They strike a cord of rebellion against the perceived misdeeds of the Church. And most assuredly, this misdeeds are both visible and offensive in the proportions that affiliated it with the affluence and excess of the European monarchy. Luther takes the perspective that the leaders of the church have largely taken up a greater interest in serving to these material ends then reflecting the convictions of God. It is thus that he illustrates the irony of making the public beholden to their allegedly special relationship with the divine. Quite rationally and to this point, Luther declares that the very idea that any human being up to and including the pope might be capable of channeling us forgiveness for our sins by way of confession is disingenuous. Luther determines that "those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences. As a matter of fact, the pope remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to canon law, they should have paid in this life."
This points to a distinct departure from Loyola's intensely rigid and almost counter-humanist understanding of the faith. To his perspective, internalizing of faith factored very little into a discussion far more preceded by the importance association of commerce, kingship and the Church. Loyola reveals himself to be of an order distinguished by its elite social status, great affluence and imposing religious piety, making him an ideal reflection of the feudalist dependency...
Thus, Loyola tends to conflate spiritual exercises with commands designed to restrain the behaviors of the peasantry. Accordingly, his Fifth Rule, for instance, reports that it is necessary "to praise vows of Religion, of obedience, of poverty, of chastity and of other perfections of supererogation. And it is to be noted that as the vow is about the things which approach to Evangelical perfection, a vow ought not to be made in the things which withdraw from it, such as to be a merchant, or to be married, etc."
Raising submission to the Church above all other things and specifying marriage repeatedly as being among those things, Loyola promotes a way of worshipping that defies God's desire for us to approach one another with love rather than obedience. Moreover, promoting obedience to a patriarchal Church which provided no path for women to commune with God, Loyola's ideology ultimately pales next to Luther's, which by inherency of its protest and demand for reformation, suggests a more progressive understanding of the faith.
Works Cited:
Coats, D., trans., Martin Luther's 95 Theses. (GEnie Religion & Ethics RT, 1992.)
Tuten, B., trans., the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Translated from the Autograph by Father Elder Mullen, S.J. (New York: P.J. Kennedy and Sons, 1914.)
Tuten, 1
Coats, Th. 1-2
Coats, Th. 10-12
Coats, 21-22
Tuten, 1
