Does the Church support religious freedom?

[OriginalGabrielof12]

When your judging Church history consider that NO Catholic member such as ST. Thomas More ever has the authority to burn heretics. The secular Catholic King Henry possessed such authority in his kingdom. Your premise of St. Thomas More does not stand up to historical scrutiny.
The battle against the Reformers movement was not to take away their religious freedom, many of these were allowed to practice their new man made religions. What drew attention to the reformers movement, is when they vied to compete and denounce the Catholic Faith where Catholic Kings ruled.
Please be informed that the Catholic Church herself never has the authority to practice Capital punishment. Holly Wood has distorted this fact be it by prejudices and or it supported an anti-Catholic culture and made a lot of money in the process.
Peace be with you

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Thomas More was the Lord High Chancellor. That means he was responsible for running the court system. There’s no way to say that Thomas More had no hand in the execution of six men for the so-called crime of heresy.

But let’s ignore that fact for now. There are instances where Church officials who are not officially part of a government either brought or identified suspected heretics to that government. For the longest time the Church worked hand-in-hand with these governments. The line between these two entities, in those cases where it even existed, was blurred at best.

Just because the Church wasn’t the one who set the kindling doesn’t mean it can deny its share of the responsibility for the deaths of these people. If the Church was so against the punishment of heretics, surely you can point to an official Church document of that time plainly stating that.

And you said that the people at that time in England were allowed to practice their faith, but that withers under the mildest of scrutiny. They were not allowed to possess the Bible in their native tongue nor could any Protestant literature be printed.

And you also said that a limit on their practice was not denouncing the Catholic faith. You do understand that since all faiths are mutually exclusive that advocating for one faith means saying all other faiths are at least partially wrong, correct?

The Catholic Church – so long as it has had an inroad with government in one way or another – has not pushed for anything close to basic religious freedom. As I’ve said, as this temporal power as evaporated it now calls for religious freedom.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I’m not talking about the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. I’m speaking very literally about England at that time.

Are you stating that William Tyndale didn’t have to smuggle his books into the country, that Bishop Tunstall didn’t burn copies of it, or that Tyndale was strangulated then had his body burned by Thomas More?

 

[OKComputer]

Yes, the church supports religious freedom. We should too. After all, it would be incredibly hypocritical to demand freedom to practice your religion while not giving the same rights to other people to do the same.

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

You forget that Thomas More was beheaded because he refused to admonish his King over the Church Jesus instituted. I think that say’s it all. What you introduce is a Johnny come lately argument. Which has no truth to historical Church and Anglican records.
In summary I will say this; The Catholic Church never has forced it’s faith upon another. Please show me an example and I will expose to you a devil.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

You forget that Thomas More was beheaded because he refused to admonish his King over the Church Jesus instituted. I think that say’s it all.

No, it doesn’t.
There are two things going on here:

1. Thomas More was a victim of religious persecution (lack of religious freedom) which resulted in his death.
2. Thomas More perpetuated religious persecution (lack of religious freedom) which resulted in the death of several men.

Just because 1 happened doesn’t mean that 2 didn’t happen or that 2 was moral. Not that anyone deserves in any way to be killed for their faith, but it’s clear Thomas More got exactly what he gave.

What you introduce is a Johnny come lately argument. Which has no truth to historical Church and Anglican records.

Just saying it’s not sure doesn’t make it just magically disappear. It happened.

In summary I will say this; The Catholic Church never has forced it’s faith upon another. Please show me an example and I will expose to you a devil.

You mean besides the example I already gave? Sure! Check out this link which shows the Edict of 1775 with a set of rules for Jews in the Papal States to follow. The number list is in the bottom half of the page. Besides the fact that the Jews were already required to live in specific ghettos, the rules put heavy restrictions on them. These include things like limiting what books they can possess, having rite or ceremony in their funerals (including reading psalms), increasing synagogue space, eating or working with a Catechumen, evangelizing, impeding the conversion of another Jew, selling meat or bread to Christians.

I have to find a site that shows something I’d read a few years back, where Jewish people in the Papal States were required to get Catholic instruction during the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday).

 

[Kaninchen]

Jewish people in the Papal States were required to get Catholic instruction during the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday).

