The Reformation at 500: Another Pope Leo

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With the election of a Chicagoan, Cardinal Robert Prevost, to be the first American pope, the world was understandably intrigued. His selection of the papal name Leo XIV only added to the public’s fascination with him—and mounting speculation regarding the type of international ecclesiastical leader that Leo might become.

Conservatives and traditionalists were looking for the smallest clues that Leo XIV was one of them, and went to great lengths to evaluate things such as his choice of vestments. Progressives, on the other hand, took much pride in the fact that the new pope worked directly under Pope Francis since January of 2023.

Much of the discussion also revolved around the choice of the name Leo—and great attention was given to the last man to use the name, Pope Leo XIII. He held the office from 1878 to 1903, and is credited as a social reformer. The very first Pope Leo served as bishop of Rome all the way back in the middle of the fifth century.

However, few of those commenting on Leo XIV—and none that I have heard in the secular media—made the obvious connection to one of the most important, if not infamous, of all popes, Leo X.

“Since God has given us the papacy,” he stated dramatically, “let us enjoy it.”

Leo X’s place in history is tied not so much to anything that he himself accomplished, as to his relationship to his greatest nemesis. That, of course, was the young priest and professor of Wittenberg, Dr. Martin Luther, whom the pope referred to as “a drunken German.”

“He will feel different when he is sober,” Leo X concluded.

It was 505 years ago, on June 15, 1520, that Pope Leo X turned to Psalm 74:22 (“Arise, O God, plead Your own cause”) to find the premise of his papal bull written against Luther, titled Exsurge Domine. It began as follows:

Arise, O Lord, and judge your own cause. Remember your reproaches to those who are filled with foolishness all through the day. Listen to our prayers, for foxes have arisen seeking to destroy the vineyard whose winepress you alone have trod. When you were about to ascend to your Father, you committed the care, rule, and administration of the vineyard, an image of the triumphant church, to Peter, as the head and your vicar and his successors. The wild boar from the forest seeks to destroy it and every wild beast feeds upon it.

Rise, Peter, and fulfill this pastoral office divinely entrusted to you as mentioned above. Give heed to the cause of the holy Roman Church, mother of all churches and teacher of the faith, whom you by the order of God, have consecrated by your blood. Against the Roman Church, you warned, lying teachers are rising, introducing ruinous sects, and drawing upon themselves speedy doom. Their tongues are fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison. They have bitter zeal, contention in their hearts, and boast and lie against the truth.

We beseech you also, Paul, to arise. It was you that enlightened and illuminated the Church by your doctrine and by a martyrdom like Peter’s.¹

The pope went on to charge Luther with 41 false teachings, and said that the ones he listed amounted to just “[s]ome of (Luther’s) errors,” which spread “pernicious poison.”² He seemed particularly exercised regarding Luther’s proclamation that:

Some articles of John Hus, condemned in the Council of Constance, are most Christian, wholly true and evangelical; these the universal Church could not condemn.³

Luther received the papal bull in October of 1520, and famously burned it in a celebration held at Wittenberg’s Elster Gate on Dec. 10 of the same year. He was then excommunicated in a second papal bull, titled Decet Romanum Pontificem, which Pope Leo X released on Jan. 3, 1521.

Leo X’s efforts to deal with Luther in this manner culminated in the Reformer’s famous statement at the Diet of Worms the following April 18, when he said:

Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason (I do not accept the authority of popes and councils because they have contradicted each other), my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.⁴

May God give us the wisdom and boldness of Luther—even now in this new age of Leo.