Luther vs. Pope Leo ─ A Conversation in Purgatory

Martin Luther and Pope Leo X awake in heaven. It is the year 2017 andthey have been asleep since the posting of the 95 Thesis in 1517.Naturally, they are disoriented upon waking. To their mutual chagrin notonly does each discover the other face to face in heaven, but theylearn that by divine decree they are roomed together indefinitely. ThePope's first reaction to the news is to gather that this is hispurgatory for the sins of the Medicis. Luther despairs that he is inhell: “It was works after all,” he surmises.

Discussing the key issues that divided Catholics and Protestants andbirthed a Reformation 500 years ago, this book tells a story: theauthor's imaginary reconciliation in heaven between Martin Luther andPope Leo X who work through the issues that divided them in theirhistorical encounter. Luther and Leo become the creative instruments of arenewed commitment to Protestant-Catholic ecumenical reconciliation (assignaled by the Joint Declaration on Justification by the Vatican andthe Lutheran World Federation in 1999 and subsequently subscribed to byThe United Methodist Church). Yet this fantasy –a genre chosen for itsteaching potential and popular appeal—is a well-grounded one, withextensive annotation in the endnotes and explanation in the Afterword.The notes and Afterword solidly ground all the assertions put on thelips of Luther and Leo in the text with documentation/references andoffer a compelling argument for the theology that imagines theirheavenly reconciliation.