Was the burning of heretics justified?

[KarenNC]

**First of all, I am, as it happens, Methodist

Sorry, I did forget that and neglected to check your public profile before making that comment.

**The fact is, I was making a point about the evil doings of a **Protestant ****queen, and nobody who had been condeming Catholics had anything to say…It was never even acknowledged .

It was definitely acknowledged by several posters. Your post was #293. If you missed the responses, check numbers 297, 298, 299, 301, at minimum. And yes, many posters have, over and over, said that this sort of action is wrong, regardless of who is doing it. If anyone has said, “well it was okay when it was done to the Catholics but not by them,” I would like you to reference the specific post.**

 

[mozart-250]

As far as I can tell, the whole argument seems to be summed up as “Killing other people is evil if you’re Catholic; but if you happen to be killing other people for being Catholic…Hey, have at 'em, & good luck to you!”.

I think this is because:
(1) The original post was Catholic
(2) The proposition was that the burning of heretics was somehow justified

Given these factors, it is understandable that the Protestant inquisition gets less of a play than the Catholic one in this thread and in this thread only.

The folks speaking with the greatest moral authority on this thread ironically are the non-religious ones who have no bones to pick with the Catholics versus Protestants. I think the Protestants here would universally consider any inquisition unjustified.

Now if the original post had been protestant with the proposition was that the Catholic church is the whore of Babylon because of the inquisition that would be a different story.

I am most upset by anybody defending any inquisition in the 21st century. That seems akin to defending slavery.

Concerning the events of the 14th-17th century to be honest I am more upset by the Protestant inquistion (against both the Catholics and anabaptists) than the Catholic one.
(1) When you have a great big log in your own eye, you really are in no position to attempt speck surgery.
(2) Some big time Protestant leaders were a part of this inquistions (and no I don’t consider Zwingli less culpable because he only drowned anabaptists instead of frying them)
(3) I could ask what the sense of having a reformation is if you turn around and adopt the evil practices of the group you are trying to reform.

Note: I started a poll on this very same topic.

 

[fix]

The folks speaking with the greatest moral authority on this thread ironically are the non-religious ones who have no bones to pick with the Catholics versus Protestants. I think the Protestants here would universally consider any inquisition unjustified.

I disagree. It is about truth, not so called moral authority.

I am most upset by anybody defending any inquisition in the 21st century. That seems akin to defending slavery.

This type of assertion is why I am in this thread. The entire enterprise of chattel slavery is wrong. The premise it was built on is wrong. The inquisition is another matter. While abuse happend, the entire enterprise was not rotten.

 

[KarenNC]

The folks speaking with the greatest moral authority on this thread ironically are the non-religious ones who have no bones to pick with the Catholics versus Protestants.

Thanks, Mozart-250, but I do consider myself religious, just not Christian.

 

[KarenNC]

This type of assertion is why I am in this thread. The entire enterprise of chattel slavery is wrong. The premise it was built on is wrong. The inquisition is another matter. While abuse happend, the entire enterprise was not rotten.

The inquisition was built, as has been claimed, on a good reason–the Church and state needed to defend themselves against heresy to protect the stability of the society, because the entire society was based on adherence to a specific religion.

Chattel slavery (at least in America) was built on the need for the society to have an affordable, consistent workforce to provide enough labor to keep the agricultural base working and profitable–pretty much the same reasoning that has companies today sending their factories, etc overseas. Without this workforce, the economy would have collapsed, particularly in the American South, as the entire economy (and hence the society) was based on agriculture. The Northern states (which also had slavery from the beginning slavenorth.com/) were much less dependent on agriculture as an economic base. Their climate also did not lend itself to the type of agriculture that needed the huge workforces.

Politically, because slaves counted as 3/4 of a person in determining representation, without the slaves the Southern states would have had very little political power due to a smaller population (now, admittedly, this came later and wasn’t a reason to start, but did provide strong reason to continue).

