St. Thomas More Burning Heretics

[socalscout]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1730593' date='Dec 17 2008, 02:28 PM']I can't remember if St. More mentioned a number of people burned in his writings or not...I'll have to look it up. I do know that his section on the defense of burning was pretty extensive; he lived during the rapidly accepted transition of thought on the subject. He seemed to feel quite strongly on the subject and the effect that the loss of the penalty would have on the growing heretical movements of his time. He may have considered the Church of our time to be mindlessly liberal, I think.[/quote]


Thanks for the info

Edited December 17, 2008 by socalscout

[Lil Red]

+J.M.J.+
but going to [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=1332"]another thread[/url] that Didacus dredged up:
[quote name='ironmonk']That lie goes back to before the invention of the printing press. Before the printing press, bibles had to be painstakingly hand written. Also, only the rich knew how to read. The common man could not read. The way people would "read" is that they would go and listen to someone read to them. Also, they would cost the equivalent of today's money about $5000. The bible was hand copied by Catholic monks for centuries.

The Church forbade people to read erroneous translations.[/quote]
this is what (i believe) st. thomas more was going after heretics for: for promoting a Bible that was an erroneous translation.

[socalscout]

[quote name='Lil Red' post='1730604' date='Dec 17 2008, 02:35 PM']+J.M.J.+
but going to [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=1332"]another thread[/url] that Didacus dredged up:

this is what (i believe) st. thomas more was going after heretics for: for promoting a Bible that was an erroneous translation.[/quote]

I agree with the logic that Heresy and mortal sin is a greater danger to us than any physical danger and the need for it to stop must have been foremost at that particular time. Much like Saul I'm sure More saw it as an evil that must be exstinguished. I cannot, however, see the means by which it was enforced and administered, if it is true.

I guess the great question is cannonization of someone who might have actually done this.

This might be an urban legend but was there once a person who was to be cannonized until his body was exumed and they saw claw and scratch marks on the inside of the coffin giving evidence to be buried alive and thus prone to sinful outburts? If that is a true story then the process must highly scrutinize the candidate for sinful acts and burning people at the stake might be considered not so warm and fuzzy. Maybe warm. LOL

Edited December 17, 2008 by socalscout

[Ziggamafu]

There is nothing prohibiting the sanctity of a person who carried out temporal penalties for spiritual crimes against humanity. The topics of the Crusades and the Inquisition (and corresponding apologetics) are obviously related to the present one.

[Lil Red]

+J.M.J.+
Thomas More was formally beatified by Pope Leo XIII, in the Decree of 29 December, 1886. Note: St. Thomas More was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1935.

i think that the process of canonization (especially in 1886/1935) was very involved, and that him being a martyr for the faith would definitely play a role in his canonization.

[Thomist-in-Training]

In "Exsurge Domine," Pope Leo X's bull against Luther, the Holy Father lists one of [b]Luther's errors[/b] as [quote]"33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit."[/quote]

I.e., "It is erroneous to say that the Holy Ghost never wishes heretics to be burned."

If someone better at formal logic has a better phrasing, that's cool, but the basic point is that Holy Mother Church allowed the burning of heretics in some cases.

This comes after the long list of Luther's heresies in the document:

[quote]No one of sound mind is ignorant how destructive, pernicious, scandalous, and seductive to pious and simple minds these various errors are, how opposed they are to all charity and reverence for the holy Roman Church who is the mother of all the faithful and teacher of the faith; how destructive they are of the vigor of ecclesiastical discipline, namely obedience. This virtue is the font and origin of all virtues and without it anyone is readily convicted of being unfaithful.
...
We have found that [b]these errors or theses are not Catholic[/b], as mentioned above, and are not to be taught, as such; but rather are against the doctrine and tradition of the Catholic Church, and against the true interpretation of the sacred Scriptures received from the Church.[/quote]

You can check it out at [url="http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm"]http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm[/url].

[thessalonian]

Thomas More was a government official. Romans 13 indicates that to keep order governement officials may use the sword, i.e. captial punhishment. This may be against our modern day sensitivity but it's in the Word of God!

[Hassan]

I don't know why people find this shocking. Aquinas defended and advocated the practice as well, Cannon law sanctioned it, as did Church councils I believe.

[Akalyte]

oh he means while king henry was beheading and slaughtering catholics left and right just for looking at him the wrong way.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Akalyte' post='1730882' date='Dec 17 2008, 10:52 PM']oh he means while king henry was beheading and slaughtering catholics left and right just for looking at him the wrong way.[/quote]


Wow, great historical analysis.

[Winchester]

[i]Concise[/i].

The killing of heretics was pursued well before the Church started the inquisitional courts. In fact, the processes in the inquisitions probably saved many lives. The actions of the state perhaps saved many souls, and certainly the two combined saved the faith.

[Guest]

How could this ever be ok though ?
I just watched a show on etwn tonight talking about how the church teaches how much we are to love our seperated christian bretheren. And how we are supposed to try to convert them and show the churches authority but at the same time respect where they are at. How could burning them at the stake for not being catholic be ok ? A year ago I would be trying to put an anticatholic twist on this remark but im not now. I just want to know how it could every be justifiable and ok to do this ?

Edited December 18, 2008 by Guest

[Winchester]

No one is to be burned at the stake for not being Catholic. That's not how it worked. Separated brethren and heretic are not synonyms.

[socalscout]

I'm not questioning St. Thomas' canonization. I am questioning why people are defending burning human beings at the stake.

If it was accepted to burn them at the stake then it should be accepted today. If I go to the house of some of the prominent Anti Catholics we know of, give him a chance to repent and if he still does not want to then FLAME ON it should be perfectly ok, right?

A simplified analogy I will agree but lets put into today's context. Lets say I got him fired, foreclosed on his house, take away any possesions and make a him homeless outcast until it changes his views. Would this be justifiable?

I'm with Delivery Boy on this, how can this be OK?

Edited December 18, 2008 by socalscout

[Winchester]

[quote name='socalscout' post='1731145' date='Dec 18 2008, 08:31 AM']If it was accepted to burn them at the stake then it should be accepted today. If I go to the house of some of the prominent Anti Catholics we know of, give him a chance to repent and if he still does not want to then FLAME ON it should be perfectly ok, right?[/quote]
Nope.

1. Anti-Catholics are not automatically heretics. You must have left the Church to be a heretic, in this sense of the word.

2. You are not a member of the insquisitional courts. Your description is exactly what they were founded to prevent--mob justice. And they did it.

3. You haven't the authority of the state, which is the group that carried out the penalty, which was the penalty the state exacted for heresy. Repeat and serious heretics were turned over to the state for the state's punishment. The inquisitional process served to protect people from the state, which was far quicker and more easily convinced of heresy.

If you believe that we can go to Hell, and if you believe that salvation comes from Christ through the Church, then you must believe heresy offends God, and that it could lead someone to hell. Heresiarchs can lead people away from the Church. The concern is the human soul, whose disposition people used to take far more seriously than they do now. Today, heretics wouldn't be executed because the state doesn't exact that (or any) punishment.

Yes, it's a terrible thing. But isn't Hell worse?