Why are we trying to rehab this pernicious pest?
He was a judaising heretic and trying to rehab his reputation can only be done to the detriment of the reputation of the historic Catholic Church.
Heaven forfend that is part of the motivation for Raider Fan is sick to death of that praxis for it is hard to resist the conclusion that some moderns engage in that sort of retroactive ecumenism as a way to burnish their putative openess to dialogue - the putative way of sanctification in today's execrable ecclesiastical epoch.
SESSION XV (July 6, 1415)
Errors of John Hus*
[Condemned in the Council and by the above mentioned
Bulls in 1418]
627 1. One and only is the holy universal Church which is the aggregate of the predestined.
628 2. Paul never was a member of the devil, although he did certain acts similar to the acts of those who malign the Church.
629 3. The foreknown are not parts of the Church, since no part of it finally will fall away from it, because the charity of predestination which binds it will not fall away.
630 4. Two natures, divinity and humanity, are one Christ. *
631 5. The foreknown, although at one time he is in grace according to the present justice, yet is never a part of the holy Church; and the predestined always remains a member of the Church, although at times he may fall away from additional grace, but not from the grace of predestination.
632 6. Assuming the Church as the convocation of the predestined, whether they were in grace or not according to the present justice, in that way the Church is an article of faith.
633 7. Peter is not nor ever was the head of the Holy Catholic Church.
634 8. Priests living criminally in any manner whatsoever, defile the power of the priesthood, and as unfaithful sons they think unfaithfully regarding the seven sacraments of the Church, the keys, the duties, the censures customs, ceremonies, and sacred affairs of the Church, its veneration of relics, indulgences, and orders.
635 9. The papal dignity has sprung up from Caesar, and the perfection and institution of the pope have emanated from the power of Caesar
636 10. No one without revelation would have asserted reasonably regarding himself or anyone else that he was the head of a particular church nor is the Roman Pontiff the head of a particular Roman Church.
637 11. It is not necessary to believe that the one whosoever is the Roman Pontiff, is the head of any particular holy church, unless God has predestined him.
638 12. No one takes the place of Christ or of Peter unless he follows him in character, since no other succession is more important, and not otherwise does he receive from God the procuratorial power, because for that office of vicar are required both conformity in character and the authority of Him who institutes it.
639 13. The pope is not the true and manifest successor of Peter, the first of the other apostles, if he lives in a manner contrary to Peter; and if he be avaricious, then he is the vicar of Judas Iscariot. And with like evidence the cardinals are not the true and manifest successors of the college of the other apostles of Christ, unless they live in the manner of the apostles, keeping the commandments and counsels of our Lord Jesus Christ.
640 14. Doctors holding that anyone to be emended by ecclesiastical censure, if he is unwilling to be corrected, must be handed over to secular judgment, certainly are following in this the priests, scribes, and pharisees, who, saying that "it is not permissible for us to kill anyone" (John 18:31), handed over to secular judgment Christ Himself, who did not wish to be obedient to them in all things, and such are homicides worse than Pilate.
641 15. Ecclesiastical obedience is obedience according to the invention of the priest of the Church, without the expressed authority of Scripture.
642 16. The immediate division of human works is: that they are either virtuous or vicious, because, if a man is vicious and does anything, then he acts viciously; and if he is virtuous and does anything, then he acts virtuously; because as vice, which is called a crime or mortal sin, renders the acts of man universally vicious, so virtue vivifies all the acts of the virtuous man.
643 17. Priests of Christ, living according to His law and having a knowledge of Scripture and a desire to instruct the people, ought to preach without the impediment of a pretended excommunication. But if the pope or some other prelate orders a priest so disposed not to preach, the subject is not obliged to obey.
644 18. Anyone who approaches the priesthood receives the duty of a preacher by command, and that command he must execute, without the impediment of a pretended excommunication.
645 19. By ecclesiastical censures of excommunication, suspension, and interdict, the clergy for its own exaltation supplies for itself the lay populace, it multiplies avarice, protects wickedness, and prepares the way for the Antichrist. Moreover, the sign is evident that from the Antichrist such censures proceed, which in their processes they call fulminations, by which the clergy principally proceed against those who uncover the wickedness of the Antichrist, who will make use of the clergy especially for himself.
646 20. If the pope is wicked and especially if he is foreknown, than as Judas, the Apostle, he is of the devil, a thief, and a son of perdition, and he is not the head of the holy militant Church, since he is not a member of it.
647 21. The grace of predestination is a chain by which the body of the Church and any member of it are joined insolubly to Christ the Head.
648 22. The pope or prelate, wicked and foreknown, is equivocally pastor and truly a thief and robber.
