Was the burning of heretics justified?

[CCM08]

1.The inqusition could NOT torture people. The rack, thumb screws, and all the rest of it were used by civil authorities. Catholic inqusitions could NOT do anything that could even possibly draw blood. The most they could do was hoist someone by the wrist tied behind the back. It may offend some modern sensibility, but then again when you’ve got NYPD officers raping suspects with a night club I don’t see why it does. They were limited to doing this for a few moments at a time, and questioning could not last longer than 15 minutes. Modern police regularly keep suspects awake for hours hoping to wear them down. The vast number of records in the Vatican shows the inqusition followed its own rules far better than modern police officers follow their own.

2.If accused of being a heretic you could simply confess, recant, and receive a simple religious pentence no different than your normal pentence. Many state criminals used blasphemy to be transferred to the Inqusitions in order to avoid death. As such the only people that were being questioned were Cathers, and Cathers were murderers.

3.The Spanish inqusition, which is most often dragged up, was ran by the Spanish crown and not the Roman Catholic Church. As such the RCC is not to blame for the actions of the Spanish Inqusition. Like with other historical stories, the reality of what went on is far different than the propaganda surrounding it. The shrill “I hate the Catholic church” types aren’t interested in historical facts anyway.

4.Much the same is largely true of the Salem witch trials. What is often shown in propaganda as a great historical atrocity really boils down to two feuding clans in the same colony.

5.As with all historical atrocity stories fact always becomes mixed with fiction as the event becomes political. Records on the event always reflect who was keeping them and are inflated and minimized as one would expect from the author’s point of view.

 

[Zooey]

You are right that the idea of free speech is a new one. It was a new fangled idea invented in American. You blame the lack of free speech laws on the Catholic Church? There was no concept of free speech in the Protestant countries for a long time either. They were notorious for killing anyone who spoke out even on religious issues.

Sad, but true…Freedom of Speech was one of the prime reasons for the American Revolution!! 1776, and the British were still punishing people for speaking (and writing) what they believed.
In fact, unless they have voted it through in the last few months, there is still no Freedom of the Press in England…and this is the 21st century!!

 

[Zooey]

Show me where in the Sacred Scripture it is written that the Lord took Hus to oneside from the rest of the Apostles and commissioned him to lead the Lord’s people. Just one short quote will do. If not a full quote, then I will settle for half a quote. If not a half, then may be half a sentence. If that fails, just one word

The Protestants in this thread have represented themselves well and not held back from condemning the actions in their denominations’ pasts; I only wish I could say the same for the Catholics.

I would thank you, Mirdath…but I suspect that you weren’t referring to Your Friendly Neighborhood Methodist??

Well, actually it did. the Hebrew word ratzach is a synonym for the English word “murder,” which is why the Lord used the word “murder” in the gospels when quoting the sixth commandment.

And he who said “Thou shalt not murder” also commanded the killing of many kinds of offenders, one of which was witches.

Quoting the Pentateuch is a dreadfully weak argument against capital punishment.

Mirdath posted:

Well if I ever get convicted by a court of law and all they do to me is ask me to recant and stop slaughtering innocents. Or to undertake some penances then I will consider I have got off lightely

If the Inquisitonal courts were so barbaric as you are suggesting, then why was it that common criminals in the civil courts used to blaspheme in order to get their case transfered to an Inquisitional court as they believed they would not only get a fairer hearing but a much less sentence if convicted.

Doesn’t sound much like holocaust to me. But then again, maybe it is because my vision is not obstructed by a plank

 

[mozart-250]

Doesn’t sound much like holocaust to me. But then again, maybe it is because my vision is not obstructed by a plank

But the claim of the OP was not that it was/was not a holocaust. The claim of the OP was that it was somehow morally justified.

Unless you believe in relativism relativism, the tangents in this thread (relative pain in burning, numbers, who was burnt, nature of society at the time…etc) are all totally irrelevant. Unless you believe in moral relativism, the moral judgement of this event is simply a matter of calling balls and strikes…was the burning of heretics wrong or not wrong.

Now, once after the moral justification of the event is settled, you then can look through the lens of history and put the event in historical context. At that point, there may be mitigating and aggravating factors. Not so for the moral judgement of the event.

