Vatican II - Voice of The Church

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:If the Pope recognizes the intrinsic right of a Catholic prince to execute the law on his land, including, the right to put heretics to death, if, in the judgment of the Church and himself, such individuals constitute a thread to the public order and/or common good of his subjects, then there is absolutely no rupture with Tradition.

As for the idea of the "divine right" of Catholic princes, the arguments for that were set forth in the Wikipedia article which I posted:

Don’t bother, for none of your references even remotely suggest that there exists some alleged “intrinsic right of a Catholic prince … to put heretics to death, if, in the judgment of the Church and himself, such individuals constitute a thread to the public order and/or common good of his subjects, then there is absolutely no rupture with Tradition.”

Palpable nonsense, there is no such "intrinsic right of a Catholic prince", and never has been.

Condemned error: 33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit. ([i]Exsurge Domine)

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:If the Pope recognizes the intrinsic right of a Catholic prince to execute the law on his land, including, the right to put heretics to death, if, in the judgment of the Church and himself, such individuals constitute a thread to the public order and/or common good of his subjects, then there is absolutely no rupture with Tradition.

As for the idea of the "divine right" of Catholic princes, the arguments for that were set forth in the Wikipedia article which I posted:

Don’t bother, for none of your references even remotely suggest that there exists some alleged “intrinsic right" of a Catholic prince … to put heretics to death. ...”

Palpable nonsense, there is no such "intrinsic right of a Catholic prince", and never has been.

So, are you saying that Catholic princes sinned in putting heretics to death?

Jehanne wrote:Or, that the Church, through her Inquisitions, sinned in trying them for heresy?

Jehanne wrote:Did Catholic princes have an intrinsic right to put murderers and/or rapists to death? Traitors? Those guilty of fraud? If so, why not heretics, who would "murder the soul"?

Jehanne wrote:

Condemned error: 33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit. (Exsurge Domine)

Explain this.

Jehanne wrote:
P.S. I did not read any of the other stuff which you posted; it's just too long, so I am going to focus on the above, which speaks to the central issue at hand. If it is not intrinsically evil to punish heretics with death at the stake, then what, exactly, is wrong about a legitimate Catholic government punishing such individuals who are, in fact, guilty of that sin and crime?

MRyan wrote:As legitimate sovereigns (temporal rulers), they had the right to inflict capital punishment, but they had no “intrinsic right” to execute anyone for spiritual sins against the faith (e.g., heresy). Truth is stronger than any heresy.

[Sentence against John Hus]

The most holy general council of Constance, divinely assembled and representing the catholic church, for an everlasting record. Since a bad tree is wont to bear bad fruit, as truth itself testifies, so it is that John Wyclif, of cursed memory, by his deadly teaching, like a poisonous root, has brought forth many noxious sons, not in Christ Jesus through the gospel, as once the holy fathers brought forth faithful sons, but rather contrary to the saving faith of Christ, and he has left these sons as successors to his perverse teaching. This holy synod of Constance is compelled to act against these men as against spurious and illegitimate sons, and to cut away their errors from the Lord's field as if they were harmful briars, by means of vigilant care and the knife of ecclesiastical authority, lest they spread as a cancer to destroy others. Although, therefore, it was decreed at the sacred general council recently held at Rome that the teaching of John Wyclif, of cursed memory, should be condemned and the books of his containing this teaching should be burnt as heretical; although his teaching was in fact condemned and his books burnt as containing false and dangerous doctrine; and although a decree of this kind was approved by the authority of this present sacred council ; nevertheless a certain John Hus, here present in person at this sacred council, who is a disciple not of Christ but rather of the heresiarch John Wyclif, boldly and rashly contravening the condemnation and the decree after their enactment, has taught, asserted and preached many errors and heresies of John Wyclif which have been condemned both by God's church and by other reverend fathers in Christ, lord archbishops and bishops of various kingdoms, and masters in theology at many places of study. He has done this especially by publicly resisting in the schools and in sermons, together with his accomplices, the condemnation in scholastic form of the said articles of John Wyclif which has been made many times at the university of Prague, and he has declared the said John Wyclif to be a catholic man and an evangelical doctor, thus supporting his teaching, before a multitude of clergy and people. He has asserted and published certain articles listed below and many others, which are condemned and which are, as is well known, contained in the books and pamphlets of the said John Hus. Full information has been obtained about the aforesaid matters, and there has been careful deliberation by the most reverend fathers in Christ, lord cardinals of the holy Roman church, patriarchs archbishops, bishops and other prelates and doctors of holy scripture and of both laws, in large numbers. This most holy synod of Constance therefore declares and defines that the articles listed below, which have been found on examination, by many masters in sacred scripture, to be contained in his books and pamphlets written in his own hand, and which the same John Hus at a public hearing, before the fathers and prelates of this sacred council, has confessed to be contained in his books and pamphlets, are not catholic and should not be taught to be such but rather many of them are erroneous, others scandalous, others offensive to the ears of the devout, many of them are rash and seditious, and some of them are notoriously heretical and have long ago been rejected and condemned by holy fathers and by general councils, and it strictly forbids them to be preached, taught or in any way approved. Moreover, since the articles listed below are explicitly contained in his books or treatises, namely in the book entitled De ecclesia and in his other pamphlets, this most holy synod therefore reproves and condemns the aforesaid books and his teaching, as well as the other treatises and pamphlets written by him in Latin or in Czech, or translated by one or more other persons into any other language, and it decrees and determines that they should be publicly and solemnly burnt in the presence of the clergy and people in the city of Constance and elsewhere. On account of the above, moreover, all his teaching is and shall be deservedly suspect regarding the faith and is to be avoided by all of Christ's faithful. In order that this pernicious teaching may be eliminated from the midst of the church, this holy synod also orders that local ordinaries make careful inquiry about treatises and pamphlets of this kind, using the church's censures and even if necessary the punishment due for supporting heresy, and that they be publicly burnt when they have been found. This same holy synod decrees that local ordinaries and inquisitors of heresy are to proceed against any who violate or defy this sentence and decree as if they were persons suspected of heresy.

[Sentence of degradation against J. Hus]

Moreover, the acts and deliberations of the inquiry into heresy against the aforesaid John Hus have been examined. There was first a faithful and full account made by the commissioners deputed for the case and by other masters of theology and doctors of both laws, concerning the acts and deliberations and the depositions of very many trustworthy witnesses. These depositions were openly and publicly read out to the said John Hus before the fathers and prelates of this sacred council. It is very clearly established from the depositions of these witnesses that the said John has taught many evil, scandalous and seditious things, and dangerous heresies, and has publicly preached them during many years. This most holy synod of Constance, invoking Christ's name and having God alone before its eyes, therefore pronounces, decrees and defines by this definitive sentence, which is here written down, that the said John Hus was and is a true and manifest heretic and has taught and publicly preached, to the great offence of the divine Majesty, to the scandal of the universal church and to the detriment of the catholic faith, errors and heresies that have long ago been condemned by God's church and many things that are scandalous, offensive to the ears of the devout, rash and seditious, and that he has even despised the keys of the church and ecclesiastical censures. He has persisted in these things for many years with a hardened heart. He has greatly scandalised Christ's faithful by his obstinacy since, bypassing the church's intermediaries, he has made appeal directly to our lord Jesus Christ, as to the supreme judge, in which he has introduced many false, harmful and scandalous things to the contempt of the apostolic see, ecclesiastical censures and the keys. This holy synod therefore pronounces the said John Hus, on account of the aforesaid and many other matters, to have been a heretic and it judges him to be considered and condemned as a heretic, and it hereby condemns him. It rejects the said appeal of his as harmful and scandalous and offensive to the church's jurisdiction. It declares that the said John Hus seduced the christian people, especially in the kingdom of Bohemia, in his public sermons and in his writings; and that he was not a true preacher of Christ's gospel to the same christian people, according to the exposition of the holy doctors, but rather was a seducer. Since this most holy synod has learnt from what it has seen and heard, that the said John Hus is obstinate and incorrigible and as such does not desire to return to the bosom of holy mother the church, and is unwilling to abjure the heresies and errors which he has publicly defended and preached, this holy synod of Constance therefore declares and decrees that the same John Hus is to be deposed and degraded from the order of the priesthood and from the other orders held by him. It charges the reverend fathers in Christ, the archbishop of Milan and the bishops of Feltre Asti, Alessandria, Bangor and Lavour with duly carrying out the degradation in the presence of this most holy synod, in accordance with the procedure required by law.

[Sentence condemning J. Hus to the stake]

This holy synod of Constance, seeing that God's church has nothing more that it can do, relinquishes John Hus to the judgment of the secular authority and decrees that he is to be relinquished to the secular court.

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:As legitimate sovereigns (temporal rulers), they had the right to inflict capital punishment, but they had no “intrinsic right” to execute anyone for spiritual sins against the faith (e.g., heresy). Truth is stronger than any heresy.

Well, that's your interpretation of Dignitatis humanae, and if that is really the teaching of DF, then, I agree with the SSPX/SSPV/CMRI, etc., that Vatican II promulgated error. However, the Council never said that, at least not "explicitly". (It can, I admit, be an implicit reading of the text.)

Jehanne wrote:So, what you saying is that when the Council of Constance, the 16th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, condemned Jon Hus to be burned alive at the stake, that Council may have sinned or at least erred:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Constance

In particular, you believe the following from that Council, to be in error:

[Sentence against John Hus]

"to cut away their errors from the Lord's field as if they were harmful briars, by means of vigilant care and the knife of ecclesiastical authority, lest they spread as a cancer to destroy others. Although, therefore, it was decreed at the sacred general council recently held at Rome that the teaching of John Wyclif, of cursed memory, should be condemned and the books of his containing this teaching should be burnt as heretical; although his teaching was in fact condemned and his books burnt as containing false and dangerous doctrine;

On account of the above, moreover, all his teaching is and shall be deservedly suspect regarding the faith and is to be avoided by all of Christ's faithful. In order that this pernicious teaching may be eliminated from the midst of the church, this holy synod also orders that local ordinaries make careful inquiry about treatises and pamphlets of this kind, using the church's censures and even if necessary the punishment due for supporting heresy, and that they be publicly burnt when they have been found. This same holy synod decrees that local ordinaries and inquisitors of heresy are to proceed against any who violate or defy this sentence and decree as if they were persons suspected of heresy.

This holy synod of Constance, seeing that God's church has nothing more that it can do, relinquishes John Hus to the judgment of the secular authority and decrees that he is to be relinquished to the secular court.

Jehanne wrote:But, my interpretation of the Council of Constance is just "my problem," right? You cannot help at all to understand my confusion, can you?

