May 6, 1527: An army of barbarians who had been sent—but were no longer controlled—by Emperor Charles V sacks Rome. Many Protestants interpreted the attack as a divine rebuke, and some Catholics agreed: “We who should have been the salt of the earth decayed until we were good for nothing,” wrote Cardinal Cajetan, Luther’s adversary. “Everyone is convinced that all this has happened as a judgment of God on the great tyranny and disorders of the papal court.
May 6, 1638: Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen, who inspired a reform movement in the Roman Catholic Church, dies. Jansen opposed the teachings of the Jesuits and of Thomas Aquinas, urging the church to rediscover Augustine’s doctrine of irresistible grace. For his views on grace and predestination, the church prohibited Jansen’s teachings.
