Facts of Faith
A Persecuting Power
The little horn was also to “wear out the saints of the Most High.” Daniel 7:25. That is, it was to persecute them till they were literally worn out. Has the Papacy fulfilled this part of the prophecy’? In order to do Roman Catholics no injustice, we shall quote from unquestioned authorities among them. And, since they persecute people for “heresy,” we must first let them define what they mean by “heresy.” In the New Catholic Dictionary, published by the Universal Knowledge Foundation, a Roman Catholic institution, New York, 1929, we read: FAFA 62.5
“Heresy (Gr., hairesis, choice), deciding for oneself what one shall believe and practise.” Art. “Heresy,” p. 440. FAFA 62.6
According to this definition any one who will not blindly submit to papal authority, but will read the Bible, deciding for himself what he shall believe, is a “heretic.” What official stand has the Catholic Church taken in regard to such heretics? This we find stated in the Catholic Encyclopedia in the following words: FAFA 63.1
“In the Bull ‘Ad exstirpanda’ (1252) Innocent IV says: ‘When those adjudged guilty of heresy have been given up to the civil power by the bishop or his representative, or the Inquisition, the podesta or chief magistrate of the city shall take them at once, and shall, within five days at the most, execute the laws made against them.’ ... Nor could any doubt remain as to what civil regulations were meant, for the passages which ordered the burning of impenitent heretics were inserted in the papal decretals from the imperial constitutions ‘Commissis nobis’ and ‘Inconsutibilem tunicam.’ The aforesaid Bull ‘Ad exstirpanda’ remained thenceforth a fundamental document of the Inquisition, renewed or reinforced by several popes, Alexander IV (1254-61), Clement IV (1265-68), Nicolas IV (1288-92), Boniface VIII (1294-1303), and others. The civil authorities, therefore, were enjoined by the popes, under pain of excommunication to execute the legal sentences that condemned impenitent heretics to the stake. It is to be noted that excommunication itself was no trifle, for, if the person excommunicated did not free himself from excommunication within a year, he was held by the legislation of that period to be a heretic, and incurred all the penalties that affected heresy.” — Vol. VIII, p. 34. 9
This Encyclopedia was printed in 1910, and bears the sanction of the Catholic authorities, and of their “censor,” so that here is up-to-date authority showing that the Roman church sanctions persecution. The Roman church here acknowledges, that, when she was in power, she forced the civil government to burn those whom she termed heretics, and the government officials who failed to execute her laws, became heretics by that neglect, and suffered the punishment of heretics. Professor Alfred Baudrillart, a Roman Catholic scholar in France, who is now a Catholic Cardinal, says: FAFA 63.2
“The Catholic Church is a respecter of conscience and of liberty.... She has, and she loudly proclaims that she has, a ‘horror of blood.’ Nevertheless when confronted by heresy she does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture. She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition, she calls the laws of the State to her aid, if necessary she encourages a crusade, or a religious war and all her ‘horror of blood’ practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed it, which proceeding is almost more odious - for it is less frank - than shedding it herself. Especially did she act thus in the sixteenth century with regard to Protestants. Not content to reform morally, to preach by example, to convert people by eloquent and holy missionaries, she lit in Italy, in the Low Countries, and above all in Spain, the funeral piles of the Inquisition. In France under Francis I and Henry II, in England under Mary Tudor, she tortured the heretics, whilst both in France and Germany during the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century if she did not actually begin, at any rate she encouraged and actively aided, the religious wars. No one will deny that we have here a great scandal to our contemporaries.... FAFA 64.1
“Indeed, even among our friends and our brothers we find those who dare not look this problem in the face. They ask permission from the Church to ignore or even deny all those acts and institutions in the past which have made orthodoxy compulsory. 10 “The Catholic Church, the Renaissance, and Protestantism,” pp. 182-184. London: 1908. This book bears the sanction of the Roman Catholic authorities, and of their “censor.” FAFA 64.2
Andrew Steinmetz says: FAFA 64.3
“Catholics easily account for their devotion to the Holy See, in spite of its historical abominations, which, however, very few of them are aware of their accredited histories in common use, ‘with permission of authority,’ veiling the subject with painful dexterity.” — “History of the Jesuits,” Vol. I, p. 13. London:1848.