Jehanne wrote:Did the Council of Constance, an ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church, err in condemning Jon Hus to the stake? Did that Council promulgate error or sin in its actions???

CANON 3

Text. We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that raises against the holy, orthodox and Catholic faith which we have above explained; condemning all heretics under whatever names they may be known, for while they have different faces they are nevertheless bound to each other by their tails, since in all of them vanity is a common element. Those condemned, being handed over to the secular rulers of their bailiffs, let them be abandoned, to be punished with due justice, clerics being first degraded from their orders. As to the property of the condemned, if they are laymen, let it be confiscated; if clerics, let it be applied to the churches from which they received revenues. But those who are only suspected, due consideration being given to the nature of the suspicion and the character of the person, unless they prove their innocence by a proper defense, let them be anathematized and avoided by all 1-intil they have made suitable satisfaction; but if they have been under excommunication for one year, then let them be condemned as heretics. Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.

Condemned Error 33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.

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.

Jehanne wrote:Wow, I am glad that the Council of Constance was only guilty of an "abuse of power" and not something worse like "complicity in murder" for the execution of Jon Hus.

Jehanne wrote:But, let's consider this canon from the Fourth Lateran Council:

CANON 3

Text. We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that raises against the holy, orthodox and Catholic faith which we have above explained; condemning all heretics under whatever names they may be known, for while they have different faces they are nevertheless bound to each other by their tails, since in all of them vanity is a common element. Those condemned, being handed over to the secular rulers of their bailiffs, let them be abandoned, to be punished with due justice, clerics being first degraded from their orders. As to the property of the condemned, if they are laymen, let it be confiscated; if clerics, let it be applied to the churches from which they received revenues. But those who are only suspected, due consideration being given to the nature of the suspicion and the character of the person, unless they prove their innocence by a proper defense, let them be anathematized and avoided by all 1-intil they have made suitable satisfaction; but if they have been under excommunication for one year, then let them be condemned as heretics. Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.asp

“This right,”’ the Pope said, “has, indeed, been exercised by Popes in extreme cases, but the right has absolutely nothing in common with Papal Infallibility. It was a result of the Jus publicum then in force by the consent of Christian nations, who recognized in the Pope the supreme judge of Christendom, and constituted him judge over princes and peoples even in temporal matters. The present situation is quite different. Nothing but bad faith could confound things so different and ages so dissimilar; as if an infallible judgment delivered upon some revealed truth had any analogy with a prerogative which the Popes, solicited by the desire of the people, have had to exercise when the public weal demanded it! Such statements are nothing but a mere pretext to excite princes against the Church.”

Jehanne wrote:As for Exsurge Domine, I don't think that you are reading it correctly:

Condemned Error 33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.

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.

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm

MRyan wrote:Again, the example of divorce being permitted under the Law of Moses is a case in point. Adultery was not at that time “against the will of the Spirit”, but today - it is.

If the fire was large (for instance, when a number of prisoners were executed at the same time), death often came from carbon monoxide poisoning before flames actually caused harm to the body. If the fire was small, however, the convict would burn for some time until death from heatstroke, shock, the loss of blood and/or simply the thermal decomposition of vital body parts.

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Jehanne wrote:Mike,

Regardless of what you think of the various Catholic Inquisitions who sent some obstinate heretics to the stake for over 1,000 years, their "success rates" were actually quite high.

Jehanne wrote: As historians like to say, "facts are facts," and the fact is that most to nearly all heretics brought before the various Inquisitions were reconciled to the Catholic Church and went on to live normal lives in their Catholic societies.

The historian Hernando del Pulgar, contemporary of Ferdinand and Isabella, estimated that the Spanish Inquisition had burned at the stake 2,000 people by 1490 (just one decade after the Inquisition began).

Jehanne wrote:Even Jon Hus, whom you so love to defend, was, repeatedly, offered chances to recant his heretical views right up to the moment of his immolation, and after constant refusals, was subsequently burned alive at the stake.

Jehanne wrote:Seem cruel? Probably not:

When this method of execution was applied with skill, the condemned’s body would burn progressively in the following sequence: calves, thighs and hands, torso and forearms, breasts, upper chest, face; and then finally death. On other occasions, people died from suffocation with only their calves on fire. Several records report that victims took over two hours to die. In many burnings a rope was attached to the convict’s neck passing through a ring on the stake and they were simultaneously strangled and burnt.

The Greek tyrant Phalaris, of Akragas in Sicily, is said to have roasted his enemies alive in a brazen bull; it was devised for him by a workman named Perillus or Perilaos, who made it so that the screams of the victims sounded like the roaring of a bull; when Perillus asked for his reward, he became the first victim.[1] Phalaris was later executed in his brazen bull.

Burning was used as a means of execution in many ancient societies. According to ancient reports, Roman authorities executed many of the early Christian martyrs by burning, sometimes by means of the tunica molesta, a flammable tunic.

According to Julius Caesar, the ancient Celts executed thieves and prisoners of war by burning them to death inside giant “wicker men”.

Indigenous North Americans often used burning as a form of execution, either against members of other tribes or against white settlers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Roasting over a slow fire was a customary method.

Under the Byzantine Empire, burning was introduced as a punishment for disobedient Zoroastrians, because of the belief that they worshiped fire.

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565) ordered death by fire, intestacy, and confiscation of all possessions by the State to be the punishment for heresy against the Christian faith in his Codex Iustiniani (CJ 1.5.), ratifying the decrees of his predecessors the Emperors Arcadius and Flavius Augustus Honorius.

In 1184, the Roman Catholic Synod of Verona legislated that burning was to be the official punishment for heresy. It was also believed that the condemned would have no body to be resurrected in the Afterlife.[dubious – discuss] This decree was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, the Synod of Toulouse in 1229, and numerous spiritual and secular leaders through the 17th century.

No modern state conducts executions by burning, apart from a mass execution in North Korea in the late 1990s.[14] Like all capital punishment, it is forbidden to members of the Council of Europe by the European Convention on Human Rights. It was never routinely practiced in the United States and in any case the Supreme Court while ruling on Firing Squads in Wilkerson v. Utah from 1879 incidentally determined that it was cruel and unusual punishment.

However, modern-day burnings still occur. In South Africa for example, extrajudicial execution by burning was done via a method called necklacing where rubber tires filled with kerosene (or gasoline) are placed around the neck of a live individual. The fuel is then ignited, the rubber melts, and the victim is burnt to death.[15][16] In Rio de Janeiro, burning people standing inside a pile of tires is a common form of murder used by drug dealers to punish those who have supposedly collaborated with the police. This form of burning is called microondas, “the microwave”. The movie Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) and video game Max Payne 3 have scenes depicting this practice.[17]

A former Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate officer writing under the alias Victor Suvorov, described in his book Aquarium a Soviet traitor being burnt alive in a crematorium.[18] There has been some speculation[19] that the identity of this officer was Oleg Penkovsky, however during his radio interview to Russian station Echo of Moscow Vladimir Rezun (alias Victor Suvorov) denied this, saying "I never mentioned it was Penkovsky" [20] No executed GRU traitors (Penkovsky aside) are known matching scant Suvorov's description given in "Aquarium"[21][22]

During the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary riot, a number of inmates were burnt to death by fellow inmates, who used blow torches.

One of the most notorious extrajudicial burnings of modern times occurred in Waco, Texas in the USA on 15 May 1916. Jesse Washington, a mentally challenged African American farmhand, after having been convicted of the murder of a white woman, was taken by a mob to a bonfire, castrated, doused in coal oil, and hanged by the neck from a chain over the bonfire, slowly burning to death. A postcard from the event still exists, showing a crowd standing next to Washington’s charred corpse with the words on the back “This is the barbecue we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe”. This event attracted international condemnation, and is remembered as the Waco Horror.

In the late 1990s, a number of North Korean army generals were executed by being burnt alive inside the Rungrado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea.[14]

In Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, there were 400 cases of the burning of women in 2006. In Iraqi Kurdistan, at least 255 women had been killed in just the first six months of 2007, three-quarters of them by burning.[23]

It was reported on 21 May 2008, that in Kenya a mob had burnt to death at least 11 people accused of witchcraft.[24]

On 19 June 2008, the Taliban in Sadda, Lower Kurram, Pakistan burnt alive three truck drivers of the Turi tribe after attacking a convoy of trucks en route from Kohat to Parachinar.[25]

Jehanne wrote:

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.

2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68

Jehanne wrote:So, you see, even judicial torture has spiritual benefits. As the Church has always taught, "It's pay me or pay me later." You can do penance in this life or due it in the next, assuming, of course, that one escapes eternal Hell.

Jehanne wrote:As for what our Lord said, let's review that again:

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

If the above verse is not a clear affirmation of the death penalty for heretics, then, pray tell, what could our Lord have said any differently? "I am so sorry, my Lord, for having taken your Word so literally?" If there was a case of "invincible ignorance," then I must be in that class, the present Pope's (and his immediate predecessors) ambiguous statements notwithstanding.

Nor is this without its particular fruit; for it frequently happens, that whom good counsel cannot move, prayers and tears, and the relation of the dismal consequences attendant on sin, bring to repentance. This also manifests his tenderness and boundless charity, since he weeps over the people, who of all others most contradicted him. S. Chrys. hom. lx.

A man who has fallen into error does not cease to be a man. He never forfeits his personal dignity; and that is something that must always be taken into account. Besides, there exists in man's very nature an undying capacity to break through the barriers of error and seek the road to truth. God, in His great providence, is ever present with His aid. Today, maybe, a man lacks faith and turns aside into error; tomorrow, perhaps, illumined by God's light, he may indeed embrace the truth.

Jehanne wrote:However, in your case, all infants who perish before the Age of Reason go to Heaven, either with the assurance of having had sacramental Baptism or at least with the "certain hope" if they had died without it.

Jehanne wrote:This new theology allows you to say that Jon Hus, and people like him, are our "separated brethren", because Jon Hus, like so many Protestants, denies infant baptism. So, Jon Hus, and predecessor, John Wickliffe, did not cause any real harm to anyone even if they convinced large scores of parents not to baptize their newborn babies. No matter, all those babes are in Heaven anyway, for "Truth is stronger than heresy!" Human actions be damned!!

Jehanne wrote:It seems that the only individuals destined for Hell are serial murders and/or rapists along with traditional Catholics, the latter for at least not having fulfilled their Sunday obligation for having attended SSPX Masses.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:Mike,

Regardless of what you think of the various Catholic Inquisitions who sent some obstinate heretics to the stake for over 1,000 years, their "success rates" were actually quite high.

