Burning Heretics At The Stake In 2008

[MithLuin]

This does have a [i]lot[/i] to do with a changed understanding of the relationship between church and state. For one thing, 'burning at the stake' should just be considered a form of capital punishment. Heretics (and other criminals) were also crushed or drawn and quartered, etc. In modern times, lethal injection would be seen as the standard form of capital punishment, not hanging, firing squad or even the electric chair (so last century).

In most of the heresy cases, it was civil authority, not church authority, that carried out the executions, but there were church courts that did so as well. Depends on the country, time and place, nature of the crime, etc.

If you want to know what sorts of things a heretic might be accused of, I refer you to [url="http://www.stjoan-center.com/Trials/"]the trial[/url] of St. Joan of Arc. She was tried as a heretic...by English churchmen. Obviously, her trial was really political. The significant question is whether or not the heretic would recant. If you recant, you are not executed, though you may be submitted to other punishments.

What has changed since then? Certainly not the Church's condemnation of heresy! Nor the persistence of heretics in their errors. What has changed is the role of the Church court. Now, the strongest form of condemnation the church uses is excommunication. After a heretic is excommunicated, the Church goes no futher in attempting to bring them back into the fold. If they repent, they may be welcomed back and the excommunication revoked, but if they persist....they persist, and remain outside the Church.

Why? Why not force them to recant by threats of torture and death? Why not go further in trying to save their souls and prevent them from leading others astray?

The truth is, we don't give up on them. "The Church both prays and labors in order that the entire world may become the People of God, the Body of the Lord and the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and that in Christ, the Head of all, all honor and glory may be rendered to the Creator and Father of the Universe." [i]Lumen Gentium[/i] But we do recognize that human beings have dignity and freedom, and thus forcing them to leave the error of their ways is counter-productive.

[url="http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html"]Dignitatis Humanae[/url], the Vatican II declaration on religious freedom, makes it clear that the modern church would not condone the practice of executing heretics. This declaraction makes it clear that a civil government cannot rightfully force a Catholic to abandon the practice of his faith, as the Church complains of in China....but it also means that a government cannot [i]force[/i] someone to be a practicing Catholic, either. The Church would be very hypocritical to make such an injunction against other governments and then turn around and do the same thing themselves. This understanding of human dignity was not common in the time of the Inquisition, which is why such severe means were used for the very good end of trying to save someone's soul from damnation. Today, such means are recognized as an offense against human dignity and freedom, so while the salvation of the heretic is still desired, the means taken to achieve it differ.

Historically, the Western Church did not have to deal with heresy. Prior to 1000 AD, there [i]were[/i] no heretics in the West (after the fall of the Roman Empire, I mean), and for this reason the Church saw little need to recite the Creed at mass, even. Then, some heresies were imported from the east (which had been plagued by heretics since the beginning, of course), and the church had to deal with condemning these heresies and weeding them out. The religious persecutions of the Reformation and its aftermath were a result of the Church trying to operate under the old structure of Catholic monarchs being responsible for maintaining Catholic subjects...when that was the only form of government there was.


Since so few heretics recanted, even under threat of death, I really don't see how the old method could be seen as effective anyway. Religious persecution is a terrible thing, no matter who does it. If a fundamentalist Catholic state were started up somewhere in the world, Rome would no doubt strongly condemn any attempts to 'enforce' Church rules by executing heretics.

[quote]This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right. [i]Dignitatis Humanae[/i][/quote]




[b]Hassan[/b], the Church does not doubt the veracity of her claims. That has not changed and is unlikely to. While it is true that times have changed, do not think that no one doubted 'back in the day' either - there were many people who were not exactly card-carrying Christians, though few who were actually atheists. (William Rufus of England and Frederick Barbarossa come to mind as people who clearly did not buy into Church teachings.) What has changed is the Church's view of how best to acheive the salvation of all people. You are looking at it from the view of non-Catholics within society, which the Church is (naturally) approaching this situation from within the Church.

Edited December 21, 2008 by MithLuin

[Hassan]

[quote name='MithLuin' post='1733239' date='Dec 21 2008, 06:02 PM'][b]Hassan[/b], the Church does not doubt the veracity of her claims. That has not changed and is unlikely to. While it is true that times have changed, do not think that no one doubted 'back in the day' either - there were many people who were not exactly card-carrying Christians, though few who were actually atheists. (William Rufus of England and Frederick Barbarossa come to mind as people who clearly did not buy into Church teachings.) What has changed is the Church's view of how best to acheive the salvation of all people. You are looking at it from the view of non-Catholics within society, which the Church is (naturally) approaching this situation from within the Church.[/quote]


No, the Church does not, but the larger society does. I intended my comments reguarding doubt to be relative to the willingness of the state to hold the Church as a monopoly of truth and treat heresy almost as a form of treason or some other abhorant crime worthy of capital punishment. Rereading my post I see that got tangeled up with some other claims and was not clear, sorry.

"In this time when the Church was more confident of its supremicy executing heretics was the morally responsible thing to do."

looking back I should not have said this.

