S
Sixtus
Guest
Actually ours were burnt
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B
BelFarfalla
Guest
I brought up the OT law that heretics, blasphemers and apostates are to be killed because it is one of the many verses of the bible that one would need to consider. Under Jewish law, the execution of apostates belongs only the judges. An individual has no right to carry out just a sentence on their own.
Right now I have a short stack of book on the Catholic Inquisitions that I’m reading. It’s very interesting. The Church’s stance had always been that no one should be killed for heresy or apostasy. But after the 1200’s the level heresy and apostasy became so great in some regions that it was getting to be a serious threat to society. This is different then people just having differing opinions and beliefs. This is a case of the heretics trying to destroy society, engaging in violence against Catholics and performing religious practices that included murder, assisted suicides and even ritualistic murders of infants to release their souls from the sinful flesh. This is why the Church acted against these heresies.
There is also the issue of treason. In ancient society, it was considered to be treasonous for a person to be of a religion different from that of its leaders. Those who were apostates tended to work for the overthrow of the rulers. We have laws against treason even today for which execution is the punishment.
S
Sixtus
Guest
The errors of the past need be seen in the context of ‘the past’,
Both culture and establishment was not as advanced as it is today. Mistakes in thinking need be seen in that context.
Today we would not have any excuse. Let us work hard together therefore to overcome the vastly worse evil and genocide of abortion!
Both culture and establishment was not as advanced as it is today. Mistakes in thinking need be seen in that context.
Today we would not have any excuse. Let us work hard together therefore to overcome the vastly worse evil and genocide of abortion!
S
Sixtus
Guest
Belfarfella wrote:
Remember it was not only Catholics who held Inquisitions. The other side had them too! What they did to Catholics by comparison was far worse and more barbaric
Well done. It was such as this that I referred to in an earlier post.
Remember it was not only Catholics who held Inquisitions. The other side had them too! What they did to Catholics by comparison was far worse and more barbaric
S
Sixtus
Guest
We hear a lot about Catholic Inquisitions. What is not so well known and what is kept closely hidden is that far more Catholics died in Protestant Inquisitions than died in Catholic Inquisitions.
Also, many fellons in a civil court used to blaspheme in order to get their case transfered to an Inquisitional Court as they were certain of a fairer hearing and if found guilty, more leniant sentence.
I work in the Criminal Justice System and that is a well known fact.
Also, many fellons in a civil court used to blaspheme in order to get their case transfered to an Inquisitional Court as they were certain of a fairer hearing and if found guilty, more leniant sentence.
I work in the Criminal Justice System and that is a well known fact.
B
BelFarfalla
Guest
Something that we need to remember when discussing the topic of the Catholic Inquisition is that great myths have been created and nurtured by people with agendas against the Catholic Church. I’ll give an example that I read this last weekend.
Some ‘historians’ have created a fantasy around the inquisitional Bernard Gui. Some accounts have him responsible for the exaction of hundreds of heretics. In the film version of The Name of the Rose Fr. Bernard Gui is simply a fanatic. The truth is far from this popular myth. Most old accounts of the Inquisition are based on rumors and fabrications. More recent historians are doing something novel… Actually looking into the facts. They are going back the court records that still exist and collecting real data … thus discovering the truth. There is some info about the prosecutions in Fr. Gui’s 18 years as an inquisitioner.
His office investigated charges against about 5,000 accused heretics. Of those only 930 were brought to trial.
Certain historians have accuse Friar Bernard of burning hundreds at stake. That is in no way true. The following is an account of his sentences found among the records at Toulouse, in which 42 he turned over to the secular officials for the usual penalty which was death by burning… 42, not hundreds!:
Some ‘historians’ have created a fantasy around the inquisitional Bernard Gui. Some accounts have him responsible for the exaction of hundreds of heretics. In the film version of The Name of the Rose Fr. Bernard Gui is simply a fanatic. The truth is far from this popular myth. Most old accounts of the Inquisition are based on rumors and fabrications. More recent historians are doing something novel… Actually looking into the facts. They are going back the court records that still exist and collecting real data … thus discovering the truth. There is some info about the prosecutions in Fr. Gui’s 18 years as an inquisitioner.
His office investigated charges against about 5,000 accused heretics. Of those only 930 were brought to trial.
