Is punishing heresy wrong?

[St_Francis]

Used to be the Church supported the punishing of heretics. What do people think nowadays about this? why or why not?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Used to be the Church supported the punishing of heretics. What do people think nowadays about this? why or why not?

Are you sure that was official Church policy and not just adherent behavior on the part of a few corrupt individuals? Also, it depends on what you mean by punishment. If you are talking about establishing criteria for readmitance into the Church, possibly involving some form of public penance, that might be reasonable. But if you are talking about forms of civil punishment, like prison or flogging, for a unrepentant heretic, I doubt if that was ever officially endorsed by the Church.

 

[CountrySteve]

Depends, a heretic(as being a former Catholic) is excommunicated, so, thats a punishment which the Church imposes. We should do everything possible though to combat heresy

 

[phil19034]

Used to be the Church supported the punishing of heretics. What do people think nowadays about this? why or why not?

I don’t think I would say that “the Church supported the punishing of heretics.” In most instances, the secular government punished heretics (as being a heretic was against secular law) and used priests to determine whether they actually were heretics, much like how psychiatrists may be used to provide expert testimony regarding the sanity of the defendant.

However, the Church has never condoned heresy and still does not. The only thing that has really changed is the Church’s teaching regarding how we should associate with heretics. Keep in mind, that in the past, Protestants and Catholics did not mingle. They didn’t live in the same neighborhoods, etc. That all changed with the founding of the United States and then later changed in Europe during the industral revolution & 20th century.

God Bless.

 

[phil19034]

Depends, a heretic(as being a former Catholic) is excommunicated, so, thats a punishment which the Church imposes. We should do everything possible though to combat heresy

Excommunication really isn’t a punishment. It’s a measure to protect the heretic from committing sacrilege. Excommunicated people can be readmitted once they confess and recant their heresy or give up the sin that caused them to be excommunicated.

God Bless.

 

[TK421]

I don’t think I would say that “the Church supported the punishing of heretics.” In most instances, the secular government punished heretics (as being a heretic was against secular law) and used priests to determine whether they actually were heretics, much like how psychiatrists may be used to provide expert testimony regarding the sanity of the defendant.
.

This seems kind of wishy washy. The Church allowed the secular governments to be their henchmen. The religious inquisitors of the 13th century (such as when dealing with heretics in southern France that had become neo-gnostics) would see if these people were heretics, and then handed them over to the secular government if they remained obstinate. The penalty for this was death.

Secular rulers were against heresy because of the break of uniformity that it caused within a society. A society that was entirely within the Catholic fold was a more stable society. They wanted homogeny. This is the same reason why in the generations following the Reformation, protestants and Catholics were stuck in ghettos depending on where they lived. If you were English, you were to be Anglican. If you were Swedish, you were to be Lutheran. If you were Spanish, you were to be Catholic. There was serious pressure to convert to the majority faith. This has historically worked the same way in any culture outside of Christendom. The advent of multiculturalism is a very recent trend within human society, and it is still not without its struggles.

 

[Celtic_Maiden]

Maybe you should read about Henry V111 and Elizabeth 1, any Catholic priest caught in England was Hung, drawn and quartered, which means you were hung, cut down while half alive, and your stomach was cut open and all your inside was taken out, of which some was stuffed into your mouth, this was done for being a Catholic priest in England.

Also anyone who would not change to be Church of England (Anglican) ie. layperson. But harsher treatment , death in all cases, but was harsher for a Catholic priest, of which many died this way.

 

[PietroPaolo]

This seems kind of wishy washy. The Church allowed the secular governments to be their henchmen. The religious inquisitors of the 13th century (such as when dealing with heretics in southern France that had become neo-gnostics) would see if these people were heretics, and then handed them over to the secular government if they remained obstinate. The penalty for this was death.

Secular rulers were against heresy because of the break of uniformity that it caused within a society. A society that was entirely within the Catholic fold was a more stable society. They wanted homogeny.

