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Steveabrous
Guest
Exactly! that’s my point. The bible says to take disputes between christians to the church. If there is only an invisible church were do we take disputes between christians of different denominations?
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Steveabrous
Guest
Yet you accept the decision that was made concerning the bible. And by the way the church uses, and has always used, the way described in acts at the council of Jerusalem.
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dronald
Guest
Teaching that burning heretics is okay is an error in moralsFind me a Church without sinners and I will join today.
Christ protects his Church not from sinners, but from error on faith and morals.
PnP
I’m glad you’re all realizing that Catholics and Protestants can take advantage of abuses equally. Would you leave your Church if they were teaching an example such as the one posted here? I would
Why not talk to the one who obviously isn’t abusing its power?
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Jon_S_1
Guest
I hate to break it to you dronald but every evangelical church. Yes everyone, abuses it’s power in some way.
If you really believe in Matt 18 and the invisible church then you should really want to take your dispute to be voted on by every baptized person or a council of every denomination combined similar to the House of Representatives. Each delegate lets say represents 1000 followers.
Catholicism would still win in that erroneous system that is more in line with Protestant thought.
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Jon_S_1
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I am going to now have to take issue with your unfair, prejudiced decree that the Catholic Church teaches that burning heretics at the stake is a matter of faith and moral truths.
Time to cite your sources (please no chick tracts
)
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SteveVH
Guest
That picture just scares me.
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dronald
Guest
In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor we can under no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the pernicious poison of the above errors without disgrace to the Christian religion and injury to orthodox faith. Some of these errors we have decided to include in the present document; their substance is as follows:I am going to now have to take issue with your unfair, prejudiced decree that the Catholic Church teaches that burning heretics at the stake is a matter of faith and moral truths.
Time to cite your sources (please no chick tracts
- That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.
We have found that these errors or theses are not Catholic, as mentioned above, and are not to be taught, as such; but rather are against the doctrine and tradition of the Catholic Church, and against the true interpretation of the sacred Scriptures received from the Church. Now Augustine maintained that her authority had to be accepted so completely that he stated he would not have believed the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church had vouched for it. For, according to these errors, or any one or several of them, it clearly follows that the Church which is guided by the Holy Spirit is in error and has always erred.
With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth. By listing them, we decree and declare that all the faithful of both sexes must regard them as condemned, reprobated, and rejected….We restrain all in the virtue of holy obedience and under the penalty of an automatic major excommunication
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/l10exdom.htm
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SteveVH
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It is an issue of capital punishment. The Church believes that there are cases in which capital punishment can be carried out justly. Therefore it cannot make the blanket statement that it is always against the will of the Spirit. Burning at the stake was a common method of capital punishment in those days. Someday people will look back and wonder how we could have been so brutal by electrocuting people or hanging them until dead.
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Jon_S_1
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It is clear that, for the [purposes of punishment] to be achieved,the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and [the state] ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent. —Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 56, emphasis in the original.
How do we reconcile these ?
Why does the Catholic Church not burn heretics today?
When did it stop?
Why?
Could it have perhaps ended when the CIVIL society changed?
Well by understanding that the church has never said the death penalty MUST be carried out, but instead that it is an option for just cause.
Even today treason is punished by death. Even more so heresy (treason) in mid evil Europe was punished by death.
catholic.com/magazine/articles/did-the-church-change-its-teaching-on-the-death-penalty
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dronald
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And heresy is one of them?
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Jon_S_1
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When heresy was synonymous with treason perhaps.
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Porknpie
Guest
From NewAdvent.org. Read here.
Excerpt below.
Intolerance and cruelty
The Church’s legislation on heresy and heretics is often reproached with cruelty and intolerance. Intolerant it is: in fact its raison d’être is intolerance of doctrines subversive of the faith. But such intolerance is essential to all that is, or moves, or lives, for tolerance of destructive elements within the organism amounts to suicide. Heretical sects are subject to the same law: they live or die in the measure they apply or neglect it. The charge of cruelty is also easy to meet. All repressive measures cause suffering or inconvenience of some sort: it is their nature. But they are not therefore cruel. The father who chastises his guilty son is just and may be tender-hearted. Cruelty only comes in where the punishment exceeds the requirements of the case. Opponents say: Precisely; the rigours of the Inquisition violated all humane feelings. We answer: they offend the feelings of later ages in which there is less regard for the purity of faith; but they did not antagonize the feelings of their own time, when heresy was looked on as more malignant than treason. In proof of which it suffices to remark that the inquisitors only renounced on the guilt of the accused and then handed him over to the secular power to be dealt with according to the laws framed by emperors and kings. Medieval people found no fault with the system, in fact heretics had been burned by the populace centuries before the Inquisition became a regular institution. And whenever heretics gained the upper hand, they were never slow in applying the same laws: so the Huguenots in France, the Hussites in Bohemia, the Calvinists in Geneva, the Elizabethan statesmen and the Puritans in England. Toleration came in only when faith went out; lenient measures were resorted to only where the power to apply more severe measures was wanting. The embers of the Kulturkampf in Germany still smoulder; the separation and confiscation laws and the ostracism of Catholics in France are the scandal of the day. Christ said: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). The history of heresy verifies this prediction and shows, moreover, that the greater number of the victims of the sword is on the side of the faithful adherents of the one Church founded by Christ (see INQUISITION).