This was instituted by the Bull “Cum nimis absurdum” (wiki article here).

 

[Genesis315]

The Catholic Church – so long as it has had an inroad with government in one way or another – has not pushed for anything close to basic religious freedom. As I’ve said, as this temporal power as evaporated it now calls for religious freedom.

See my earlier post (#9) in the thread for why this is, with the principles remaining the same.

As for what punishments or measures were appropriate, including death, the same analysis would apply to any application of such a punishment. The justification for the execution of heretics was not based on simply erring in faith, but on the proportionate harm the heretic would inflict on the common good and the public order.

For better or worse, in the experience of many in ancient times and subsequent centuries, heresy did introduce bloody conflict and chaos, tearing at the very fabric of social stability and displacing peoples. Look at what people like the Albigensians, Arnold of Brescia, or Hus and Wycliffe promoted and did and what it led to? Look at what happened during the Reformation? Even Martin Luther changed his stance from opposing to supporting it after he saw the chaos others opposing the Lutheran order caused (No doubt there were also abuses, as there are in any human justice system).

As St. Thomas More himself noted:

If the heretics had never started with the violence, then even if they had used all the ways they had ways they could to lure the people by preaching, even if they had thereby done what Luther does now and Mohammed did before – bring into vogue opinions pleasing to the people, giving them licence for licentiousness – yet if they had left violence alone, good Christian people would perhaps all the way up to this day have used less violence towards them than they do now. And yet heresy well deserves to be punished as severely as any other sin, since there is no sin that more offends God. However, as long as they refrained from violence, there was little violence done to them. And certainly though God is able against all persecution to preserve and increase his faith among the people, as he did in the beginning, for all the persecution inflicted by the pagans and the Jews, that is still no reason to expect Christian princes to allow the Catholic Christian people to be oppressed by Turks or by heretics worse than Turks.
…
We read that in the time of Saint Augustine, the great theologian of the Church, the heretics in Africa called the Donatists resorted to force and violence, robbing, beating, torturing and killing those whom they seized from the true Christian flock, as the Lutherans have done in Germany. For putting a stop to which , that holy man St Augustine, who had for a long time with great patience borne and endured their malice, only writing and preaching in refutation of their errors, and not only had done them no temporal harm but also had hindered and opposed others who would have done it, did yet at last, for the peace of good people, both permit and exhort Count Boniface and others to suppress them with force and threaten them with corporeal punishment.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

As for what punishments or measures were appropriate, including death, the same analysis would apply to any application of such a punishment. The justification for the execution of heretics was not based on simply erring in faith, but on the proportionate harm the heretic would inflict on the common good and the public order.

So the public order is paramount. If a person is expressing a faith other than the one allowed in an area, the governing body has every right to shut that down. By this reasoning a Christian in an Islamic country should not be afforded the same rights as his or her fellow Muslim citizen. If enough order is being disturbed then an execution of said Christian is only fair, right?

I read your post number 9, and a few things stuck out. You say that rules for public order must be based on supernatural truth – specifically what the Catholic Church believes is truth. Other countries apparently can not pass laws based on what they consider supernatural truth. If others disagree with that Catholic truth that’s simply too bad for them if they live in a country that will go to these extreme measures to snuff out heresy and heretics.

You mentioned that in a pluralistic society (i.e. one where we give each other the space to worship as we choose even if it means in a way others might consider heresy) then a broader freedom is allowed; but in a Catholic country it would be completely justified to punish someone who disagrees with the Church. I found it interesting that you used the present tense, as though it would remain moral to punish/kill heretics today if a Catholic body allowed it. This just further supports my argument that the Church was and is only for religious freedom when they did not have the power to limit a heretic’s speech, actions, and breathing.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

For better or worse, in the experience of many in ancient times and subsequent centuries, heresy did introduce bloody conflict and chaos, tearing at the very fabric of social stability and displacing peoples. Look at what people like the Albigensians, Arnold of Brescia, or Hus and Wycliffe promoted and did and what it led to?