I’d be overcautious in ascribing motives to a vast number of people who lived in a diverse group of principalities centuries ago. Some rulers may have been primarily motivated by a desire to have a homogenous society, but many others truly took their charge (to protect the faith) seriously.

 

[TK421]

Or both. The idea is that a break in homogeny causes real, corporal damage to the kingdom. When opposition ideas start spreading, you create division, hatred, and even rebellion amongst the people, such as was seen in southern France in the 13th century. The contemporary person really does lack a lot of perspective on how dangerous heresy really was, and how much corporal destruction the Reformation latter caused. It was much more than just arguing over theology.

Did this make it prudent to execute heretics? I honestly don’t know. Judging the historical contexts of distant societies is very difficult to do. In any event, at the very least, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Enlightenment propaganda makes it out to be.

 

[JackVk]

Another thing that is important to remember is that those who were raised in another faith tradition are technically not heretics. Nor is a heretic someone who is simply mistaken on one or more doctrines. Heretics are obstinate and closed-minded when it comes to their errors.

 

[St_Francis]

Thanks everyone! The reason I asked is that it seems that more and more people are being reviled or even punished for expressing views contrary to certain political dogmas.

I have been sort of turning this over in my mind… I am no longer against certain forms of censorship in principle, but I see the practical difficulties of enforcing the censorship of certain ideas (like those which run contrary to Church teaching) in a secular, non-Catholic nation. It’s a tricky issue/

 

[Publisher]

Are you sure that was official Church policy and not just adherent behavior on the part of a few corrupt individuals? Also, it depends on what you mean by punishment. If you are talking about establishing criteria for readmitance into the Church, possibly involving some form of public penance, that might be reasonable. But if you are talking about forms of civil punishment, like prison or flogging, for a unrepentant heretic, I doubt if that was ever officially endorsed by the Church.

Maybe the Cathars should have been told their extermination was not endorsed by the church.

 

[weller2]

I don’t think I would say that “the Church supported the punishing of heretics.” In most instances, the secular government punished heretics

Technically, this is true. Technically, it is also true that gas chambers in Auschwitz were operated by Jewish crews. So, by your logic…

Repeat after me: **separation of church and state is an 18th century concept. ** Invoking separation of church and state when discussing medieval times is a serious anachronism.

Theoretically, yes, the secular ruler could refuse to burn a heretic. However, if he did so, he risked being prosecuted of heresy himself and excommunicated. Now, excommunication was a serious business, because it voided feudal oath of obedience. Think about it this way: the moment the commander-in-chief is excommunicated, the military no longer follows his orders. If it wasn’t enough, the church could use the same threat to blackmail the neighboring rulers to declare genocide… er, crusade, on the breakaway state.

See, the only reason Henry VI managed to do what he did was that he ruled an island, so a full-blown invasion was prohibitively expensive and dangerous. In all other countries, reformation was more of a grassroot movement, and countries severed ties with Rome only after a significant part of the population switched to protestantism… And it still got messy, because Rome was inciting loyal rulers to declare war on heretics. Compared to over 100 years of mass slaughter in Europe, England was comparatively clean.

 

[weller2]

Maybe the Cathars should have been told their extermination was not endorsed by the church.

When they came to the great city of Beziers; which is said to have contained more than a hundred thousand men, they laid siege to it ; and in the sight of them all the heretics defiled in an unspeakable manner the book of the sacred gospel; and then cast it from the wall towards the Christians, and sending arrows after it, cried: " There is your law, miserable wretches!" But Christ, the author of the gospel, did not suffcr such an insult to be hurled at Him unavenged. For some of His followers, burning with zeal for the faith, placed ladders against the wall, and like lions, after the example of those of whom we read in the book of the Maccabbees (2 Macc.xi.ii), fearlessly climbed the walls, and while the hcretics were stricken with panic from on high and fled, they opened the gates to the others, and so gained possession of the city.

