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Sadoleto's Corruption In John Calvin

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In 1539, Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto, bishop of Carpentras, took advantage of John Calvin’s exile from Geneva and sent a letter attempting to appeal to the magistrates and citizens of Geneva to return to the Roman Church and the Catholic faith. Sadoleto urges the citizens of Geneva not to turn their backs on the old church tradition in favor of a new unauthorized innovative religion made popular by Protestant reformers such as Calvin. With Sadoleto’s seemingly resolute reverence for the Catholic church he charmingly engages the Genevans sense of tradition, confessing that there is indeed corruption present in the Catholic Church, but also proposing the accusation that the Reformers are untrustworthy in their vocation because of their heretical doctrinal and theological views. The Genevan leaders lacking the knowledge for an answer turned to Calvin to write a response in …show more content…

In fact, his argument stands in stark contrast against the claim that older is better and that the Roman Catholic church is the true innovator, and not the Protestant Reformers. Time with worldly power has tarnished the reputation of Peter's church and reform is necessary to recover the marks and practices more constitutive of that which properly is called "Church." Calvin wishes to "call [Rome] back to the form which the Apostles instituted" for "in it we have the only model of a true

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