Certain historians have accuse Friar Bernard of burning hundreds at stake. That is in no way true. The following is an account of his sentences found among the records at Toulouse, in which 42 he turned over to the secular officials for the usual penalty which was death by burning… 42, not hundreds!:
- Abandoned to the secular Arm and burned: 42
- Imprisoned: 307
- Released from prison: 139
- Released: 132
- Bones exhumed and burned: 69
- Sentenced to pilgrimages, without wearing crosses: 9
- Sentenced to pilgrimages wearing crosses: 143
- Fugitives, declared excommunicate: 40
- Sentenced to be exposed in the stocks or pillory: 2
- Priests sentenced to be degraded: 2
- Copies of the Talmud condemned and burned (2 cartloads): 1
- Other minor sentences: 44… Total: 930 sentences by Gui.
**
**About the burning of the cartloads of the Talmud. Gui investigated rumors that the Talmud contains some strong anti-Christian material to include prayers to be said asking God to kill all Christians and other hateful entries. He spoke to the local Jewish leaders who did admit to this hate speech. This is ancient material that dates back to the early years of Christianity. So Gui made a statement against the hate by gathering up some Talmuds and burning them.
C
cor
Guest
Well, in the Papal Bull, Exsurge Domine, this statement was condemned along with a bunch of other ones:
papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm
“[condemned] 33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.”
But why or in what aspects was that sentence condemned?
“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…”
Since a variety of causes of condemnation are listed, we don’t know which particular cause(s) played a role in the condemnation. Jimmy Akin comments on this (as well as the general subject matter of this thread) here:
jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2004/06/vatican_book_on.html
I am not knowledgeable enough to adequately comment on if and when this teaching changed, but I would point to Vatican II which expressed some kind of approval for religious freedom. It still affirmed however the obligation of all “men” and “societies” to be of the true religion. Some have tried to interpret Vatican II in a manner consistent with past magisterial statements on religious freedom.
I would also point to the pontificate of John Paul II where he, especially in Evangelium Vitae, expressed the view some have expressed in this thread that capital punishment should be a last resort and so forth. The text of the Pontiff’s views was incorporated into the Catechism but it doesn’t thereby gain any more authority that it had before. As with the interpretation of Vatican II, there are different interpretations of John Paul II’s statement in Evangelium Vitae. Cardinal Avery Dulles, for example interprets John Paul II in a way that is more consistent with more traditional views. BTW, apparently (according to an article posted in another thread on conscience) the moral theologian Grisez rejects capital punishment altogether, dissenting thereby from the (past and current) teaching of the magisterium. Then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in a letter to Cardinal McCarrick, expressed how Catholics have some freedom of opinion on the matter of capital punishment in contrast to settled issues like abortion.
priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-07ratzingerommunion.htm
“3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”
So it appears (to me anyway) that John Paul II’s peculiar teaching on capital punishment was more his opinion and/or “exhortation” then a “formal teaching” if you will, despite its being included in the CCC. (I am against capital punishment though I do not claim that it is intrinsically wrong)
John Paul II btw mentions as support for his position changes in prison systems over time. So I suppose his views could be compatible with the condemnation in Exsurge Domine.
J
JesuXPIPassio
Guest
This is an excellent question, but I’m not going to answer it. Rather, I’ll give you a couple things to consider when considering this.
Today, we look back and think that, of course, it’s wrong. But we should also realise that we don’t have a monopoly on truth. We think that our ideal moral standards today are truly right and righteous, and past generations were just mistaken when they discriminated against black people, Jews, Catholics, etc. We enshrine our modern day values and condemn everything from the past that doesn’t conform.
Yet if you go back, say, fifty years, people had moral standards that they believed were right. They believed segregation was okay, they believed that a Catholic US president would harm the country, they believed that women should just be homemakers and that the husband is always right, as we can see on reruns of I Love Lucy where Ricky is treated like the mature one and Lucy is treated like the irrational one; Ricky even spanks Lucy, and that may have been considered fine back then.
Go back another 50 years. What were the morals then? Racism was alive and well, and black people were lynched and the KKK was actually politically powerful and respected. Yet it was considered perfectly fine.
Fifty years further into the past, slavery was legal.
The people of those generations all believed their standards were true and correct. They believed those ideals they lived by were moral ideals. Today, we find all of that stuff wrong. We’re just another generation in the many. We also proclaim we’re right.
But, do we proclaim the truth? Are we really right? We don’t know; we can’t say. Things like this are relative. What will people think about us fifty years from now? Will they think what we’re doing is also barbaric? If our generation were put up against theirs, wouldn’t we still claim we’re right and they’re wrong?
We need to look at burning heretics with more broadened understanding. How was it back when heretics would be burnt? Civil governments also burnt dissidents. It wasn’t as if the Church wasn’t the only one doing this.
There’s sound historical reason for us to believe that heresy does create social disharmony. The Roman Emperor Constantine called for the Church leaders to meet for a Council because the people of his day were arguing so much about Arianism that it threatened public peace.
