Decet Romanum Pontificem

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Decet Romanum Pontificem (1521) is the papal bull excommunicating Martin Luther, bearing the title of the first three Latin words of the text: [It] befits [the] Roman Pontiff in English. It was issued on January 3, 1521 by Pope Leo X to effect the excommunication threatened in his earlier papal bull Exsurge Domine (1520) since Luther failed to recant accordingly. Luther had burned his copy of Exsurge Domine on December 10, 1520 at the Elster Gate in Wittenberg, indicating his response to it.

There are at least two other important papal bulls with the title Decet Romanum Pontificem: one dated February 23, 1596, issued by Pope Clement VIII, and one dated March 12, 1622, issued by Pope Gregory XV.

Toward the end of the 20th century Lutherans in dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church and the pope requested the lifting of this excommunication; however, the Vatican's response was that its practice is to lift excommunications only on those still living. Roland Bainton in "Here I Stand after a Quarter of a Century", his preface for the 1978 edition of his Luther biography, concludes: "I am happy that the Church of Rome has allowed some talk of removing the excommunication of Luther. This might well be done. He was never a heretic. He might better be called, as one has phrased it, 'a reluctant rebel.'"

[edit] External links

• Text of Decet Romanum Pontificem (Microsoft Word format)
• On the lifting the excommunication of Martin Luther by a Priest of the Society of Saint Pius X