Heretics

[JP2Iloveyou]

Don John of Austria,

I am very busy right now, but I'd be happy to debate you on this. However, let's start on the right foot. I think it would be best to state our positions clearly so we know from where we are arguing. Here is my position:

1. I think that we have an obligation to defend the faith, even to the point of death if necessary. With that, I agree with you.
2. I do not think the moral law allows us to go around killing arbitrarily anyone who does not posess and proclaim the Catholic faith.
3. I maintain the definitions I used in the heretics thread. They were from the dictionary of The New American Bible. It has a Nihil Obstat from Michael F. Gutgsell, J.C.D. and Valentine J. Peter, J.C.D. The Imprimatur is from Archbishop Daniel E. Sheehan, D.D., J.C.D, Archbishop of Omaha.
4. I think that the writings of Pope John Paul II clearly say that people have the right and should have the freedom to worship as they choose and to form their conscience, always keeping in mind that EVERYONE has the moral obligation to form their conscience, as best they can, to the truth.


Also, is your quote from Canon Law from the 1983 Code, because didn't that Code make all previous Codes obsolete? The only reason I ask is because I can't imagine them talking about the Crusades in the 1983 CIC.

Edited November 21, 2004 by JP2Iloveyou

[Guest Aluigi]

those are canons of a council, different than a code of canon law.

[Don John of Austria]

Thank you little flower I am grateful for you telling me what happened I would appreciate it very much if you would make it continuous.

[Don John of Austria]

JP2 I don't have time to make an adequate response but those canons are from the 4th lateran Council they CANNOT BE made obsolete.

[littleflower+JMJ]

its merged and next time for any reason caused to be closed--there will be a post why

thanks.

[popestpiusx]

[quote name='JP2Iloveyou' date='Nov 21 2004, 05:54 PM'] 2.  I do not think the moral law allows us to go around killing arbitrarily anyone who does not posess and proclaim the Catholic faith.
[/quote]


No one has said that we can go around arbitrarily killing anyone who does not possess and proclaim the Catholic Faith

[quote]3.  I maintain the definitions I used in the heretics thread.  They were from the dictionary of The New American Bible.  It has a Nihil Obstat from Michael F. Gutgsell, J.C.D. and Valentine J. Peter, J.C.D.  The Imprimatur is from Archbishop Daniel E. Sheehan, D.D., J.C.D, Archbishop of Omaha.
[/quote]

Therein lies the problem.

[quote]4.  I think that the writings of Pope John Paul II clearly say that people have the right and should have the freedom to worship as they choose and to form their conscience, always keeping in mind that EVERYONE has the moral obligation to form their conscience, as best they can, to the truth.[/quote]

As much as I would live to dive into this one, it's far to large an issue for one post and would take a long time to umpack. Ergo, I'll leave it uncommented upon.

Edited November 22, 2004 by popestpiusx

[popestpiusx]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' date='Nov 21 2004, 04:34 PM']


PopepiusX -- man you are cool! Thanks for the Quote from Saint Bernard

[/quote]
There's plenty more where that came from.

[Don John of Austria]

. [quote] I do not think the moral law allows us to go around killing arbitrarily anyone who does not posess and proclaim the Catholic faith[/quote]

popepiusX said no one here said anything about killing everyone ho does not profess or proclaim the Catholic Faith.




[quote]4.  I think that the writings of Pope John Paul II clearly say that people have the right and should have the freedom to worship as they choose and to form their conscience, always keeping in mind that EVERYONE has the moral obligation to form their conscience, as best they can, to the truth.[/quote]



Well lets hope you're Idea of what is clearly siad in John Paul II's writeings is incorrect since such a Idea is clearly not in keeping with the Tradition of the Church or with numerous Councils decrees. Freedom from a Catholic point of view is this --- the right to do what is morally correct without interferance from the civil authorities. the right to worship inthere own way cannot be freedom at all because without rightousness freedom doesn't exist, no religion except Catholicism is totally True so all of them are at least partially a lie, the devil is the Father of lies so all religions other than Catholicism are to a greater or lesser extent Children of the Devil-- they are to a greater or lesser extent Evil. It can never be right to do Evil or to worship in an evil faith therefore on CANNOT be free to do so, as to do so is to enslave oneself.