649 23. The pope should not be called "most holy" even according to his office, because otherwise the king ought also to be called "most holy" according to his office, and torturers and heralds should be called holy, indeed even the devil ought to be called holy, since he is an official of God.
650 24. If the pope lives in a manner contrary to Christ, even if he should ascend through legal and legitimate election according to the common human constitution, yet he would ascend from another place than through Christ, even though it be granted that he entered by an election made principally by God; for Judas Iscariot rightly and legitimately was elected by God, Jesus Christ, to the episcopacy, and yet he ascended from another place to the sheepfold of the sheep.
651 25. The condemnation of the forty-five articles of John Wycliffe made by the doctors is irrational and wicked and badly made; the cause alleged by them has been feigned, namely, for the reason that "no one of them is a Catholic but anyone of them is either heretical, erroneous, or scandalous."
652 26. Not for this reason, that the electors, or a greater part of them, agreed by acclamation according to the observance of men upon some person, is that person legitimately elected; nor for this reason is he the true and manifest successor or vicar of the Apostle Peter, or in the ecclesiastical office of another apostle. Therefore, whether electors have chosen well or badly, we ought to believe in the works of the one elected; for, by the very reason that anyone who operates for the advancement of the Church in a manner more fully meritorious, has from God more fully the faculty for this.
653 27. For there is not a spark of evidence that there should be one head ruling the Church in spiritual affairs, which head always lives and is preserved with the Church militant herself.
654 28. Christ through His true disciples scattered through the world would rule His Church better without such monstrous heads.
655 29. The apostles and faithful priests of the Lord strenuously in necessities ruled the Church unto salvation, before the office of the pope was introduced; thus they would be doing even to the day of judgment, were the pope utterly lacking.
656 30. No one is a civil master, no one is a prelate, no one is a bishop while he is in mortal sin [see n. 595].
See the theological censures of these thirty articles among "Questions of Wycliffe and Hus to be proposed"n. 11 ( 661 below ).
Questions to be Proposed to the Wycliffites and Hussites *
[From the Bull above mentioned "Inter Cunctas," Feb. 22, 1418]
Articles1-4, 9-10 treat of communions with said heretics.
657 5. Likewise, whether he believes, holds, and declares, that every general Council, including that of CONSTANCE, represents the universal Church.*
658 6. Likewise, whether he believes that what the sacred Council of Constance, which represents the Catholic Church, has approved and does approve in favor of faith, and for the salvation of souls, must be approved and maintained by all the faithful of Christ; and that what (the Council) has condemned and does condemn to be contrary to faith and good morals, this must be believed and proclaimed by the same as considered worthy of condemnation.
659 7. Likewise, whether he believes that the condemnations of John Wycliffe, John Hus, and Jerome of Prague, made by the sacred general Council of CONSTANCE, concerning their persons, books, and documents have been duly and justly made, and that they must be considered and firmly declared as such by every Catholic whatsoever.
660 8. Likewise, whether he believes, holds, and declares, that John Wycliffe of England, John Hus of Bohemia, and Jerome of Prague have been heretics and are to be considered and classed as heretics, and that their books and doctrines have been and are perverse; and because of these books and these doctrines and their obstinacy, they have been condemned as heretics by the sacred Council of CONSTANCE.
661 11. Likewise, let the especially learned person be asked, whether he believes that the decision of the sacred Council of CONSTANCE passed concerning the forty-five articles of John Wycliffe and the thirty of John Hus described above, would be true and Catholic: namely, that the above mentioned forty-five articles of John Wycliffe and the thirty of John Hus are not Catholic, but some of them are notedly heretical, some erroneous, others audacious and seditious, others offensive to the ears of the pious.
662 12. Likewise, whether he believes and maintains that in no case one may take an oath.
663 13. Likewise, whether he believes that by the order of a judge an oath must be uttered regarding truth, or anything else suitable for a cause be allowed, even if it must be done for the purification of infamy.
664 14. Likewise whether he believes, that perjury knowingly committed, for whatever cause or occasion, for the conservation of one's own bodily life or that of another, even in favor of faith, is a mortal sin.
665 15. Likewise, whether he believes that anyone deliberately despising the rite of the Church, the ceremonies of exorcism and catechism, of consecrated baptismal water, sins mortally.
666 16. Likewise, whether he believes, that after the consecration by the priest in the sacrament of the altar under the semblance of bread and wine, it is not material bread and material wine, but the same Christ through all, who suffered on the Cross and sitteth at the right (hand) of the Father.
667 17. Likewise, whether he believes and maintains that after the consecration by the priest, under the sole species of bread only, and aside from the species of wine, it is the true body of Christ and the blood and the soul and the divinity and the whole Christ, and the same body absolutely and under each one of these species separately.
