Oh for crying out loud analex....the church was a political machine in garb then...just as some churches are today..."having only an appearance of Christianity"...THAT is what the church was then. Trying to protect the church then from what they indeed do would be like the Pope saying the homosexual, pedophile issues were done by someone else..not those in leadership.
The Church has a duty to determine what is heresy. This is not a political act, to find out what the person’s beliefs are, if he is going to profess them publicly.
When that is not observed, we have “Catholic” institutions like Notre Dame promoting Obama drones.
INDEED.