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copland
Guest
I have often heard that the Church had people killed such as heretics like Tyndale. Is this true. I figure it is just propaganda, but how do I respond to such claims? Thanks!
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Steve_Andersen
Guest
the church, though divinely inspired, is run by humans and thus is subject to all the foibles that we are
Have bad things happened? Sure
Have far more good things than bad happened? Most definitely
don’t worry
Have bad things happened? Sure
Have far more good things than bad happened? Most definitely
don’t worry
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Hildebrand
Guest
I think in most cases it was done by the state, not by the Church. However if you believe in Capital Punishment and the right to remove individuals from society that pose a SEVERE threat to the common good, then some acts of Christendom qualify under this category.
For example, research the Albigensian heresy, you’ll find out why such drastic measures were taken. The Albigensian heresy was the “culture of death” with steroids. Heresy can and does spread like a virus, sometimes you must amputate a body part to save the entire body.
In most Christian states, much like the Roman, Greek, and many other civilizations, heresy was a capital offense. Why? Because it placed Christendom (and other civilizations) in grave danger. The greatest threats to a society are the ones that seek to rip it apart from within, heresy did exactly that.
The 20th Century was a century in rebellion against God. Nazism, Leninism, Communism, Maoist Communism, Fascism, Totalitarianism, Abortion, Euthanasia, Eugenics, etc. All these are in complete opposition to Catholic teachings. No ideas like these could come to full fruition in Christendom because there was a crack down on heresy back then. We are taught now… one can believe anything they want and you should tolerate those who want to keep abortion legal, etc.
Words and beliefs have consequences. Heresy has consequences.
I could continue with more, but this covers the surface.
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challenger
Guest
Yes, the Church killed people. Yes, it was wrong. No, it does not affect infallibility or its divine origins.
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Maccabees
Guest
Actually the church killed few people. Most people were killed by the state. As during the inquisition the state had the power to kill people as the church did not want to kill people however they helped set up the Inquistion system that had papal legates mostly dominicans that reviewed these cases. The cases are actually in the low thousands if you leave out the Spanish Inquistion which was more poltical in nature and I beleive had just one or two reps on a 15 memeber panel but yeah the church did contribute to these deaths but its more complicated than it seems to us modern day folks. No government or relgiion is wihtout fault we are all human and subject to original sin. What makes the church holy is our Founder Jesus Chist and the holy spirit which guides the church we as humans can distort dogma to our destruction.
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Church_Militant
Guest
And Oh for the love of God don’t bring up all the murders of Catholics by the most holy reformers and their attendant governments…and the Know Nothings and the KKK here is the US and all the Catholics like Maximillian Kolbe and Edith Stein who died in concentration camps while the Protestant world sat on their hands…or the Troubles in Northern Ireland…
By all means let all the rhetorical blame for wickedness fall on Holy Mother Church and let our Holy Father humble himself and apologize for wrongs while no one else even hints at their culpability or repentance.
Forgive me if I seem bitter…but all the rhetoric gets to me and makes me wanna… It’s so easy to throw stones and inflate the numbers to make yourself look “holier than thou”. Sorry all but I am sick of all the non-Catholic lies and half-truths and the refusal of supposedly “honest questioners” to accept stated truths and historical facts. People who were Catholic suffering selective memory loss when they are party to a-C attacks. It’s unrighteous…and they KNOW it is.
Some of you know who all I’m referring to…
Rant completed.
Thank you Maccabees and others for the balancing remarks in your posts.
By all means let all the rhetorical blame for wickedness fall on Holy Mother Church and let our Holy Father humble himself and apologize for wrongs while no one else even hints at their culpability or repentance.
Forgive me if I seem bitter…but all the rhetoric gets to me and makes me wanna… It’s so easy to throw stones and inflate the numbers to make yourself look “holier than thou”. Sorry all but I am sick of all the non-Catholic lies and half-truths and the refusal of supposedly “honest questioners” to accept stated truths and historical facts. People who were Catholic suffering selective memory loss when they are party to a-C attacks. It’s unrighteous…and they KNOW it is.
Some of you know who all I’m referring to…
Rant completed.
Thank you Maccabees and others for the balancing remarks in your posts.
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Br.Rich_SFO
Guest
The Church tried people for heresy and if found guilty and would not change their ways, excommunicated them. Excommunication is the capital punishment of the Church. Church Law never contained the punishment of physical death. That’s not to say that some individuals didn’t take matter into their own hands and go further, however not sanctioned by the Church. The State however saw heresy as a serious crime against it also. When someone was found guilty by the Church and excommunicated the state also used that condemnation to justify it’s own punishment which was often torture and death.
