Was the burning of heretics justified?

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rr1213 said:
Great, so now the Church is going to be the thought police also. Thank God I live in America where we can each worship God as our consciences dictate.
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Even tho you live in America if you believe God told you to kill random people on the street, you are still going to be arrested and possibly executed.
 
Thou shalt not kill/murder…was a Commandment for all times. Modern, and medieval. I think that when we insert our own opinions, we lose track of the fact that God didn’t give us disclaimers, as I mentioned in an above post.

Links, articles, etc…the really are all irrelevant…there is never a justification to murdering someone, short of truly protecting your own life…or your country’s welfare. And…even then, the guilt that our soliders feel, past and present, is staggering. One of my dh’s brothers served in Vietnam…and is a recovering alcoholic…and really suffers from depression. So, let’s not act like having a sophisticated dialogue about killing heretics, washes away the Commandment to not kill.

Heretics. There are modern day heretics…now, like then…there’s no justification for killing them.

NONE.
 
Which goes back to mine in 413.

We’ve already given you fact on how out of the 1% of people tried by the Inquisition were actually executed were in fact executed because of more than just believing something different.
 
whatevergirl said:
Thou shalt not kill/murder…was a Commandment for all times. Modern, and medieval. I think that when we insert our own opinions, we lose track of the fact that God didn’t give us disclaimers, as I mentioned in an above post.

Links, articles, etc…the really are all irrelevant…there is never a justification to murdering someone, short of truly protecting your own life…or your country’s welfare. And…even then, the guilt that our soliders feel, past and present, is staggering. One of my dh’s brothers served in Vietnam…and is a recovering alcoholic…and really suffers from depression. So, let’s not act like having a sophisticated dialogue about killing heretics, washes away the Commandment to not kill.

Heretics. There are modern day heretics…now, like then…there’s no justification for killing them.

NONE.
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Its not about murder.

The State has the authority to use capital punishment as stated in the CCC. The state at the time was executing people for treason. Remember this is like 1% of the actual people tried were executed.

Please go read the facts on what happened and don’t fall in to the propaganda so often repeated by modern “Historians” eager to toss the Church under the bus.
 
whatevergirl said:
Thou shalt not kill/murder…was a Commandment for all times. Modern, and medieval. I think that when we insert our own opinions, we lose track of the fact that God didn’t give us disclaimers, as I mentioned in an above post.

Links, articles, etc…the really are all irrelevant…there is never a justification to murdering someone, short of truly protecting your own life…or your country’s welfare. And…even then, the guilt that our soliders feel, past and present, is staggering. One of my dh’s brothers served in Vietnam…and is a recovering alcoholic…and really suffers from depression. So, let’s not act like having a sophisticated dialogue about killing heretics, washes away the Commandment to not kill.

Heretics. There are modern day heretics…now, like then…there’s no justification for killing them.

NONE.
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Please note your comments highlighted above.
 
LJN21 said:
Its not about murder.

The State has the authority to use capital punishment as stated in the CCC. The state at the time was executing people for treason. Remember this is like 1% of the actual people tried were executed.

Please go read the facts on what happened and don’t fall in to the propaganda so often repeated by modern “Historians” eager to toss the Church under the bus.
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I’m not following anyone, but God. And…I would never toss the RCC under the bus. I love it too much.
 
Mirdath said:
Does it have the right to do so by fomenting more of the same?

Online museum gallery of a few torture devices; note the naming of such things as the ‘inquisitional chairs’ and ‘heretic’s fork’.

A rather well-cited encyclopedia of torture devices with many references.

The Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments in Prague, if you care to visit.

As usual, wikipedia has some information under its article on torture; while the section ‘Torture in the past’ lacks several citations, it provides some sources you may find of interest. Unfortunately I don’t have any dead-tree history books handy (not even my copy of Sir Walter Scott’s Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, which I assure you contains many interesting accounts), so these will have to do.

