Burning at the Stake

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So, I feel I’ve seen this answer around somewhere before, but my wife suggested I ask so I have a better answer to give.

My mother-in-law (a bit of an anti-Catholic) posted something on Facebook regarding the history of the Bible with a somewhat derogatory statement about the Catholic Church. This is the first time she’s posted something like this on Facebook. So I posted something in reply about the availability of the Bible and the reason why it was mostly distributed in Latin. She responded with saying that people in England and in other places were burned at the stake for writing English translations of the Bible. Now, I did do some quick research and found out about Tyndale, who wrote an English translation, and was burned at the stake, but he was killed for heresy and not having written a Bible translation.

Now, this was only a quick search, so I didn’t look to see what heresy it was, but is there any legitimacy to the claim that some people were burned at the stake for writing a local language translation of the Bible?

Like I said, I feel I already know the answer to this, but if someone could give me a good rebuttal for this.

P.S. She isn’t one to always listen to reason, but will back down occasionally. Also, my sister-in-law (her own daughter) liked my comment and apparently tried to tell her mom the same thing before I posted it. My mother-in-law is very bipolar in regards to the Catholic Church. Sometimes she’ll be saying something that makes it seem like she’s “buddies” with the Catholic Church, but then other times she’s condemning it (mostly behind my back and to my wife). My wife takes my side, though.

Thanks in advance for the answers.
 
From this article on Thomas More:

In total there were six burned at the stake for heresy during More’s chancellorship: Thomas Hitton, Thomas Bilney, Richard Bayfield, John Tewkesbery, Thomas Dusgate, and James Bainham. More’s influential role in the burning of Tyndale is reported by Moynahan. Burning at the stake had long been a standard punishment for heresy—about thirty burnings had taken place in the century before More’s elevation to Chancellor, and burning continued to be used by both Catholics and Protestants during the religious upheaval of the following decades. Ackroyd notes that More explicitly “approved of Burning” After the case of John Tewkesbury, a London leather-seller found guilty by More of harbouring banned books and sentenced to burning for refusing to recant, More declared: he “burned as there was neuer wretche I wene better worthy.”
 
bzkoss236 said:
So, I feel I’ve seen this answer around somewhere before, but my wife suggested I ask so I have a better answer to give.

My mother-in-law (a bit of an anti-Catholic) posted something on Facebook regarding the history of the Bible with a somewhat derogatory statement about the Catholic Church. This is the first time she’s posted something like this on Facebook. So I posted something in reply about the availability of the Bible and the reason why it was mostly distributed in Latin. She responded with saying that people in England and in other places were burned at the stake for writing English translations of the Bible. Now, I did do some quick research and found out about Tyndale, who wrote an English translation, and was burned at the stake, but he was killed for heresy and not having written a Bible translation.

Now, this was only a quick search, so I didn’t look to see what heresy it was, but is there any legitimacy to the claim that some people were burned at the stake for writing a local language translation of the Bible?

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First, the Bible is the Sacred Canon of Scripture and the Church essentially created it, as the Church decided what writings would be in the Canon. So the Church always has believed the duty of the Church is to protect the Deposit of Faith and the Canon is part of that.

The Church objected to these translations, I was told, because they were so often wrong, and did present things that were heretical. Translations had to be approved. Even now, anything you write as a Catholic, has to have approval of a Bishop or you can’t claim it is true Catholic teaching. This website has to have a Bishop approve the use of the word “Catholic” in it’s title.

You cannot judge what people did hundreds of years ago by modern standards. In those days, heresy was a capital offense. Burning was a standard form of execution.

Through history, many Catholics have been killed by Protestants and many Protestants by Catholics. I think the recent disturbance in Ireland was the last time. I hope.

Sorry about your MIL. Personally, I’d ignore the whole thing for the sake of peace. But Catholics certainly did a lot of horrible things in the name of our Faith through the centuries. We can’t deny that. And shouldn’t. Doesn’t change the Truth retained, the fact of the Eucharist or the 2000+ year mandate.
 
Are You a heretic, or a Catholic to the Church of Truth?
that is the single Question. Yes, or NO question.

To be Catholic recognizes what the Tradition of the Church calls for, and says, the Creed, and a part of that is the Holy Eucarist is Gods presence directly, no exception…

Herecey, acceptance to is to be a Heretic, to reject God, and that point blank calls says you rather not accept the Faith, but rather accept Hell…

‘’’’'Ignore the whole thing for the sake of peace""""

in a deep sense, that is not acceptable to ignore the situation for the sake of (false) peace. not to attack or argue the issue, but more so in prayer (excelllent example) pray for these people as all others that reject God…set an example that the sacraments are the Real Presence of God…

To come to say, the Catholic faith is what it is, and for that, their is nothing worth standing up for or fighting for, it merely, is, is to be a heretic in itself. an acceptance to , sloth, a what ever is is, so what,

that is what was recognized then and being stood against, today being nummed to the horrors a false freedom of acceptance to what is not Truth, we merely pass it off and go through the motion, of not recognizing what it important, and is not…
 
Tyndale was executed, not for translating the Bible into English, but as a heretic who disseminated a heretical version of the Bible–one full of translational errors and heretical and politically seditious footnotes (no Protestant today would ever dream of using Tyndale’s “Bible”, it was so bad). It is a fine distinction that many Protestants (in their readiness to malign the Catholic Church) fail to draw.

Tyndale was executed by the state under Henry VIII (not “the Church”) because there was an explicit English law (punishable by death) against publishing heretical Bibles. As the top legal official in England at the time, it was Thomas More’s job to enforce the law.

For more information, here is an article originally from Catholic Answers, but now available at the Catholic Culture website:

Tyndale’s Heresy
 
Complete ignorance. There were tons of translations of the Bible. They were usually just done in parts, though.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_Bible_translations (a single example)

The reason the Bible was mostly in Latin is because everyone that could read knew Latin. Translating into the vernacular also would have been nigh impossible because there was such a multitude of languages in Europe at the time. There were literally dozens of kinds of “German,” for example.
 
  1. Tyndale was executed on the continent in lands governed by Charles V. For heresy not for translating the Bible.
  2. The Douay- Rheims trans. of the NT appeared in 1582. The OT a few years later.
  3. As noted by another poster no-one minded trans. into the vernacular.
 
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