Scandal and the middle ages

[JosephJohn]

Hey all, this is a tough one.

I was looking through a list of papal bulls and many of them are extremely offensive to a modern sensibility. In particular, many bulls explicitly ask for Jews to be treated incredibly poorly (I’d be remiss not to mention that some others are quite charitable to Jews as well but it’s a mixed bag). There are also some bulls which call for the death penalty for heretics. The crusades are with some exceptions quite unchristian seeming. So my question is whether I as a Catholic can freely believe that these bulls were in error- even grave error- and claim that the modern church rejects these things.

The position I would like to hold is this.

Heresy is indeed a grave sin

Sin deserves death

We ought to rebuke sinners in a way that minimizes the damage their sin can cause and gives them the maximum chance to repent.

Therefore, killing of these people and uncharitable treatment of all kinds is at best imprudent and at worst a sin in itself.

We are all sinners and should treat others as Christ treated us. Rather than gain retribution against sinners we should bear the consequences ourselves in hope of their repentance.

Am I free to believe the points above and does the church formally endorse and it all of the above

 

[Genesis315]

Many papal bulls were aimed at particular circumstances, circumstances which were being analyzed by fallible human beings, and therefore can certainly have been in error and certainly irrelevant for today in our circumstances.

Some of your premises are wrong though. Not all sin deserves death as a punishment inflicted by public authority. For civil authority to punish, the punishment and crime would need to be proportionate and it would have to be necessary to the common good to redress the disorder introduced by the sin and/or to provide for the security of the society under said public authority.

The same analysis for judging whether the death penalty is just or not for a particular crime at a particular time would also apply to heresy as it would to any other crime.

For better or worse, in the experience of many in those times, heresy did introduce bloody conflict and chaos, tearing at the very fabric of social stability and displacing peoples. Look at what happened during the Reformation? Or what people like the Albigensians, Arnold of Brescia, or Hus and Wycliffe promoted and what it led to? Not to mention it being taken for granted as having been part of imperial law in the East and West since the Justinian Code

The principles are fixed, but the conclusions we reach when applying them to concrete circumstances informed by our experience will change and, since no man is omniscient–not to mention the general fallen state of man and his tendency to malice and sin–these conclusions are always subject to the potential for error and reform. This is the place where additional experience gained over the centuries can be helpful. Hindsight is 20/20.

The same can be said for how public authorities, with the advice of even ecclesiastical authorities, coordinated religious pluralism, etc. The Church teaches religious freedom to be not absolute, but subject to restrictions as the common good requires (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 2109). In the past, there were no doubt bad actors motivate by hatred, but also those who in good faith thought certain measures were necessary for the common good–just like today we have those with good and bad motivations in charge of the common good. Again though, lessons can be learned about how to best serve the common good, even when we work from the same principles.

It should go without saying that it belongs only to the civil authority to punish in light of its care for the common good.

 

[JosephJohn]

Ah I’ll finish reading your post in a second but I realized I was imprecise in my speech before.

When I say all sin deserves death I am quoting Scripture “the wages of sin are death”. I would say this is a spiritual truth not a civil one. It is I think nearly always gravely imprudent for a state to use the death penalty. I am in full agreement on that matter. What I will say is that without Christ’s law, the law of charity, one might justly execute people for all sorts of crimes. In fact scripture makes the case that without Christ every person is worthy of that punishment. Obviously Christ’s solution is infinitely superior.

 

[JosephJohn]

Ok having read the rest are you saying I can hold that these were questionable or even actively evil choices made by the fallible agents of the church not the church herself.