Even the Catholic Encyclopedia, which takes a rather pro-Church editorial tone often enough, does not shy away from fact:

Had this papal legislation been adhered to in practice, the historian of the Inquisition would have fewer difficulties to satisfy. In the beginning, torture was held to be so odious that clerics were forbidden to be present under pain of irregularity. Sometimes it had to be interrupted so as to enable the inquisitor to continue his examination, which, of course, was attended by numerous inconveniences. Therefore on 27 April, 1260, Alexander IV authorized inquisitors to absolve one another of this irregularity. Urban IV on 2 August, 1262, renewed the permission, and this was soon interpreted as formal licence to continue the examination in the torture chamber itself. The inquisitors manuals faithfully noted and approved this usage. The general rule ran that torture was to be resorted to only once. But this was sometimes circumvented – first, by assuming that with every new piece of evidence the rack could be utilized afresh, and secondly, by imposing fresh torments on the poor victim (often on different days), not by way of repetition, but as a continuation (non ad modum iterationis sed continuationis), as defended by Eymeric; “quia, iterari non debent [tormenta], nisi novis supervenitibus indiciis, continuari non prohibentur.” But what was to be done when the accused, released from the rack, denied what he had just confessed? Some held with Eymeric that the accused should be set at liberty; others, however, like the author of the “Sacro Arsenale” held that the torture should be continued, because the accused had too seriously incriminated himself by his previous confession. When Clement V formulated his regulations for the employment of torture, he never imagined that eventually even witnesses would be put on the rack, although not their guilt, but that of the accused, was in question. From the pope’s silence it was concluded that a witness might be put upon the rack at the discretion of the inquisitor. Moreover, if the accused was convicted through witnesses, or had pleaded guilty, the torture might still he used to compel him to testify against his friends and fellow-culprits. It would be opposed to all Divine and human equity – so one reads in the “Sacro Arsenale, ovvero Pratica dell Officio della Santa Inquisizione” (Bologna, 1665) – to inflict torture unless thejudge were personally persuaded of the guilt of the accused. – newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm

Why are you trying to convince people that it ‘just wasn’t that bad’?

(edit: beaten by rr1213!)
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Because it wasn’t.

Torture was first authorized by Innocent IV in the bull Ad exstirpanda of May 15, 1252, with limits that it could not cause the loss of a limb or imperil life, could only be applied once, and then only if the accused seemed already virtually convicted of heresy by manifold and certain proofs. Certain objective studies carried out by recent scholars have argued that torture was practically unknown in the medieval inquisitorial process. The register of Bernard Gui, the inquisitor of Toulouse for six years who examined more than 600 heretics, shows only one instance of where torture was used. Further, in the 930 sentences recorded between 1307 and 1323 (and it is worthwhile to note that meticulous records were kept by paid notaries chosen from civil courts), the majority of the accused were sentenced to imprisonment, the wearing of crosses, and penances. Only 42 were abandoned to the secular arm and burned.

Hamilton, Inquisition, p. 160
 
Shiann said:
Please note your comments highlighted above.
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yes? I noted them. I don’t agree with war…but, to defend one’s self…or our country…it’s not a dictate I make. To murder people because we disagree with their beliefs is a far cry from training an army to protect our innocent from harm’s way…wouldn’t u agree?
 
whatevergirl said:
I’m not following anyone, but God. And…I would never toss the RCC under the bus. I love it too much.
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But your already following line. “It was evil because these poor people were murdered just for believing something different to the Catholic Church.” When that is factually not what happened.

I’m not saying I approve of burning at the steak as a means of punishment today, or that we should kill heretics, or even that bad things didn’t happen during the Inquisition. Taken in historical context these things were not what people tended to make them out to be.

Historically the Inquisition was the fairest most lenient court of the time. That fact can not be ignored. Yet its made out to be a mass of people power hungry murdering everything in its path.

Whats our over all image of the blood on the hands of the monarchy in England?
 
LJN21 said:
But your already following line. “It was evil because these poor people were murdered just for believing something different to the Catholic Church.” When that is factually not what happened.

