A Ministry of Your Local Fundamentalist Inquisition.
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SUSPICION OF HERESY
Any action, including speech, which conflicted with the teachings of the Catholic church or any action which could be interpreted to mean that the person held or might some day be persuaded to hold heretical beliefs.
Includes
[ ] Blasphemy: Holding "erroneous opinions of the omniscience or other attributes of the Deity.2" (An all-encompassing category, blasphemy includes disagreement with the Church on any issue from priestly celibacy to who is the keeper of the keys to heaven and the power of the Pope. Blasphemers includes all non-Catholic Christians e.g., Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Protestants, and other smaller denominations and sects.)
[ ] Sorcery and divination: Utilizing holy items (eg. holy water, the consecrated host, the oil of extreme unction, relics) or holy sacraments (e.g. baptizing dead people, re-baptizing infants) for discovering the future or in any other sacrilegious endeavor. (If holy items were not used in divining the future, the crime was a secular, not a religious, crime.)
[ ] Invocation of demons. Using the signs, ceremonies, and words of the Catholic religion to worship Satan.
[ ] Excommunication without seeking absolution: Remaining excommunicated for a year without seeking absolution. No authentic Catholic could remain indifferent to his censure by the church for such a long time.
[ ] Schism (without or with heresy): Schism without heresy entailed admitting to all articles of the Catholic faith yet denying the authority of the Pope as the head of the Church and the Vicar of Christ on earth. Schism with heresy entailed individuals, as those in the Greek Orthodox church, who hold the same opinions as the first group but who also differ on points of faith with the church.
[ ] Concealers, favorers, and adherents of heretics: assisting heretics which included not reporting any observed heresy or known heretics to ecclesiastical authorities7. Another all encompassing category, almost any one could be accused of being a concealer, favorer, or adherent of heretics.
[ ] Impeding the Inquisition: Preventing the inquisitors from exercising
their functions (In practice, this category acts as a catch-all offense. Any one
who is not quick enough to respond to or improperly fulfilled any command
of any Inquisitor or any of the Inquisitor's assistants could be charged
under this clause.)
[ ] Oath: Refusing to take an oath to drive the heretics from their
territory(applies to city magistrates, governors of provinces, kings, and other
secular officials).
[ ] Defense of the Church: Refusing to defend the church against heretics
when so requested by the Inquisition (applies to city magistrates, governors of
provinces, kings, and other secular officials). Includes neglecting to burn
heretics who have been condemned by the church.
[ ] Secular law: Refusing to repeal statutes which are contrary to the
measures decreed by the holy office (applies to city magistrates, governors
of provinces, kings, and other secular officials)
[ ] Lawyers: Assisting heretics by their advice or concealing papers,
records, and other writings, which might make their errors, dwellings, or stations
known. (applies to all lawyers, notaries, and other persons belonging to the law)
[ ] Christian burial: Burying a dead heretic in consecrated ground)
[ ] Witnesses: Refusing to testify against a heretic)
[ ] Index of Forbidden Books: Buying, keeping, or reading books on the Index of Prohibited Books15 (The Index includes Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. The Bible written in the vernacular was on the Index of 1550)
[ ] Jews and Moors: "Proselytizing" Catholics to embrace their faith (and proselytizing was defined very loosely.
[ ] Decoration: Decorating furniture or personal items (snuff boxes or
fans) with forbidden images such as scenes from mythology
[ ] Old and New Testaments: Possessing any books of the Old or New
Testaments in the vernacular
[ ] Believing that people who ascribe to non-Catholic faiths (e.g., Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Protestants, and other smaller denominations and
sects) are not destined to spend eternity in hell
[ ] Adhering to any non-Catholic Christian faith
[ ] Claiming that priests and monks can lawfully marry
[ ] Failure to Maintain
Transubstantiation
Special efficacy of consecrated priests
Efficacy of holy water
Necessity of auricular confession to a priest
Necessity of priests for the absolution of sins
Infallibility of the Pope
Pope holds the keys to heaven
Good works are necessary for salvation
[ ] Maintaining that
God did not establish the regular religious orders
Marriage is better and more perfect than celibacy
No festivals but the Sabbath
Not sinful to eat meat on Friday, in Lent, or on other fast-days
Persecution for conscience's sake was sinful
[ ] Concealers, favorers, and adherents of heretics (Aiding and abetting)
Visiting a sick mother who had been declared a heretic
Employing a suspected heretic for one day's work
Refusing to report heretical acts to ecclesiastical authorities
Giving a crust of bread or a few pennies to a heretic as a charity
Talking with a heretic
Neglecting to turn in a parent, sibling, neighbor, or friend who held
unorthodox beliefs
Showing respect to a heretic at your parents command while still a minor
ACTUAL HERESY
[ ] Simony (rarely prosecuted)
[ ] Defending an heretic or an heretical opinion
[ ] Maintaining that
Donation of Constantine was a forgery
Clerical immunity drew its origin from the civil power
Church has ever exceeded her rightful prerogatives
State should be independent of the church
Church should not be allowed to coerce into submission all who may disregard her authority
[ ] Anyone who remained excommunicated for a year without having absolution from the church was considered a heretic and, when captured, would be burned at the stake
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HAND COMPLETED FORM INTO FUNDAMENTALIST INQUISTION
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Thank you in participating in this Trew Kristyun Survey by your local Fundamentalist Inquisition.
YOUR EXPECTED PUNISHMENT
This may include:
Upon arrest (not conviction) for even slight suspicion of heresy
All assets inventoried and impounded by the church
All goods, including the family home, are seized.
A man's family (wife, children, dependent siblings or parents) are turned out to fend for themselves.
If the accused sells any goods between the time of his alleged heresy and the detection of the alleged crime, the church will go to the current owner of the property to recover the goods for the church, no matter how many hands the property have passed through or how many years had elapsed since the alleged heresy.
Possessions of dead men who have died in communion with the church and who are posthumously deemed to be heretics are confiscated from his heirs or from his heirs' heirs or from whomever the property currently belongs.
Slight suspicion of heresy will incur fines as a penance by doing good works.
Almost all penalties can be commuted for the right price.
The penalties for actual heresy included all the penalties for suspicion of heresy.
If the heretic abjures his heresy before sentence is passed, he spends the remainder of his life doing penance in prison on rations of bread and water. If he relapses into heresy, he is burned at the stake
If the heretic abjures his heresy between the passing of sentence and his execution, as a show of mercy the heretic is strangled before burning.
If the heretic does not abjure his sin, the Inquisition wants a slow and painful death at the stake in the hope that earthly torments would cause the heretic to abjure his heresies so that his soul could be snatched from the devil at the last moment.
The Church has the right at any time to increase or decrease the penalty (for example, one convicted of vehement suspicion of heresy could be freed from prison, or sent to the stake)
Relapsed heretics are not given a third chance, they go to the stake. Those guilty of the vehement suspicion of heresy who were later found to express heretical ideas are treated as relapsed heretics and go to the stake.
REMEMBER: Your Fundamentalist Inquisition luvs you.
Grand Inquisitor.
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ADAPTED from http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/gage/inquis/suspcn.html