Honestly, I don’t see a lot of difference here. Neither of them began for what they (or their societies at the time) deemed evil purposes and neither of them accomplished their goals with morally acceptable means (regardless of whether they were considered politically, economically or socially expedient in those societies). Once they became dependent on the means they had chosen to meet their goals, it became more and more difficult to control those means or for those who desired a different path to end them, even from the inside.

Interesting bit, btw, on the history of slavery from the Columbia Encyclopedia that I stumbled across answers.com/topic/slavery

"The introduction of Christianity toward the end of the Roman Empire had no effect on the abolition of slavery, since the church at that time did not oppose the institution. However, a change in economic life set in and resulted in the gradual disappearance of the agricultural slaves, who became, for all practical purposes, one with the coloni (tenant farmers who were technically free but were in fact bound to the land by debts). This process helped prepare the way for an economy in which the agricultural slave became the serf.

The semifreedom of serfdom was the dominant theme in the Middle Ages, although domestic slavery (and, to some extent, other forms) did not disappear. The church began to encourage manumission, while ignoring the fact that many slaves were attached to church officials and church property. Sale into slavery continued to be an extreme punishment for serious crimes."

 

[fix]

The inquisition was built, as has been claimed, on a good reason–the Church and state needed to defend themselves against heresy to protect the stability of the society, because the entire society was based on adherence to a specific religion.

OK

Chattel slavery (at least in America) was built on the need for the society to have an affordable, consistent workforce to provide enough labor to keep the agricultural base working and profitable–pretty much the same reasoning that has companies today sending their factories, etc overseas. Without this workforce, the economy would have collapsed, particularly in the American South, as the entire economy (and hence the society) was based on agriculture. The Northern states (which also had slavery from the beginning slavenorth.com/) were much less dependent on agriculture as an economic base. Their climate also did not lend itself to the type of agriculture that needed the huge workforces.

But the goal was achieved through evil means. So, slavery itself was wrong no matter the end desired.

Honestly, I don’t see a lot of difference here. Neither of them began for what they (or their societies at the time) deemed evil purposes and neither of them accomplished their goals with morally acceptable means (regardless of whether they were considered politically, economically or socially expedient in those societies).

Disagree. Chattel slavery is always evil. The inquisition was not evil and the means used were not always evil. This is why I think the comparison is unjust.

Once they became dependent on the means they had chosen to meet their goals, it became more and more difficult to control those means or for those who desired a different path to end them, even from the inside.

Again, one is always wrong. The other has the potential to be abused just as the law today may be abused.

 

[Rachel_Malloy]

Let’s find our way back to the topic of discussion.

Thank you-

Rachel

 

[Sixtus]

rr1213 posted:

Or the next time an infallable Papal pronouncement from 917 is cited…well, if the Papal proclamations from the time of the Inquisition aren’t trustworthy, then what can you do??

Only ask you when was the last infallible statement from his holiness?

How many infallible statements have there been in the last 1000-years? So few in fact that if you lived for 500-years, chances are you would not witness a single one of them!

 

[Ignatius]

A slippery slope this is. Proceed at your own risk.

It is really a matter of whose ox is being gored. There is plenty of blame on all sides. The simple fact is that at the time some accuse Catholics of religious cruelties, Protestants, and non-denoms were doing the same or worse.

In actual fact, as reputable histories will tell you. Anti-Catholic propaganda magnified the Inquisition beyond all measure. The Spanish Inquisition in 500 years executed around 3,000 - 6,000 people. Fewer than the Catholics Cromwell killed in one week in Ireland!

ENGLAND
King Henry erected a system built on fear, torture and death to back his attack on the Catholic Church. Criticising the king, calling him a heretic, or failing to agree that Henry was head of the church, were punished by **disembowelment whilst still alive, hanging and quartering. **In the end, even failing to denounce anyone else who criticised these things became treason. Guilty verdicts were ensured by the introduction of the “Double Grand Jury” which made the jury trying a case liable to face trial themselves by a second jury if they came up with the wrong verdict. Acts of Attainder, allowing the execution of victims without any trial whatsoever, were also introduced. All these things were needed to enforce the Reformation in England.