When they discovered, from the admissions of some of them, that there were Catholics mingled with the heretics they said the toeh abbot “Sir, what shall we do, for we cannot distinguish between the faithful and the heretics.” The abbot, like the others, was afraid that many, in fear of death, would pretend to be catholics, and after their departure, would return to their heresy, and is said to have replied "Kill them all for the Lord knoweth them that are His (2 Tim. ii. 19) and so countless number in that town were slain.

Caesarius of Heisterbach: Medieval Heresies, ca. 1230

It should be noted that the abbot of Citeaux, Arnaud Amalric, participated in the siege as a Papal legate.

 

[ringil]

No heresy should not be punished in a non-spiritual way.

THis seems so obvious that I can hardly wrap my brain around why one would post the question.

 

[Reep]

No heresy should not be punished in a non-spiritual way.

I agree that religious beliefs must not be punished by physical aggression. Heretic or obstinate unbeliever, it makes no difference.

This seems so obvious that I can hardly wrap my brain around why one would post the question.

Obvious to a 21st century Catholic, perhaps, but we must acknowledge that most Christians through history would have disagreed. While the physical punishment, torture and execution of heretics is wrong, its wrongness has not always been clearly understood.

Like divorce in the Old Testament and slavery (until the recent past), the hardness of our hearts has hindered and delayed men’s full understanding of principles taught by Jesus and the Apostles.

I regard violence against heretics an especially unfortunate case because Christians–until after the late fourth century–were strongly opposed to violence toward (and the murder of) heretics. Later–after the long embrace of the Church and the state–the Church become tolerant in the matter. Then it took a long time to dig out from that practice.

I am not being critical of the dead. Intolerance of religious heterodoxy, like slavery was deeply ingrained in human society, We have to wonder if Christianity would have survived its early centuries had the Apostles had openly preached against the institution of slavery. I tremble to wonder if I–like most American Catholics and most of their bishops–would have accepted the legitimacy of African-American slavery before 1860.

We cannot even know what currently accepted practice will–500 years from now–embarrass the saints of a later age. Is it possible that some future Pope will apologize for something we cannot now appreciate? It is not only possible. I think it a near certainty.

 

[Publisher]

Caesarius of Heisterbach: Medieval Heresies, ca. 1230

It should be noted that the abbot of Citeaux, Arnaud Amalric, participated in the siege as a Papal legate.

Wasn’t it Pope Innocent Iii that called for the crusade against the Cathars?

So the church didn’t approve of the Cathar slaughter?

Is anyone really going to claim punishing “heretics” by violence and death was against the wishes of the church?

Isn’t saying “the church didn’t approve of punishments”. Similar to hiring a contract killer and claiming " I didn’t kill any one, it was the killer!"?

The church was the power behind governments of medieval Europe. IF THE CHURCH WAS AGAINST PUNISHING “HERTICS” with pain and death, why weren’t those who commuted the violence dealt with BY the church?

 

[Charles12]

If you punish a mere thief physically who does little harm, why would you allow a heretic to be unimpeded in corrupting souls?

The Church previously worked closely with the state to punish heretics, even handing them over to be executed. Although it must be noted that the primary motive of the various Inquisitions was to grant greater fairness to individuals accused and for a trial to be conducted with actual experts in theological matters. Heresy was then a civil offence as well.

 

[Genesis315]

Used to be the Church supported the punishing of heretics. What do people think nowadays about this? why or why not?

The Church can certainly punish heretics with spiritual or temporal punishments (cf. Canons 1311 and 1312).

The state can punish heresy, but only if it is contrary to the objective moral order (the natural law) or harmful to the common good (cf. CCC 2109), since the state is part of the natural order and exists for the common good. The common good includes the spiritual well being of the members of society (cf. Bl. John XXIII, Pacem in Terris 57-59) and also must also take into account the natural right to come to God in faith of one’s own will, free from coercion (cf. Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae 2).