 

[mozart-250]

Show me where in the Sacred Scripture it is written that the Lord took Hus to oneside from the rest of the Apostles and commissioned him to lead the Lord’s people. Just one short quote will do. If not a full quote, then I will settle for half a quote. If not a half, then may be half a sentence. If that fails, just one word

This is totally irrelevant if the burning of heretics is objectively morally wrong.

If this act is morally wrong, then it does not matter whether the victim of the act is a deranged lunatic or God the son incarnate.

Just like abortion is an objective moral evil irregardless of whom the victim of abortion might have grown up to be.

 

[rr1213]

1.The inqusition could NOT torture people. The rack, thumb screws, and all the rest of it were used by civil authorities. Catholic inqusitions could NOT do anything that could even possibly draw blood.

This false. You can read about torture used by the Inquisition in the following article from the Catholic Encyclopedia.

newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm

 

[Mirdath]

"BelFarfalla:

It is hard to believe that the reformation was a reaction to the inquistion since as soon as the reformers got control of an area, they themselves started executing anyone who did not agree with them and those they called heretics.

Really? It’s not hard at all to believe that one side might turn into the other. Happens all the time.

From all I’ve read those words were never spoken. They were introduced into popular rumor decades after his death.

Less time between that and between the death of Jesus and the writing of John’s gospel. It rather fits Arnaud’s character; in a letter to the pope after the siege of Beziers he said ‘Our men spared no-one, irrespective of rank, sex, or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt, as Divine vengeance raged miraculously’.

Reference here.

Also, I’ve said it before and will say it again: Pierre de Castelnau was not killed by Cathars but by order of Raymond VI of Toulouse.

 

[Shiann]

It is an irrelevant point because the Church is equally complicit with the State even if the Church did not (figuratively speaking) pull the trigger. The Church was morally complicit because it was the Church making the decision whether someone is a heretic and the Church handing the heretic over to the government with full knowledge that the heretic will be tortured to death. In that case, both Church and State are guilty…just as when the High Priests handed Christ over to the Romans. Both the Jewish Religious establishment and the Roman authority were equally guilty for the sin that followed.

You have already been shown evidence that NO ONE was tortured to death. They were given a lengthy timeframe to show themselves not guilty of treason. When they were unable or refused, they were executed by the secular authorities.

 

[Shiann]

Since it is impossible to square torturing or burning people alive with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I don’t see how a Christian state (if there can be such a thing) can do it. Still less can I see how a Church (!!!) can be party to such a thing.​

BTW, Ananias & Sapphira died by the judgement of God - not because they were tried & executed by St.Peter; he did not kill them: yet sometimes their deaths in Acts 5 are quoted as a defence of the use of the DP for the punishment of religious error. Paul “deliver[ed] over to satan” such men as Phygellus, Hermogenes, Alexander, Hymenaeus - he did not execute them. Neither did the Fathers: Lactantius & Chrysostom denounced such a thing as severely as Pope Nicolas I did.

The Apostles did not shed the blood of heretics - nor rack or othewise torture them. There is something blasphemous in defending God’s Church with satan’s weapons. Why is the Gospel & its armour not sufficient for that need ? It was, for St.Paul. To use the DP for heresy is a denial of the power of the Cross, because “the arm of flesh” is substituted for it; which degrades the Gospel into a mere worldly ideology, from being a life-giving & liberating message. IMO, that is a far worse error than any heresy.

If the DP for that purpose was right in 1300, why is it wrong now ? If it was wrong in 100, how could it become right by 1300 ?

No one is saying that by today’s standards that it wasn’t wrong. In fact, I and others have said it is a GOOD THING that civilized societies have matured and learned the folly in it.

With that said, it is also true that there are historical contexes that make the Inquisition a lot less of a “grab your pitforks- lynchmob- burning human parties” than has been promulgated by media, history books and plain ole ignorance.

The question was “was it justified”. Given the historical contexes and culture of the time, I believe it was.

A society has the right and responsibility to maintain order and moral acuity. Without it there would be anarchy. The methods used to achieve that are reflective of historical and cultural norms OF THE TIME. It has been shown that the mass murder did not happen as many have tried to assert. It has also been shown the whole process was quite fair (FOR THE TIME) and introduced for governmental leaders a new way of providing justice.