Abbots who refused to surrender their monasteries also fell victim: Letter of Richard Pollard to Thomas Cromwell, November 16, 1539

Pleaseth it your Lordship to be advertised that…[On November 15] the late abbot of Glastonbury went from Wells to Glastonbury, and there was drawn through the town upon a hurdle to the hill called the Torre, where he was put to execution; …Afore his execution [he] was examined upon divers articles and interrogatories to him ministered by me, but he could accuse no man of himself of any offence against the king’s highness, nor would he confess no more gold nor silver nor any other thing more than he did before your Lordship in the Tower…I suppose it will be near Christmas before I shall have surveyed the lands at Glastonbury, and take the audit there….

On 8 April, 1538, Friar Forrest was taken to Lambeth, where, before Cranmer, he was required to state that King Henry was Head of the Church. This, however, he firmly refused to do. Forrest was sentenced to death, and on the 22nd of May he was taken to Smithfield and burned. To add to the “godly” humour of this public spectacle, the friar was burnt over a bonfire of religious statuary.

After Catholics rose up in protest at the closing of the Monasteries in 1536, King Henry wrote: Our pleasure is that . . . you shall cause such dreadful execution to be done upon a good number of the inhabitants of every town, village, and hamlet that have offended, as they may be a fearful spectacle to all others hereafter that would practice any like matter. Hundreds were massacred at random in the Catholic areas.

Others disembowelled or burnt within months included:1534: Elizabeth Barton, q.v. (The Holy Maid of Kent), with five companions;John Dering, O.S.B., Edward Bocking, O.S.B., Hugh Rich, O.S.F., Richard Masters p., Henry Gold p., 1537. Monks, 28. - After the pilgrimage of grace and the rising of Lincolnshire many, probably several hundred, were executed, of whom no record remains. The following names, which do survive, are grouped under their respective abbeys or priories. - Barling: Matthew Mackerel, abbot and Bishop of Chalcedon, Ord. Præm. Bardney: John Tenent, William Cole, John Francis, William Cowper, Richard Laynton, Hugh Londale, monks. Bridlington: William Wood, Prior. Fountains: William Thyrsk, O. Cist. Guisborough: James Cockerel, Prior.Jervaulx: Adam Sedbar, Abbot; George Asleby, monk. Kirkstead: Richard Harrison, Abbott, Richard Wade, William Swale, Henry Jenkinson, monks. Lenten: Nicholas Heath, Prior; William Gylham, monk. Sawlet: William Trafford, Abbott; Richard Eastgate, monk. Whalley: John Paslew, Abbott; John Eastgate, William Haydock, monks. Woburn: Robert Hobbes, Abbott; Ralph Barnes, sub-prior; Laurence Blonham, monk. York: John Pickering, O.S.D., Prior. Place unknown: George ab Alba Rose, O.S.A. Priests: William Burraby, Thomas Kendale, John Henmarsh, James Mallet, John Pickering, Thomas Redforth. Lords: Darcy and Hussey.
(continued)

 

[Ignatius]

Over the next few reigns around 600 Catholic priests alone, and thousands of ordinary Catholics were disembowelled or otherwise murdered by Protestants because of their faith. Topcliffe, Elizabeth’s chief torturer, had a special house full of torture equipment to be used on Catholic priests. One elderly priest was tortured 12 separate times to gain information on other priests and believers.