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RSiscoe
Guest
The Church didn’t actually do the killing, they just did the judging. Back then, when a person was accused of a crime, they were not judged by 12 people, they were judged by the Church.
Just as it is against the law today to break the 5th commandment and kill someone, so back then it was against the law to break the 1st commandment by being a heretic (which would very likely kill others spiritually). Therefore, since it was against the law - both Divine law and state law - to be a heretic, people who were accused of it, were judged. And since the Church was the judge, the Church judged them. If they were found guilty, they were turned over to the state for punishment. In those days it was the law of the state that a heretic was put to death. Thus, they were put to death by the state, when they were judged to be in violation of the state law, which was based on God’s law.
In those days people knew how serious heresy was. And back then, unlike today, they based the state law on God’s law. Law was not determined by majority vote, but by Divine law. God says “thou shalt have no strange God’s before me”. Since heresy is a violation of that law, and since the state law reflected the law of God, it was against the law to be a heretic. That is the way if should be.
Today, on the other hand, the state unjustly says that heresy is OK. That is totally false. In fact, it is worse to break the 1st commandment, than it is to break the 5th. The 5th commandment forbids killing the body, whereas heresy (which is a violation of the 1st commandent) destroys the immortal soul. Obviously that is far worse than merely killing the body.
And if it is appropriate to have a murderer put to death (and the Church has ALWAYS told us that it is), then it is much more appropriate to put a heretic to death, than someone who merely kills the body. Personally I wish the Church would again have an inquisition so that all of the heretic priests, Bishops and Cardinals could be removed from the Church, once and for all, so they would no longer be able to lead others to hell. But that is just my opinion.
And shame on those Church leaders who apologize for the Church of the middle ages, when it defended God’s law, and protected the faithful by condemning heretics. Shame on them for apologizing for that, then allowing the wolves of their own day to devour the flock, unhindered. Woe to those wolves who lead Catholics astray, and shame on those leaders who allow it.
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azcelt
Guest
church militant,in regards to the protestant world sitting on there hands during the holocaust,i would urge you to read about the lutheran pastor(dietrich bonhoeffer)a christian martyr hung by the nazis during the final days of ww2 for his resistance efforts against hitler and the horror of the nazi regime.a bit of an unfair generalization you had there. in christ,celt
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Hildebrand
Guest
Bravo!
If one is in the opinion that Christendom was an evil which needed to be destroyed, then of course, what happened back then was evil.
If you are in the opinion that Christendom was a great good which needed to be defended, then executing a few so that all may not be subject to such vile pollution of faith was necessary.
Today, the Catholic Church has given up on the concept of creating a kingdom of Christ on earth and has tried to live in a very secular society, a society that has embraced modernity. (There is no need for such actions today.)
In the time of Martin Luther, the pope waited far to long to crack down on his corruption of Christian souls. Leo X was more concerned with the external threats of the Turkish expansion and thought Luther was a disgruntled friar who need a bit of guidance. By the time the Church really did anything, his heretical views were spreading all over northern Europe. Luther appealed to people’s nationalism to help his ideas spread. Luther’s Nationalism was in complete opposition to catholicism (small “c”) because it was an attack on Rome’s authority.
The pope was a check on the excesses and abuses of the Kings. There was much more local control before the Protestant Revolt. Luther tempted the European monarchs to take more power, autonomy, and authority; and many fell to that temptation. The path to achieving this power grab was breaking with the Church. The rulers who broke away from the Church did not have to bow to anyone. King Henry VIII was, at first, with the pope against the Protestant Revolt. Events changed when the pope would not annul his marriage and he fell to this temptation. Before King Henry VIII separated himself and his kingdom from Rome, the people had the right to voice their opinions against the actions or policies of the King. The English possessed a limited, but real, freedom of speech. With the increase of Protestantism, the absolutist state arose. The idea of the divine right of the King came about. This corrupted the “Catholic” monarchs who sought to centralize more power in their hands. This arrogance was fully clear in the actions of Louis XIV. However again I am rambling on and on…
To repeat myself, ideas do have consequences.
Maybe Jesus’ words were too radical:
“but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
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Church_Militant
Guest
I am well familar with Reverend Bonhoeffer and have read many things written by him, including his prayers from prison. (Incredibly moving and inspiring!). However…he was the exception and not the rule I think.
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Greek
Guest
During that time the Church basically ran the sate, if not indirectly influenced it.
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