We need to be open to understanding the circumstances of the times and places. Burning by execution was more commonplace back then. So when the Church leaders of the day needed to stomp out dangerous heresies, they would naturally resort to methods that were available to them at the time. For them it was burning at the stake or torture.
But we can say this for the Church – according to Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, the Church’s treatment for people like that was actually more humane when compared to the treatments that secular governments gave. No one ever remembers that. During the time of the Inquisitions, defendants could have lawyers; secular courts didn’t give the same opportunity.
When studying history, we need to be less absolute about today’s moral stances. We should understand that the people of past generations were as human as we are, and we should take into consideration how they thought and felt.
Of course, I’m not saying that it’s all relative. There are things that are absolutely wrong nomatter when and where you live. But there are a number of things that shift with different times. We can even see this in how we dress. A woman today may dress quite conservatively, but those clothes would be scandalous a few centuries ago.
Today, we look back and think that, of course, it’s wrong. But we should also realise that we don’t have a monopoly on truth. We think that our ideal moral standards today are truly right and righteous, and past generations were just mistaken when they discriminated against black people, Jews, Catholics, etc. We enshrine our modern day values and condemn everything from the past that doesn’t conform.
Yet if you go back, say, fifty years, people had moral standards that they believed were right. They believed segregation was okay, they believed that a Catholic US president would harm the country, they believed that women should just be homemakers and that the husband is always right, as we can see on reruns of I Love Lucy where Ricky is treated like the mature one and Lucy is treated like the irrational one; Ricky even spanks Lucy, and that may have been considered fine back then.
Go back another 50 years. What were the morals then? Racism was alive and well, and black people were lynched and the KKK was actually politically powerful and respected. Yet it was considered perfectly fine.
Fifty years further into the past, slavery was legal.
The people of those generations all believed their standards were true and correct. They believed those ideals they lived by were moral ideals. Today, we find all of that stuff wrong. We’re just another generation in the many. We also proclaim we’re right.
But, do we proclaim the truth? Are we really right? We don’t know; we can’t say. Things like this are relative. What will people think about us fifty years from now? Will they think what we’re doing is also barbaric? If our generation were put up against theirs, wouldn’t we still claim we’re right and they’re wrong?
We need to look at burning heretics with more broadened understanding. How was it back when heretics would be burnt? Civil governments also burnt dissidents. It wasn’t as if the Church wasn’t the only one doing this.
There’s sound historical reason for us to believe that heresy does create social disharmony. The Roman Emperor Constantine called for the Church leaders to meet for a Council because the people of his day were arguing so much about Arianism that it threatened public peace.
We need to be open to understanding the circumstances of the times and places. Burning by execution was more commonplace back then. So when the Church leaders of the day needed to stomp out dangerous heresies, they would naturally resort to methods that were available to them at the time. For them it was burning at the stake or torture.
But we can say this for the Church – according to Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, the Church’s treatment for people like that was actually more humane when compared to the treatments that secular governments gave. No one ever remembers that. During the time of the Inquisitions, defendants could have lawyers; secular courts didn’t give the same opportunity.
When studying history, we need to be less absolute about today’s moral stances. We should understand that the people of past generations were as human as we are, and we should take into consideration how they thought and felt.
Of course, I’m not saying that it’s all relative. There are things that are absolutely wrong nomatter when and where you live. But there are a number of things that shift with different times. We can even see this in how we dress. A woman today may dress quite conservatively, but those clothes would be scandalous a few centuries ago.
C
cor
Guest
First, I want to say that as a matter of public policy I am firmly against burning (or otherwise executing) heretics. If heretics were ever to be burned again, I would probably be a prime candidate to be burned! 
But I thought your OP was a thought-provoking and courageous post. Kudos! And see my previous post quoting a condemned errror in *Exsurge Domine *which gives tremendous support to your position in the Catholic context.
Even conceding that the State has that mandate, I would say that just as Cardinal Martini says with regard to life issues that there is a principle that “stands above” the pursuit of physical human life, namely the principle of human dignity, so also is there a principle that stands above the pursuit of the salvation of souls, namely the principle of personal dignity.
Man is not born with infused or intuitive knowledge of religious matters. Man is by nature on a journey of exploration and curiousity, searching within and without in his search for divine truth and beauty. To threaten men with violence in their sincere search would then it seems to me do violence to man’s character, his nature – to strip a man of the liberty to believe as he feels convicted is to strip him of the liberty to pursue the truth, which pursuit of truth is the only way he can, true to his nature, ever hope to find truth.
