Decet Romanum Pontificem

{{short description|1521 papal bull excommunicating Martin Luther}}

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{{for|the papal bull banning the office of cardinal-nephew|Romanum decet pontificem}}

File:Decet Romanum Pontificem.jpg

File:Karl Aspelin-Luther uppbränner den påfliga bullan.jpg

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{{lang|la|Decet Romanum Pontificem}} (from Latin: "It Pleases the Roman Pontiff") is a papal bull issued on 3 January 1521 by Pope Leo X to effect the excommunication of German theologian Martin Luther and some of his colleagues—notably Andreas Karlstadt—for refusing to recant forty-one of Luther's Ninety-five Theses, threatened by the earlier papal bull {{lang|la|Exsurge Domine}}.{{sfn|Doak|2006|p=12}} Luther had burned his copy of {{lang|la|Exsurge Domine}} on 10 December 1520 at the Elster Gate in Wittenberg to indicate his response. The title {{lang|la|Decet Romanum Pontificem}} comes from the first three Latin words of its text.{{cite web |author=Papal Encyclicals Online |title=The Bull "Decet Romanum Pontificem" – Leo X Excommunicates Martin Luther – Rome, 1521 January 3rd |url=http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10decet.htm |date=3 January 1521 |access-date=30 October 2012}}

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

Toward the end of the 20th century, Lutherans in dialogue with the Catholic Church requested the lifting of this excommunication, but the Roman Curia responded 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, concluded: "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.'"{{cite book |last=Bainton |first=Roland |author-link=Roland Bainton |title=Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther |publisher=Abingdon Press |location=Nashville, TN |edition=Festival |date=1978 |page=13 |isbn=9780687168941}}

In 2008, a Vatican spokesman, the Jesuit Federico Lombardi, said "Rumors that the Vatican is set to rehabilitate Martin Luther, the 16th-century leader of the Protestant Reformation, are groundless."{{cite web |title=Vatican spokesman calls rumors of rehabilitation of Luther groundless |url=http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20080310.htm |website=Catholic News Service |date=11 March 2008 |access-date=3 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080311180001/http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20080310.htm |archive-date=11 March 2008}}