Yes, burning at the stake had about a 100% success rate in accomplishing its intended objective, death.

Most individuals tried before the various Inquisitions recanted and were not burned.

MRyan wrote:

The historian Hernando del Pulgar, contemporary of Ferdinand and Isabella, estimated that the Spanish Inquisition had burned at the stake 2,000 people by 1490 (just one decade after the Inquisition began).

I suppose, relatively speaking, an average of 200 stake burnings per year isn't bad, considering the number of trials and the times; but its still 2000 too many for the Church today (and the Church of the Fathers).

MRyan wrote:Why do you say that I “love to defend” Jon Hus, when I do no such thing? To say that burning at the stake is barbaric, and to say that to execute someone for spiritual sins can no longer be justified (its immoral), is NOT to “defend” Jon Hus or his heresies.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:Seem cruel? Probably not:

Oh no, not “cruel” at all (from the same wikipedia article):

When this method of execution was applied with skill...

MRyan wrote:

In 1184, the Roman Catholic Synod of Verona legislated that burning was to be the official punishment for heresy. It was also believed that the condemned would have no body to be resurrected in the Afterlife.[dubious – discuss] This decree was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, the Synod of Toulouse in 1229, and numerous spiritual and secular leaders through the 17th century.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.

I’m sorry, maybe I missed something, but since when is burning a heretic at the stake “willingly accepted by the guilty party”? Are you daft?

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:So, you see, even judicial torture has spiritual benefits. As the Church has always taught, "It's pay me now or pay me later." You can do penance in this life or due it in the next, assuming, of course, that one escapes eternal Hell.

I “see” no such thing, for whatever spiritual benefit may be derived from a heretic truly recanting of his heresy before death, there is no proof of this in any measure that can justify such barbarity as burning at the stake (and executions in general for spiritual crimes), and the possible negative spiritual effects on the population at large is grave indeed. You cannot convert heretics (and those associated with them) (true conversion – not conversion by torture and the threat of death) by executing them – it doesn’t work.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:As for what our Lord said, let's review that again:

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

If the above verse is not a clear affirmation of the death penalty for heretics, then, pray tell, what could our Lord have said any differently? "I am so sorry, my Lord, for having taken your Word so literally?" If there was a case of "invincible ignorance," then I must be in that class, the present Pope's (and his immediate predecessors) ambiguous statements notwithstanding.

Our Lord was neither sanctioning nor condemning capital punishment; he was using a metaphor his audience could relate to (possibly relating to the fact that “The ancient punishment among the Greeks for sacrilege was drowning, with a mill-stone fastened about the neck, according to Diodorus Siculus”, see Haydock) in order to tell us in graphic terms what the grave sin of scandal deserves, and what the unrepentant can expect at his judgment. It is similar to his statement that it would have been better for Judas to never have been born than to have committed the sin of despair after having betrayed our Lord (a sin against the Holy Spirit). He says such things for affect, without telling us if Judas might have repented before reaching the end of his rope – for that’s between Our Lord and Judas.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:However, in your case, all infants who perish before the Age of Reason go to Heaven, either with the assurance of having had sacramental Baptism or at least with the "certain hope" if they had died without it.

You are a bit reckless “with the assurance” that “all infants who perish before the Age of Reason [sic] go to Heaven”, for, in the case of unbaptized infants, we are assured (justified) in having a “certain hope”, but we are not “assured” of their salvation. Do you deliberately mangle the truth, or you just can’t help yourself? This reminds me of Columba saying “Unfortunately since VII we are led to believe that ignorance is bliss” and “if they are invincibly ignorant they are infallibly lost even if not because of their inculpable ignorance.”

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:This new theology allows you to say that Jon Hus, and people like him, are our "separated brethren", because Jon Hus, like so many Protestants, denies infant baptism. So, Jon Hus, and predecessor, John Wickliffe, did not cause any real harm to anyone even if they convinced large scores of parents not to baptize their newborn babies. No matter, all those babes are in Heaven anyway, for "Truth is stronger than heresy!" Human actions be damned!!

Jon Hus was found culpable for his heresy, and judged a heretic. That is NOT in dispute, only that his being burned at the stake probably caused more harm than good, and that such acts can no longer be justified.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:It seems that the only individuals destined for Hell are serial murders and/or rapists along with traditional Catholics, the latter for at least not having fulfilled their Sunday obligation for having attended SSPX Masses.

The latter, the Church teaches, can fulfill their Sunday obligation at SSPX Masses so long as they do not imbibe in the spirit of the original schism. Judging by some of the comments found on rad-trad forums, the spirit of schism lives.

Why are you so obsessed with who and who is not destined for Hell?

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:Mike,

Regardless of what you think of the various Catholic Inquisitions who sent some obstinate heretics to the stake for over 1,000 years, their "success rates" were actually quite high.

Yes, burning at the stake had about a 100% success rate in accomplishing its intended objective, death.

Yes, indeed, and may the One and Triune God Bless those Inquisitors, some of whom are canonized Saints of the Catholic Church. But, you miss, my point:

Most individuals tried before the various Inquisitions recanted and were not burned.

That's a fact, disputed by no one!

If the accused at once made full and free confession, the affair was soon concluded, and not to the disadvantage of the accused. But in most instances the accused entered denial even after swearing on the Four Gospels, and this denial was stubborn in the measure that the testimony was incriminating. David of Augsburg (cf. Preger, "Der Traktat des David von Augshurg uber die Waldenser", Munich, 1878 pp. 43 sqq.) pointed out to the inquisitor four methods of extracting open acknowledgment:

- fear of death, i.e. by giving the accused to understand that the stake awaited him if he would not confess;
- more or less close confinement, possibly emphasized by curtailment of food;
- visits of tried men, who would attempt to induce free confession through friendly persuasion;
- torture, which will be discussed below.

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

The historian Hernando del Pulgar, contemporary of Ferdinand and Isabella, estimated that the Spanish Inquisition had burned at the stake 2,000 people by 1490 (just one decade after the Inquisition began).

I suppose, relatively speaking, an average of 200 stake burnings per year isn't bad, considering the number of trials and the times; but its still 2000 too many for the Church today (and the Church of the Fathers).

So, what was the alternative, Mike??? Let heretics, such as Jon Hus, spread their poisonous lies throughout a Catholic Kingdom?

The ecclesiastical ideas of the first five centuries may be summarized as follows:

- the Church should for no cause shed blood (St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Leo I, and others);
- other teachers, however, like Optatus of Mileve and Priscillian, believed that the State could pronounce the death penalty on heretics in case the public welfare demanded it;
- the majority held that the death penalty for heresy, when not civilly criminal, was irreconcilable with the spirit of Christianity.

(See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm)

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:Why do you say that I “love to defend” Jon Hus, when I do no such thing? To say that burning at the stake is barbaric, and to say that to execute someone for spiritual sins can no longer be justified (its immoral), is NOT to “defend” Jon Hus or his heresies.

What was the alternative, Mike? Imprison Hus? Now, that would have been barbaric?! (There were, of course, no prisons in the Middle Ages; such is a recent development.)

The inquisition of the Middle Ages The hardest penalties were imprisonment in its various degrees, exclusion from the communion of the Church, and the usually consequent surrender to the civil power. "Cum ecclesia" ran the regular expression, "ultra non habeat quod faciat pro suis demeritis contra ipsum, idcirco, eundum reliquimus brachio et iudicio saeculari" — i.e. since the Church can no farther punish his misdeeds, she leaves him to the civil authority.

In the Middle Ages the Church founded religious orders which bound themselves by vow to the redemption of captives; the Trinitarians, or Mathurins, established in 1198 by St. John of Matha and Felix de Valois, and the Nolascans, founded in 1223. In Spain, France, and especially Italy, there were, moreover, associations or confraternities labouring to improve the condition of prisoners: the Confraternità della Misericordia and the Compagnia di Santa Maria della croce al Tempio detta de Neri at Florence, the Pia Casa di Misericordia at Pisa, the Casa della pieta at Venice, etc. Besides the prisons depending on the State, there were prisons under the control of the religious authorities. Each convent had one or at times two prisons in which religious were incarcerated. The term of imprisonment was temporal or perpetual. The culprit had to do penance and amend his ways. He was isolated and often chained. Generally the discipline was severe; not unfrequently corporal punishment was added to incarceration and the prisoner put on bread and water. The Church had the right to punish clerics for penal offences and had its own episcopal prisons, but from the middle of the sixteenth century, as a result of the changed relations of Church and State, the privilegium fori disappeared and the State resumed its right of punishing clerics in non-religious matters. In the episcopal prisons clerics were treated more gently than were the monks in convent prisons, nevertheless in certain cases the discipline was very rigorous. The Church had jurisdiction also over the laity in offences of a religious character. Finally, it created a new procedure, differing from the ordinary, viz. The inquisitorial procedure in cases of heresy. Imprisonment was the severest punishment the inquisitors could inflict directly. According to the inquisitional theory, it was not really a punishment, but a means for the culprit to obtain pardon for his crimes, and to amend and be converted, while close supervision prevented him from infecting the rest of the flock. The prisoners were subjected to two regimes: the severe and the milder; but, in either case, the captive was given only bread and water; he was confined to a cell, and forbidden all communication, though the latter provision was not strictly enforced. Those under the milder discipline could, if they behaved well, take a little exercise in the corridors, a privilege granted also to the aged and infirm. Those condemned to the severe regime were cast fettered into a narrow dark cell; sometimes they were chained to the walls. The prisons were constructed without any regard to the health or convenience of the inmates, and the condition of the latter was wretched. The Inquisition sometimes commuted or remitted the punishment. The remission was ad tempus, for a longer or shorter period, according to the case.

The Spanish Inquisition, however, properly begins with the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella.[...]

Before long complaints of grievous abuses reached Rome, and were only too well founded. In a Brief of Sixtus IV of 29 January 1482, they were blamed for having, upon the alleged authority of papal Briefs, unjustly imprisoned many people, subjected them to cruel tortures, declared them false believers, and sequestrated the property of the executed. They were at first admonished to act only in conjunction with the bishops, and finally were threatened with deposition, and would indeed have been deposed had not Their Majesties interceded for them. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm)

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:Seem cruel? Probably not:

Oh no, not “cruel” at all (from the same wikipedia article):

When this method of execution was applied with skill...

Most executioners did not do that.

Jehanne wrote:Who cares what non-Catholics did.

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

In 1184, the Roman Catholic Synod of Verona legislated that burning was to be the official punishment for heresy. It was also believed that the condemned would have no body to be resurrected in the Afterlife.[dubious – discuss] This decree was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, the Synod of Toulouse in 1229, and numerous spiritual and secular leaders through the 17th century.

