Thursday 6 October 2022

Can Someone Consider the Last Times Here and Be Innocent of Heresy?


I was looking up Ernst Mach from a video by Sungenis.

Ernst Mach was born in what Germans pronounce as Kremsier, but Czechs as Kroměříž. It has quite an extensive list of Notable People, first of whom is John Milic of Kromeriz.

He was conspicuous for his apostolic poverty and soon roused the enmity of the mendicant friars. The success of his labors made itself apparent in the way in which he transformed the ill-famed Benátky ("Venice") street in Prague Old Town quarter into a benevolent institution, Nový Jeruzalém ("New Jerusalem"). As he viewed the evils inside and outside the church in the light of Scripture, the conviction grew in his mind that the "abomination of desolation" was now seen in the temple of God, and that antichrist had come, and in 1367 he went to Rome (where Pope Urban V was expected from Avignon) to expound these views. He affixed to the gate of St. Peter's a placard announcing his sermon, but before he could deliver it was thrown into prison by the Inquisition.

Urban, however, on his arrival, ordered his release, whereupon he returned to Prague, and from 1369 to 1372 preached daily in the Týn Church there. In the latter year the clergy of the local archdiocese complained of him in 12 articles to the papal court at Avignon, whither he was summoned in Lent 1374, and where he died in the same year, not long after being declared innocent and authorized to preach before the assembly of cardinals.


So, whether or not he was in fact a predecessor of John Hus, as he was styled, he certainly did state (erroneously) that Antichrist had come.

And he was acquitted of charges of heresy by Pope Gregory XI after Pope Urban V had already ordered him released a previous time.

But why if so was Tyndale burnt? Well, fact of the matter : the Catholic Church took faking of Biblical teachings much more seriously than attacks on present day Catholic teachers. James Latomus, the Inquisitor of Tyndale, had to tell him, about Romans chapter 3, he could have taken instead Titus 3:5, that justification is not conditioned on just acts prior to justification, that coming only from the generosity of God, but it is conditioned on the intention to do acts of justice after justification, or at least (in the baptism of babies) the absence of any contrary intention.

However, considering that such and such a person or institution is by now "Antichrist" or "False Prophet" or "abomination of desolation" is not a heresy, even when it is erroneous.

The Catholic "doctrine" against saying such things, popularly considered as "ban on date-setting" comes from Lateran V, under Pope Leo X, and the ban is a disciplinary one, not a strictly speaking doctrinal one. Sorry, the ban does have a doctrinal application, but when it speaks of "future evils"

We decree and ordain, with the approval of the sacred council, that nobody -whether a secular cleric or a member of any of the mendicant orders or someone with the right to preach by law or custom or privilege or otherwise — may be admitted to carry out this office unless he has first been examined with due care by his superior, which is a responsibility that we lay on the superior’s conscience, and unless he is found to be fit and suitable for the task by his upright behaviour, age, doctrine, honesty, prudence and exemplary life. Wherever he goes to preach, he must provide a guarantee to the bishop and other local ordinaries concerning his examination and competence, by means of the original or other letters from the person who examined and approved him. We command all who undertake this task of preaching, or will later undertake it, to preach and expound the gospel truth and holy scripture in accordance with the exposition, interpretation and commentaries that the church or long use has approved and has accepted for teaching until now, and will accept in the future, without any addition contrary to its true meaning or in conflict with it. They are always to insist on the meanings which are in harmony with the words of sacred scripture and with the interpretations, properly and wisely understood, of the doctors mentioned above. They are in no way to presume to preach or declare a fixed time for future evils, the coming of antichrist or the precise day of judgment; for Truth says, it is not for us to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. Let it be known that those who have hitherto dared to declare such things are liars, and that because of them not a little authority has been taken away from those who preach the truth .


The reason why John Milic was OK would have been that he was not trying to predict some kind of future date, but (erroneously) considering the evils as already here. If you think of it, obviously such a freedom needs to apply, otherwise those living at those end times could be canonically lawfully stopped from speaking up against the evils by the mere fact of correctly identifying them.

So, whether or not they are already here, no one can be condemned for saying that they are already here. Unless he is saying other things also which are doctrinally not true.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Bruno
6.X.2022

In monasterio Turris, dioecesis Squillacensis, in Calabria, sancti Brunonis Confessoris, qui Ordinis Carthusianorum fuit Institutor.

Lateran V quoted from Papal Encyclicals Online : Fifth Lateran Council 1512-17 A.D. More precisely : SESSION 11, 19 December 1516, [On how to preach]

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