CALVIN
Within a few years of Calvin coming to power in Geneva fifty-eight sentences of death and seventy-six of exile took place. Two examples:

1. James Gruet, was alleged to have posted a note which implied that Calvin should leave the city: He was at once arrested and a house to house search made for his accomplices. This method failed to reveal anything except that Gruet had written on one of Calvin’s tracts the words ‘all rubbish.’ The judges put him to the rack twice a day, morning and evening, for a whole month . . . He was sentenced to death for blasphemy and beheaded on July 26, 1547.
2. The Spanish Reformer Servetus had dared to criticize Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion” and began an angry correspondence with him. Calvin had his critic arrested. Calvin drew up forty articles of charges concerning the nature of God, infant baptism, and the attacks on his own teaching. On August 20, 1553, Calvin wrote: “I hope that Servetus will be condemned to death”

On October 26, the Council ordered that he be burned alive on the following day. Servetus took half an hour to die. Calvin noted: "'He showed the dumb stupidity of a beast . . . He went on bellowing . . . in the Spanish fashion: “Misericordias!” .
In 1554 Calvin wrote the treatise Against the Errors of Servetus, in which he tried to justify the execution: “Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that (they allege) I would like to kill again the man I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face.”
The modern-day Congregational, Prebyterian, Reformed, Baptist and many of the Charismatic churches, all look to this same Calvin as their founding spiritual authority.

Most of the other Reformers. Luther, Knox, Zwingli, also burnt, hung, drowned or otherwise executed their opponents.

The simple fact is that at the time some accuse Catholics of religious cruelties, Protestants, and non-denoms were doing the same or worse.

---

One would expect leaders of a new movement “reforming” the Church and supposedly correcting the “errors” of the historic Church to be beyond reproach in their behaviour and Christian lives. But what do we see? The opposite.

Luther was well known for his hot temper, pride and violent language, rather than for his saintliness and humility. He even heaped abuse on fellow-reformers like Zwingli and Bucer who disagreed with him. He encouraged the German Princes to seize church property in return for protection for the Reformation. Along with others, he issued a licence permitting the Landgrave of Hesse to keep 2 wives simultaneously. However worse was to come.
PEASANTS REVOLT
Inspired by the writings of Luther and others, which declared the Freedom of the Christian Man, and led by Thomas Muntzer, an ex-pupil of Luther’s, German peasants demanded to be freed from Serfdom, joining in the Great Peasants Revolt. They hoped for Luther’s support. But Luther owed his protection and high position to the German aristocrats. So instead, in a pamphlet entitled Against the Murderous Peasants, Luther told the princes and the nobility that it was right and lawful to slay at the first opportunity a rebellious person, “just as one must slay a mad dog.” Let all who are able, cut them down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in secret, and remember that there is nothing more poisonous, noxious and utterly devilish than a rebel… For we are come upon such strange times that a prince may more easily win heaven by the shedding of blood than others by prayers.
Urged on by their spiritual leader, the nobles and their armies suppressed the revolts with great savagery. In all more than 100,000 peasants were slain.

No excuse, but the fact is that the hands of the protestants was equally bloody if not more so.

 

[Sixtus]

Inatious posted:

It is really a matter of whose ox is being gored. There is plenty of blame on all sides. The simple fact is that at the time some accuse Catholics of religious cruelties, Protestants, and non-denoms were doing the same or worse.

In actual fact, as reputable histories will tell you. Anti-Catholic propaganda magnified the Inquisition beyond all measure. The Spanish Inquisition in 500 years executed around 3,000 - 6,000 people. Fewer than the Catholics Cromwell killed in one week in Ireland!

That is very tragic and less known.

 

[Sixtus]

Posted by Ignatious:

ENGLAND
King Henry erected a system built on fear, torture and death to back his attack on the Catholic Church. Criticising the king, calling him a heretic, or failing to agree that Henry was head of the church, were punished by *disembowelment whilst still alive, hanging and quartering. *In the end, even failing to denounce anyone else who criticised these things became treason. Guilty verdicts were ensured by the introduction of the “Double Grand Jury” which made the jury trying a case liable to face trial themselves by a second jury if they came up with the wrong verdict. Acts of Attainder, allowing the execution of victims without any trial whatsoever, were also introduced. All these things were needed to enforce the Reformation in England.

