First generation Protestants were more likely to be heretics than those born generations later. St. Augustine explains:wonderfull.
i wonder what he would thing about the CC today. when so many of them have gone protestant. back then they were consider heretics. they still hold those teachings but no longer called heretics. and this man died converting them. how shamefull.
St Augustine is not saying the protestantism is not heretical. he is saying that those who were born in falsehood but sought the Truth and found and stay with it are ok.First generation Protestants were more likely to be heretics than those born generations later. St. Augustine explains:
“But though the doctrine which men hold be false and perverse, if they do not maintain it with passionate obstinacy, especially when they have not devised it by the rashness of their own presumption, but have accepted it from parents who had been misguided and had fallen into error, and if they are with anxiety seeking the truth, and are prepared to be set right when they have found it, such men are not to be counted heretics.”
newadvent.org/fathers/1102043.htm
That being said, this in no way takes away from the holiness and heroic virtue of those who died seeking to extirpate heresy in various lands. For example, a great many of the English martyrs, who died seeking to bring England back to the faith, have been beatified and canonized in recent decades (most notably during the pontificate of John Paul II.)
If he is not a citizen of the PRC, and he is functioning as a priest he would need specific permission to enter the country and work, which probably would mean an invitation from a host organization like the CCPA. Otherwise he would have had to falsify his visa application, in which case he would be deported.By the way, several years ago I met a religious order priest who was going to Communist China to preach. I don’t know what happened to him then.
Neither is St. Augustine–I’m not sure how you got that from what he is saying. It’s pretty clear he is speaking in the present tense concerning their holding errors. In fact, in regards to the truth, he says “when they find it” not that they have already found it. He is speaking of Donatists who hold those errors but are sincerely seeking the truth–in other words they do not have a spirit of obstinacy or pertinacity. The sin of heresy requires pertinacity. He compares these to an actual heretic who is “puffed up with odious conceit, and insane through the obstinacy of his wicked resistance to truth”St Augustine is not saying the protestantism is not heretical. he is saying that those who were born in falsehood but sought the Truth and found and stay with it are ok.
i am not talking about protestants who came into the CC.
I was responding to when you said “they are no longer called heretics.” I apologize for not making that clear by just quoting everything. Of course Protestantism is heretical just as Donatism was heretical and is definitely a problem that many Catholics want to imitate Protestant traditions rather than their own.i am talking about how the CC is going protestants. imitating their worship and everything else. protestantism is heretical.