Edited December 21, 2008 by Hassan

[MithLuin]

Oh, okay, I see what you are saying now. Yes - in that time, heresy was seen as akin to treason, whereas nowadays (in the places most of us call home), that would not be the case. The US [i]will[/i] execute a person found guilty of treason, while it would [i]not[/i] execute a person found guilty of heresy.

But I will go further and say that [i]if[/i] such a state again existed, in which heresy was seen as tantamount to treason, the Catholic church would not support the execution of heretics, but would rather condemn the state as trodding upon that person's religious freedom.

[Hassan]

[quote name='MithLuin' post='1733325' date='Dec 21 2008, 07:39 PM']Oh, okay, I see what you are saying now. Yes - in that time, heresy was seen as akin to treason, whereas nowadays (in the places most of us call home), that would not be the case. The US [i]will[/i] execute a person found guilty of treason, while it would [i]not[/i] execute a person found guilty of heresy.

But I will go further and say that [i]if[/i] such a state again existed, in which heresy was seen as tantamount to treason, the Catholic church would not support the execution of heretics, but would rather condemn the state as trodding upon that person's religious freedom.[/quote]


yeah, I'm sorry that was not clear. And I think your point about the Church making it's opposition to religious compulsion clear is a good one. From what I understand the Church's decision to be clear on this, particularly with the help of Pope John Paul II, really helped to undercut the claims of "Catholic" dictators/authoritarian governments in South America and parts of Asia.

Edited December 21, 2008 by Hassan

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='mortify' post='1733205' date='Dec 21 2008, 04:47 PM']Modern society has molded our minds so it's hard for us to understand how people in the past could value Truth so greatly. We're more content with allowing heresy to exist along side truth for the sake of tolerance than doing what we can to root out the former. Were our ancestors wrong? The modernity in me says yes but its hard to say. Even though I'm a believer it's hard for me to comprehend a future eternity being more valuable than this present body, and that's simply the influence of the society we live in. I certainly don't buy the fact that it's easier to control heresy in our day, in all honesty there is probably more heresy in the Church than there ever was before.[/quote]

See, burning heretics had nothing to do with getting rid of heresy. The Church rids of heresy through ecumenical councils, papal bulls, excommunications, prayer, increasing godly devotion during times of spiritual apathy, etc. Kings enforce their earthly rule through wars, taxation, torture, capital punishment for treason, etc. Heresy just happens to become a form of treason when church and state are in bed with each other.

[Graciela]

Oops double post

Edited December 22, 2008 by Graciela

[Graciela]

Well, the Roman Catholic Church could definitely use the "appeal to tradition" to defend such a practice, but that is not an endorsement on my part.

OTOH, I think that the Council of Trent would never have happened had it not been for the abuses pointed out by Martin Luther and others, whom the RC church officially excommunicated. So, one could argue that positive change in the earthly institution of the church can at time benefit from "heretics" and so burning them is a bad idea.

Also, I have a personal stake in not burning heretics because some chick on Vocation Station just called me a heretic when I said that the current discipline of the Roman Church in not ordaining women is an arbitrary rule made by men.

Who knew it was sooo easy to be a heretic? I thought that I had to deny that Jesus was fully human and fully divine, or something theologically significant. But apparently merely acknowledging that church leaders are humans who make rules for the institution is enough. Wow...

Fun question to consider in this age of rampant fundamentalisms among all religions (including Christianity!)

[HisChildForever]

You are clearly struggling in regards to the priesthood.

"Only a baptized man (vir) receives sacred ordination. The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ's return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord Himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible." - The Catechism

The following website should help you:
[url="http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0001.html"]http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/...ics/ap0001.html[/url]

Edited December 22, 2008 by HisChildForever

[Graciela]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1733917' date='Dec 22 2008, 02:25 PM']You are clearly struggling in regards to the priesthood.

"Only a baptized man (vir) receives sacred ordination. The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ’s return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord Himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible." - Pope John Paul II

The following website should help you:
[url="http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0001.html"]http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/...ics/ap0001.html[/url][/quote]

This thread is about whether we should burn heretics at the stake in this day and age, not about the ordination of women. If you want to start another thread, that would be an approrpaite place to consider women's ordination. If not, I may have to whine to the moderators

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='Graciela' post='1733923' date='Dec 22 2008, 02:29 PM']This thread is about whether we should burn heretics at the stake in this day and age, not about the ordination of women. If you want to start another thread, that would be an approrpaite place to consider women's ordination. If not, I may have to whine to the moderators[/quote]

You were the one who brought myself (the "chick") and your opinions concerning ordination into it.

I am hesitant to start a thread because I did a search and found at least two discussing it.

You are in my prayers.

[Graciela]

[quote]You are in my prayers.[/quote]

I would prefer that you NOT pray for me- who knows what you'll ask God to do to me!
But this is still off topic (sorry.)