Here is an except from a lengthy artical by Cardinal Ratzinger on freedom:

TRUTH AND FREEDOM
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger




[quote]
The foregoing has made it clear that freedom is tied to a measure, the measure of reality—to the truth. Freedom to destroy oneself or to destroy another is not freedom, but its demonic parody. Man's freedom is shared freedom, freedom in the conjoint existence of liberties which limit and thus sustain one another. Freedom must measure itself by what I am, by what we are—otherwise it annuls itself. But having said this, we are now ready to make an essential correction of the superficial image of freedom which largely dominates the present: if man's freedom can consist only in the ordered coexistence of liberties, this means that order—right8—is not the conceptual antithesis of freedom, but rather its condition, indeed, a constitutive element of freedom itself. Right is not an obstacle to freedom, but constitutes it. The absence of right is the absence of freedom.

[/quote]
and later in the artical
[quote]
3) We must also lay to rest once and for all the dream of the absolute autonomy and self-sufficiency of reason. Human reason needs the support of the great religious traditions of humanity. It will, of course, examine critically the individual religious traditions. The pathology of religion is the most dangerous sickness of the human mind. It exists in the religions, but it also exists precisely where religion as such is rejected and the status of an absolute is assigned to relative goods: the atheistic systems of modernity are the most terrifying examples of a religious passion alienated from its nature, which is a life-threatening sickness of the human mind. Where God is denied, freedom is not built up, but robbed of its foundation and thus distorted.13 Where the purest and deepest religious traditions are entirely discarded, man severs himself from his truth, he lives contrary to it and becomes unfree. Even philosophical ethics cannot be unqualifiedly autonomous. It cannot renounce the idea of God or the idea of a truth of being having an ethical character.14 If there is no truth about man, man also has no freedom. Only the truth makes us free.
[/quote]
here is a link to the entire artical [url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/TRUEFREE.htm"]here[/url]

[SirMyztiq]

I play a game where the main dude calls those that oppose the emperor "heretics"

Then he goes on and kills them all with his army of people who think that all that opposse the emperor are heretics and that if they don't join they should die!

It's called Dawn of War if anybody is interested.

Ironic, I know.

[cmotherofpirl]

Lets start with my explanation, by Father John Hardon, from the Catholic Dictionary.

In the Roman Catholic Church, heresy has a very specific meaning. Anyone who, after receiving baptism, while remaining nominally a Christian, pertinaciously denies or doubts any of the truths that must be believed with divine and Catholic faith is considered a heretic. Accordingly four elements must be verified to constitute formal heresy; previous valid baptism, which need not have been in the Catholic Church; external profession of still being a Christian, otherwise a person becomes an apostate; outright denial or positive doubt regarding a truth that the Catholic Church has actually proposed as revealed by God; and the disbelief must be morally culpable, where a nominal Christian refuses to accept what he knows is a doctrinal imperative.

Objectively, therefore, to become a heretic in the strict canonical sense and be excommunicated from the faithful, one must deny or question a truth that is taught not merely on the authority of the Church but on the word of God revealed in the Scriptures or sacred tradition. Subjectively a person must recognize his obligation to believe. If he acts in good faith, as with most persons brought up in non-Catholic surroundings, the heresy is only material and implies neither guilt nor sin against faith. (Etym. Latin haeresis, from the Greek hairesis, a taking, choice, sect, heresy.)

[noncatholicname]

Now that you've got the definitions right, now what?

