“…but Lutherans die well”– for Otten family: Herman Otten, † 4/24/2019 (Part 1 of 3)

      In reading the May 6, 2019 issue of Christian News, an issue in honor of the passing of the paper's founder Herman Otten, I came across Managing Editor Ruth Rethemeyer's quote (p. 4-5) from Roman Catholic Peter Manns’ 1983 book Martin Luther: An Illustrated Biography, p. 219: 

“How silly that expression was that for centuries we believed hit the nail on the head: ‘To lead a good life one must be Lutheran; to die a good death, Catholic.’ Anyone who follows Luther will live well and die even better, for at the end of the dark tunnel stands someone who loves us and to whom we can look forward. That is Luther's ecumenical legacy for which we should give thanks.”

The "silly expression" that Manns refers to has a history that is explained quite well in an article that C.F.W. Walther wrote in 1868 in his Der Lutheraner magazine.  Walther was defending against fables promoted by Roman Catholic publications in America.  And so to take the opportunity that Rethemeyer presented, I would publish this essay of Walther to comfort the family of the departed Lutheran pastor (emeritus) Herman Otten:

Translation by BackToLuther; highlighting, bolding is mine, underlining follows Walther's emphasis; hyperlinks added.

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Roman Catholics live well, but Lutherans die well.

[By C.F.W. Walther – Der Lutheraner v. 24, no. 18 (May 1868), p. 138-9]

In the Catholic Faith Messenger [Katholischer Glaubensbote] (Louisville, Ky) from April 29 [1868], the old wives’ tale is again served up to ignorant readers that Melanchthon had said to his dying mother, who had been seduced to the Lutheran faith, that for a Lutheran, life was good, but for a “Catholic” it meant dying well. The fable-messenger tells us, as follows:

“When Melanchthon's mother, who had been persuaded by her son to fall away from the Catholic Church and convert to the Reformation, was lying on her deathbed, she was known to have summoned her son and solemnly asked him, ‘Son! On your advice, I left the Catholic Church, and accepted the new religion; so I implore you by the living God, [page 139, col. 1] tell me without a doubt what faith I should die in.’ Melanchthon bowed his head and remained in silence for some time; childlike love fought with the pride of the reformer within his heart. ‘Mother’, he said at last, ‘the Protestant doctrine is easier, but the Catholic doctrine is safer.’ This is the most striking proof that life in Protestantism is considered easier and better as with death is in Catholicism.” So far the Faith Messenger.

The opposite of this narrative is the truth about Melanchthon’s mother…

= = = = = = = = = = =  continued in Part 2  = = = = = = = = = =

      I would call attention to Walther's use of quote marks around the name “Catholic” .  He is pointing out that the use of that name, which means "universal", is a misnomer, or "name-only" in that the Roman church is certainly not the Church Universal, but became a sect with its falsification of the pure Gospel.  What purports today to be "evangelical catholicity" is not a discovery of the doctrine of the Church Universal, but a falling back to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.  —  Walther is going to reveal more than one fiction in this Catholic fable… much more... beginning in the next Part 2. (concludes in Part 3)