That much I did know!

 

[Sixtus]

Which by comparison makes my OWN claim seem very petty:

My OWN family was depossessed by Cromwell of everything they owned.

Prior to which, they had been a very powerful family [Gosnalds of Ottley Hall]. Cromwell could have imposed a punitive and crippling tax. He could have stolen half of it, that would have been greed, he could have stolen 95% of it, that would have been greed heaped upon greed and evil, but no, he did not want 95% he wanted the ruddy lot!

Employers of tenent farmers reduced to being employed by same as their labourers. But that is what they did to avoid starvation.

Cromwell is for me an armed thug, a criminal of heinious propensities.

What was the Gosnold’s crime? They refused to support his insatiatble desire to kill the King, it just was not a Catholic thing to do, we are supposed to honour our rightful leaders.

 

[Sixtus]

There has been mistakes on all sides, Catholic Prostestant Athiest and agnostic, contrary to popular belief, the latter two killed more in the last 100-years than the sum of all the others over the last 1000-years. So they have no excuse to throw stones either.

Why cannot we forgive and ask forgiveness from the other in order to move on instead of the constant bickering about who stolle whose haggis?

 

[mozart-250]

Question: what was the role of the Church of England in the Protestant persecution of Catholics in Britain/Ireland.

It has occurred to me that there could be various levels of involvement by the church in these matters (no matter whose ox is getting gored).

• Church was aware the sadism, cruelty, and torture was going on in its name and did nothing to stop it (passive approval).
• Church was a willing accomplice in the sadism, cruelty, and torture in its name.
• Church was an active perpetratrator of the sadism, cruelty, and torture in its name.

Now all three are wrong, but at the same time the three are not equivalent.

 

[Zooey]

Inatious posted:

It is really a matter of whose ox is being gored. There is plenty of blame on all sides.

Ah, yes, Cromwell…Only the other day, I was meandering about the net, and came upon a paeon of praise to the man…I’m still trying to figure out how I managed not to puke at the sight of it.
Now*** there*** was a villain. And how many Irish, right up to modern times, have suffered for his desire to make as much trouble for all of us as possible? This side of eternity, we may never know…
He was, of course, an equal opportunity hater. It was pretty much, “disagree with Oliver or even just be born Irish/Scots/Welsh/anything-but=100%-English-Puritan”, and he was off and running…

 

[Mirdath]

Yes, Cromwell was a monster; but this thread isn’t about Cromwell. We can start a whole new thread for Anglican/Calvinist/Pastafarian atrocities; this one is about those committed and ordered directly by the Roman Catholic Church.

 

[St_Violet]

question, since I am learning about the Inquistion, in SPain, Didn’t the Spanish monarchy and the Pope come to an agreement of who to sanction an inquititor in spain?, but in this case history has told me this choice was really more up to the Spanish king then the Pope

 

[Sixtus]

The Pope intervened on more occasions than our critics will give credit for

 

[mozart-250]

The Spanish Reformer Servetus had dared to criticize Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion” and began an angry correspondence with him. Calvin had his critic arrested. Calvin drew up forty articles of charges concerning the nature of God, infant baptism, and the attacks on his own teaching. On August 20, 1553, Calvin wrote: “I hope that Servetus will be condemned to death”

Ah good old Servetus.

Just for grins and giggles I decided to google Servetus John Calvin.

There are a number of reformed apologetics web sites that deal with this.

In browsing these sites, I thought I was back here reading the lame defenses of the Catholic inquisition by Catholics. In fact they were the same defenses, just applied differently (sheesh it was only one, he was a heretic, it really wasn’t Calvin doing it, ya gotta understand the history of the period, everyone else was doing it too, the Catholics killed 456,129,356 in their inquisition so they were far worse).

I guess the practice of blinded speck picking knows no denominational limits.