So it seems to me that to burn (or otherwise do violence) to a heretic just because he is mistaken in his beliefs would be wrong, contrary to natural law. However, I am open to the idea that burning heretics can be, in theory, right if it is done not merely because a man is mistaken in his beliefs but because of the man’s public espousal of certain heretical beliefs, which public espousal somehow threatens the common good of society (including the salvation of its people’s souls).
Would you agree that if a heretic agrees to be silent and not do anything to spread his heresy that he should be left unharmed?
And if heresy is such a danger, why give Jack Chick for example the liberty to pass out anti-Catholic tracts? Shouldn’t he be stopped by civil authorities (if we were living in a Catholic country)?
I don’t believe he should be, but your logic would seem to inescapably lead to that conclusion.
But I thought your OP was a thought-provoking and courageous post. Kudos! And see my previous post quoting a condemned errror in *Exsurge Domine *which gives tremendous support to your position in the Catholic context.But does the State have the mandate from God to work for the salvation and sanctification of souls? The Church does, but does the State?
Even conceding that the State has that mandate, I would say that just as Cardinal Martini says with regard to life issues that there is a principle that “stands above” the pursuit of physical human life, namely the principle of human dignity, so also is there a principle that stands above the pursuit of the salvation of souls, namely the principle of personal dignity.
Man is not born with infused or intuitive knowledge of religious matters. Man is by nature on a journey of exploration and curiousity, searching within and without in his search for divine truth and beauty. To threaten men with violence in their sincere search would then it seems to me do violence to man’s character, his nature – to strip a man of the liberty to believe as he feels convicted is to strip him of the liberty to pursue the truth, which pursuit of truth is the only way he can, true to his nature, ever hope to find truth.
So it seems to me that to burn (or otherwise do violence) to a heretic just because he is mistaken in his beliefs would be wrong, contrary to natural law. However, I am open to the idea that burning heretics can be, in theory, right if it is done not merely because a man is mistaken in his beliefs but because of the man’s public espousal of certain heretical beliefs, which public espousal somehow threatens the common good of society (including the salvation of its people’s souls).
Would you agree that if a heretic agrees to be silent and not do anything to spread his heresy that he should be left unharmed?
And if heresy is such a danger, why give Jack Chick for example the liberty to pass out anti-Catholic tracts? Shouldn’t he be stopped by civil authorities (if we were living in a Catholic country)?
I don’t believe he should be, but your logic would seem to inescapably lead to that conclusion.
S
Sixtus
Guest
Amen
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Greg27
Guest
In my view the burning of heretics was not and never will be justifiable. The main reasons were many ‘heretics’ were burned or tried on the basis of popular superstition (especially alleged witches) and were also tortured in such a way the only way it would stop would be confessing to crimes. While the extent of the persecution has probably been exaggerated in some circles, the fact witch-hunts can re-emerge as they did in the 20th century (in Communism and Nazism) show the danger of submitting the process of law and legal rights to irrational superstition. Pope Benedict said the Catholic faith is one of reason, and the rich tradition in Law shows anyone accused of wrongdoing should get a fair trial. I doubt many victims of the witchunts in the medival period ever got one, and torture can in my view never be justified in a trial for any matter.
In my view the classical ecclesial penalty of excommunication was and still is sufficient and just to deal with any person who is validly found guilty of grave heresy, but robbing that person of their God-given life is a grave evil in my view.
In my view the classical ecclesial penalty of excommunication was and still is sufficient and just to deal with any person who is validly found guilty of grave heresy, but robbing that person of their God-given life is a grave evil in my view.
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fix
Guest
The moral norms are universal. Punishment is not. That varies from circumstance to circumstance. Heresy is always wrong, but how that is dealt with is not always in the same manner.
Nothing morally relative about it.
K
KarenNC
Guest
Take a look at my post (#19) with the link about the witch hunts. I think you will find it interesting if you have not already seen it.
Yes, this sort of “hunt” can and does reappear periodically and much more recently than we might like to think. Take the “Satanic ritual abuse” hunts in the 70s, I believe it was, and the “recovered memory” scandals.
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Vaclav
Guest
First of all, “justifiable” is a word that implies moral approval for the motives underpinning the actions that were taken. I’m not sure that word really applies here. This is not an issue being looked at in its own time frame by people who understand the issue as it was set against the backdrop of the medieval times.
If anything we might consider this historical justification. At least that is what I propose. Seen through the lense of history (which is the only way any of us can view the Inquisitions) then we are able to make judgements.
I think that the case in question does meet the standards of doing what was best to protect Christian society. While it is not the path nor outcome anyone would wish to take, the truth is that Christianity and society at that time had to be protected.
