When did executing heretics become immoral?

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FiveLinden said:
The Church claims to be the same ‘yesterday, today and tomorrow’. Is it? What changed and when?
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God/ Jesus/ the Holy Spirit and Mother Mary stay the same. Their love for us stays the same. The truth of Jesus stays the same.

Men’s interpretations can be faulty and can change, adapt and evolve. There are many historic occasions where so-called Christians did not act in a loving way towards their fellows. And there are occasions today when they do not. Asking WWJD makes it pretty easy for me to see what is “of God” and what is “of men”.

The quest for secular power is behind a lot of the evils.
 
He did, and it was a very good answer. I’ve not responded to it yet because I’m investigating earlier from what she shared but @Melchior_1 s post was rather informative. I did forget to thank him.
 
I do not deny the errors of the past. Yet, mass coverage is not the correct stance.

Patting the numbers and ignoring the fact that the Church was not just an entity that existed along with the state but an entity that the state often used and abused is not the correct means by which reason should hold her accountable.

Sadly, in the minds of many poor Luther only survived the Church’s extreme power by sheer coincidence… even though there was plenty of time and manpower to take care of the bloke even before all of his “revolt” to spiritualize the world unfolded. Conversely, the hundreds of thousands that died due to Luther’s rebellion are still being blamed at the Church.

As I have offered to others, if you want to study Church history, I welcome the exercise, we can learn, together, about these incidents in the world’s history.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
Just as the US presidents did not go to war because the Church asked them to use diplomatic channels and sanctions instead–yeah, no American died in the Middle-East in the past two decades!

Maran atha!

Angel
 
The problem is as always… those who Believe in God, Faith is sufficient; those who do not believe, no amount of proof will convince them.

Have you noticed that there has been no reply to the post you’ve cited?

Maran atha!

Angel

PS: Just check out the post from “Five” That person, as well as others, continue to believe that the Church is evil because the Church existed in time.
 
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Of course the Church’s involvement in atrocities of the past has often been exaggerated. I don’t deny that at all. The Spanish Inquisition is a great example where the popular narrative is far bleaker than the historical reality.
Yet we don’t want to minimize the mistakes of the past.
 
Verdanty said:
He did, and it was a very good answer. I’ve not responded to it yet because I’m investigating earlier from what she shared but @Melchior_1 s post was rather informative. I did forget to thank him.
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Seems someone else has a problem with selective reading jcrichton. Scroll up.
 
I concur.

But it has been my experience that these “seekers” are not looking to uncover the truth but to create an “excuse” why they do not believe in God or why the Church is not Jesus’ Founded Church.

No amount of truth will help them give up on their quest.

No amount of reasonable comparison is good enough.

Consider the issue of “Christmas.” All the nonsense that goes with it from ‘no proof of Christ’s birth on Dec. 25’ to ‘stole from pagans.’

Reason would demonstrate that you can’t steal a celebration from anyone just because you celebrate a different thing on the same date that others do/have. Reason also demonstrates that it is not important to know when Jesus birthdate took place but that Christians Celebrate the Incarnation of the Word: the Immanuel: God-with-us.

So, again, I welcome you and anyone else to study Church history so that we can look at what actually took place, including as many factors as are available–correct numbers included.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
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No, not selective reading… I reply to post from the first (last engaged) to the last (last posted on the thread); posts 21 and 22 were not acknowledged till someone else flagged them on post 38 and your reply came on post 41; hence, my initial response.

Yet, I am glad that you have acknowledged them and are planning to reply.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
Torture was used, though Church law condemned anything that inflicted permanent bodily harm.
 
In all cases of people being put to death for heresy, they were killed because heresy was a capital offense according to the secular authorities.

Monarchies often didn’t like extreme heretics because they often civil unrest in society.

As far as I know, they Church herself never called for the execution of heretics, but that doesn’t mean that individual priests and bishops didn’t.

Also some clearly (including the Popes) also had secular roles in govt and from time to time may have had direct role in executions in their govt roll, but not their Church roll.

This situation often caused scandal, which is why priests and bishops are now prohibited from public office and why deacons must first receive permission before running for office.

The Church learned the hard way that few men can serve as both a priestly and political role at the same time.

God Bless
 
AlNg said:
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twf:
The Spanish Inquisition is a great example where the popular narrative is far bleaker than the historical reality.
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Were people tortured by the Inquisitors?
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  1. there was not such thing as an inquisitor. The people were arrested by the local officials and if the civil crime was blasphemy (which was a capital crime according the Spanish Civil authorities) then they were sent to the ecclesiastical court instead of the civil court.
The ecclesiastical courts were far more fair than secular courts, so much so that often criminals would commit blasphemy while in prison so they could be transferred to the ecclesiastical courts.

The thing to keep in mind regarding the inquisition (which has been blurred by English & Protestant propaganda against Spain and the Pope) is that the Inquisition was a function of the Spanish Crown, with the assistance of some clergy.

And the clergy’s goal was to bring the person back into the Church so they could avoid secular punishment.

But at the sametime, the tribunal was responsible for confirming the crime of blasphemy and/or heresy if the individual would not recant there crimes.

So again it was FAR MORE COMPLICATED because the Spanish Crown was a theocratic govt, esp at that time.
 
twf said:
St John Paul II apologized to the world for the Church’s role in such practices in times past.
Yes, the Church never technically executed anyone, but they certainly gave their blessing to the state to do so.
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To be clear, the Pope did not apologize for the Church’s role in anything. He apologized for wrong doings done by individual Catholic laity and clergy.

This is very clear in the documents of the commission he instated.
 
AlNg said:
Father Drinan was a congressman from Massachusetts.
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Yes, and he stopped being one, along with another priest (Father Robert Cornell who had been in Congress till 1978 and was in the process of running to reclaim his former seat) when Pope John Paul II ordered unequivocally that all priests had to leave public office.
 
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Father Jean Bertrand Aristide was president of Haiti,. He is worth about $800 million dollars.
 
Father Aristide was expelled from his order (Salesians) in 1988 due to his political activities. They had actually ordered him to leave the country earlier, and he did not go. As I understand it, he was at odds with Rome for years after that over his activities, before he finally quit the priesthood in 1994 and got married.

I am really not sure what point you are trying to make here, as it is quite clear that Rome strongly disapproves of priests holding political office and that if one persists anyway he is being disobedient. The Church may choose not to kick him out for any number of reasons, such as wanting to give him a chance to quit or not wanting to make a bad situation in some politically chaotic area worse, but they don’t just turn a blind eye and say that’s okay.
 
Yes, he was. And there was another in Wisconsin.

There were a number of exceptions until it became a strict law.

The law did not go into effect until St Pope John Paul II put it into
effect in 1980. At that time, both priests retired from politics.

Btw - Fr Drinan was perhaps one of the more damaging priests in American
history. His belief that abortion was infantside but should still be
totally legal was a scandal and one that cleared the way for many Catholic
Democrats to take up the same illogical and immoral position.

God Bless
 
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