668 18. Likewise, whether he believes that the custom of giving communion to lay persons under the species of bread only, which is observedby the universal Church, and approved by the sacred Council of CONSTANCE, must be preserved, so that it be not allowed to condemn this or to change it at pleasure without the authority of the Church, and that those who obstinately pronounce the opposite of the aforesaid should be arrested and punished as heretics or as suspected of heresy.
669 19. Likewise, whether he believes that a Christian who rejects the reception of the sacraments of confirmation, or extreme unction, or the solemnization of marriage sins mortally.
670 20. Likewise, whether he believes that a Christian in addition to contrition of heart is obligated out of necessity for salvation to confess to a priest only (the priest having the proper faculties), and not to a layman or laymen however good and devout.
671 21. Likewise, whether he believes, that the priest in cases permitted to him can absolve from sins a sinner who has confessed and become contrite' end enjoin a penance upon him.
672 22. Likewise, whether he believes that a bad priest, employing the proper matter and form and having the intention of doing what the Church does, truly consecrates, truly absolves, truly baptizes, truly confers the other sacraments.
673 23. Likewise, whether he believes that blessed Peter was the vicar of Christ, possessing the power of binding and loosing on earth.
674 24. Likewise, whether he believes that the pope canonically elected, who lived for a time, after having expressed his own name, is the successor of the blessed Peter, having supreme authority in the Church of God.
675 25. Likewise, whether he believes that the authority of jurisdiction of the pope, archbishop, and bishop in loosing and binding is greater than the authority of the simple priest, even if he has the care of souls.
676 26. Likewise, whether he believes that the pope, for a pious and just reason, especially to those who visit holy places and to those who extend their helping hands can grant indulgences for the remission of sins to all Christians truly contrite and having confessed.
677 27. And whether he believes that from such a concession they who visit these very churches and they who lend helping hands can gain indulgences of this kind.
678 28. Likewise, whether he believes that individual bishops can grant indulgences of this kind to their subjects according to the limitation of the sacred canons.
679 29. Likewise, whether he believes or maintains that it is lawful that the relics and images of the saints be venerated by the faithful of Christ.
680 30. Likewise, whether he believes that objects of religious veneration approved by the Church were duly and reasonably introduced by the holy Fathers.
681 31. Likewise, whether he believes that a pope or another prelate, the proper titles of the pope for the time having been expressed, or whether their vicars can excommunicate their ecclesiastical or secular subject for disobedience or contumacy, so that such a one should be considered as excommunicated.
682 32. Likewise, whether he believes that with the growing disobedience or contumacy of the excommunicated, the prelates or their vicars in spiritual matters have the power of oppressing and of oppressing him again, of imposing interdict and of invoking the secular arm; and that these censures must be obeyed by his inferiors.
683 33. Likewise, whether he believes that the pope and other prelates and their vicars in spiritual matters have the power of excommunicating priests and disobedient and contumacious lay men and of suspending them from office, benefaction, entrance to a church, and the administration of the sacraments of the Church.
684 34. Likewise, whether he believes that it is permissible for ecclesiastical personages to hold possessions and temporal goods of this world without sin.
685 35. Likewise, whether he believes that it is not permissible for the laity to take away these temporal goods by their own power; that on the contrary, if they do take them away, seize, and lay hold on these ecclesiastical goods, they are to be punished as sacrilegious persons, even if the ecclesiastical personages possessing goods of this kind were living bad lives.
686 36. Likewise, whether he believes that a seizure and an attack of this kind thoughtlessly or violently committed or wrought against any priest whatsoever, even though living an evil life, leads to sacrilege.
687 37. Likewise, whether he believes that it is permissible for the laity of both sexes, namely men and women, freely to preach the word of God.
688 38. Likewise, whether he believes that it be freely permitted to individual priests to preach the word of God, wheresoever, and whenever, and to whomsoever it may be pleasing, even though they are not sent.
689 39. Likewise, whether he believes that all mortal sins, particularly manifest, should be publicly corrected and eradicated.
Condemnation of the Proposition Concerning Tyrannicide*
690 The holy Synod, July 6, 1415 declares and defines this opinion: "Any tyrant can lawfully and meritoriously be killed and ought so to be killed by any vassal or subject of his, even by secret plots, and subtle flattery and adulation, regardless of any oath of fealty or any pact made with him,without waiting for an opinion or command of any judge whatsoever", . . . is erroneous in faith and morals, and it (the Synod) condemns and rejects it as heretical, scandalous, and as offering a way to frauds, deceptions, lies, treasons, and false oaths. In addition it declares decrees, and defines that those who persistently sow this most pernicious doctrine are heretics . . . .