So, you're saying that Church Councils erred? Legislated punishments which were immoral?

Jehanne wrote:Those executions were fundamentally different than ecclesiastical executions during the Middle Ages. Once again, Jon Hus was the decisions offered mercy at least several times before his execution; he refused.

He refused all formulæ of submission, again declared himself conscious of no error, nor, as he said, had any been proved against him from the Scriptures. He declared that he would not condemn the truth, nor perjure himself. His books were burned by order of the council (24 June). New efforts to obtain a retractation proved fruitless. He was brought for final sentence before the fifteenth session (6 July, 1415), at which the emperor assisted, and on which occasion thirty propositions, taken mostly from the work of Hus "On the Church" (De Ecclesiâ), were read publicly. He refused to retract anything and so was condemned as a heretic, deposed, and degraded, and handed over to the secular arm, which in turn condemned him to perish at the stake, at that time the usual legal punishment of convicted heretics. He suffered that cruel death with self-possession and courage and when about to expire cried out, it is said: "Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on us!" His ashes were thrown into the Rhine. Owing largely to the dramatic circumstances of his death, he became at once the hero of Bohemian patriotism and the martyr-saint of multitudes in Bohemia and elsewhere who shared his demagogic and revolutionary principles…

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.

I’m sorry, maybe I missed something, but since when is burning a heretic at the stake “willingly accepted by the guilty party”? Are you daft?

Uh, Hus accepted it, did he not?

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:So, you see, even judicial torture has spiritual benefits. As the Church has always taught, "It's pay me now or pay me later." You can do penance in this life or due it in the next, assuming, of course, that one escapes eternal Hell.

I “see” no such thing, for whatever spiritual benefit may be derived from a heretic truly recanting of his heresy before death, there is no proof of this in any measure that can justify such barbarity as burning at the stake (and executions in general for spiritual crimes), and the possible negative spiritual effects on the population at large is grave indeed. You cannot convert heretics (and those associated with them) (true conversion – not conversion by torture and the threat of death) by executing them – it doesn’t work.

Then the One and Triune God is a tyrant for having created Hell and for sending individuals there for all Eternity. Or, perhaps, Hell does not even exist?! If burning at the stake is barbaric, then God is a cosmic barbarian! (You're not too far from modernism or even atheism.)

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:As for what our Lord said, let's review that again:

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

If the above verse is not a clear affirmation of the death penalty for heretics, then, pray tell, what could our Lord have said any differently? "I am so sorry, my Lord, for having taken your Word so literally?" If there was a case of "invincible ignorance," then I must be in that class, the present Pope's (and his immediate predecessors) ambiguous statements notwithstanding.

Our Lord was neither sanctioning nor condemning capital punishment; he was using a metaphor his audience could relate to (possibly relating to the fact that “The ancient punishment among the Greeks for sacrilege was drowning, with a mill-stone fastened about the neck, according to Diodorus Siculus”, see Haydock) in order to tell us in graphic terms what the grave sin of scandal deserves, and what the unrepentant can expect at his judgment. It is similar to his statement that it would have been better for Judas to never have been born than to have committed the sin of despair after having betrayed our Lord (a sin against the Holy Spirit). He says such things for affect, without telling us if Judas might have repented before reaching the end of his rope – for that’s between Our Lord and Judas.

Our Lord never disputed the death penalty and neither did Saint Paul nor any of the Church Fathers and Doctors.

Jehanne wrote:(snip – citation from Pacem In Terris) More modernism by Pope John Paul XXIII.

“Whether they be convicted of error, or freely confess their guilt, Catharists are not to be put to death, at least not when they refrain from armed assaults upon the Church. For although the Apostle said, A man that is a heretic after the third admonition, avoid, he certainly did not say, Kill him. Throw them into prison, if you will, but do not put them to death (cf. Geroch von Reichersberg, "De investigatione Antichristi III", 42).”

By persuasion, not by violence, are men to be won to the Faith.

St. Cyprian of Carthage, surrounded as he was by countless schismatics and undutiful Christians, also put aside the material sanction of the Old Testament, which punished with death rebellion against priesthood and the Judges. "Nunc autem, quia circumcisio spiritalis esse apud fideles servos Dei coepit, spiritali gladio superbi et contumaces necantur, dum de Ecclesia ejiciuntur" (Epistle 61, no. 4) religion being now spiritual, its sanctions take on the same character, and excommunication replaces the death of the body. Lactantius was yet smarting under the scourge of bloody persecutions, when he wrote this Divine Institutes in A.D. 308. Naturally, therefore, he stood for the most absolute freedom of religion. He writes:

Religion being a matter of the will, it cannot be forced on anyone; in this matter it is better to employ words than blows [verbis melius quam verberibus res agenda est]. Of what use is cruelty? What has the rack to do with piety? Surely there is no connection between truth and violence, between justice and cruelty . . . . It is true that nothing is so important as religion, and one must defend it at any cost [summâ vi] . . . It is true that it must be protected, but by dying for it, not by killing others; by long-suffering, not by violence; by faith, not by crime. If you attempt to defend religion with bloodshed and torture, what you do is not defense, but desecration and insult. For nothing is so intrinsically a matter of free will as religion. (Divine Institutes V:20)

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:However, in your case, all infants who perish before the Age of Reason go to Heaven, either with the assurance of having had sacramental Baptism or at least with the "certain hope" if they had died without it.

You are a bit reckless “with the assurance” that “all infants who perish before the Age of Reason [sic] go to Heaven”, for, in the case of unbaptized infants, we are assured (justified) in having a “certain hope”, but we are not “assured” of their salvation. Do you deliberately mangle the truth, or you just can’t help yourself? This reminds me of Columba saying “Unfortunately since VII we are led to believe that ignorance is bliss” and “if they are invincibly ignorant they are infallibly lost even if not because of their inculpable ignorance.”

So, Hus and his Anabaptists successors may have done (or are doing) an intrinsically evil thing (by excluding unbaptized children from Heaven) or they may not be; we just don't know.

Baptism is the sacrament of Christian initiation. Through baptism believers and their children are embodied in the covenant of grace and become a part of the fellowship of the church. (http://www.moravian.org/the-moravian-church/the-moravian-church/history.html)

Wycliffe and Huss and their followers on infant baptism

Fortunately, however, the Christian Gospel was still preserved --especially in Northern Europe. In 1377, the English 'Pre-Reformer' John Wycliffe (1324-84) assailed the Romish mass. In 1402, the Wycliffite Huss did the same in Bohemia.

Neither of them ever questioned infant baptism. To the contrary, Wycliffe declared: "On account of the words in the last chapter of Matthew [28:19], our church introduces believers who answer for the infant....

"The child of a believer is carried into the church to be baptized, according to the rule of Christ." Yet "it seems hard...to assert" like the Romanists, "that this infant will be lost" if dying unbaptized. Nevertheless, "without a doubt, infants are duly baptized with water."

Wycliffe and his English followers the Lollards rejected baptismal regenerationism. As the great Puritan Rev. Dr. Wall has pointed out, "one of the articles usually enjoined [by their enemies] for the Lollards...to recant, was (as the martyrologist John Foxe recites it) this: 'that an infant, though he die unbaptized, shall be saved.'"

The followers of Huss were called the Hussites. "The Hussites of Bohemia," according to the great Puritan Rev. Dr. Wall, were of the "opinion...that infants dying unbaptized, may be saved by the mercy of God.... Indeed, they were disciples of our Wycliffe." (http://www.reformed.org/sacramentology/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/sacramentology/lee/anab_002.html)

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:This new theology allows you to say that Jon Hus, and people like him, are our "separated brethren", because Jon Hus, like so many Protestants, denies infant baptism. So, Jon Hus, and predecessor, John Wickliffe, did not cause any real harm to anyone even if they convinced large scores of parents not to baptize their newborn babies. No matter, all those babes are in Heaven anyway, for "Truth is stronger than heresy!" Human actions be damned!!

Jon Hus was found culpable for his heresy, and judged a heretic. That is NOT in dispute, only that his being burned at the stake probably caused more harm than good, and that such acts can no longer be justified.

Once again, Mike, what was the alternative? To declare Jon Hus a heretic and then say, "See ya, bud!"

Jehanne wrote:

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:It seems that the only individuals destined for Hell are serial murders and/or rapists along with traditional Catholics, the latter for at least not having fulfilled their Sunday obligation for having attended SSPX Masses.

The latter, the Church teaches, can fulfill their Sunday obligation at SSPX Masses so long as they do not imbibe in the spirit of the original schism. Judging by some of the comments found on rad-trad forums, the spirit of schism lives.

Why are you so obsessed with who and who is not destined for Hell?

Then Roman Catholicism does not matter. If everyone is destined for Heaven, then I need to stop wasting my time on this.

The creation of prisons as punitive institutions is commonly dated to the late eighteenth century, and is attributed to the influence of Enlightenment ideas about man’s ability to reform his soul and the State’s prerogative in implementing this process.1 The accepted chronology denies the penal role of prisons at any time earlier, at least outside ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Accordingly, the view prevails that throughout the Middle Ages prisons served as places of pre-trial custody or loci of coercion for defaulting debtors; punitive incarceration, in turn, “did not exist or represented, at best, a negligible exception.”

CANON 3

Text. We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that raises against the holy, orthodox and Catholic faith which we have above explained; condemning all heretics under whatever names they may be known, for while they have different faces they are nevertheless bound to each other by their tails, since in all of them vanity is a common element. Those condemned, being handed over to the secular rulers of their bailiffs, let them be abandoned, to be punished with due justice, clerics being first degraded from their orders. As to the property of the condemned, if they are laymen, let it be confiscated; if clerics, let it be applied to the churches from which they received revenues. But those who are only suspected, due consideration being given to the nature of the suspicion and the character of the person, unless they prove their innocence by a proper defense, let them be anathematized and avoided by all 1-intil they have made suitable satisfaction; but if they have been under excommunication for one year, then let them be condemned as heretics. Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.

We decree that those who give credence to the teachings of the heretics, as well as those who receive, defend, and patronize them, are excommunicated; and we firmly declare that after any one of them has been branded with excommunication, if he has deliberately failed to make satisfaction within a year, let him incur ipso jure the stigma of infamy and let him not be admitted to public offices or deliberations, and let him not take part in the election of others to such offices or use his right to give testimony in a court of law. Let him also be intestable, that he may not have the free exercise of making a will, and let him be deprived of the right of inheritance. Let no one be urged to give an account to him in any matter, but let him be urged to give an account to others. If perchance he be a judge, let his decisions have no force, nor let any cause be brought to his attention. If he be an advocate, let his assistance by no means be sought. If a notary, let the instruments drawn up by him be considered worthless, for, the author being condemned, let them enjoy a similar fate. In all similar cases we command that the same be observed. If, however, he be a cleric, let him be deposed from every office and benefice, that the greater the fault the graver may be the punishment inflicted.

