AHC: Pope Martin Luther

Delta Force

Banned
That's pretty much ASB. He had already been excommunicated and even if he had not only cardinals are elected pope (Dan Brown claims in his fiction that theoretically anyone can be elected pope, but I am not sure if that is true). Martin Luther was only a priest. He also called the pope and the Catholic Church the antichrist, so he would not want to be pope. You would need to have Martin Luther not speak out and generally be more conservative than he was in real life to have any hope of him becoming pope. That or he could hide some of his ideas until he gets elected and then go and implement some of them.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
Dan Brown claims in his fiction that theoretically anyone can be elected pope, but I am not sure if that is true
Canon law requires that if a layman or non-bishop is elected, he receives episcopal consecration from the Dean of the College of Cardinals before assuming the Pontificate. So yes, it is possible. However, Brown made one mistake in Angels and Demons: Pope John Paul II abolished vote by acclamation and by selection by committee, so the way Camerlengo Ventresca was "declared" to be Pope was no longer applicable without the pope after John Paul II reinstalling the previous methods.
 
Plus, during this time period, almost all Popes were either French or Italian, and Martin Luther was German. Back in those days, politics played a lot in who was elected Pope
 
I know that some would declare the election of Martin Luther ASB (which it is BTW not, it is just very improbable). But what would have happen if they had elected him? And what could have been the reasons?
 

Sumeragi

Banned
Mind putting more thought into this? ML becoming pope would most likely make a completely different ML from what we know in OTL, and as such we can't see what actions he might take.
 
Can we kill off Pope Leo early or have a point of diversion within his pontificate?
The PoD should be the papal conclave after Leo's death in 1521. So the 95 Theses have been published and Luther had started his bible translation.
Also, I only said that they elected him and not that he accepted this election.
 
Electing Luther after the Diet of Worms? Completely ASB. The best bet for Martin Luther to be Pope is a POD way before that, which would require a very different Reformation.

And the last Germanic Pope until recently (and the last non-Italian Pope until John Paul II anyway), Adrian VI, was Leo X's successor in OTL anyway.
 
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