After Hus was sentenced by the church for heresy (btw, he was asked several times to recant and save himself) he was handed over to the
secular powers, who then followed through with what was then considered, capital punishment (through the centuries this took on many different forms; today it’s either the electric chair or injection). The C.C. didn’t personally execute him.
William Tyndale was killed by King Henry 8TH for political reasons, and his death was **opposed most strenuously by Archbishop Cranmer. **
Martin Luther was responsible for the slaughter of over 100,000 Protestant German peasants as well as condoning the torture and death of Prostestants and others who disagreed with him. As you can see this is pointless bickering.
There is not one Catholic or Protestant alive today who participated in the Inquisition. They all died centuries ago. Every one of them had to face God. God knows the heart of every individual involved and justice has been served. These incidents happened during one of the most brutal and savage times in human history, which any medieval movie will confirm. It has become a theme that some Evangelicals pastors have repeatedly preached to their congregations about Catholics.
Pope John Paul II admitted the wrong actions of the Catholic Church throughout history, including some tortures and deaths related to the medieval Inquisitions. The following is a letter he wrote recounting his sorrow:
The institution of the Inquisition has been abolished…the children of the Church cannot but return with a spirit of repentance to “the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of the truth”
The prayer I addressed to God on that occasion contains the reasons for a request for forgiveness that can also be applied to the tragedies associated with the Inquisition, as well as to the injuries to memory that result from it.
The institution of the Inquisition has been
abolished…the children of the Church cannot but return with a spirit of repentance to “the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of the truth.”
“Lord, God of all men and women, in certain periods of history. Christians have at times given in to [forms of] intolerance and have not been faithful to the great commandment of love, sullying in this way the face of the Church, your Spouse. Have mercy on your sinful children and accept our resolve to seek and promote truth in the gentleness of charity, in the firm knowledge that truth can prevail only in virtue of truth itself. We ask this through Christ Our Lord”
Code:
(Prayer for Forgiveness, Day of Pardon, 12 March, II; ORE, 22 March 2000, p.).
JOHN PAUL II, From the Vatican, 15 June 2004
The criticisms we find today about the Inquisition put Catholics in a difficult position. There are incredible exaggerations floating around in the secular media and among
Evangelicals, yet if a Catholic corrects the exaggerations then he is accused of making excuses for the Inquisition. That does not have to be the case any more considering the fact that in 1998 the Vatican opened the archives of the Holy Office (the modern successor to the Inquisition) to a team of 30 scholars from around the world. Now at last the scholars have made their report, an 800-page tome that was unveiled at a press conference in Rome on Tuesday. Its most startling conclusion is that the Inquisition was not so bad after all. Torture was rare and only about 1 percent of those brought before the Spanish Inquisition were actually executed. As one headline read “Vatican Downsizes Inquisition.”
nationalreview.com/comment/madden200406181026.asp
Excerpt from article:
“The Inquisition was not born out of desire to crush diversity or oppress people; it was rather an attempt to stop unjust executions. Yes, you read that correctly.”
One of the drawbacks of being 2000 years old is that there are incidents throughout history that people can point at and hold against the Catholic Church. I expect that two thousand years from now, if the Evangelical Church remains (and if the Lord hasn’t come back yet), there may be some shameful bits of history that people who want to criticize the Evangelical Church will be able to seize upon.
For instance, many Evangelical/Baptist Christians defended and participated in the slave trade which was responsible for thousands of beatings, tortures and deaths on slave ships. They did this with Bible in hand. The Vatican (Catholic Church) always condemned of the slave trade.
By the end of the Inquisition, the Reformation was in full swing. Martin Luther, Calvin, the Church of England, other Protestant Churches and their followers were quoting Scripture while burning witches throughout England, Scotland, America, Germany and elsewhere.
From the years 1305-1750A.D. there were 52 Popes. Of all of them, only two are being considered for Canonization by the Church. Blessed Urban V (1362-70) and Blessed Innocent XI (1676-89). Compare that with other periods of history where every century provided two or three Saints from among the Popes. This gives us a bit of a sense that it was a dark time in history.
The tortures and deaths of the Inquisition are inexcusable and the Church has paid a high price for it. The Church has been punished and is still being punished. Early reformers fueled much of their Reform movement by publicizing, and sometimes exaggerating, the injustices of the Spanish Inquisition.
What many Evangelicals don’t know is that there was also a Protestant Inquisition after the Reform. Protestants also fell into a similar myopic approach to silencing dissenting views. It was not a “warm fuzzy” Holy Spirit environment back in the early days of the Reform. Tens of thousands of non-Anglicans were killed in England. It was brutal. In America, the Puritans (Protestants) also conducted an Inquisition where people were burned at the stake.
FACT is, people thought differently in those days. Human rights, freedom of conscience, religious freedom and pluralism were concepts that grew out of experience and maturity of society and through doctrinal maturity. These concepts did not come into being until the last hundred years or so. Even the early reformers were not into “freedom of religion” and “free speech”. Martin Luther said:
There are others who teach in opposition to some recognized article of faith which is manifestly grounded on Scripture . . . Heretics of this sort must not be tolerated, but punished as open blasphemers . . . If anyone wishes to preach or to teach, let him make known the call or the command which impels him to do so, or else let him keep silence. If he will not keep quiet, then let the civil authorities command the scoundrel to his rightful master - namely, Master Hans *. (Janssen, X, 222; EA, Bd. 39, 250-258; Commentary on 82nd Psalm, 1530; cf. Durant, 423, Grisar, VI, 26-27)
We must remember that historical context is difficult to understand for
those of us who were not there. The Church, all churches for that matter, is on a pilgrimage, constantly adapting to the times. This will be the case until Jesus returns. We can continue as catholic’s and protestants to censure and condemn each other for things our forefathers are guilty of (and are now facing their maker for those atrocities; YIKES), or we can move on and learn from their mistakes and strive for unity. I guarantee,
that is what Jesus Christ would want!!!
God bless…*
Are you trying to say that there were “denominations” of Christianity prior to the Reformation and they each compiled their own version of the canon? If so, that is certainly a creative theory. It’s almost Mormon-like in its complete and utter disregard for actual historical facts.
He answered your question perfectly! The C.C. is the apostolic church because that church can trace its origin all the way back to the apostles, and that church *(which BTW codified the 46 books of the old and 27 books of the new testament) *is the same C.C. WE SEE TODAY!!! The C.C. is orthodox because that church adheres to the Christian faith as expressed in the earliest of catholic ecumenical creeds defined at each respective council (delineate below), and continued to do so through every century, again, all of it defined by the fallible C.C. with the Divine guidance of the infallible Holy Spirit.
**