PnP
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concretecamper
Guest
I have said before that burning heritics is wrong. I can understand dronalds objections. However there are always two sides, so I will need to read more about this alleged atrocity.
Maybe he has never encountered a faith so passionate to preserve the truth. Because once you fall away from the truth…your soul is in grave danger…and the Church knows that.
Maybe he has never encountered a faith so passionate to preserve the truth. Because once you fall away from the truth…your soul is in grave danger…and the Church knows that.
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Reuben_J
Guest
It has to be seen in the context of different time and era in the development of human society. The Church allows capital punishment “ … if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”
CCC 2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."
Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.
See here Pope John Paul II’s statement on capital punishment.
Capital punishment was nothing new. It was imposed in Acts 5 on Ananias just for the crime of lying to Peter (and to God), “ … how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? … You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
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Novocastrian
Guest
Do you really stand by all of the above?
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Isaiah45_9
Guest
Have you looked at the nature, details and consequences of each case of heresy?
A crime, in its nature is against society, not just the victim.
For example, I told a lie. End result from my lie is life imprisonment or maybe even the death penalty.
Do you think you might be missing something in between?
On the same token, there is a flip side to that coin. Where the enforcement of the law went too far.
But unless you look at each case, you can’t apply a blank general statement.
That is the sad condition of being human.
Civil rights have evolved through the years and still in the 21st century there are places where civil rights are practically non-existent.
In spite of this, the Church has been visible, is visible and will be visible. Christ is sure faithful, and even with all the mistakes we have made, the Church is still here and very much visible. Just because men in the Church have erred and sinned doesn’t mean that the Church doesn’t exist or that you get to make a new one.
Pointing the finger back and forth solves nothing and all it does is give the impression to justify a sin in lie of another…
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Jeanne1184
Guest
It is the above connection that causes me to pause with relation to Peter. What does Peter have to do with Exodus? Christ ‘over-wrote’ several things, but how is it that Peter ‘overwrites’ the 3,000 who died in Exodus?
I think part of the answer lies in Peter’s ‘shadow’. That it is so prominent that people seek to bask in it - is remarkable, to me. There is no record of Christ having a shadow - when one is Filled with Light, where’s the darkness? I’m hoping to look into the instances of ‘shadow’ in the Bible in greater detail soon, as it appears significant. In the preliminary, the shadow usually refers to ‘death’ but maybe there are other angles.
When Christ says ‘Peter’, it is ‘petros’ (rock, male); when He says, ‘Upon this rock’, it is ‘petras’ (rock, female). Is the ‘shadow’ female and was she present as the God (or one of them) in Exodus?
Ananias and Sapphira - what was the point in killing them? Why not expose (by conviction) their sin and ask them to repent? Killing them and causing fear of Christ (not in the ‘reverence’ sense) is less than the tone of the ministry with the other apostles. I can see it if the ‘shadow’ is the same Entity who made the ten commandments - lying is punishable by death under Law. Had Paul been overseeing the proceedings, I suspect the outcome would have been different. - But the point is, to me, we’re being told something significant.
Another passage that is strange, to me:
Acts 3:4 And Peter, having looked stedfastly toward him with John, said,
Look toward **us**;' 5 and he was giving heed to **them**, looking to receive something from **them**; 6 and Peter said, Silver and gold I have none, but what I have, that I give to thee; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and be walking.’Is ‘she’ saying she is an empty shadow but wishes to heal and looks to Christ in John to effect the healing? Is she deferring to Christ - the bride submitting to Christ’s authority over her? Admitting that she can’t Save? Is Peter giving us a ‘type’ of what must come to pass as far as Jerusalem? When ‘Peter’ raised the 3,000 from the dead - 11 apostles were also present.
I haven’t looked at the other miracles/healings of Peter yet, but I wonder if he was usually with someone else when they occurred.
Just now I thought to look up the meanings of Ananias and Sapphira (wondering if they represented the ‘pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night’ somehow) and found even more interesting stuff:
abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Sapphira.html
Here’s ‘Anan’ (same source):
I have absolutely no idea how any of this ties together into a Message. However, I’m beginning to see Peter as a much larger Player than ever before. Maybe in Peter we may truly find the “Keys to the Kingdom”, eh?
Thanks for the Dave Armstrong link of the collection of Peter’s varied unique contributions -that’s what pushed me to dig a bit deeper.
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Porknpie
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Sure. Do read the entire article. It could be the start of new thread. Cruelty comes when the punishment exceeds the crime…
PnP
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Novocastrian
Guest
Ok, so, just so we’re absolutely clear. You’re saying that burning another human being - alive - is a proportionate and reasonable punishment for heresy?
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