If any refuse to avoid such after they have been ostracized by the Church, let them be excommunicated till they have made suitable satisfaction. Clerics shall not give the sacraments of the Church to such pestilential people, nor shall they presume to give them Christian burial, or to receive their alms or offerings; otherwise they shall be deprived of their office, to which they may not be restored without a special indult of the Apostolic See. Similarly, all regulars, on whom also this punishment may be imposed, let their privileges be nullified in that diocese in which they have presumed to perpetrate such excesses.

But since some, under "the appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof," as the Apostle says (II Tim. 3: 5), arrogate to themselves the authority to preach, as the same Apostle says: "How shall they preach unless they be sent?" (Rom. 10:15), all those prohibited or not sent, who, without the authority of the Apostolic See or of the Catholic bishop of the locality, shall presume to usurp the office of preaching either publicly or privately, shall be excommunicated and unless they amend, and the sooner the better, they shall be visited with a further suitable penalty. We add, moreover, that every archbishop or bishop should himself or through his archdeacon or some other suitable persons, twice or at least once a year make the rounds of his diocese in which report has it that heretics dwell, and there compel three or more men of good character or, if it should be deemed advisable, the entire neighborhood, to swear that if anyone know of the presence there of heretics or others holding secret assemblies, or differing from the common way of the faithful in faith and morals, they will make them known to the bishop. The latter shall then call together before him those accused, who, if they do not purge themselves of the matter of which they are accused, or if after the rejection of their error they lapse into their former wickedness, shall be canonically punished. But if any of them by damnable obstinacy should disapprove of the oath and should perchance be unwilling to swear, from this very fact let them be regarded as heretics.

We wish, therefore, and in virtue of obedience strictly command, that to carry out these instructions effectively the bishops exercise throughout their dioceses a scrupulous vigilance if they wish to escape canonical punishment. If from sufficient evidence it is apparent that a bishop is negligent or remiss in cleansing his diocese of the ferment of heretical wickedness, let him be deposed from the episcopal office and let another, who will and can confound heretical depravity, be substituted.

Wycliffe and Huss and their followers on infant baptism

Fortunately, however, the Christian Gospel was still preserved --especially in Northern Europe. In 1377, the English 'Pre-Reformer' John Wycliffe (1324-84) assailed the Romish mass. In 1402, the Wycliffite Huss did the same in Bohemia.

Neither of them ever questioned infant baptism. To the contrary, Wycliffe declared: "On account of the words in the last chapter of Matthew [28:19], our church introduces believers who answer for the infant....

"The child of a believer is carried into the church to be baptized, according to the rule of Christ." Yet "it seems hard...to assert" like the Romanists, "that this infant will be lost" if dying unbaptized. Nevertheless, "without a doubt, infants are duly baptized with water."

Wycliffe and his English followers the Lollards rejected baptismal regenerationism. As the great Puritan Rev. Dr. Wall has pointed out, "one of the articles usually enjoined [by their enemies] for the Lollards...to recant, was (as the martyrologist John Foxe recites it) this: 'that an infant, though he die unbaptized, shall be saved.'"

The followers of Huss were called the Hussites. "The Hussites of Bohemia," according to the great Puritan Rev. Dr. Wall, were of the "opinion...that infants dying unbaptized, may be saved by the mercy of God.... Indeed, they were disciples of our Wycliffe." (http://www.reformed.org/sacramentology/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/sacramentology/lee/anab_002.html)

This brief account of medieval prisons does not seek to move the prison’s birth as a total institution five-hundred years back in time, nor to demonstrate the application of punitive imprisonment in the Middle Ages on a modern scale. Although fourteenth-century Europe saw a greater recourse to incarceration than it had ever known before, prisons were nowhere the basis of local penal systems; and despite the fact that these facilities served as important cogs in the administration of contemporary justice, they were never as regimented or enclosed as their modern counterparts. The organization of medieval prisons and their complementary accessibility ensured that, regardless of the grounds and goals of their incarceration, inmates continued to interact with surrounding society. Prison walls in the late Middle Ages did not describe the borders of a social island: their location, routine, and permeability prevents us from defining life inside as hell on earth, even if the perception of prisons as earthly purgatories had by then lost its favor.

The ecclesiastical ideas of the first five centuries may be summarized as follows:

- the Church should for no cause shed blood (St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Leo I, and others);
- other teachers, however, like Optatus of Mileve and Priscillian, believed that the State could pronounce the death penalty on heretics in case the public welfare demanded it;
- the majority held that the death penalty for heresy, when not civilly criminal, was irreconcilable with the spirit of Christianity.

(See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm)

If a man takes a wife and her mother also, it is wickedness; they shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no wickedness among you. (Leviticus 20:14)

And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the harlot, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire. (Leviticus 21:9)

Jehanne wrote:As for Medieval prisons, read this:

http://hcc.haifa.ac.il/~medrens/Geltner-reading-07-08.pdf

The creation of prisons as punitive institutions is commonly dated to the late eighteenth century, and is attributed to the influence of Enlightenment ideas about man’s ability to reform his soul and the State’s prerogative in implementing this process.(1) The accepted chronology denies the penal role of prisons at any time earlier, at least outside ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Accordingly, the view prevails that throughout the Middle Ages prisons served as places of pre-trial custody or loci of coercion for defaulting debtors; punitive incarceration, in turn, “did not exist or represented, at best, a negligible exception.”

Perhaps the most eloquent refutation of such claims [as yours] was made by Ralph Pugh in his 1968 study Imprisonment in Medieval England. Pugh began by restating what most observers of prison life (including medieval lawyers) already knew, namely, that the distinction among custodial, coercive, and penal incarceration is useful in theory, but fails to describe actual practices. Thus, to say that medieval “penology” consciously avoided incarceration would be anachronistic and misleading. Pugh then demonstrated that, even in a stricter sense, punitive imprisonment was both an articulated legal concept and a practiced penal measure in England throughout the high and late Middle Ages.(3) As many other studies throughout the last century and a half have shown, the same argument can be applied to different European regions from Late Antiquity to the late Middle Ages.(4)

From the early thirteenth century, the Church was able to implement the incarceration of laymen on a wider scale than ever before through the activity of the Papal Inquisition, which often sentenced heretics to prison.(6) In sum, although imprisonment remained a marginal penalty in the secular world, ecclesiastical practices certainly sowed the seeds of a bond between the prison and spiritual reform, as evinced by the modern term “penitentiary.”

Another type of medieval prison was the castle dungeon, tower, gatehouse or pit, which, as a modern literary trope, still exercises much influence on the popular imagination. No doubt, feudal lords occasionally imprisoned their subjects and political enemies for the duration of a trial, as a penal measure, or simply in order to collect ransom. Conditions inside these prisons differed from place to place and varied widely according the social status of the prisoner. The available information is too scarce to gage the frequency of such practices, but the development of a hagiography of “jail-breaking saints” (headed by St. Leonard) suggests that they were common or simply infamous enough to generate these heroes.(7) In general, it seems that “feudal” incarceration was intermittent; it was often applied ad personam, and never formally regulated.

Against this background, the secular municipal prisons of the late Middle Ages display several key innovations, not least among which are their careful regulation and administrative sophistication. In Florence, for instance, there were four wardens, four to six guards, a notary, a chamberlain, a physician, a chaplain, a caretaker, and two friars who attended to the prisoners’ needs; as well as three different supervisory boards to monitor the officials’ conduct and the inmates’ welfare.The salaried staff itself lived and worked in a new compound – Le Stinche (founded c.1300) – probably the first purpose-built prison in Italy and one of the first in Europe. Turnovers there could exceed eight hundred inmates a year.

... Regional and local studies have shown that Le Stinche was not an isolated case, a fact which renders the years c.1250–c.1350 a watershed period in the history of the prison. How to account for this shift? The proliferation of prison spaces across western Europe coincided with a period of intense urbanization and a growth of urban (communal) liberties.(9) ... Unlike today, then, most medieval prisons were both central and visible.(11)

Definition of PRISON
1 : a state of confinement or captivity
2 : a place of confinement especially for lawbreakers; specifically : an institution (as one under state jurisdiction) for confinement of persons convicted of serious crimes — compare jail

Jehanne wrote:Mike,

You can misrepresent my position all that you want. Here is the definition of "prison" from Merriam Webster:

Definition of PRISON
1 : a state of confinement or captivity
2 : a place of confinement especially for lawbreakers; specifically : an institution (as one under state jurisdiction) for confinement of persons convicted of serious crimes — compare jail
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prison

Modern prisons did not exist in the Middle Ages, which is how I intended to use the term (with it's "modern" sense). In any case, I admit that I spoke poorly, and in light of what you stated, I "stand corrected" on that historical point alone. (Although, I have read several of Régine Pernoud's books and was fully aware of the existence of ecclesiastical prisons, but perhaps such were more widespread than I imagined, which only buttresses my argument. As for my article above, I did read/skim it, and felt that it both expressed and corrected my position, which is why I posted it -- the author, clearly, has his credentials.) However, it's irrelevant to my thesis. I can point out historical examples, doubted by no historian whatsoever, of individuals who were imprisoned, only to escape, who returned to their "former ways", and who were, on being tried again, condemned to the stake.

Imprisonment was the severest punishment the inquisitors could inflict directly. According to the inquisitional theory, it was not really a punishment, but a means for the culprit to obtain pardon for his crimes, and to amend and be converted, while close supervision prevented him from infecting the rest of the flock.

… the secular municipal prisons of the late Middle Ages display several key innovations, not least among which are their careful regulation and administrative sophistication. In Florence, for instance, there were four wardens, four to six guards, a notary, a chamberlain, a physician, a chaplain, a caretaker, and two friars who attended to the prisoners’ needs; as well as three different supervisory boards to monitor the officials’ conduct and the inmates’ welfare. The salaried staff itself lived and worked in a new compound – Le Stinche (founded c.1300) – probably the first purpose-built prison in Italy and one of the first in Europe. Turnovers there could exceed eight hundred inmates a year.

... Regional and local studies have shown that Le Stinche was not an isolated case, a fact which renders the years c.1250–c.1350 a watershed period in the history of the prison. How to account for this shift? The proliferation of prison spaces across western Europe coincided with a period of intense urbanization and a growth of urban (communal) liberties.(9) ... Unlike today, then, most medieval prisons were both central and visible.(11)

due “to the dramatic circumstances of his death, he became at once the hero of Bohemian patriotism and the martyr-saint of multitudes in Bohemia”.

