Rome has cursed Luther for teaching justification by faith, without the deeds of the Law.  The principles which he had timidly uttered in the Theses led to bolder declarations later, when the full light of the blessed Gospel had come to him.  It brought him the curse of the Pope in the bull Exsurge, Domine! of June 15, 1520.  The following estimate by a recent Catholic writer is a fair sample of the sentiments cherished by official Rome for Luther:  “From out the vast number whom the enemy of man raised up to invent heresies, which, St. Cyprian says, ’destroy faith and divide unity,’ not one, or all together, ever equaled or surpassed Martin Luther in the wide range of his errors, the ferocity with which he promulgated them, and the harm he did in leading souls away from the Church, the fountain of everlasting truth.  The heresies of Sabellius, Arius, Pelagius, and other rebellious men were insignificant as compared with those Luther formulated and proclaimed four hundred years ago, and which, unfortunately, have ever since done service against the Church of the living God.  In Luther most, if not all, former heresies meet, and reach their climax.  To enumerate fully all the wicked, false, and perverse teachings of the arch-heretic would require a volume many times larger than the Bible, and every one of the lies and falsehoods that have been used against the Catholic Church may be traced back to him as to their original formulator.”  The cause for this undisguised hatred of Luther is chiefly Luther’s teaching of justification by faith, without works.  In its Sixth Session the Council of Trent condemned the following doctrines: 

On Free Will: Canon IV:  “If any one says that the free will of man, when moved and stirred by God, cannot, by giving assent, cooperate with God, who is stirring and calling man, so that he disposes and prepares himself for obtaining the grace of justification, or that he cannot dissent if he wills, but, like some inanimate thing, does absolutely nothing and is purely passive,—­let him be accursed.”

On Justification: Canon IX:  “If any one says that the ungodly are justified by faith alone, in the sense that nothing else is required on their part that might cooperate to the end of obtaining the grace of justification, and that it is in no wise necessary that they be prepared and disposed (for this grace) by a movement of the will,—­let him be accursed.”

Canon XI:  “If any one says that man is justified either by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ alone or by the remission of his sins alone, without grace and love being diffused through his heart by the Holy Spirit and inhering therein, or that the grace whereby we are justified is merely the good will of God,—­let him be accursed.”

Canon XII:  “If any one says that justifying faith is nothing else than trust in the divine mercy which forgives sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this trust alone by which we are justified,—­let him be accursed.”