Bible Ignorance, Clergy Corruption and the Inquisition in England before the Reformation

Last Days Watchman ^ | Julio Severo

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

These articles are laughable. To anyone who doesn't feel like wading through this tripe, allow me to provide a summary -- "I read this really good book about bad Catholics and the Inquisition which is also bad. It's a good book because Catholics are greedy and bad and the book says so." I rather flatter myself that I captured the author's tenuous grasp of English as well.

I believe you've been corrected more than once on the area and range of operation of the Inquisition. Hitton was found guilty of far more than simply smuggling poorly-translated copies of the Bible into England. Beyond this, there is little worth correcting here is the way of specifics. The article is mainly just a wax ball of generalities and misrepresentations.

Ignorance...I find it amusing in an ironic sense that the main thrust of this article is about ignorance, when only an ignorant person who wants to believe what's being peddled to begin with would buy this nonsense.

[the_Watchman]

And why, exactly, was William Tyndale burned at the stake? Burning people at the stake is hardly “laughable”! During the time of Tyndale, much of the clergy could not even read the Bible. The Roman Catholic church had inserted itself and its teaching between God and the laity. The only thing the laity was to know was what they were told.

“Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee?” Yet, the Roman Catholic church kept the Word of God from the people for hundreds of years! Hardly a laughing matter. It was only toward the end of the last century when the Roman Catholic church relented and finally suggested that the man in the pew could study a Bible.

Play the man, Master Ridley!

[DesertRhino]

Shameful to defend what they did to that man and to others. Shameful because it taints todays catholic church with it and they had nothing to do with such atrocities. They were a totalitarian outfit. Today the Church under JPII spread love and freedom around the world.

But the Church then was anything but Christlike. For that matter Calvin and other Protestants were just as evil and murderous as the RCC. But you sound ignorant to defend those evil days, as would I were I to defend Calvin.

Give it a rest.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Tyndale was strangled (his cadaver was burned) for heresy including, among things, mortality of the soul. Henry VIII was going to do for him for condemning his divorce, so Tyndale decided it would be a bright idea to go on the lamb into the Empire. Rookie move.”

Your justification of murder is despicable. It is not the first time I’ve heard a FRoman justify immorality of this kind.

[DesertRhino]

Literacy had quickly spread in the renaissance era before this episode. The printing press had made it explode. The church had no reason of protecting people to suppress bible reading as they did.
And if that was the case why was in still forbidden well into the 1800s?

Silliness. And again, shameful to defend what the did then. because it suggests the modern church stands by it which it doesn’t. The modern popes have apologized for all sorts of things from back then. Nice of them, and unneeded. The and the church they know didn’t perform the foul acts.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

I never defended what was done to Tyndale. But being roasted/spitted/quartered for things that most people think of as minor today was a fact of life back in the day. So when people fall over themselves wailing that the Catholic Church killed heretics and point to that as proof that the Catholic Church was an evil blight on humanity, they are ignoring that burning at the stake was prescribed in hammurabi's day, and that Germany beheaded criminals into the 1800's. Are we truly better off today when we let ANYONE come into our country spewing whatever nonsense they want, when we hold every religion equal to the point that Satanists are on the legal high ground when trying to put up their filthy idols? I'm not saying we should burn people, but some discernment wouldn't go amiss.

And I stand by my previous statement, that fleeing into the most powerful Catholics state in Europe, when you're known for hawking heretical ideas, isn't a bright thing to do.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Your misrepresentation of what I said is despicable, understanding that you apparently thrive on being outraged.

[Lera]

To this day Evangelicals are always in danger in countries that have a Roman Catholic majority.

---

Mexico: Catholics attack Protestants, tear down church under construction
http://blog.godreports.com/2013/11/mexico-catholics-attack-protestants-tear-down-church-under-construction/

A mob sent by San Juan Ozolotepec President Pedro Cruz Gonzalez on Nov. 4 attacked the Christians for declining to participate in and help pay for Traditionalist Catholic festivals and for protesting their previous mistreatment. The mob attacked the Christian’s unfinished church structure with sledgehammers and pick-axes, and four of the Christians were jailed from Tuesday until Friday (Nov. 5 to Nov. 8), according to the National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR).

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Your misrepresentation of what I said is despicable, understanding that you apparently thrive on being outraged.”

I’m not outraged. I find your post despicable for a FReeper - let alone someone who claims the name of Christ.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

The Renaissance was a separate episode from the English Renaissance (Shakespeare is often considered a cornerstone of the English Renaissance), which occurred rather later as Northern Europe was, for whatever reason, slower to blossom. The literacy rate in England certainly didn't explode, in fact it barely sparked...It increased only a small amount between the invention of the printing press and the early 1700's (I had the specific statistics saved on an old hard drive, I'll see if I can find them).

The Catholic Church didn't forbid the Bible -- the Catholic Church approved vernacular versions of the Bible even before Luther produced his. What was forbidden were non-approved translations. To me, the line "The Catholic Church forbid people from the reading the Bible!" is the signal example of the sort of nonsense that this article pushes.

[vladimir998]

“And why, exactly, was William Tyndale burned at the stake?”

