2022: The Year Ahead

The Thirty Years War lasted from 1618 to 1648. It was the culmination of the bitter confessional warfare that convulsed Europe, starting from that All Hallows Eve day in 1517 when Martin Luther affixed his ninety-five theses to the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg, Germany and ushered in the Reformation. More than a century and a quarter of bloodshed followed between those who insisted on the absolute infallibility of the Church and its vicars on the one side and, on the other, those who insisted on the absolute infallibility of revealed Scripture without the need for the intermediation of popes, cardinals and bishops. With the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 a weary continent laid down its arms and agreed to disagree from within their respective boundaries on either side of the confessional divide between Protestants and Roman Catholics.