What did the Jewish people in the Papal States do that so disrupted the very fabric of social stability? Hat tip to @Kaninchen for the bull whose very first line states that the restrictions they put on Jewish freedom were not due to any actions they had done but simply because they were fated to be in eternal slavery as a people.

What did the Waldenses do that uprooted society? Did they burn Catholic houses of worship or riot in the streets? Even this article from catholic.com about the situation makes no mention of any violent acts. The only thing they did was evangelize and have the audacity to say “No” when told to stop.

What violence did people like Tyndale bring with books and ideas that the God of the Bible is true, just that it’s okay to say the Church is not God’s mouthpiece and enforcer?

Look at what happened during the Reformation? Even Martin Luther changed his stance from opposing to supporting it after he saw the chaos others opposing the Lutheran order caused

Of course he changed his mind – once he had the power to require people to not sway from his chosen faith. All this does is show Martin Luther was as much a hypocrite as Thomas More.

(No doubt there were also abuses, as there are in any human justice system).

It wasn’t that there could be abuses in tamping down heresy. It’s that tamping down that is and of itself an abuse.

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

You bring up much more subject matter thinking it supports your claim when it doesn’t. I believe you have been misinformed or misinterpret the times and culture life during the tenure of St. Thomas More. St. Thomas More was not a victim of religious persecution. He was beheaded because he refused to obey his secular King, by not signing the King’s edict which made the King a Lord over the Church of England and reject the Pope as Christ’s Vicar on earth. St. Thomas More in his position under the King followed his King’s order over heretics. St. Thomas More did not persecute reformers new man made religions. What I think you mistakenly object too, is the difference between a non-Catholic Christian or reformed Protestant Christian and a Catholic Christian who was teaching heresy or dubbed a heretic. These so called Heretics were not the same as Protestant reformed Christians. Only a Catholic teaching heresy is dubbed a Heretic. The Heretics (Catholic’s teaching heresy) were indeed punishable by secular laws but the Catholic Church herself judged a heretic and then excommunicated the heretic leaving the heretic subject to secular laws that punished them.
As far as the religious Jews living within the Papal states where the Bishop of Rome presided over his own flock in Rome. Proclaimed an Edict for the Papal states not the whole Catholic Church. In other words the Bishop of Rome during this time was still burdened over politics as well as Church matters. The edict is an opinion which can change and has changed. But consider the times and culture, the Jews were under the threat of death in many Christian communities, some of the illiterate populace blamed the Jews for Crucifying Jesus Christ. Imagine the prejudices against the Jews, If it were not for the Bishop’s of Rome edict, many Jewish lives would not had been spared. This was the Bishop’s of Rome over seeing the political life at the time for the Papal states. Today Peter (The Bishop of Rome/Pope) is free from secular political powers.
Learn the difference between when the Church acts in history over seeing secular powers and when the Church (Pope in union with college of Bishops) speaks ex-Cathedra infallible from the Chair of Peter, whom Jesus gave the power to bind and loose on earth. Once you gain this understanding I believe you will see Christian history in a different light.
What you falsely claim the Church of doing, is misconstrued with the cultural, political life of the said time which is always subject to change.
Remember the Catholic Church is made up of bonafide Saints and Sinners. Yet the Church herself being the body of Christ is immaculate. The Catholic Saints and Martyrs are proof that the Catholic Church supports religious freedom, when the Jews stoned and had the first Christians tortured and beheaded.
Peace be with you

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

You are forgetting what brought about this justice and injustice at the time against the Jews. Are you misleading that all the Jews were saints during this cultural time set?

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

I would say, If it were not for the leadership of the Catholic Church the Jews would of never lived to this day. Praise be Jesus Christ.

 

[PickyPicky]

It is not surprising that many people in the past behaved in ways that most of us today would regard as appallingly wrong.

What is worrying is that some people today would deny the facts of the matter, or find some sophistry to shuffle off historical responsibility. Even worse, some people suggest such appalling behaviour would be acceptable even today — just so long as it was inflicted by their coreligionists.

 

[otjm]

I am inclined to think it a fool’s errand to try to sort out how much of past history was driven by politics and how much was driven by theological differences.