In other words, he became a martyr, a Czech national hero and a saint to members of the Moravian Church; with his ‘martyrdom” having influenced “The Hussite Wars (1419-1434)” which “developed when the Catholic Hungarian King, Sigismund of Luxemburg (1368-1437) invaded Bohemia to put down a revolt of Czech followers of Jan (John) Hus 'the Martar' (1369-1415), who were persecuted as heretics. This Bohemian “revolution” and warfare would continue in one form or another (including The 30 Years War) until the 17th century, and would result in the Protestants gaining a significant foothold (“By the middle of the 16th century as many as 90 per cent of the inhabitants of the Czech Crown lands were Protestant” (CE).

Jehanne wrote:
Finally, referencing Mike's citation from above:

The ecclesiastical ideas of the first five centuries may be summarized as follows:

- the Church should for no cause shed blood (St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Leo I, and others);
- other teachers, however, like Optatus of Mileve and Priscillian, believed that the State could pronounce the death penalty on heretics in case the public welfare demanded it;
- the majority held that the death penalty for heresy, when not civilly criminal, was irreconcilable with the spirit of Christianity.

(See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm)

Of course, the "devil is in the details," but it is clear that those Church fathers who were "opposed" to the execution of heretics would still favor such when a heretic's behavior was "civilly criminal", as such was often the case during the Middle Ages. Heretics were often put to death for other crimes, in addition to the crime of heresy. Consider this instance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais

Jehanne wrote:Finally, Mike thinks that "burning at the stake" is abhorrent, apparently, forgetting that God commanded such a punishment:

If a man takes a wife and her mother also, it is wickedness; they shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no wickedness among you. (Leviticus 20:14)

And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the harlot, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire. (Leviticus 21:9)

Of course, the above is perfectly consistent with the existence of an eternal Hell, an "everlasting fire". Finally, as I have pointed out, modern historians agree that most individuals "walked away" from the various Inquisitions without ever being tortured and/or burned. Being put to "the torture" or burned was "the exception" and not "the rule."

God works in all things without exception whatever is right, yet in each one according to its mode. Wherefore everyone should imitate God in that which is specially becoming to him. Hence, though God slays evildoers even corporally, it does not follow that all should imitate Him in this. As regards Peter, he did not put Ananias and Saphira to death by his own authority or with his own hand, but published their death sentence pronounced by God. The Priests or Levites of the Old Testament were the ministers of the Old Law, which appointed corporal penalties, so that it was fitting for them to slay with their own hands.

Our Lord commanded them to forbear from uprooting the cockle in order to spare the wheat, i.e. the good. This occurs when the wicked cannot be slain without the good being killed with them, either because the wicked lie hidden among the good, or because they have many followers, so that they cannot be killed without danger to the good, as Augustine says (Contra Parmen. iii, 2). Wherefore our Lord teaches that we should rather allow the wicked to live, and that vengeance is to be delayed until the last judgment, rather than that the good be put to death together with the wicked. When, however, the good incur no danger, but rather are protected and saved by the slaying of the wicked, then the latter may be lawfully put to death.

long prohibited in the ecclesiastical courts. Nor was it originally an important factor in the inquisitional procedure, being unauthorized until twenty years after the Inquisition had begun. It was first authorized by Innocent IV in his Bull "Ad exstirpanda" of 15 May, 1252, which was confirmed by Alexander IV on 30 November, 1259, and by Clement IV on 3 November, 1265…. 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.).

The inquisitors were, as a rule, irreproachable, not merely in personal conduct, but in the administration of their office. Some, however, like Robert le Bougre, a Bulgarian (Catharist) convert to Christianity and subsequently a Dominican, seem to have yielded to a blind fanaticism and deliberately to have provoked executions en masse. On 29 May, 1239, at Montwimer in Champagne, Robert consigned to the flames at one time about a hundred and eighty persons, whose trial had begun and ended within one week. Later, when Rome found that the complaints against him were justified, he was first deposed and then incarcerated for life. (CE)

It is to be noted that torture was most cruelly used, where the inquisitors were most exposed to the pressure of civil authority. Frederick II, though always boasting of his zeal for the purity of the Faith, abused both rack and Inquisition to put out of the way his personal enemies. The tragical ruin of the Templars is ascribed to the abuse of torture by Philip the Fair and his henchmen. At Paris, for instance, thirty-six, and at Sens twenty-five, Templars died as the result of torture. Blessed Joan of Arc could not have been sent to the stake as a heretic and a recalcitrant, if her judges had not been tools of English policy. And the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition are largely due to the fact that in its administration civil purposes overshadowed the ecclesiastical. Every reader of the "Cautio criminalis" of the Jesuit Father Friedrich Spee knows to whose account chiefly must be set down the horrors of the witchcraft trials.

Most of the punishments that were properly speaking inquisitional were not inhuman, either by their nature or by the manner of their infliction. Most frequently certain good works were ordered, e.g. the building of a church, the visitation of a church, a pilgrimage more or less distant, the offering of a candle or a chalice, participation in a crusade, and the like. Other works partook more of the character of real and to some extent degrading punishments, e.g. fines, whose proceeds were devoted to such public purposes as church-building, road-making, and the like; whipping with rods during religious service; the pillory; the wearing of coloured crosses, and so on.

With a firm faith they held that the Gospel is indeed the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.(25) Therefore they rejected all "carnal weapons:(26) they followed the example of the gentleness and respectfulness of Christ and they preached the word of God in the full confidence that there was resident in this word itself a divine power able to destroy all the forces arrayed against God(27) and bring men to faith in Christ and to His service.(28)

Note 26: Cf. 2 Cor. 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God unto the pulling down of fortifications, destroying counsels

1 Thess. 5:8-9 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, having on the breastplate of faith and charity, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us unto wrath, but unto the purchasing of salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ

The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedom, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22: 21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time.

St. Augustine (Epistle 100, n. 1), almost in the name of the western Church, says: “… we wish them corrected, not put to death; we desire the triumph of (ecclesiastical) discipline, not the death penalties that they deserve.” St. John Chrysostom says substantially the same in the name of the Eastern Church (Homily 46 on Matthew, no. 1): "To consign a heretic to death is to commit an offence beyond atonement"; and in the next chapter he says that God forbids their execution, even as He forbids us to uproot cockle, but He does not forbid us to repel them, to deprive them of free speech, or to prohibit their assemblies. The help of the "secular arm" was therefore not entirely rejected; on the contrary, as often as the Christian welfare, general or domestic, required it, Christian rulers sought to stem the evil by appropriate measures. As late the seventh century St. Isidore of Seville expresses similar sentiments (Sententiarum, III, iv, nn. 4-6).

MRyan wrote:In 1184, the Roman Catholic Synod of Verona legislated that burning was to be the official punishment for heresy. It was also believed that the condemned would have no body to be resurrected in the Afterlife.[dubious – discuss] This decree was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, the Synod of Toulouse in 1229, and numerous spiritual and secular leaders through the 17th century.

MRyan wrote:No, he did not "accept it", he didn't exactly have a choice in the matter, unless you are suggesting that it would have better before God had he “recanted” his beliefs, even after having “declared himself conscious of no error.” St. Thomas Aquinas called this a mortal sin.

15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true. -- Allocution "Maxima quidem," June 9, 1862; Damnatio "Multiplices inter," June 10, 1851.

21. The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion. -- Damnatio "Multiplices inter," June 10, 1851.

22. The obligation by which Catholic teachers and authors are strictly bound is confined to those things only which are proposed to universal belief as dogmas of faith by the infallible judgment of the Church. -- Letter to the Archbishop of Munich, "Tuas libenter," Dec. 21, 1863.

23. Roman pontiffs and ecumenical councils have wandered outside the limits of their powers, have usurped the rights of princes, and have even erred in defining matters of faith and morals. -- Damnatio "Multiplices inter," June 10, 1851.

24. The Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect. -- Apostolic Letter "Ad Apostolicae," Aug. 22, 1851.

63. It is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, and even to rebel against them. -- Encyclical "Qui pluribus," Nov. 9, 1864; Allocution "Quibusque vestrum," Oct. 4, 1847; "Noscitis et Nobiscum," Dec. 8, 1849; Apostolic Letter "Cum Catholica."

77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship. -- Allocution "Nemo vestrum," July 26, 1855.

78. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship. -- Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852.

79. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism. -- Allocution "Nunquam fore," Dec. 15, 1856.

Jehanne wrote:Mike,

I hope that you had a blessed Christmas.

Jehanne wrote:First, some old business. You have never addressed this, which you posted:

MRyan wrote: 1184, the Roman Catholic Synod of Verona legislated that burning was to be the official punishment for heresy. It was also believed that the condemned would have no body to be resurrected in the Afterlife.[dubious – discuss] This decree was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, the Synod of Toulouse in 1229[/b], and numerous spiritual and secular leaders through the 17th century.

That heretics “deserve … to be severed from the world by death” is a subjective judgment, not an “infallible truth” that compels and justifies the state to act as the secular arm of the Church. The Church has tempered (reformed) this teaching (she stopped putting heretics to death centuries ago) by appealing more to a sinner’s “undying capacity to break through the barriers of error and seek the road to truth" (Pope John XXIII, Pacem In Terris), then to any danger (corruption) the heretic poses to the faithful.

The Church still uses, though to a lesser degree, the ecclesiastical (and even temporal) measures at her disposal (e.g., excommunications, censures, edicts) both for the correction of the heretic and to protect the faithful from error. However, she no longer recognizes the state as the secular arm of the Church (only in protecting the rights of the Church, and the civil rights of other faith/religious traditions), “which by state coercion must protect the ‘rights of truth,’ and in this way impose the kingdom of Christ in human society.” (Fr. Rhonheimer)

St. Thomas:

On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy which looks to the conversion of the wanderer, wherefore she condemns not at once, but 'after the first and second admonition,' as the Apostle directs: after that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death. For Jerome commenting on Gal. 5:9, 'A little leaven,' says: 'Cut off the decayed flesh, expel the mangy sheep from the fold, lest the whole house, the whole paste, the whole body, the whole flock, burn, perish, rot, die. Arius was but one spark in Alexandria, but as that spark was not at once put out, the whole earth was laid waste by its flame.'” (Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, q.11, a.3)

It should be obvious, Jehanne, that the Church no longer gives up on hope for “the conversion of the wanderer” and “delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death”, as our Popes have expressed in Pacem In Terris and Dignitatis Humanae.