I’m not saying I approve of burning at the steak as a means of punishment today, or that we should kill heretics, or even that bad things didn’t happen during the Inquisition. Taken in historical context these things were not what people tended to make them out to be.

Historically the Inquisition was the fairest most lenient court of the time. That fact can not be ignored. Yet its made out to be a mass of people power hungry murdering everything in its path.

Whats our over all image of the blood on the hands of the monarchy in England?
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I admit, I’m not a historical fan of the Inquisition…so, I thank you for pointing this out to me.

Personally, Ghandi had it right, if you ask me.😉
 
whatevergirl said:
Thou shalt not kill/murder…was a Commandment for all times. Modern, and medieval. I think that when we insert our own opinions, we lose track of the fact that God didn’t give us disclaimers, as I mentioned in an above post.

Links, articles, etc…the really are all irrelevant…there is never a justification to murdering someone, short of truly protecting your own life…or your country’s welfare. And…even then, the guilt that our soliders feel, past and present, is staggering. One of my dh’s brothers served in Vietnam…and is a recovering alcoholic…and really suffers from depression. So, let’s not act like having a sophisticated dialogue about killing heretics, washes away the Commandment to not kill.

Heretics. There are modern day heretics…now, like then…there’s no justification for killing them.

NONE.
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I appreciate your opinion on the level of threat you believe that heretics had on the church in the middle ages. And that you believe the threat amounted to so little to society and the Church at that time.

But what evidence do you have that this was the case? On the contrary, there IS evidence and history shows that there were several very real and very powerful heresies developing that would seek to undermine our understanding in God and life with and for Him. And the heresies harmed families and people in daily life- not just their soul.

The Cathars being just one.
 
LJN21 said:
I’m not saying I approve of burning at the steak as a means of punishment today, or that we should kill heretics…
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That’s good at least. Serously. Reading some posts by some posters in this thread and elsewhere in these forums would cause me to worry about my life and limb if I lived in a Catholic-ruled country that governed in conformity with the fantasies of aforesaid posters. 😉
 
Shiann said:
I appreciate your opinion on the level of threat you believe that heretics had on the church in the middle ages. And that you believe the threat amounted to so little to society and the Church at that time.

But what evidence do you have that this was the case? On the contrary, there IS evidence and history shows that there were several very real and very powerful heresies developing that would seek to undermine our understanding in God and life with and for Him. And the heresies harmed families and people in daily life- not just their soul.

The Cathars being just one.
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Why not prison, if the risk was this high. I don’t know why extermination was the answer, even for a small percentage…which would leave one thinking…why exterminate such a small percentage? Was this small percentage that dangerous to everyday society? It troubles me that the RCC even has to defend itself with this history.
 
rr1213 said:
That’s good at least. Serously. Reading some posts by some posters in this thread and elsewhere in these forums would cause me to worry about my life and limb if I lived in a Catholic-ruled country that governed in conformity with the fantasies of aforesaid posters. 😉
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Please note that the RCC doesn’t represent everyone’s thoughts and perceptions, just because they say they are Catholic. I think there is a disclaimer on the board somewhere that states that. Modern day Catholicism…thank God for the likes of Pope JP2, for example…really helped to show what a peaceful religion Catholicism truly is.
 
rr1213 said:
Yeah, like those Anti-Catholic Protestant Fundamentalist Fanatics who wrote the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia. :rolleyes: 😃

newadvent.org/cathen/index.html
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And by 1917 we had discovered all that was possible about the Inquisition… not one new document or piece of evidence found in the last almost hundred years would further enlighten anything that is written there.

:rolleyes:
 
whatevergirl said:
Why not prison, if the risk was this high. I don’t know why extermination was the answer, even for a small percentage…which would leave one thinking…why exterminate such a small percentage? Was this small percentage that dangerous to everyday society? It troubles me that the RCC even has to defend itself with this history.
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Remember the idea that capital punishment is not necessary and should be avoided is a very modern idea. During the time of the Inquisition people could be put to death for stealing sheep. It would have never crossed there minds that what they were doing could be viewed as accessive and unjust.
 
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