Actually, there was no desire to leave the Catholic Church; one need only to read the Augsburg Confession and the Apology (Explanation) of the Augsburg Confession. It becomes very clear that the desire was to remain within the Catholic Church even under the Authority of the Pope (as far as his authority remained in concord with Scripture.Well, I think it's pretty darn obvious that the Lutherans separated from Rome. I don't think this is controversial. There is no merit in making this more difficult than it is. What happened 500 years earlier does not affect the fact that the Lutherans separated from Rome.
Don't believe us? There are two documents in our confessions (Unaltered 1590 edition of the Book of Concord. All confessional Lutherans accept and hold these and the rest of the Book of Concord as a true exposition of the Word of God. These can be found here:
The Augsburg Confession
bookofconcord.org
Defense of the Augsburg Confession
bookofconcord.org
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