Well, that's your interpretation of Dignitatis humanae, and if that is really the teaching of DF, then, I agree with the SSPX/SSPV/CMRI, etc., that Vatican II promulgated error.

No, it was an abuse of power; and it did not condemn him to the stake, not explicitly. But, it did so at least implicitly, with the punishment it fully expected, which it obviosuly thought was just. It is not my place to make judgements about prudential "errors" or personal sins, not when the laws permitted such "final" punishments.

However, as the Church teaches today, the courts had and still have every right to tell the Church to settle spiritual crimes against the faith herself -- when such punishments cause undue disruption to the common welfare (not to mention that today it is considered immoral).

But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the [/color=orange]extermination of the heretics[/color], shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.

The Church has long since corrected the “Jus publicum” and will never return to it, as necessary at the time she believed it to be, as circumstances dictated. Get over it. There is no reason to “apologize” for the “Jus publicum”, but only for certain human abuses and a mistaken Jus divino promoted by some.

“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.

No, Jehanne, I am reading it correctly. You cannot take “and against Catholic truth” as if it nullifies the fact that some errors “against Catholic truth” are not matters of heresy, but may extend only to being “scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds”, etc.

Jehanne wrote:
Finally, while you have quoted Church fathers who were against the "secular arm" executing heretics, you have not quoted any of the Fathers who favored such a punishment and you have "cherry-picked" Saint Thomas "to death" (pardon the pun); we both know that the Church's principle theologian favored the execution of obstinate heretics.

The ecclesiastical ideas of the first five centuries may be summarized as follows:

- the Church should for no cause shed blood (St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Leo I, and others);
- other teachers, however, like Optatus of Mileve and Priscillian, believed that the State could pronounce the death penalty on heretics in case the public welfare demanded it;
- the majority held that the death penalty for heresy, when not civilly criminal, was irreconcilable with the spirit of Christianity.

(See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm)

In his influential work, A Theory of Justice, John Rawls accuses Thomas Aquinas of not advocating "even a limited tolerance." (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p.216) It seems plausible to accuse Rawls in this matter of a superficial reading of Thomas, depending on one passage in the Summa Theologiae (II-II, q. 11, a. 3) without placing that passage in its larger context. Upon closer examination, one can see that Thomas in fact advocates more than just a limited tolerance, while explicating that a true theory of tolerance is not a theory of neutrality, but rather an admission that the objects of toleration are not themselves positive goods.

[…] Thus far, it seems as if Rawls' criticism is entirely unfounded. We have yet, however, to investigate the singular passage from the Summa which prompts his criticism. This is Thomas' infamous question as to whether heretics should be tolerated. Thomas responds:

Wherefore if forgers or money and other evil-doers are forewith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated, but even put to death. (ST II-II, q. 11, a. 3)

Rawls attacks this passage as being an affront to liberty, and also as being unfair since the danger of heresy is a matter of faith:

...Aquinas justifies the death penalty for heretics on the ground that it is a far graver matter to corrupt the faith, which is the life of the soul, than to counterfeit money. So if it is just to put to death forgers and criminals, heretics may a fortiori be similiarly dealt with. (Rawls, op.cit.,p.215)

First of all, we must closely examine Thomas' actual words. He is not directly advocating the death penalty for heretics. Rather, he is setting up a conditional: if forgers and the like are executed under the law, then heretics should, with much more justification, be likewise punished.

Thomas himself does not directly advocate that forgers should be killed; he is merely describing how they were dealt with within his own society. Forgers are not executed in modern, liberal democracies; we reserve the death penalty for our most heinous murderers. In medieval society, however, many lesser crimes were punishable by death. Heresy, which endangers a person's eternal salvation, surely is a greater evil than forgery. Furthermore, Thomas reserves the execution of heretics to the secular authority….

If, however, we examine the Thomistic doctrine on the death penalty in general, we can see that he only favors it when the common good is in immediate danger:

Therefore, if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good.... (ST II-II, q. 64, a. 2)

In the same place, however, Thomas adds that evil-doers should be tolerated if their destruction would harm the virtuous:

Wherefore Our Lord teaches that we should rather allow the wicked to live, and that vengeance is to be delayed until the last judgment, rather than that the good be put to death together with the wicked.(Ibid., ad. 1)

It should be clear from the forgoing that Rawls' accusation that Thomas is intolerant is superficial and false. Thomas advocates tolerance of the rites of unbelievers and even of such evils as prostitution. Moreover, the Thomistic theory of free will and the relationship of God to the free choices of man provides an even stronger basis for toleration than does Rawls' more pragmatic doctrine. (Maria Fontana Magee, A Thomistic Case for Tolerance, approved by Joseph Magee, Ph.D., Philosophy, http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/tolernce.html)

6.4.2 Heresy, unbelief and religious freedom

Aquinas accepts the teaching of the Church of his era that no one can rightly be compelled to accept the Christian faith or membership of the Church, but that those who are members can and should be compelled by both ecclesiastical and state law to abstain from any public renunciation of it. He treats such renunciation as an actionable breach of promise (passing silently over the fact that in most cases the promise was made not by the persons concerned but rather, in their early infancy, by their parents). And he regards public teaching of heresy as comparable to counterfeiting coin of the realm and therefore rightly punishable capitally by the secular authorities (the fact of false teaching having been ascertained by an ecclesiastical trial). His views about this matter are explicitly based on the evolving tradition of the Church and on what historical experience suggested were the effects of more permissive political or legal arrangements.

So there are no theoretical obstacles to his ready acceptance of the judgment of later theologians and Church teachers that, as experience shows, it is more compatible with basic positions in his moral and political philosophy to hold that authentically personal judgment and freely chosen commitment are so important in relation to ultimate questions that all persons (even those whose beliefs about religion are false or ill-formed) have a moral right, and should have the corresponding legal right, to be free from state (and ecclesiastical) coercion in religious belief or action except in so far as their conduct would be contrary to the rights of others or to public peace or to public morality (that is, morality so far as it concerns actions which impact on the public) (Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Liberty (1965)). Nor is it clear how he could resist the objection that, even if those baptized in infancy ratify the promises made on their behalf at baptism, the subscription of faith is not an undertaking to other people or the community, but rather is a matter which, as he says in a neglected passage elsewhere in his major writings (ScG III c. 80 n. 15), “pertains to that person alone as an individual [secundum se ipsum].”

Illustrious and honorable sir, greeting:

We have lately received with all kindness, as was meet, the gentlemen sent by your Excellency to present to us your letter dated on the 23d of last September. We have received certainly no small pleasure in learning both from these gentlemen and from your letter the feelings of gratification and of very warm appreciation with which you, illustrious and honorable sir, were moved when you first had knowledge written in October of the preceding year to the venerable brethren, John, archbishop of New York, and John, archbishop of New Orleans, in which we again and again urged and exhorted those venerable brethren that because of their exemplary piety and episcopal zeal they should employ their most earnest efforts, in our name also, in order that the fatal civil war which had arisen in the States should end, and that the people of America might again enjoy mutual peace and concord, and love each other with mutual charity.

And it has been very gratifying to us to recognize illustrious and honorable sir, that you and your people are animated by the same desire for peace and tranquillity, which we had so earnestly inculcated in our aforesaid letters to the venerable brethren above named. Oh, that the other people also of the States and their rulers, considering seriously how cruel and how deplorable is this internecine war, would receive and embrace the counsels of peace and tranquillity. We indeed shall not cease with most fervent prayer to beseech God, the best and highest, and to implore Him to pour out the spirit of Christian love and peace upon all the people of America, and to rescue them from the great calamities with which they are afflicted. And we also pray the same most merciful Lord that he will illumine your Excellency with the light of His divine grace and unite you with ourselves in perfect charity.

Given at Rome at St. Peters on the 3d December, 1863, in the eighteenth year of our pontificate.

PIUS P. P. IX.

http://www.danvilleartillery.org/popeletter.htm

MRyan wrote:And the justifications continue. And to think the Pope wrote this kind letter to Jefferson Davis:

Illustrious and honorable sir, greeting:

We have lately received with all kindness, as was meet, the gentlemen sent by your Excellency to present to us your letter dated on the 23d of last September. We have received certainly no small pleasure in learning both from these gentlemen and from your letter the feelings of gratification and of very warm appreciation with which you, illustrious and honorable sir, were moved when you first had knowledge written in October of the preceding year to the venerable brethren, John, archbishop of New York, and John, archbishop of New Orleans, in which we again and again urged and exhorted those venerable brethren that because of their exemplary piety and episcopal zeal they should employ their most earnest efforts, in our name also, in order that the fatal civil war which had arisen in the States should end, and that the people of America might again enjoy mutual peace and concord, and love each other with mutual charity.

And it has been very gratifying to us to recognize illustrious and honorable sir, that you and your people are animated by the same desire for peace and tranquillity, which we had so earnestly inculcated in our aforesaid letters to the venerable brethren above named. Oh, that the other people also of the States and their rulers, considering seriously how cruel and how deplorable is this internecine war, would receive and embrace the counsels of peace and tranquillity. We indeed shall not cease with most fervent prayer to beseech God, the best and highest, and to implore Him to pour out the spirit of Christian love and peace upon all the people of America, and to rescue them from the great calamities with which they are afflicted. And we also pray the same most merciful Lord that he will illumine your Excellency with the light of His divine grace and unite you with ourselves in perfect charity.

Given at Rome at St. Peters on the 3d December, 1863, in the eighteenth year of our pontificate.

PIUS P. P. IX.


http://www.danvilleartillery.org/popeletter.htm

Jehanne wrote:
Next, this quote:

MRyan wrote:No, he did not "accept it", he didn't exactly have a choice in the matter, unless you are suggesting that it would have better before God had he “recanted” his beliefs, even after having “declared himself conscious of no error.” St. Thomas Aquinas called this a mortal sin.

Where? In the past, you have taken me to task for my paraphrasing of Saint Thomas, so please, provide the reference. And, if "freedom of conscience" applied to Jon Hus, why not to Archbishop Lefebvre, Catholics for Choice, Melinda Gates, "Feeneyites" of every stripe, Sedevacantists, the Council of Constance, etc., etc.?