[JP2Iloveyou]

I'm going to stick with my definitions. I received that Bible at a retreat in Lincoln, NE. If it is good enough for Bishop Bruskewitz, then it's good enough for me. Bishop Bruskewizt is certainly no liberal and he is certainly in line with the Church.

I'm going to repost my initial premises and I would appreciate someone on the other side to do the same. Please don't respond to these, just post your own. Once we are on the same page and we know where everyone is at, it will make for a much better debate.

[quote]1. I think that we have an obligation to defend the faith, even to the point of death if necessary. With that, I agree with you.
2. I do not think the moral law allows us to go around killing arbitrarily anyone who does not posess and proclaim the Catholic faith.
3. I maintain the definitions I used in the heretics thread. They were from the dictionary of The New American Bible. It has a Nihil Obstat from Michael F. Gutgsell, J.C.D. and Valentine J. Peter, J.C.D. The Imprimatur is from Archbishop Daniel E. Sheehan, D.D., J.C.D, Archbishop of Omaha.
4. I think that the writings of Pope John Paul II clearly say that people have the right and should have the freedom to worship as they choose and to form their conscience, always keeping in mind that EVERYONE has the moral obligation to form their conscience, as best they can, to the truth.[/quote]

[Don John of Austria]

1 It is morally permissable to make war on Infidels and Heretics... Furthermore it is the Tradition of the Church that there are times when this action becomes morally obligatiory.


2. Public Formal Heresy is an offense for which it is morally permissable to execute-- it may not always be the wisest choice but it is a morally permissable choice.

3. The writings of the Church clearly say that no one has a Right to do anything that is wrong, worshiping in non Catholic religions is clearly wrong and so one cannot have the " Right " to do it.


4 I would accept the definition of heresy from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The right Christian faith consists in giving one's voluntary assent to Christ in all that truly belongs to His teaching. There are,therefore,two ways of deviating from Christianity: the one by refusing to believe in Christ Himself, which is the way of infidelity, common to Pagans and Jews; the other by restricting belief to certain points of Christ's doctrine selected and fashioned at pleasure, which is the way of heretics. The subject-matter of both faith and heresy is, therefore, the deposit of the faith, that is, the sum total of truths revealed in Scripture and Tradition as proposed to our belief by the Church. [color=red][u][i][b]The believer accepts the whole deposit as proposed by the Church; the heretic accepts only such parts of it as commend themselves to his own approval. [/b][/i][/u][/color]The heretical tenets may be ignorance of the true creed, erroneous judgment, imperfect apprehension and comprehension of dogmas: in none of these does the will play an appreciable part, wherefore one of the necessary conditions of sinfulness--free choice--is wanting and such heresy is merely objective, or material. On the other hand the will may freely incline the intellect to adhere to tenets declared false by the Divine teaching authority of the Church. The impelling motives are many: intellectual pride or exaggerated reliance on one's own insight; the illusions of religious zeal; the allurements of political or ecclesiastical power; the ties of material interests and personal status; and perhaps others more dishonourable. Heresy thus willed is imputable to the subject and carries with it a varying degree of guilt; it is called formal, because to the material error it adds the informative element of "freely willed".


Furthermore anyone formally declared a Heretic by the Church ( such as in council) would of course qualify.


5 It is improper to question tenets 1 and 2 as both are fundemental traditions of the Church.

[popestpiusx]

My position:
I. I think that we have an obligation to defend the faith, even to the point of death if necessary.

II. I do not think the moral law allows us to go around killing arbitrarily anyone who does not posess and proclaim the Catholic faith.

III. I maintain the definitions used by St. Thomas Aquinas and taught by the Catholic Church:

Aquin.: ST SS Q[11] A[2] R.O. 3 Para. 1/1

Reply OBJ 3: As Augustine says (Ep. xliii) and we find it stated in the Decretals (xxiv, qu. 3, can. Dixit Apostolus): "By no means should we accuse of heresy those who, however false and perverse their opinion may be, defend it without obstinate fervor, and seek the truth with careful anxiety, ready to mend their opinion, when they have found the truth," because, to wit, they do not make a choice in contradiction to the doctrine of the Church.