The Church has been consistent in its position that in more pluralistic societies it is best for the common good to grant broad tolerance to everyone.

In certain periods where there were practically completely Catholic societies, and the rulers were all also members of the Church, the Church sometimes employed the state power to punish heretics for her, since, given the circumstances, heresy had much broader and graver social consequences. This would be a delegation of the Church’s authority rather than an authority of the state. But even then, the heretics who received the harshest punishments were those that gravely disturbed the peace, security, and well-being of the society (I don’t deny that there were probably abuses, excesssive punishments, etc. like in any justice system run by humans, but the general principle that in certain circumstances it is just to punish heretics is a sound one).

For example, in a debate on the Church’s doctrine of religious liberty with a Protestant minister, Archbishop John Hughes of New York explained a particular councils canon requiring the punishment of certain heretics this way:
Archbishop Hughes:

Let any man apply the doctrines of the Albigenses, simply on two points, viz. the tenet that the devil was the creator of the visible world ; and that, in order to avoid co-operation with the devil in continuing his work, the faithful should take measures by which the human race should come to an end ; and then say whether those errors were merely speculative. They were, on the contrary, pregnant with destruction to society. Was it persecution, or rather, was it not self-preservation, to arrest those errors? We shall see presently, however, that these men, like the Calvinists in France at a later period, took up the sword of sedition, and wielded it against the government under which they lived. We shall see, that long before the canon of Lateran was passed, their course was marked with plunder, rapine, bloodshed. And if so, it follows that their crimes against society springing from their doctrines, constitute the true reason of the severity of the enactment against them.

Their existence was known from the year 1022. If, then, the extermination of heretics had been a doctrine of the Catholic Church, why were they not exterminated from the first? If it was not a doctrine of the church in 1022, it was not a doctrine in 1215; for the gentleman himself admits and proclaims that our doctrines never change. Why then did not the Catholics exterminate them at once ? Is it that they were not able ? No : for at first the heresy had but few supporters. But why were they afterwards persecuted ? The reason is, that in the interval they had proceeded to sustain and propagate their infernal principles, by violence. They had placed themselves under the patronage of factious and rebellious barons, and had fought in pitched battles against their sovereigns. In the former controversy, the gentleman garbled the twenty-seventh canon of the third Council of Lateran, to show that these poor heretics were condemned to awful penalties, for nothing at all but protesting against the errors of the Church of Rome. This he did by quoting the beginning and conclusion of the canon, and, without indicating any omission, suppressing the crimes of these proto-martyrs of Calvinism. It was proved, by the very document from which he quoted, that these lambs of the Albigensian fold were “exercising such cruelty on the Christians, (ie. the Catholics) that they paid no respect to churches or monastaries, spared neither virgins nor widows, neither old nor young, neither sex nor age, but after the manner of pagans destroyed and desolated every thing.”

But as I said earlier, given the makeup of modern societies, unless we’re dealing with extreme things like terrorism or human sacrifice, etc. , it is best for the common good for the state to ensure broad freedom for all. On the other hand, I think the Church should use her spiritual penalties, like excommunication, against well-known public persons who promote heresy, so that the faithful are not confused. But that’s just my opinion. It should also be pointed out that tolerance and freedom from Church punishments is appropriate for those born into heretical societies, who did not create the splits in the first place. The Church has consistently not punished such persons, even though by their baptism they fall within her jurisdiction.

 

[oldcelt]

Maybe you should read about Henry V111 and Elizabeth 1, any Catholic priest caught in England was Hung, drawn and quartered, which means you were hung, cut down while half alive, and your stomach was cut open and all your inside was taken out, of which some was stuffed into your mouth, this was done for being a Catholic priest in England.

Also anyone who would not change to be Church of England (Anglican) ie. layperson. But harsher treatment , death in all cases, but was harsher for a Catholic priest, of which many died this way.

Let’s not forget Mary of England and Philip of Spain. Nobody has anything to be proud about in that period.