Information AboutDecet Romanum Pontificem |
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Decet Romanum Pontificem (. 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 , 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 , cf. Lutheran—Roman Catholic Dialogue , 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.'" External links
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