Was the burning of heretics justified?

[Shiann]

The Church knew exactly what was going to happen when they turned the heretic over to the State.

So did the heretic who spent the last year or more under review and counsel by the Catholic Church- yet still refused to recant.

Where’s the culpability of the individual?

In that way, even considering the historical context, they were complicit. If you know exactly what is going to happen, and what is going to happen is unjust or cruel, then you are participating in that sin through your cooperation.

Here again you label this unjust and cruel- by TODAY’s STANDARDS. Capital punishment is not immoral.

BTW, you have church people today who refuse to turn illegal aliens over to the authorities, thinking that this is injust and cruel, even though they are breaking the law by aiding and assisting the illegals. These Church folk believe that they would be complicit in turning them over to the authorities, even though all you’re looking at is deportation.

Those “church people” are wrong in my opinion.

 

[rr1213]

Cruel and unjust by today’s standards. There are people that think lethal injection is cruel and unjust. You have to take it in historical context.

I can’t conceive that any reasonable person, at any time in history, could believe that being burned alive was not cruel. I’m not talking about execution itself, or even execution for alleged heresy. I’m talking about the method of execution…literally being burned alive.

 

[Shiann]

I can’t conceive that any reasonable person, at any time in history, could believe that being burned alive was not cruel. I’m not talking about execution itself, or even execution for alleged heresy. I’m talking about the method of execution…literally being burned alive.

Historical methods of capital punishment weren’t just to kill the individual, it truly was seen as a deterrent for further criminal activity. Just and humane methods of punishment were implemented by rulers with that in mind.

 

[Mirdath]

Here again you label this unjust and cruel- by TODAY’s STANDARDS. Capital punishment is not immoral.

Moral standards are what this is all about. We regard burning someone alive as immoral today. Catholics are moral absolutists, meaning they believe moral standards do not change over time or between different situations. If you believe burning someone alive is an immoral punishment now, it must needs always have been so – and inversely, if you think it was moral during the Middle Ages, it must needs still be so. Pick one.

Historical methods of capital punishment weren’t just to kill the individual, it truly was seen as a deterrent for further criminal activity. Just and humane methods of punishment were implemented by rulers with that in mind.

Punishment is still about deterrence just as much as it is about rehabilitation. Possibly more the former right now.

 

[Shiann]

Moral standards are what this is all about. We regard burning someone alive as immoral today.

No, we regard it as inhumane.

Catholics are moral absolutists, meaning they believe moral standards do not change over time or between different situations.

Correct, capital punishment is moral today as it was back then.

If you believe burning someone alive is an immoral punishment now,

Again, it wasn’t immoral, it was inhumane by today’s standards.

it must needs always have been so – and inversely, if you think it was moral during the Middle Ages, it must needs still be so. Pick one.

Capital punishment is moral was then and is now.

Punishment is still about deterrence just as much as it is about rehabilitation. Possibly more the former right now.

It has been shown that the Catholic Church spent at least a year attempting to rehabilitate.

 

[LJN21]

Moral standards are what this is all about. We regard burning someone alive as immoral today. Catholics are moral absolutists, meaning they believe moral standards do not change over time or between different situations. If you believe burning someone alive is an immoral punishment now, it must needs always have been so – and inversely, if you think it was moral during the Middle Ages, it must needs still be so. Pick one.

Your being to legalistic. Its not moral for us to burn people at the stake today because we have better ways to deal with criminals. We have better prisons we have better means to execute people.

The prisons they had were damp dark cells with rats and bugs. Just one day in the prisons of the time would be seen as torcher today. By your logic it would be immoral for them to even put people in jail.

 

[rr1213]

So did the heretic who spent the last year or more under review and counsel by the Catholic Church- yet still refused to recant. Where’s the culpability of the individual?

You’re saying it was the victim’s fault that he was burned alive? Really? Oh boy, talk about blaming the victim.

Here again you label this unjust and cruel- by TODAY’s STANDARDS. Capital punishment is not immoral.

I thought Catholics believed that morality was absolute and did not change with the whims of popular opinion. If it is wrong today, it was wrong then. The culpability of the wrongdoer may be somewhat different based on the historical context, but a sin is still a sin. Look at Abraham Lincoln. He is given credit, justly, for his actions and beliefs with respect to the abolition of slavery and for trying to elevate African Americans. Yet, by today’s standards, many of his opinions were simply racist. They were racist then, also, and Lincoln was wrong with respect to such opinions then just as he would be now. The difference is that there would be mitigation of his culpability based on the historical context. For his time, he was an advanced thinker.

As for capital punishment, I never said that it was immoral. I said that burning people at the stake is immoral and that punishing people for their religious beliefs is immoral, not that capital punishment is immoral in and of itself.

Those “church people” are wrong in my opinion.

Well I’m glad we agree on this. There are many Catholic Church leaders among these folks as well as Protestants.

 

[LJN21]

You’re saying it was the victim’s fault that he was burned alive? Really? Oh boy, talk about blaming the victim.

Criminal not victim. The victim would be the people who he was teaching heresy to.

 

[Sixtus]

Shian said:

The culpability of the wrongdoer may be somewhat different based on the historical context, but a sin is still a sin.

