(Updated April 29, 2025)
At the time and in the aftermath of the so-called protestant “reformation,” many Catholics warned of the inevitable consequences of various protestant principles. This Quote Archive compiles those warnings as we find them in our research.
St. Thomas More (1478-1535)
St. Thomas More, A Response to Luther (1523)
Now let us see whether he does not by every trick possible attack the very sacred scripture for which he pretends to fight.
In the first place, to say nothing of how he everywhere very wickedly, everywhere stupidly twists the scriptures to the defense of destructive teachings, what can more thoroughly or more clearly destroy the whole force and fruit of all the scriptures than the fact that this fellow strives hand and foot so that no one will believe any learned men at all concerning the interpretation of scripture; so that no one will believe any of the holy fathers at all, or all men taken together at all; not believe the whole church at all, though it has been of one mind from the very origins of the church until this day; but that each one will oppose his own interpretation to everyone?
What fruit will the scriptures bring forth if anyone whatever claims such authority for himself that in understanding them he relies on his own interpretation in opposition to that of everyone else, so that he is influenced by no authority at all not to measure the scriptures according to feeling and fancy? Here he clearly opens the window by which the people may plunge into perdition.
Tell me, Luther, by your madness, if you had lived during that tempest in which the church was thrown into turmoil by Arian storms, would you have urged what you now urge: that anyone of the 283 | 285 common people who pleased might consider himself qualified judge concerning that controversy, and that each one might rely on himself in understanding the scriptures which he read, and that he might make light of the judgment of the holy fathers who were present at the council sessions in which the heresies were condemned, so that, although you admit that Christ is present wherever two or three are gathered together in His name, you deny that He was present where there were gathered together in that same name six hundred men, and those from every part of the Christian people?
But who is so blind as not to see that in this matter you have no other intention than that, after abolishing completely the authority of public agreement, you may be able to stir up a tumult from the heedless disagreement of private individuals, in which case you may find some men foolish enough to think themselves free to rely with impunity on you, a single scoundrel, in opposition to the faith of everyone else? Lest the authority of scripture might have any force against you, you work so that each person will drag into doubt the meaning of the sacred writings and defend his own fancy not only against the judgment of all the holy fathers, against the universal judgment of the whole church, but even against the judgment of blessed Paul the apostle.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
Michel de Montaigne, Essay: An Apology for Raymond Sebond
(Book 2, Ch. 12)2
[T]hat was when the novelties of Luther were beginning to be esteemed, in many places shaking our old religion. He [Montaigne’s father] was well advised, clearly deducing that this new disease would soon degenerate into loathsome atheism. The mass of ordinary people lack the faculty of judging things as they are, letting themselves be carried away by chance appearances. Once you have put into their hands the foolhardiness of despising and criticizing opinions which they used to hold in the highest awe (such as those which concern their salvation), and once you have thrown into the balance of doubt and uncertainty any articles of their religion, they soon cast all the rest of their beliefs into similar uncertainty. They had no more authority for them, no more foundation, than for those who have just undermined; and so, as though it were the yoke of a tyrant, they shake off all those other concepts which had been impressed upon them by the authority of Law and the awesomeness of ancient custom.
Nam cupide conculcatur nimis ante metutum [“That which once was feared too greatly is now avidly trampled underfoot”; Lucretius, V, 1140, alluding to regicide].
They then take it upon themselves to accept nothing on which they have not pronounced their own approval, subjecting it to their individual assent.