Did the government have a right to punish someone for acts of treason? Yes.

Did the government have a right to decide what constitutes acts of treason? Yes.

 

[Mirdath]

A society has the right and responsibility to maintain order and moral acuity. Without it there would be anarchy. The methods used to achieve that are reflective of historical and cultural norms OF THE TIME. It has been shown that the mass murder did not happen as many have tried to assert. It has also been shown the whole process was quite fair (FOR THE TIME) and introduced for governmental leaders a new way of providing justice.

Did the government have a right to punish someone for acts of treason? Yes.

Did the government have a right to decide what constitutes acts of treason? Yes.

Did the government act morally in dispensing punishment? Does the morality of a government’s action depend on historical and social context? Does the morality of the Church’s actions in torturing and handing over heretics to be executed depend on historical and social context? Is it subjective?

 

[Shiann]

Why are you so defensive with the plain facts? Protestants today do not defend such an evil position as do some Catholics, even on this board. You also appear to be supporting torture and murder in “the name of God.”

I will repeat my question. This is called a war crime in many parts of the world. What is it when a Church does it?

The church didn’t do it. And no it wasn’t a war crime, it was a determination of treason by a group that was best equipped to make that determination.

The government determined what defined treason. Most often summed up as “dividing the ruler from the ruled”. Morality was seen at that time as an important way to maintain the order in a society and keep that strong connection between the ruler and ruled. The Church obviously took a position in maintaining moral understanding as well as humanitarian efforts like supporting the poor, and ill and educating.

But when a person or persons decided to revolt morally- the king (ruler) rightly determined this as active contempt for governmental authority, and asked the Church to step in to see if this was truly an act of treason against the state. The Church spent months and used every justice known at the time before making the decision. Once made the Church released the person either to their own device, or to the state for their treason.

Was a ruling body of the middle ages justified in maintaining order of their subordinates? Of course.

 

[fix]

Taking the most blatant ones…

First page:

Third page:

Fourth page:

Fifth page:

This is far, far too many. It’s sickening to see so many people leap to defend torture and murder. It reflects horribly on the Church’s traditions of moral instruction and charity. How can these people not know better?

I’m glad we agree on that then

No one defends torture or murder. What is in discussion is that some guilty of treason were put to death because the state found them to be a serious threat to the population. I responded to your false chrage of moral relativism by pointing out that punishment may change for era to era and from cirumstance to circumstance and that is not a form of relativism.

 

[rr1213]

You have already been shown evidence that NO ONE was tortured to death. They were given a lengthy timeframe to show themselves not guilty of treason. When they were unable or refused, they were executed by the secular authorities.

Heretics were executed by the State with the full knowledge, consent and complicity of the Church. It does not matter how many times you try to deny that the Church had any responsibility. Further, whether or not people were tortured to the point of death by the Inquisition or not they were, in fact, tortured by the Inquisition. Read the Catholic Encyclopedia article that I’ve cite about 5 times now in this thread.

 

[fix]

Heretics were executed by the State with the full knowledge, consent and complicity of the Church. It does not matter how many times you try to deny that the Church had any responsibility. Further, whether or not people were tortured to the point of death by the Inquisition or not they were, in fact, tortured by the Inquisition. Read the Catholic Encyclopedia article that I’ve cite about 5 times now in this thread.

What is wrong with Church authorities turning criminals over to the state?

 

[Mirdath]

No one defends torture or murder. What is in discussion is that some guilty of treason were put to death because the state found them to be a serious threat to the population. I responded to your false chrage of moral relativism by pointing out that punishment may change for era to era and from cirumstance to circumstance and that is not a form of relativism.

The state was operating as an agent of the Church. The Inquisition found them guilty, using torture to extract confessions, and handed them over to be executed.

If you hold the opinion that torture in that historical context was a just means to a moral and proper end, you are applying subjective morality. There’s no way around that.

 

[rr1213]

What is wrong with Church authorities turning criminals over to the state?

Interesting question since in many instances it seems that the Church has failed to turn criminals over to the State when it could have, e.g., crimes learned about during confession, pedophiles, and illegal immigrants.

Nothing wrong with turning criminals over to the State unless, by doing so, you would be violating God’s law. In most instances, you would not since God himself has told us to obey the State where to do so would not be sin. In the case of burning people alive? Yeah, I think that participating in that farce constitutes a sin where the Church should not consent and, if it does so, it makes the Church complicit in the result.