Agree, but the Church was not speaking ‘ex-cathedra’, it was ‘ordinary folk’ working with everyday problems.,

Ordinary folk have their own prejudices. We cannot always explain the reasons why we hold particular beliefs, often they are not the teachings of the Church. She does not pronounce on everything. She has not made pronouncment about how I ought prune my roses.

It is just possible that individuals with all their human weaknesses were involved in decision making

 

[rr1213]

Criminal not victim. The victim would be the people who he was teaching heresy to.

From your perspective. By any reasonable perspective of any reasonable person, the guy who gets to be burned alive is the victim. Hands down.

No doubt you would consider a faithful Catholic burned at the stake for heresy by a Protestant Bishop or Protestant Prince to be a victim. You do not consider the reverse to be true simply because of your sectarian viewpoint. In contrast, I consider both of them to be victims because both are being cruelly tortured to death because they dared to be dissenters with respect to their religious faith.

 

[Mirdath]

No, we regard it as inhumane.

When there are more humane options for imposing the death penalty, to prefer an inhumane is not exactly moral, is it? There have always been easier ways to kill someone; the auto-da-fe is gratuitous cruelty at its finest.

It has been shown that the Catholic Church spent at least a year attempting to rehabilitate.

And that’s just wonderful. When rehabilitation fails, however, is it good and just to make the eventual punishment an agonizing spectacle for the masses?

LJN21:

Your being to legalistic. Its not moral for us to burn people at the stake today because we have better ways to deal with criminals. We have better prisons we have better means to execute people.

We have always been really, really good at imprisoning and killing each other. We can just do it with electric doors and syringes now.

Some methods of execution have always been more humane than others. Hanging sharply, to break the neck; beheading, and later guillotining; poisoning. Why set someone on fire and call it ‘justice’? The only answer is to glory in another’s pain.

The prisons they had were damp dark cells with rats and bugs. Just one day in the prisons of the time would be seen as torcher today. By your logic it would be immoral for them to even put people in jail.

You over-read. Not that I would prefer the Tower of London to a modern prison, but to treat a prisoner as humanely as possible is no wrong. Standards of morals cannot change; standards of hygiene may.

 

[LJN21]

From your perspective. By any reasonable perspective of any reasonable person, the guy who gets to be burned alive is the victim. Hands down.

No doubt you would consider a faithful Catholic burned at the stake for heresy by a Protestant Bishop or Protestant Prince to be a victim. You do not consider the reverse to be true simply because of your sectarian viewpoint. In contrast, I consider both of them to be victims because both are being cruelly tortured to death because they dared to be dissenters with respect to their religious faith.

Now your just plane ignoring histroy and facts presented in this thread. That’s not what happened. They were catholics convicted of heresy in a catholic state by a catholic court. These were some of the fairest court in the land at the time. There was plenty of time for appeal and to reconsile them selves. This wasn’t just some linch mob.

They are by no means compairable to other events in history. The actions of “Good” Queen Bess, The French Revolution.

 

[rr1213]

When there are more humane options for imposing the death penalty, to prefer an inhumane is not exactly moral, is it? There have always been easier ways to kill someone; the auto-da-fe is gratuitous cruelty at its finest.

Very good point, wish I had thought of it. Even back in the Dark Ages, there were less cruel means of execution than burning people to death.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

In that case, what would be the justification for burning them alive vs. a presumably more humane form of execution (if done correctly) such as beheading if the primary goal was simply to remove them from society, particularly given the Christian teachings on forgiveness, charity, loving one’s enemies, etc?

Burning was chosen because of the influence of Roman law - in 297, the Emperor Diocletian had prescribed burning as the punishment for Manichees. The revival of interest in the Roman law tradition in the Latin West in the 1200s, did the rest. Though it should be pointed out that the earliest recorded execution for heresy was in 1022, & was in effect a lynching by fire. The bishops had jurisdiction over cases of heresy long before the Inquisition was founded - the trials of Protestants in England & Scotland during the 16th century did not involve the Inquisition, but the bishops.​

 

[Tsar]

I don’t know about burning heretics, but it was definitely smart to burn and torture the witches.

also, the conversos in spain were rightly expelled, imo, since they illegally faked conversions all the time. any catholic should eat pork and milk fats with meat.

i’ll say one thing too: if those protestants hadn’t messed everything else, wwii probably could have been averted, too.

and hitler wouldn’t have been so persecutory–actually he probably would have been raised right and moral.

 

[Shiann]

From your perspective. By any reasonable perspective of any reasonable person, the guy who gets to be burned alive is the victim. Hands down.

No doubt you would consider a faithful Catholic burned at the stake for heresy by a Protestant Bishop or Protestant Prince to be a victim. You do not consider the reverse to be true simply because of your sectarian viewpoint. In contrast, I consider both of them to be victims because both are being cruelly tortured to death because they dared to be dissenters with respect to their religious faith.

Again you are placing today’s values on history.

It isn’t about burning at the stake. We’d be having this coversation if they were killed in the most humane way possible.

The real question is the justification of the interrogation and punishment.