Heresy. He was accused of heresy years before he began his translation of the Bible. Read this book - which is not any sort of defense for the inquisition - if you doubt me: http://www.amazon.com/William-Tyndale-Biography-David-Daniell/dp/0300068808

“Burning people at the stake is hardly “laughable”!”

Exactly. Heresy is no laughing matter.

“During the time of Tyndale, much of the clergy could not even read the Bible.”

Completely false. Ordained priests could read the Bible at the time of Tyndale with ease. They had to.

“The Roman Catholic church had inserted itself and its teaching between God and the laity.”

Completely false. The Catholic Church - founded by God - is made up of the laity and the clergy and thus could not possibly be “between” God and the laity. Instead, the Church served God by serving the needs of the laity.

“The only thing the laity was to know was what they were told.”

Completely false. You have never read a single book on the Middle Ages have you?

“Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee?” Yet, the Roman Catholic church kept the Word of God from the people for hundreds of years!”

Again, completely false. Bible passages were read in Latin and the vernacular at Mass. Bibles were often on open display in parishes. Gutenberg’s first printed book was the Bible.

“Hardly a laughing matter.”

No, spreading falsehoods about the Catholic Church is not a laughing matter.

“It was only toward the end of the last century when the Roman Catholic church relented and finally suggested that the man in the pew could study a Bible.”

That too is false. The last century was the 20th. Yet off the top of my head I can recall that Pope Leo XIII published a letter in the late 19th century encouraging Bible study.

“Play the man, Master Ridley!”

The following is from Cranmer’s trial record when he was questioned by one of the commissioners, a man named Dr. Martin, about who exactly was Supreme Head of the Church in England:

Martin: ”Now sir, as touching the last part of your oration, you denied that the pope’s holiness was supreme head of the church of Christ.”

Cranmer: “I did so.”

Martin: “Who say you then is supreme head?”

Cranmer: “Christ”

Martin: “But whom hath Christ left here in earth his vicar and head of his church?”

Cranmer: “Nobody.”

Martin: “Ah! why told you not king Henry this when you made him supreme head? and now nobody is. This is treason against his own person as you then made him.”

Cranmer: “I mean not but every king in his own realm and dominion is supreme head, and so was he supreme head of the church of Christ in England.”

Martin: “Is this always true? and was it ever so in Christ’s church?”

Cranmer: “It was so.”

Martin: “Then what say you by Nero? He was the mightiest prince of the earth after Christ was ascended: was he head of Christ’s church?

Cranmer: “Nero was Peter’s head.”

Martin: “I ask whether Nero was head of the church or no? If he were not, it is false that you said before, that all princes be, and ever were, heads of the church within their realms.”

Cranmer: “Nay, it is true, for Nero was head of the church; that is, in worldly respect of the temporal bodies of men, of whom the church consisteth; for so he beheaded Peter and the apostles. And the Turk too is head of the church in Turkey.”

Martin: “Then he that beheaded the heads of the church, and crucified the apostles, was head of Christ’s church; and he that was never member of the church, is head of the church, by your new-found understanding of God’s word.”

(Josiah Pratt, The Church Historians of England: Reformation period, Volume 8, Part 1, 57).

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

What should I say, that it was the cleverest thing Tyndale could do to flee into a region that had a rep for executing people like him?

[vladimir998]

“But the Church then was anything but Christlike.”

What you’re saying is a logical impossibility. There were great saints and great miracles then - perhaps many more so that now - which can only mean many in the Church were Christlike and the Church (being Christ’s Body) can never be anything but Christ like by definition.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

"To this day Evangelicals are always in danger in countries that have a Roman Catholic majority."

I think what you meant to say was, "To this day, a mob attacked some Protestants. In Mexico. Three years ago."

You've established a clear and concerning trend there, friendo. Somebody get Batman on the horn.

[DesertRhino]

The church that claims to be the literal representation of Christ on earth cannot simply say “hey, killing for heresy was the norm”. Justify it some other way. Nothing Jesus said justified RCC or Calvin style murder.

[DesertRhino]

I agree that it’s not bright to be a heretic then and then run into catholic turf. They would murder you for being a heretic.

[Lera]

It’s a problem in Mexico

---

September 18, 2011|12:17 pm

MEXICO CITY – About 70 Protestant Christians lived in the village of San Rafael Tlanalapan, Puebla state, until Monday (Sept. 12), when they faced a frightening ultimatum – leave immediately or be “crucified or lynched.”

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-in-mexico-forced-from-village-55849/#sYvzyth8uishjosP.99

---

Two dozen Christian families, or close to 158 people, have reportedly been left to starve in the remote village of Mariano Matamoros in Mexico, after local government officials raided farmlands in an effort to drive out Protestants from the region.

International Christian Concern said the raids took place last week, and resulted in the theft of close to 15 acres of crops owned by the Protestant Christian community.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-starve-mexico-government-raids-protestants-catholic-148319/#lWDBxCsgQMAeTJtB.99

---

[DesertRhino]

That only makes sense to someone who believes catholic theology and I don’t. To others who simply do not your statement about saints makes no sense because there are no saints that I believe in. And no I don’t believe in the miracles of that Era. Like the Juan Diego thing. So that’s how u and others like me do not see the church then as being of Christ. No murdering, war waging, oppressive Borgia run organization can possibly be the body of Christ.