 

[Shiann]

Heretics were executed by the State with the full knowledge, consent and complicity of the Church. It does not matter how many times you try to deny that the Church had any responsibility. Further, whether or not people were tortured to the point of death by the Inquisition or not they were, in fact, tortured by the Inquisition. Read the Catholic Encyclopedia article that I’ve cite about 5 times now in this thread.

I am not denying that the Church had any responsibility. I’ve read all the CE articles on the inquisition. Have you read the sources I’ve cited?

 

[BelFarfalla]

Interesting question since in many instances it seems that the Church has failed to turn criminals over to the State when it could have, e.g., crimes learned about during confession, pedophiles, and illegal immigrants.

What would have happened to these people if the Church had not turned them over to the state?

One of the main reasons that the Church starts the large scale inquisition is that the states had passed laws making heresy a form of treason. The states were going around grabbing anyone who displeased them, charging them with heresy and executing them without a trail. Society at the time agreed with this emphatically. Infact, when the state would not arrest and execute people who some thought were heretics, a ‘lynch mob’ was formed and they killed the heretic… and the general society agreed with this too.

The Church stepped in and said that only the Church had the authority to determine who was a heretic. They said that they had the obligation to bring souls back to the Church and executing them with a change for the person seeing the light was unacceptable. The inquisitions actually saved the lives of thousands who the state would have executed. Since some 98% or more of those who were tried by the Inquisition eventually saw the light and were not executed.

Estimates of the numbers of heretics executed range between 5000 – 60,000. The 60,000 number is an old number based on assumptions and rumors. The 5000 is the high number that modern day histories use after actually studying court and church archives. The numbers were statistically adjusted to compensate for lost data. The modern historians ignored rumor and gossip but instead went to the actual records. But given the range if there were 5000-60,000 executed over several hundred years, then the Church might very well have saved 245,000 – 2,940,000 lives.

So back to my question, what would have happened to the heretics who were executed if the Church had not turned them over to the state, but instead simply released them. The state would have arrested them and expected them. The result would have been the same. Either that or the Church would have had to hide them for the lifetime.

Nothing wrong with turning criminals over to the State unless, by doing so, you would be violating God’s law. In most instances, you would not since God himself has told us to obey the State where to do so would not be sin. In the case of burning people alive? Yeah, I think that participating in that farce constitutes a sin where the Church should not consent and, if it does so, it makes the Church complicit in the result.

So what was the church supposed to do with the worst of the worst?

Do you object to the church turning over heretics who had been involved in murders, violent acts of terrorism, armed fighting against the state?

If the method of execution had been something more humane, how would this change your answers?

 

[Shiann]

The state was operating as an agent of the Church.

Wrong. Other way around. The Church was the determining agent of the state who established the edict of treason and the definition thereof.

The Inquisition found them guilty, using torture to extract confessions, and handed them over to be executed.

Wrong again. The Church used a lengthy and almost always NON VIOLENT process over the course of a year or more to determine the guilt or innocence of a person. When the person admittedly and with full intent refused to recant their position against the state- the Church then determined them guilty and handed them over to the authorities.

If you hold the opinion that torture in that historical context was a just means to a moral and proper end, you are applying subjective morality. There’s no way around that.

A society is justified in defending itself.

 

[Shiann]

Interesting question since in many instances it seems that the Church has failed to turn criminals over to the State when it could have, e.g., crimes learned about during confession, pedophiles, and illegal immigrants.

:: sigh ::

There are no papal documents on hiding this information. Therefore the CHURCH has not failed anything. People have failed to make good decisions. That these people work for the Church is irrelevant. Much like, I would not blame a school district for indiscretions of the teachers that work for them unless there is evidence it condoned or supported the errant behavior.

Nothing wrong with turning criminals over to the State unless, by doing so, you would be violating God’s law.

Agreed.

In most instances, you would not since God himself has told us to obey the State where to do so would not be sin. In the case of burning people alive? Yeah, I think that participating in that farce constitutes a sin where the Church should not consent and, if it does so, it makes the Church complicit in the result.

If that punishment was applied to an innocent person I completely agree.