Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: skellmeyer; HarleyD
Good heavens, son, take two aspirins and go to bed. Anathema is NOT condemnation to hell. It's just an indication of incredibly erroneous thinking.

You are being either disingenous or ignorant. From the Catholic Encyclopedia article on anathema:

Anathema remains a major excommunication which is to be promulgated with great solemnity. A formula for this ceremony was drawn up by Pope Zachary (741-52) in the chapter Debent duodecim sacerdotes, Cause xi, quest. iii. The Roman Pontifical reproduces it in the chapter Ordo excommunicandi et absolvendi, distinguishing three sorts of excommunication: minor excommunication, formerly incurred by a person holding communication with anyone under the ban of excommunication; major excommunication, pronounced by the Pope in reading a sentence; and anathema, or the penalty incurred by crimes of the gravest order, and solemnly promulgated by the Pope. In passing this sentence, the pontiff is vested in amice, stole, and a violet cope, wearing his mitre, and assisted by twelve priests clad in their surplices and holding lighted candles. He takes his seat in front of the altar or in some other suitable place, amid pronounces the formula of anathema which ends with these words: "Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive N-- himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment." Whereupon all the assistants respond: "Fiat, fiat, fiat." The pontiff and the twelve priests then cast to the ground the lighted candles they have been carrying, and notice is sent in writing to the priests and neighbouring bishops of the name of the one who has been excommunicated and the cause of his excommunication, in order that they may have no communication with him. Although he is delivered to Satan and his angels, he can still, and is even bound to repent. The Pontifical gives the form for absolving him and reconciling him with the Church. The promulgation of the anathema with such solemnity is well calculated to strike terror to the criminal and bring him to a state of repentance, especially if the Church adds to it the ceremony of the Maranatha.
Translation: Unless the anathematized person repents and becomes again a good Roman Catholic and does whatever penance is required of him, the RCC considers him condemned to hell.
120 posted on 02/07/2005 1:29:10 PM PST by Buggman (Your failure to be informed does not make me a kook.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 83 | View Replies ]


To: Buggman
and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate

Please note the pronoun. Last time I checked, saying "I think you're going to hell" is not the same thing as saying "I'm herewith sending you to hell".

God gets the last call, as always.

The point also remains that canonical penalties have nothing to do with non-Catholics, and the penalty of anathema does not exist, even for Catholics, since 1983.

140 posted on 02/07/2005 1:55:29 PM PST by Campion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 120 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson