Part IX: The Institutional Record

1. THE SALE OF INDULGENCES #

THE RECORD. An indulgence is a remission of temporal punishment for sins, granted by the Church from the "treasury of merits." In 1515-1517, Pope Leo X authorized an indulgence to fund the rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica. In Germany it was preached by the Dominican Johann Tetzel; half the proceeds went to repay the banking house of Fugger for the loans Archbishop Albrecht of Brandenburg had taken to buy his church offices. The jingle tied to the campaign -- "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs" -- is the one Luther attacks in Thesis 27: "They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory."

Luther, Thesis 86: "Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?"

SCRIPTURE CHECK. "Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money." (Acts 8:20). "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters... buy wine and milk without money and without price." (Isaiah 55:1)

ROME'S REPLY: the selling was an abuse; Pius V abolished financial indulgences in 1567. ANSWER: the abuse was stopped; the doctrine was kept. The Catechism still teaches indulgences today (CCC 1471-1479). They took the price tag off the product and kept selling the idea that the Church holds a vault of merits and the key to it.

2. THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE (1209-1229) #

THE RECORD. In 1208 Pope Innocent III proclaimed a crusade -- with the same spiritual rewards as a crusade to the Holy Land -- against the Cathars of southern France, fellow inhabitants of Christendom. On July 22, 1209, the crusaders took the city of Beziers. The papal legates reported to Innocent that "our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age," and that almost twenty thousand were put to the sword. In 1244, at Montsegur, some two hundred Cathars were burned in one day.

LEGEND vs RECORD: The line "Kill them all; God will know his own" is attributed to the legate Arnaud Amalric by the monk Caesarius of Heisterbach, writing a decade or more later. It may never have been spoken. We do not need it. The legates' own report of the massacre is worse, because it is a boast.

SCRIPTURE CHECK. "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you" (Matthew 5:44). "Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matthew 26:52).

ROME'S REPLY: the Cathars were heretics who threatened society. ANSWER: then argue with them. Jesus never once authorized killing a heretic, and the Council of Toulouse (1229) that followed the slaughter is the same council that banned the laity from owning Bibles (Part VI).

3. THE INQUISITION #

THE RECORD. - 1184: Pope Lucius III, "Ad abolendam," orders bishops to seek out heretics and hand the obstinate to secular power. - 1231-1233: Pope Gregory IX establishes papal inquisitors, largely from the Dominican order. - 1252: Pope Innocent IV, "Ad extirpanda," authorizes the use of torture to extract confessions. - 1478: The Spanish Inquisition, authorized by Pope Sixtus IV. - 1542: The Roman Inquisition (Holy Office), established by Paul III -- the office that issued the 1897 Comma decree (Part VI). - 1600: Giordano Bruno burned alive in Rome's Campo de' Fiori. - 1633: Galileo condemned and forced to recant. - 2000: On March 12, Pope John Paul II's "Day of Pardon" asked forgiveness for the use of violence "in the service of truth."

SCRIPTURE CHECK. "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight" (John 18:36). When James and John wanted to call down fire on a village that rejected him, Jesus "turned, and rebuked them" (Luke 9:54-55).

ROME'S REPLY: popular death tolls are inflated, and secular courts carried out the executions. ANSWER: Yes, many popular numbers are exaggerated -- and here is why it doesn't matter. One person burned for what they believed about God is one too many, and the Church wrote the procedure, ran the trials, authorized the torture, and handed over the condemned knowing exactly what the secular arm would do. A pope apologized in 2000. Apologies are for things that happened.

4. PERSECUTION OF "HERETICS" AFTER 380 -- WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR PEOPLE #

THE RECORD. - Even before 380, Constantine issued an edict against heretics that names the Valentinians among others, forbids their assemblies, and confiscates their meeting places (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.64-65). - 380: The Edict of Thessalonica (Codex Theodosianus 16.1.2) declares all who reject the Nicene faith "demented and insane," to suffer "the infamy of heretical dogmas" and divine and imperial punishment. - Book 16, title 5 of the Theodosian Code ("On Heretics") collects dozens of imperial laws against dissenting Christians: bans on meeting, confiscation of property, exile, loss of the right to make wills. - 385: Priscillian of Avila and companions are executed at Trier -- the first Christians put to death by Christian authority for heresy. Martin of Tours protested. He was ignored. - 388: At Callinicum on the Euphrates, monks burned a Valentinian meeting place (and Christians burned a synagogue). When Emperor Theodosius ordered restitution, Bishop Ambrose of Milan defended the arsonists and pressured the emperor until he backed down (Ambrose, Letter 40 / 74).

Read the last entry twice. A Valentinian church, burned by monks, and a saint and Doctor of the Church defending the fire. That is how our tradition disappeared. Not by losing an argument. By losing its buildings, its books, and its legal right to exist.

SCRIPTURE CHECK. "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matthew 7:1). "Let both grow together until the harvest" -- Jesus' own instruction about the tares and the wheat (Matthew 13:30).

5. PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1870) #

THE RECORD. On July 18, 1870, the First Vatican Council in "Pastor Aeternus" defined that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks "ex cathedra" on faith or morals, possesses infallibility, and that such definitions are irreformable "of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church." The final vote was 533 to 2. Dozens of opposing bishops had left Rome the day before rather than vote no in the pope's presence. The German historian Ignaz von Doellinger refused to accept it and was excommunicated in 1871; the Old Catholic churches split off in protest.

SCRIPTURE CHECK. "But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed" (Galatians 2:11). The first "pope" was publicly corrected by Paul for getting the Gospel wrong.

HISTORY CHECK. Pope Honorius I (died 638) was condemned by name as a heretic by the Third Council of Constantinople in 681, and that condemnation was confirmed by Pope Leo II.

ROME'S REPLY: Honorius did not speak ex cathedra. ANSWER: then the dogma is unfalsifiable by design. Whenever a pope is wrong, he was not speaking infallibly. A claim that can never be tested is not a gift of the Spirit. It is a lock on the door.

6. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION (1854) #

THE RECORD. On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX in "Ineffabilis Deus" defined that Mary "in the first instance of her conception" was preserved free from all stain of original sin. He cited Genesis 3:15 in support -- the verse whose "she" was a Latin error (Part VI).

SCRIPTURE CHECK. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Mary herself says: "my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour" (Luke 1:47).

HISTORY CHECK. Bernard of Clairvaux opposed the new feast of Mary's conception (Letter 174). Thomas Aquinas, the Church's own master theologian, held that Mary was sanctified after her conception, not at it (Summa Theologiae III, q. 27, a. 2). For eighteen centuries it was debated. In 1854 it became a dogma you must believe.

ROME'S REPLY: doctrine develops under the Spirit's guidance. ANSWER: then admit that the Church has added to the faith -- and stop condemning the Gnostics for doing what you call "development" when you do it.

7. THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY (1950) #

THE RECORD. On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII in "Munificentissimus Deus" defined that Mary, "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." It is widely regarded as the only ex cathedra definition since 1870.

SCRIPTURE CHECK. There is no verse. Not one. The New Testament does not record Mary's death or assumption.

HISTORY CHECK. The earliest narratives of Mary's departure are the "Transitus Mariae" (Passing of Mary) texts, apocryphal writings from roughly the fifth and sixth centuries. And the so-called Gelasian Decree -- a sixth- century Latin list of accepted and rejected books, traditionally (but falsely) attributed to Pope Gelasius I -- lists a "Transitus, that is, the Assumption of holy Mary" among the APOCRYPHAL books to be rejected.

Sit with that. Rome burned and banned the Gnostic gospels as "apocrypha," then in 1950 made binding dogma out of a story first told in apocrypha -- a story its own early list rejected.

ROME'S REPLY: the dogma rests on tradition and theological fittingness, not on those texts. ANSWER: then it rests on nothing you can read. The Gnostics at least wrote their gospels down.

THE FRUIT, SUMMED UP #

   YEAR(S)     WHAT ROME DID                    WHAT JESUS SAID
   ----------  -------------------------------  ---------------------------
   321         Sunday law                       sabbath made for man
   380 on      outlawed dissenting Christians   let both grow together
   385         first heretic executed           love your enemies
   388         defended burning of a            judge not
               Valentinian church
   1209        crusade against Christians       put up thy sword
   1229        laity forbidden the Bible        search the scriptures
                                                (John 5:39)
   1252        torture authorized               my kingdom is not of
                                                this world
   1517        indulgences sold                 freely ye have received,
                                                freely give (Matt 10:8)
   1854        new Marian dogma                 all have sinned (Rom 3:23)
   1870        pope declared infallible         call no man your father
                                                upon the earth (Matt 23:9)
   1950        dogma from apocrypha             no verse at all