The Inquisition and Index: Vatican Records Shed Light on Dark Legend

[TMC]

The death penalty is still used in the USA and many other countries. You would have to use the same argument about “human rights” in todays societies.

True - basic human rights have been ignored in various ways during various periods of history. The Inquisition is one historical example. The death penalty is a modern example.

 

[johnnykins]

True - basic human rights have been ignored in various ways during various periods of history. The Inquisition is one historical example. The death penalty is a modern example.

what would you say is a “basic human right”? And what does that mean?

 

[TMC]

what would you say is a “basic human right”? And what does that mean?

A good question, but I don’t have a ready answer. The term is not mine, it comes from the article. My objection was to the suggestion that whatever those rights are, they were different in the days of the Inquisition than they are today.

 

[johnnykins]

A good question, but I don’t have a ready answer. The term is not mine, it comes from the article. My objection was to the suggestion that whatever those rights are, they were different in the days of the Inquisition than they are today.

we agree on that - to be basic human rights they must be immutable over time.

 

[miguel]

To say there is a “basic human right to life” is very different from saying a direct abortion is always morally wrong.

If there is a basic human right to life, then it seems to me, inter alia, that capital punishment is not, and never has been, morally licit; that there is no right of self-defense; and that a war allowed under the just war theory - which I presume implies sanctioned killing - is immoral.

It seems to me that the human right to life is conditional and not basic in any meaningful sense - and the Church seems to agree: Indirect abortion can be licit; capital punishment is allowed; self defense is allowed; there is such a thing as a just war, etc., etc.

The unborn are innocent. This is why it is not only morally wrong to directly deprive them of life and deny them equal protection of the laws. It is also Constitutionally wrong.

 

[johnnykins]

The unborn are innocent. This is why it is not only morally wrong to directly deprive them of life and deny them equal protection of the laws. It is also Constitutionally wrong.

That may be, but it’s still not the same as saying there is a basic human right to life. Even above, you now use the words “directly deprive them of life” implying, as the Church allows, indirectly depriving them of life…

 

[miguel]

That may be, but it’s still not the same as saying there is a basic human right to life. Even above, you now use the words “directly deprive them of life” implying, as the Church allows, indirectly depriving them of life…

I don’t think we disagree. It boils down to how “basic human right to life” is defined. I agree with your point about it being conditional. And this is also why the 14th Amendment only permits the states to deprive a person of life as long as due process of law is being followed (e.g., for what would be legally defined as a capital crime).

 

[TLDenmark]

Bruno was burned at the stake after being convicted of heresy due, in part, to his cosmological theories of an infinite universe containing an infinite number of planetary systems like our own.

The “in part” is very relevant when we talk about Giordano Bruno. Not only was he a rather arrogant man who made himself many powerful enemies, his theories were also tied into heretical ideas about God and the universe. A good example is that his infinite universe theory was based on a form of pantheism.

This does not change that fact that his trial and death was a shameful event in church history, but it does make it somewhat dubious to call that incident a matter of religion vs. science. The Bruno case was a question of religion vs. religion.

God bless
TL

 

[jdnation]

Bruno was burned at the stake after being convicted of heresy due, in part, to his cosmological theories of an infinite universe containing an infinite number of planetary systems like our own.

You forget that their scientific theories were considered a heresy.

According to Wiki, Bruno was burned by the Inquisition in 1600 for heresy, in supporting the Copernican model of the earth revolving around the sun, and that the sun is one of innumerable heavenly bodies moving independently. I’d say he was a good astronomer. These charges don’t sound like treason, unless the church and state were one, which I think functionally, they were.

Form what I know we do not have the surviving records of why Bruno was burnt at the stake. But to be sentenced to death required more than just heresy, it required treason against the state, something for which heresy can also play a primary role in as well as a motive.

Galileo was in danger of the Inquisition because he supported a theory not supported by the church: that the earth revolved around the sun.

Galileo was in danger of the Inquisition for a lot more than that. Some of what he said made him a suspect of being a Protestant and this was the violent period of the Reformation. In Galileo’s case, and perhaps in Bruno’s as well, their support of the Copernican model led them to make statements about allowing scientists the privilege of interpreting Scripture for themselves, a Protestant tenet that is used against the authority of the Church in matters of religious and governance which could undermine the social and political order that was in place and risk terrorism and war.

I may well be wrong, but this is from what I recall learning.