As I asked before, can you imagine a world dominated by Nestorian or Arian Christianity? Or a world dominated by Albigensianism?
You all speak of religious freedom and individual rights in 21st century tones, but these concepts (as we know them today) were completely foreign to the medieval times and to the times of Christ.
As for moral relativism there are of course universal Truths and doctrines. Yet, there is no denying that the existence of prevailing zeitgeist for periods of time. One only has to study intellectual movements to understand that. In fact, it would be amazing for any Protestant to deny that, considering the origins of every Protestant church.
A poster named Edwin wrote a very good set of definitions concerning relativism that separates it from the mere manichaen (pardon the pun
) definitions you’ve laid out here. I cannot explain them better than he did.
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BelFarfalla
Guest
You might find this article interesting. Witch hunting was mostly the work of sectual governments and Protestants… not Catholics.
chass.colostate-pueblo.edu/natrel/pom/old/POM5a1.html
I agree with this except that I do believe that capital punishment is sometimes warranted in certain cases of violent crimes.
The vast majority of those who were tried in the Catholic Inquisition received punishments that were forms of penitence… Wearing a cross, doing a pilgrimage, fasting for some period of time (restricted diet), etc. Excommunication was common too. Others were burned in effigy. The bones of the dead were exhumed and burned.
As for those who were executed (burned or otherwise) it would be interesting to see what exactly it was they had done. For example, out of 930 cases the inquisitioner Bernard Gui handed over 42 to civil authority for execution. I wonder how many of these were found to have participated in the Cathar assisted suicides and killing of infants, or other crimes.
M
Mirdath
Guest
In other words, situational ethics – moral relativism.
Punishment must be carried out morally too, must it not? Is death for stealing candy a just and moral punishment?
All you’re saying here is ‘the ends justify the means’, which is a position thoroughly abhorred by the Church.
I don’t see a Nestorian- or Arian-dominated world being all that different, really. A world in which the Cathars replaced the Catholics, however, would be pretty neat, and possibly an improvement. There’s a lot of blood libel against them being posted in this thread; they weren’t perfect, but they were not murderers and brephophagists either. They simply didn’t want to play by the rules of feudal society, and for that and that alone they were exterminated.
Yet the Church now sees the violation of those freedoms and rights as a moral wrong. If you deny that such were always wrong, you imply that morality is mutable and relative.
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fix
Guest
Yes, of course. What evidence do you have the Church has taught that the death penalty is always wrong?
I would think not. The death penalty, by the civil authorities, back then seems perfectly fine considering the way society was structured. In fact, if some cataclysmic event happended to the earth perhaps a new and different societal struture may take shape that would make necessary the death penalty for heresy be taken up again. My point is that penalty is not always wrong.
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BelFarfalla
Guest
I have not seen any untruths passed along here about the Cathars except what you are saying. They believed that suicide was commendable and practiced in to two major forms… either a person would starve themselves to death. Or if they wanted to be a martyr they would have someone suffocate them… that’s murder. Marriage and procreations were looked down on and considered vile.
Cathars believed that the world was created by an evil God. Since the God of the OT created the earth, He was considered evil by them.
These things come directly out of Cathar documents that exist to this day.
There are modern sects of Christianity who have created a mythology around Cathars and others of similar beliefs in the day. I find this sort of amusing because just their beliefs of dualism alone are so non-Christian that if anyone else believed them, Protestants would be going on about how they were going to hell.
M
Mirdath
Guest
None at all, which seems rather odd to me given that it also preaches absolute morality.
Welcome to the relativist fold, I guess. Enjoy your stay.
Commendable? I’m not sure. Allowable? Certainly. I do not deny that it happened – but consider this was generally practiced after one had been made Perfecti on one’s deathbed. It’s a medieval equivalent to our modern ‘no heroic measures, let me die’ practice, which I believe the Church has no quibble with.
Is that reason for their eradication?
I believe this did actually happen in some cases; however, it certainly does not reflect the general opinion of morality among the Cathars, who believed murder absolutely wrong.
Is the failing of a few reason for their eradication?
True. They had their own justification for that – why bring more people into the world to sin and offend God?
Are disagreeable-to-you ideas about sex and marriage reason for their eradication?
The Demiurge is a common theme in many sects, starting with the Gnostics.
Is a theogony you don’t subscribe to reason for their eradication?
Is it?
F
fix
Guest
It is not moral relativism. The death penalty is not intrinsically wrong. You seem to substitute your teaching for the Church’s teaching and then provide a refutation for your teaching. If you want to refute the Church then please present what She teaches, not your private teaching.
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