Vatican Book On Inquisition Stirs Controversy On Shea Blog

It seems that this is the day for me to comment on the relative weight of magisterial statements. A reader writes:

Care to comment on the discussion taking place below in Mark She’as blog:

http://markshea.blogspot.com/

Scroll down to the entry titled “Just the other day, the press was casting this report as a Vatican puff piece on the Inquisition designed to exonerate the Church:” on June 25.

In the “Comments” section, I argue that it is a divinely revealed doctrine, taught by the Church’s Ordinary Magisterium for CENTURIES, that the Catholic State does have a right to limit the activities of heretics, inlucing prosecution, up to an including the death penalty.

Thus, the Inquisitions, while subject to abuses, were in totoal conformity with Catholic teaching, past and present.

However, in light of the crrent Magisterium’s guidance, even in the Catholic state the death penalty would be employed whenever absolutely necessary. Other punishments (i.e. fines, imprisonment, exile) should be employed first.

And of course, this does not apply to a non-Catholic state, which has no right to perseucte heretics, unless their teachings contradict the natural law (i.e. polygamy or abortion).

What do you think? I cited not only the Ordinary Magisterium, but Leo X’s Bull “Exurge Domine,” where he declares it heresy to say that “That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.”

I took a look at the piece, and would like to read the book that the Vatican has released about the Inquisitions, but since I haven’t yet done so, I can’t comment that directly on the excerpts that are cited on Mark’s blog since I don’t know the context in which they were written.

However, regarding the discussion in the comments box, I would say the following: I don’t think that the reader can fairly accuse Cardinal Cottier (as he did) of having made a heretical statement on the basis of Exsurge Domine. The proposition you mention regarding the burning of heretics is indeed among those repudiated by Leo X in the bull, but he cannot be shown to have referred to it as heretical. Here are the censures that he applied to the rejected propositions:

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 [source].

As the relevant conjunctions indicate, the pope was applying these censures to the respective condemned propositions as a group, without assigning particular censures to particular propositions. Thus one cannot say that the proposition regarding burning heretics is censured as heretical or as something else. It could be censured merely as offensive to pious ears (which just means “badly phrased” and does not even imply its falsity). I don’t think the latter is what the pope likely had in mind, but from the way the formal censure is written, one cannot associate particular censures with particular propositions, and thus one cannot use the document to accuse Cardinal Cottier of having made a heretical statement when he said “The Church does not ask forgiveness for the Inquisition as a whole. She asks forgiveness for the fact of the violence employed during the Inquisition.”

That is a separate question from whether the use of the death penalty for heresy at the time was justified. The Church’s traditional teaching has acknowledged that the state has a right to use the death penalty for grave offenses against society (cf. CCC 2266 with 2267, though these are not exhaustive statements of the Church’s traditional teaching). It also acknowledges that religious liberty may be curbed when it interferes with the common good (CCC 2109).

In the judgment of the pontiffs of the time (and in the judgment of their Protestant opponents who persecuted Catholics), the use of capital punishment was seen as a proportionate and necessary means for dealing with the harm being done to the common good by the spread of heresy. In the judgment of many modern churchmen, they were wrong about this, but one should be careful in forming such an assessment of the times in which they lived. We know less about their time and what were the possible and effective ways of dealing with a situation than those who were living in the time itself. We are able to say with abundant confidence that such means should not be employed in our time, but one must proceed with caution in forming such judgments about other times, particularly in view of the biblical precedent on this matter.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin