from a Saxon, or any Swede what marks him off from a Spaniard and each…

The foreign nature of Ireland’s Reformation was key to its failure, writes John McCafferty   All over the world 2017 will mark the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. What happened here in Ireland? Why did this island remain overwhelmingly Catholic even though its rulers were Protestant? How did religious changes get sucked into the…

Martyrdom was a central – and complex – part of the Irish Reformation experience, writes Alan Ford   It’s hard to escape the tradition of political martyrdom in Ireland. The litany of names, from Wolfe Tone to Patrick Pearse to Bobby Sands, is commemorated annually at Bodenstown and on the gable ends of houses in…

Pope Francis’ praise 
for Luther continues the work of his predecessor, writes Greg Daly   Pope Francis’ praise for Martin Luther ahead of and during his visit to Lund last year – notably when he said that Luther’s intentions and his understanding of justification were not mistaken – may have sounded startling to some ears,…

The Catholic Reformation entailed coercion as well as wide-ranging reform projects, writes Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin   Few terms in historical writing have attracted more dissatisfaction than ‘the Counter-Reformation’. Among the more recent attempts to formulate an alternative are ‘Catholic Reformation’, ‘Catholic Renewal’ or the broad catch-all of ‘Early Modern Catholicism’. Each of these designations depart…

If Luther created our world, he didn’t mean to, Brad Gregory tells Greg Daly   It’s something of a cliché to say that Martin Luther never intended to create the storm he generated, and that matters took their own momentum, but for Brad Gregory, this could hardly be more true. “Luther initially was just objecting…