A point not often made is the history of the Church’s loss of influence - and not just influence, but control - over governments large and small starting somewhere around the time of Charlemagne and ending in what should have been the middle of Vatican 1 - which took a break, and was never recalled due tot he rebellion of the Papal States.

I cannot find in the Gospels any direction that the Church was to run governments; and granted that early on, the Church stepped in due to it being the only organized body to fend off the pagan hordes once the Roman army was no longer capable of the Pax Romana. But rather than stabilizing the various tribes growing to be governing states, the Church through both clergy and laity took a hand, and the mix of theology and politics brewed stronger, deeper and darker…

It is simplistic, given the 2,000 years, to not see that religion and rule were so intermixed as to provide ample ammunition for anyone and everyone on either side (presuming there were only two - and often there were more).

And it is another fool’s errand to presume that all the actors who were nominally Catholic were actually all and alike deeply committed to Christ. Some were, some were not; and St. Paul reminds us all are sinners. All are capable of having mixed motives in the amalgam of where politics lets off and faith begins, as well as the reverse.

The Church stands for both conservative elements and liberal elements within the general political sphere; it stands for pro-life, a point not particularly emanating from liberal political rhetoric; it also stands for the care and concern for the poor, likewise not particularly much of a talking point in conservative political rhetoric. It stands for truth (and Truth), a point totally ignored or distorted to fit the rhetoric of politicians.

A stand for religious freedom, I submit, is part of what has let the Church unite with Islam to fend off the progressives of Europe and the U.S. in the Mexico City Policy, fending off the push for abortion, etc.

 

[PickyPicky]

As one of the progressives of Europe who apparently need to be fended off, I rather like your summary.

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

The only religion that I’ve heard of that doesn’t have blood on its hands is Jainism.

So starvation and suicide is not considered blood on it’s hands?

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

Your not denying the Nazzi genocide? No thanks is ever heeded from the Pope’s or religious sisters who would give their life to save another. God rewards those who give their life for another. Your comment really exposes your hard heart to those who willingly gave up their life to save Jews during the Nazzi rule.

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

Think of any moment in history where the church held political power over the government and the people and then go live in the country as someone not of that religion. How long would you survive or keep your own religious freedom? How many people were burned and put to the rack for daring to own a bible in their own language instead of only the Latin translation for example?

I can summarize history where Christianity never existed, when Catholic religious would be called by God to go out and were martyred year after year until the barbarians became interested in such a peaceful brave people and learned to crop the lands, become civilized and learn about Jesus Christ. Fast forward these converts would enter into wars, where the leadership of the Church had intervene for peace with their enemies. Here begins one aspect Church and political enterprises. The other side records the Eastern Church’s using political powers to unseat the Vicar of Christ, the Bishop of Rome. Here there are centuries of political interference for the survival of each branch of Catholicity…
In short; This thread has it all wrong accusing the Catholic Church of abusing non-Christians or other religions as heretics. The only heretics the Catholic Church dubbed heretics were her own Catholic teachers teaching heresy. When these Catholic heretical teachers would not repent, the Catholic heretic would be excommunicated. Once excommunicated, the secular powers were left to exercise their own secular punishment. The Catholic Church never has the power to exercise capital punishment. I agree it was Catholic secular King’s who killed the Catholic heretics teaching heresy within their kingdoms, but don’t blame the Catholic Church for something she never does.
If you were a protestant or other religion during these times, the secular powers had laws in the books for you. When and where you were at liberty to practice your faith or make yourself known to the populace by wearing a symbol. If you broke the secular law, you were judged by the secular law not the Catholic Church.
Peace be with you

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

God ordained the Church to teach, preach and baptize, man never gives such an order. That said; History records Catholic missionaries going out since the resurrection to this day. They do not persecute other religions, nor do they have any authority to prevent the non-believers from practicing their faith’s. These missionaries were killed, stoned, burned, beheaded for preaching the gospel. They were never martyred for persecuting another religion or non-believers.
Don’t mix secular powers who happen to be Catholic with the Catholic Church. Hollywood and anti-Catholic literature has distorted history. Learn the truth from her Catholic Saints and Martyrs who braved these non-believer territories. Take history on a case by case learning both sides, before coming to a judgment.
Welcome to the boards.
Peace be with you