If my protestant ancestor attempted to undermine their protestant Faith, and was brought to task by a Protestant tribunal and found guilty after one year of attempts to rehabilitate, then was turned over to secular authorities for punishment that fell under the governing society of that time- then was put to death for the crimes they were guilty of, I would be standing just as I am now.

 

[mozart-250]

Now your just plane ignoring histroy and facts presented in this thread. That’s not what happened. They were catholics convicted of heresy in a catholic state by a catholic court. These were some of the fairest court in the land at the time. There was plenty of time for appeal and to reconsile them selves. This wasn’t just some linch mob.

Actually the Spanish inquisition was aimed (largely) at Jewish people who had been forced to convert to Catholicism but still secretly retained their Jewish faith.

 

[Shiann]

When there are more humane options for imposing the death penalty, to prefer an inhumane is not exactly moral, is it? There have always been easier ways to kill someone; the auto-da-fe is gratuitous cruelty at its finest.

And that’s just wonderful. When rehabilitation fails, however, is it good and just to make the eventual punishment an agonizing spectacle for the masses?

We have always been really, really good at imprisoning and killing each other. We can just do it with electric doors and syringes now.

Some methods of execution have always been more humane than others. Hanging sharply, to break the neck; beheading, and later guillotining; poisoning. Why set someone on fire and call it ‘justice’? The only answer is to glory in another’s pain.

You over-read. Not that I would prefer the Tower of London to a modern prison, but to treat a prisoner as humanely as possible is no wrong. Standards of morals cannot change; standards of hygiene may.

Morality is what it is.

Humane-ness is relative.

 

[rr1213]

Again you are placing today’s values on history.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I don’t have a problem placing today’s values onto historical figures because morality, what is right and wrong, is not dependent on the times. The exact culpability of the individual may be, but not whether the act itself is right or wrong.

It isn’t about burning at the stake. We’d be having this coversation if they were killed in the most humane way possible. The real question is the justification of the interrogation and punishment.

Agreed, and my answer is the same. It is wrong now, and was wrong then, to persecute people because of their religious faith. Again, the culpability of the inquisitors back then may be lessened because of the understandings of the times, but that is up to God to determine. However, I do think that Mirdath had an excellent point that there really is no way to justify death by burning since less cruel methods did exist even then.

If my protestant ancestor attempted to undermine their protestant Faith, and was brought to task by a Protestant tribunal and found guilty after one year of attempts to rehabilitate, then was turned over to secular authorities for punishment that fell under the governing society of that time- then was put to death for the crimes they were guilty of, I would be standing just as I am now.

Interesting…and you know my answer would remain the same as well. It’s wrong whether it was done by Catholic authorities or by Protestant authorities. I hope nobody thinks that I’ve been saying anything different.

 

[BelFarfalla]

If the church and state were two totally different entities how was it treason and punishable by death?

In the past, many secular governments considered it to be treason for anyone to be of a religion other then that of the ruler. This attitude dates back to pre-Roman and pre-Greek times. Aristotle wrote on the subject coming to concluding that it was treason. European secular governments tended to agree with this.

In the 1100’s several European secular governments reinstated laws making it treason for a Catholic to commit heresy to be a non-Catholic since they were Catholics… not members of the Catholic clergy, just Catholics. At that time of history, it was actually considered to be forward thinking to allow other religions to exist in the kingdoms. But the rulers demanded obedience from their Catholic subjects, which included not committing heresies. It is the concept of declaring an official state government… this is of course outlawed in our constitution.

These governments started to declare people heretics and punishing them mostly through death. They had no court system, no protects for the accused. Their conviction and execution rates were high. Further, the popular opinion was that people hated heretics. It was not unusual for a crowed to declare someone a heretic and kill them on the spot. One of the early cases was of a Bishop who burned the cross in protest. He was arrested by the secular authorities with no involvement of the Church what so ever. The town’s population was so angered at him burning the cross that a crowd broke into the jail, hauled him out and burned him alive… they felt that was a fitting end for someone who burned the cross. These types of things where gangs took the law into their own hands when it came to heretics were common in those days.

So the Church stepped in and told the secular governments and local people that only the Church had the authority to determine who was a heretic. They feared, rightfully so, that the secular government would loosely accuse anyone they wanted to get rid of as a heretic. This is why the inquisitions started on a more organized scale then they had ever been before.

Contrary to myths and actual outright distortions told by anti-Catholics, the inquisitions were court systems light years above the state of civil authority at the time. Most civil authorities did not have courts of any kind. The did not allow anyone a defense.

The Church put in place a system that is the pre-cursor for the court system we follow today. A person had to be accused by 2 or more people for the Inquisition to even take it seriously. The accuser was told of their charges and provided with the evidence. They had 3 months to reply to the charges and could hire an attorney to represent them. The final decision was made by a jury… not by the inquisitioner. The inquisitioner was more like what we call a prosecutor today. To protect the witnesses their identities were not divulged. To protect the accused their identity was not divulged to the jury either. The juries were typically made up of 20 to 45 people… lawyers, local leaders, etc… people who were respected in the community. Once a verdict was handed down, the accused could appeal their case to a higher court.