To return to topic:
Pragmatically it occurs to me that the logistics of burning heretiocs today would be almost impossible- except within Vatican City, since there are no other Roman Catholic church-run nation-states to carry out such enforcement of church determinations of heresy and their punishment. But the heretics would have to be caught in Vatican City or else extradited from other countries- and those treaties would be difficult to negotiate with western democracies where freedom of religion is legally recognized.
Perhaps some of the governments with very strict Sharia law would be willing to do an extradiction with the Vatican as long as the Vatican would be willing to extradite heretical Muslims back to them for caning, whipping, beheading and the like. I would think that they might be mutually sympathetic to punishing those who don't follow the party line...

Edited December 22, 2008 by Graciela

[Hassan]

[quote name='Graciela' post='1733940' date='Dec 22 2008, 03:50 PM']Perhaps some of the governments with very strict Sharia law would be willing to do an extradiction with the Vatican as long as the Vatican would be willing to extradite heretical Muslims back to them for caning, whipping, beheading and the like. I would think that they might be mutually sympathetic to punishing those who don't follow the party line...[/quote]


Islam has no direct equivalent to "heresy" as Catholicism does as it lacks a central magisterium. The recent persecution of "innovators" is a more recent phenomena which has come about in large part due to the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, previous to this differences of opinion were generally tolerated. Such limited pluralism had a foundation in the Hadith which instructed Muslims to view a diversity of opinions as Allah's will.

Secondly as has been discussed the Vatican's rejection of religious coercion is more than a matter of logistics. One can view this shift as a deepening of the Church's understanding of a previous teaching or a pragmatic accommodation of contemporary historical trends, but none the less it has been codified within the Church teachings through a number of explicit documents, some of them produced in the Second Vatican Council others previous to it.

[Graciela]

[quote name='Hassan' post='1733954' date='Dec 22 2008, 03:07 PM']Islam has no direct equivalent to "heresy" as Catholicism does as it lacks a central magisterium. The recent persecution of "innovators" is a more recent phenomena which has come about in large part due to the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, previous to this differences of opinion were generally tolerated. Such limited pluralism had a foundation in the Hadith which instructed Muslims to view a diversity of opinions as Allah's will.

Thanks for the info on this- my experience is limited to hearing about fatwas proclaimed against certain individuals by individual clerics. I appreciate the notion that diversity of opinions can be viewed as Allah's will. We could learn something fromthat!

Secondly as has been discussed the Vatican's rejection of religious coercion is more than a matter of logistics. One can view this shift as a deepening of the Church's understanding of a previous teaching or a pragmatic accommodation of contemporary historical trends, but none the less it has been codified within the Church teachings through a number of explicit documents, some of them produced in the Second Vatican Council others previous to it.[/quote]

I was being partly facetious about the logistics, to dramatize how ridiculous the idea is to our sensibility today. OTOH, the rise of various religious fundamentalisms in the world has been the source of much violence in recent years, so the kind of intolerance that would support burning heretics might be considered as related to such irruptions of fundamentalist or literalistic violence in other erligious groups (recent Hindu-Christian violenec in India comes to mind).

[MithLuin]

Executing people should never be a joke.

The crimes considered heresy usually are small fry, not sweeping statements denying the divinity of Jesus. The court that tried Joan of Arc focused on her refusal to wear women's clothing. That, and not denying her visions. Granted, her trial was wholly political, and the charge of heresy was more a scam intended to result in discrediting her before her death. Belief in the pre-existence of souls is heresy.

To be tried as a traitor, you don't have to be guilty of selling nuclear warheads to an enemy nation. There are smaller treasons.


The teaching on the male priesthood (like any teaching of the Church) is not solely made 'by men' but is inspired by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. You could say that it was 'just men' who determined that what occurs at the consecration is transubstantiation...but that would not be the most accurate way of describing it.

The Church does not believe that it has the authority or ability to ordain women to the priesthood. If you think that it does and it should, the Church would view you as mistaken. Charges of heresy would not be leveled unless you were also portraying yourself as a Catholic theologian. Members of other faiths (for instance, those Christian denominations that [i]do[/i] ordain women) do not call themselves Catholic (obviously), so their disagreement is not heresy. You have to be a citizen of that country to be a traitor to it.

[MithLuin]

Oh, and to clarify further, [b]Graciela[/b], it is against the rules of the Vocation forum to call someone a heretic (or other insulting name). I reread the posts, and [b]HCF[/b] referred to ordination of women within the Catholic Church as a heresy; she did not label anyone a heretic.

Considering a woman who seeks ordination is automatically excommunicated, "heresy" would be a fair description of the Church's view. As you are not currently a member of the Catholic Church, it would be very strange for someone to use that word to describe your views.

Everyone recognizes (including the thread starter) that the concept of burning at the stake is very off-putting (to say the least) to everyone here. The purpose of this thread was not to advocate reviving such a practice, but to discuss whether or not there was [i]any[/i] reason or circumstance in which the modern Church could contemplate this course of action. The answer is a resounding [i]no[/i] - as you point out, the practical inhibition that there are no civil states functioning as Catholic theocracies (outside of the Vatican City State). But also, a much more theological impediment is that the Church itself has affirmed personal religious freedom and condemned this type of persecution all over the world. One cannot make a vague appeal to tradition when explicit church documents vigorously condemn a practice.