Dr. C. H. Lea says: FAFA 65.1
“In view of the unvarying policy of the Church during the three centuries under consideration, and for a century and a half later, there is a typical instance of the manner in which history is written to order, in the quiet assertion of the latest Catholic historian of the Inquisition that ‘the Church took no part in the corporal punishment of heretics.”’ - “History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages,” Vol. I, p. 540. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.
Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) made the following decree for the destruction of all heretics, which is binding on civil rulers: FAFA 65.2
“Temporal princes shall be reminded and exhorted, and if needs be, compelled by spiritual censures, to discharge every one of their functions: and that, as they desire to be reckoned and held faithful, so, for the defence of the faith, let them publicly make oath that they will endeavour, bona fide with all their might, to extirpate from their territories all heretics marked by the Church; so that when anyone is about to assume any authority, whether spiritual or temporal, he shall be held bound to confirm his title by this oath. And if a temporal prince, being required and admonished by the Church, shall neglect to purge his kingdom from this heretical pravity, the metropolitan and other provincial bishops shall bind him in fetters of excommunication; and if he obstinately refuse to make satisfaction this shall be notified within a year to the Supreme Pontiff, that then he may declare his subjects absolved from their allegiance, and leave their lands to be occupied by Catholics, who, the heretics being exterminated, may possess them unchallenged, and preserve them in the purity of the faith.”- “Decretalium Gregorii Papae Noni Conpilatio;” Liber V, Titulus 7, Capitulum XIII, (A Collection of the Decretals of Gregory IX, Book 5, Title 7, Chapter 13), dated April 20, 1619.
The sainted Catholic doctor, Thomas Aquinas, says: FAFA 66.1
“If counterfeiters of money or other criminals are justly delivered over to death forthwith by the secular authorities, much more can heretics, after they are convicted of heresy, be not only forthwith excommunicated, but as surely put to death. “Summa Theologica,” 2a, 2ae, qu. xi, art. iii.
That this principle is sanctioned by modern Catholic priests, we can see from the following statement: FAFA 66.2
“The church has persecuted. Only a tyro in church history will deny that.... Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the church authorities. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots, and the Spanish Inquisition.” — “Western Watchman,” official organ of Father Phelan. St. Louis, Mo.: Dec. 24, 1908. FAFA 66.3
We have now seen from the “decretals” of popes, from sainted doctors of the Roman church, and from authentic Catholic books, that they sanction and defend persecution, and history amply bears out the fact. Dr. J. Dowling says: FAFA 66.4
“From the birth of Popery in 606, to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than fifty millions of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors, an average of more than forty thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of Popery.” — “History of Romanism,” pp. 541, 542. New York: 1871.
W. E. H. Leeky says: FAFA 66.5
“That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty, that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no power of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings.” — “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe,” Vol. II, p. 32. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910.
John Lothrop Motley, speaking of papal persecution in the Netherlands, says: FAFA 67.1
“Upon February 16, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office [the Inquisition] condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics.... A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution.... This is probably the most concise death warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines.” — “The Rise of the Dutch Republic,” (2-vol. ed.) Vol. I, p. 626. New York.
Many Roman Catholic authors today have tried to prove that their church does not sanction persecution, but facts of history are too plain to be denied. Eternity alone will reveal what God’s dear children suffered during the Dark Ages. Accordingly as the Papacy attained to power, the common people became more oppressed, until “the noon of the Papacy was the midnight of the world.” — “History of Protestantism,” J. A. Wylie, LL.D., Vol. I, p. 16. London. FAFA 67.2