[MR] Women Priests and objectivity

[Dave Montuori]

>> I would think that heresy in particular but the other terms as well 
>> would be rather subjective depending on one's position.
> 
> In the sense that "heresy" means "people who don't agree with me," then yes.  
> It is completely subjective.  But has it always been so?  No.  Prior to the 
> Reformation era, people seemed to have a pretty good notion that "heresy" 
> meant that which was contrary to Church teaching.  When the question of 
> heresy arose, as in the Arian heresy mentioned earlier, the church met in 
> council and resolved it.  They did not resolve it by means of two groups 
> trying to convice each other that they are right.

Counterexample 1: the struggle between the spiritual and conventual 
Franciscans, which split apart almost the entire Church in the late 13th 
century. Pope Celestine V was elected in 1294, resigned after six months, 
and Boniface VIII was elected in early 1295, in a series of elections 
which would put Gore-Bush to shame for dirty politics. The Colonna family
refused to recognize Boniface, found allies in Philip IV the A%#@!$e of 
France (my persona uses that epithet for reasons almost completely 
unrelated to the religious struggle), and after Boniface's death brought
about the Avignon Papacy Era. The Avignon popes turned on their former
allies among the spiritual Franciscans and almost caused a Protestant 
Reformation two hundred years before it happened for real.

Counterexample 2: the Western Schism of 1378-1415 and the subsequent 
burning of Jan Hus.

> Jump ahead to Luther's time, when for the first time the political as well as 
> religious climate was ripe for someone to accuse the Church itself of being 
> heretical.

True enough; prior to that, either the religious climate was right but the 
political power balance wasn't there, or the various political factions 
were trying to take over the whole Church and not just split it.

> > .I am just as glad I have fled to Geneva where I am in the
> > majority and get to burn Catholics (actually not done, banishment seems to
> > work as well) rather than be on the receiving end.

> Are you suggesting that Catholics were not killed at the hands of the 
> Protestants?

Perhaps not in Geneva. They certainly were elsewhere. And the various 
Protestant factions were no nicer to each other than they were to the 
Catholics. Luther and Zwingli would have spun in their graves when the 
first monument was erected including both of them. (One hopes they would
have gotten over it by now.)

Evan