In calling Luther a Catholic Priest, I am not saying he professed the true faith - the man was an abominable heretic. What I am doing is stating a fact of faith in virtue of the indelible character that the sacrament of holy orders imprints on the soul of all priests - and only on the souls of all priests. Even now that character remains - and will forever remain, marking him as having been a Catholic priest forever, which only adds to his suffering.
This is something 6 year old Catholic children are taught as part of their catechism, not sure what there is about it you cannot accept.
Stop creating strawmen Stubborn, everyone here knows that Holy Orders leave an indelible mark upon the soul of a priest. There is an important distinction between a
priest and a
Catholic priest. A priest is anyone who has been validly ordained. A
Catholic priest is a priest who also
possesses the supernatural virtue of Faith, the Catholic Faith. Would you really refer to an Eastern "Orthodox" priest as a "Catholic priest", because they have valid orders? Come on, that's just absurd.
Think about this hypothetical scenario: you see an Eastern "Orthodox" priest walking down the street, and you turn to your 14 year-old son, and say to him "look, son, there is a Catholic priest"... your son looks in wonder and admiration. A few weeks later, on a Sunday, your son is walking down the street again, this time alone, and sees the same priest that his bad-willed heretic Daddy called a "Catholic priest", walking to the Church to say the "Divine Liturgy". He follows him there and takes part in the sacrilegious liturgy and receives Communion, after being deceived by his heretic Father into thinking it is "Catholic" (once a priest always a priest, right?), and therefore fine to participate in. This is just one potential scandal your abominable dishonesty could cause.
Objection: Martin Luther was at one point in time a professed Catholic monk, therefore he is different to an Eastern "Orthodox" priest, who has never professed the Catholic Faith.
Reply to Objection: When the Eastern "Orthodox" are baptized as infants, they are made members of the Catholic Church and receive the supernatural virtue of Faith through the sacrament of baptism. They are only excommunicated from the Church when they commit the sin of heresy or schism at a later age, at some point in time after they have obtained the use of reason. Therefore, they are
former(!) Catholics, just the same as Martin Luther was.