Fr.Andrew

(Bede): "Secular powers did things they wanted to do anyway with much more gusto than the chuirch intended (fight wars, hunt heretics and witches)..."
(Fr Andrew): Why would a secular power want to hunt heretics and witches?

Amos

Because: 1) Their inner turmoil leads to social unrest and division that often leads to wars. 2) For the protection of their own families and children lest they become victims of their crafty schemes. 3) To protect the integrity of the true Church which was not their enemy. 4) To avoid financial exploitation of the poor (the line "God is not on your side because you don't give enough" is still around today and so is the 10% money scheme-- which in Catholicism meant the devotion of time for self reflection and contemplation.

It is for these same reason that even "the secular web" is against Christian fundamentalists and they also provide refuse for its victims as best as they can.

Heretics and witches are easily identified because the "smoke of their torment" is visible to all and because "they have no rest by day or by night" (Rev.14:11) they impinge on the freedom enjoyed by the people at large.

The problem for Bede is that before we can agree with him we must reject protestant Christianity as a whole and this would crumble our entire civilization as a protestant nation under God. This means that we do like heretics and witches but we don't like 'em a lot.

NOGO

I reject the use of the word secular in all this thread.
The church we are often told is not just the pope but the whole congregation.

The pope was a moral authority. If he could not control the very thing he is appointed for, then something is deeply wrong.

Bede, you may exonerate the pope and the chruch hierarchy but you cannot exonerate Christianity itself.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" amounts to moral permission to butcher.

It seems to me that the pope had the power to excommunicate which was at the time a grave sentence. The pope could have excommunicated anyone who burned a witch but he did not.

The moral permission to do these barbaric acts was deeply entrenched in Christianity itself and nobody questioned it. Not even the popes.

This, rather the chruch-vs-secular debate, is the core of the problem.

Amos

Well I can see why, but that just doesn't work that way. The church itself is an inspired institution by itself under God. She is the Bride of the Lamb wherein the Ultimate Truth is perpetuated (or Mary could not be the perpetual Virgin = necessarily true). This also means that whenever we latch onto some truth it will drag us to Rome or else we will be left standed with an excerpt of truth.

But the confessionals contradict the moral authority of the Church.

But Catholics are not Christians but at best Christians-in-becoming. Catholics are sinners first, and when their sinful nature has ben annahilated they become Christians.

Not at all. Repentance of witchraft within Christendom is all that is required to spare the lives of witches. Freedom of religion is not a universal freedom around the world.

Not true. Freedom from religion is not the same as freedom of religion. The problem with witchcraft is that it preys on waning Catholics and play a hokus pokus on them that will rob them of eternal life, which is a reality in Catholicism.