In his book “Moral Wisdom, Lessons and Texts from the Catholic Tradition” James F. Keenan, s.j., professor of theological ethics at Boston College, wrote that when Thomas Aquinas first arrived at Paris in 1252 to teach (namely, to comment on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, since every budding professor lectured on them as their first university lecture appointment) he dutifully referred to Lombard as the Master. However, on the question of conscience Thomas straightforwardly rejected Lombard. “Here the Master is wrong” (hic magister falsum dicit). Lombard had argued that one is not obliged to follow one’s conscience when at odds with Church teaching. Thomas responded that we ought to die excommunicated rather than violate our conscience. (Moral Wisdom, page 36)

TWO OTHER QUOTATIONS FOR YOUR FURTHER REFLECTION

+ In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience… For man has in his heart a law written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths….” | Vatican II in the Pastoral Constitution about the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes n.16)

+ Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. ‘He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, esp[i]ecially in religious matters.’ | Catechism of the Catholic Church #1782

(http://www.philipchircop.com/post/31804421355/we-ought-to-die-excommunicated-rather-than-violate)

IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

He [Jon Hus] refused all formulæ of submission, again declared himself conscious of no error, nor, as he said, had any been proved against him from the Scriptures. He declared that he would not condemn the truth, nor perjure himself. His books were burned by order of the council (24 June). New efforts to obtain a retractation proved fruitless. He was brought for final sentence before the fifteenth session (6 July, 1415), at which the emperor assisted, and on which occasion thirty propositions, taken mostly from the work of Hus "On the Church" (De Ecclesiâ), were read publicly. He refused to retract anything and so was condemned as a heretic, deposed, and degraded, and handed over to the secular arm, which in turn condemned him to perish at the stake, at that time the usual legal punishment of convicted heretics. He suffered that cruel death with self-possession and courage and when about to expire cried out, it is said: "Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on us!" His ashes were thrown into the Rhine. Owing largely to the dramatic circumstances of his death, he became at once the hero of Bohemian patriotism and the martyr-saint of multitudes in Bohemia and elsewhere who shared his demagogic and revolutionary principles…

MRyan wrote:Here is the citation I am referring to:

In his book “Moral Wisdom, Lessons and Texts from the Catholic Tradition” James F. Keenan, s.j., professor of theological ethics at Boston College, wrote that when Thomas Aquinas first arrived at Paris in 1252 to teach (namely, to comment on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, since every budding professor lectured on them as their first university lecture appointment) he dutifully referred to Lombard as the Master. However, on the question of conscience Thomas straightforwardly rejected Lombard. “Here the Master is wrong” (hic magister falsum dicit). Lombard had argued that one is not obliged to follow one’s conscience when at odds with Church teaching. Thomas responded that we ought to die excommunicated rather than violate our conscience. (Moral Wisdom, page 36)

Jehanne wrote:
What's your point, Mike, that Pope Pius IX wanted an end to the bloody American civil war? (In spite of what the good Pontiff wrote, it is widely accepted that the Vatican, while technically neutral, was, nonetheless, hoping for a Southern victory.) Was Lincoln justified in starting it in the first place? If so, why? Did the "public order" and/or "common good" demand a "war of reunification"? After all, most Southerns wanted independence! Why did the North, and Lincoln in particular, not simply grant them what they wanted? Did not they have "freedom of conscience" not to have others impose their values upon them??? To have their own system of government???

Justify, Mike, Abraham Lincoln's military and violent aggression against the South. How about General William Sherman's "March to the Sea":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea

He was never prosecuted as the war criminal which he was, but hey, "War is hell," right? For General Sherman, his actions and those of his troops were a necessary evil, or so, he and they thought..

Definition of HERESY
1
a : adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma
b : denial of a revealed truth by a baptized member of the Roman Catholic Church
c : an opinion or doctrine contrary to church dogma
2
a : dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, opinion, or practice
b : an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth or to generally accepted beliefs or standards
See heresy defined for English-language learners »
See heresy defined for kids »
Examples of HERESY

They were accused of heresy.
He was preaching dangerous heresies.

Origin of HERESY
Middle English heresie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin haeresis, from Late Greek hairesis, from Greek, action of taking, choice, sect, from hairein to take
First Known Use: 13th century

Jehanne wrote:
Did the Fathers at the Council of Constance know how the Hussite Wars would turn out? Hardly. Like Lincoln, they were fighting for the unity of a Kingdom, but one which was (and is) spiritual as opposed to temporal. As with Lincoln, they saw the unity of the Church of Christ as being important and those who were opposed to that unity (such as Jon Hus) as being traitors to the King of Heaven, and who, refusing to repent of their heresies, were deserving of death, a punishment which was firmly rooted in both the Old and New Testament.

Jehanne wrote:

Definition of HERESY
...
Examples of HERESY
...
Jon Hus chose, per his conscience, to be burned alive at the stake.

Jehanne wrote:Many other individuals chose not to endure such a fate; whether some of those "choices" were sincere or not likely depended on the unique individual.

Jehanne wrote:Some, no doubt, sincerely recognized their errors and corrected them, in accordance with the judgment of the Church.

Jehanne wrote:The innocent victims of General Sherman's March to the Sea did not "choose" to be murdered, raped, plundered, etc. They were truly "collateral" damage.

Jehanne wrote:As you pointed out, it was the consciences of the Fathers at the Fourth Lateran Council and the Council of Constance, guided by the Holy Spirit, who felt that violence against those who would endanger the eternal salvation of other persons and/or the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ was a "necessary evil." Okay, you disagree, and that's fine.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:

Definition of HERESY
...
Examples of HERESY
...
Jon Hus chose, per his conscience, to be burned alive at the stake.

You mean he "chose" to be burned at the stake rather than to perjure himself and sin against God. That is not a “choice” in the true sense, for the "choice" that could have saved him was a lie. He did not choose death, he accepted it as his only option - it was a sentence of death.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:Many other individuals chose not to endure such a fate; whether some of those "choices" were sincere or not likely depended on the unique individual.

Some of the newly baptized Christians in the early age of the martyrs “chose” to offer incense to the idols rather than to suffer a cruel death. The Church had to reign in the more excitable of the early Church members who strongly condemned these lapses and wished to inflict severe penalties upon those who lapsed. Like the Catholic martyrs, however, Hus, in his own eyes, had only one choice if he was to remain true to his conscience, even if he was wrong (which of course he was).

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:Some, no doubt, sincerely recognized their errors and corrected them, in accordance with the judgment of the Church.

Then I guess they were not actually sincere in holding to their heresy, were they? While fear may be a legitimate motive to reconsider one’s position, only the resolute will remain strong when they believe they are right – strong enough to die for their faith.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:The innocent victims of General Sherman's March to the Sea did not "choose" to be murdered, raped, plundered, etc. They were truly "collateral" damage.

Meaning of course that the “innocent victims” of “Catholic princes” who were tortured, plundered and burned to the stake simply do not exist; each one of them, as a convicted heretic, “chose” to be tortured, to have their property plundered, and to be burned at the stake. All they had to do was “surrender”, and confess to heresy, and all would have been well, provided they survived the torture sessions.

817 In fact, "in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame." The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism - do not occur without human sin:

Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:As you pointed out, it was the consciences of the Fathers at the Fourth Lateran Council and the Council of Constance, guided by the Holy Spirit, who felt that violence against those who would endanger the eternal salvation of other persons and/or the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ was a "necessary evil." Okay, you disagree, and that's fine.

Yes, Jehanne, I’m sure it was under the guidance of the Holy Spirit that it was determined that the heretics in Catholic lands must be exterminated, and all their possessions confiscated.

Yes, I disagree. The Holy Spirit allowed it; it does NOT mean that He approved of it. The Church can be chastised through these misdeeds in any age, and this was no exception. She has learned her lesson, the hard way.

Jehanne wrote:

Indeed, Pope Pius IX condemned these very lines of thought:

[snip ...]

Jehanne wrote:

As for the council of Constance, it's not my place to question what they did and did not do or what they could have done.

Jehanne wrote:
In fact, it has never been my POV to defend their decisions, rather, to say that they had the right to make the decisions which they made, no matter how imprudent those decisions were in the light of subsequent history.

Jehanne wrote:
It took nearly 600 years but Pope John Paul II "apologized" for Hus' execution, stating (per Wkipedia) that he had "deep regret for the cruel death inflicted..." So, was JP II "apologizing" for the fact that Hus was executed or for the manner in which he was executed. After all, the executioner had "bound his neck with a chain to a stake around which wood and straw had been piled up so that it covered him to the neck". Was such "standard practices" or what the executioner being a bit "creative" here? Probably the later, as far as I can tell.

Jehanne wrote:
Here's one stake execution where the highest authorities truly despised the victim:

[image - snip]

She was not, of course, "buried up to her neck," which, by the way, would have involved a very large pile of wood! My suspicion is that Hus passed-out before the flames ever touched his body; still, his death was "cruel" and not typical of most stake executions. Granted, of course, there were sadistic exceptions, as has occurred throughout American history with our practice of botched electrocutions, which does not appear to be upsetting to most Americans. Most medieval executioners were, however, compassionate men who had a difficult job to do, and if their victim cooperated with them, they weren't going to make life any more miserable than it had to be.

Jehanne wrote:
Finally, Mike, correct me if I am wrong (perhaps this would be a good time for Mark to jump in here), but as far as I can tell Jon Hus, like his predecessor John Wycliffe, believed, taught, and professed the idea of double predestination, whereby, the One and Triune God, from Eternity past, had selected some human beings for eternal Heaven and others for everlasting Hell, the Elect and the reprobate, irrespective of those individuals' own human free will and/or choices. In other words, God created some human beings, body and soul, with the sole purpose of damning those persons to Hell, infants included, in spite of the "corrections and/or sanctifications" which some followers of John Calvin like to make to his statements.

Jehanne wrote:
Having said that, I respect the Council of Constance's decision to put Hus to death, his repeated refusals to recant notwithstanding. Such a decision was theirs to make, in accordance with the decrees set forth in the Fourth Lateran Council, and no one else's to question.

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:

As for the council of Constance, it's not my place to question what they did and did not do or what they could have done.

Really? Then why are you questioning the Second Vatican Council? Why do you suggest that the prudential decisions of Pope JPII are deserving of the everlasting torments of Hell?

MRyan wrote:

Jehanne wrote:
In fact, it has never been my POV to defend their decisions, rather, to say that they had the right to make the decisions which they made, no matter how imprudent those decisions were in the light of subsequent history.

I’m not buying this, you have been doing nothing BUT defending their decisions to have heretics tortured and exterminated, and their properties confiscated (stolen). You even took the CCC to task for condemning torture; after all, by burning heretics at the stake, the Catholic prince’s were simply trying to save them from the fires of hell, and it had nothing at all to do with a Vatican sanctioned land grab. That our pope’s had the so-called “right” to make imprudent decisions according to the “Jus publicum”, does not make it right, or moral; such acts do not reflect the Spirit of the Gospel – period.

MRyan wrote:Pope JPII questioned it, and he had every right to – and so do we.