Accordingly, certain doctors seem to have differed either in matters the holding of which in this or that way is of no consequence, so far as faith is concerned, or even in matters of faith, which were not as yet defined by the Church; [b]although if anyone were obstinately to deny them after they had been defined by the authority of the universal Church, he would be deemed a heretic. [/b]


IV. I believe (because the Catholic Church teaches) that public persistent heretics can be executed. No one has a right to spread error, as error has no rights.

Again from Aquinas:

ST SS Q[11] A[3] Para. 1/2

I answer that, With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. [b]On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death.[/b] For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. [b]Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith 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. [/b]

And again:

Aquin.: ST SS Q[11] A[3] Para. 2/2

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 [b]delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death.[/b] 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."

Edited November 23, 2004 by popestpiusx

[Don John of Austria]

Well JP2 were waiting.....

[JP2Iloveyou]

Sorry I haven't responded sooner. I have been very busy and I wanted to make sure I provided a well-reasoned answer, not some tongue-in-cheek comment.

Don John of Austria, I don't disagree with any of your post. I accept your definition of heresy and I agree with your principles. One thing though, in your first principle, when you say that you think it is OK to make war on heretics, I assume you mean formal heretics here, not simply material heretics who may not know the error of their ways?

popestpiusx, I also agree with what you posted. I think the distinction must be made that war needs to only be waged when those who do not share our faith try and impede the Church. Aquinas says this:

[quote]I answer that, Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as the heathens and the Jews: and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith, in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will: nevertheless they should be compelled by the faithful, if it be possible to do so, so that they do not hinder the faith, by their blasphemies, or by their evil persuasions, or even by their open persecutions. It is for this reason that Christ's faithful often wage war with unbelievers, not indeed for the purpose of forcing them to believe, because even if they were to conquer them, and take them prisoners, they should still leave them free to believe, if they will, but in order to prevent them from hindering the faith of Christ.

On the other hand, there are unbelievers who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it, such as heretics and all apostates: such should be submitted even to bodily compulsion, that they may fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received.
[/quote]

SS Question 10 Number 8

It's amazing isn't it? The faithful usually agree on most doctrinal things, you just have to calm down and get people to explain what their positions really are. Maybe I'm missing something, but I think we all agree.

We all believe that we as Catholics must do whatever it takes in order to evangelize our separated brethren. Pope John Paul II has been quite clear on this point. We also seem to agree that we can't just go around killing whoever we dang well please simply because they aren't Catholic. We also agree, however, that because our faith is so important, we have the right, one might even say the duty, to defend the faith, through war if necessary. However, we must always be careful to distinguish between unbelievers who were born into an unbelief and may be ignorant to the truth and unbelievers who chose heresy of their own volition knowing what the truth is.

God Bless

[Don John of Austria]

JPII -- I think we agrree on those points with one clarification( I don't actually think you will disagree with this, I just want to clarify) I would agree with this statement[quote]However, we must always be careful to distinguish between unbelievers who were born into an unbelief and may be ignorant to the truth and unbelievers who chose heresy of their own volition knowing what the truth is.
[/quote]
ecxepting that it doesn't matter the state of their heresy( Formal or material) if they are actually assualting the Church the right to wage war upon them is not abrogated in anyway. As they have attacked the Church they have forfieted the protections that their birth might have given them-- the have moved from Seperated Brethren to Enemies of the Church. Of course all the nesccessities of Just Warfare always apply.

[Pio Nono]

Don John, no argument from me on that point.

[JP2Iloveyou]

My bad. Pio Nono and I live in the same building and often share computers. I forgot to log him out again.

[Guest]

what ever happen'd to turning the other cheek ?
your tounge being your sword ?
thou shall not kill ?
killing people who dont proclaim the catholic faith
that sounds really "christian"