Article II: On Heresy and Apostasy

744. Heresy (ketterij) etymologically signifies election, whence in the whole Catholic tradition it designates the error of him who, with faith received especially in Baptism, adheres to Christ and does not wish to receive from the Church the rule of faith, but chooses for himself, that is, from perfect deliberation firmly establishes a rule of believing.1

It is customarily defined: a voluntary and pertinacious error in Catholic faith, in one who professes the faith of Christ. There is indicated:

the material element:

a) error, that is, an erroneous judgment, not ignorance alone, of the intellect, whence he is not a heretic who only externally denies faith from levity or fear, by speech or work;

b) in faith, that is, in revealed truth, whence he is not a heretic who only denies a truth connected with a revealed truth, even one infallibly defined by the Church, such as a theological conclusion or dogmatic fact. Thus heresy is distinguished from simple error, against ecclesiastical faith or the obedience due to the teaching Church;

c) Catholic, that is, in some revealed truth directed to all which the Church proposes as to be believed; so that in the one denying there is at once contempt of the authority of God and of the Church: thus heresy is distinguished from infidelity, which can also be opposed to divine faith alone;

d) voluntary, otherwise it would not be an act of infidelity by which someone would not wish to believe God and the Church and would disbelieve; whence he who, while adhering to the Church, from ignorance even culpable did not know that something was proposed by the Church as to be believed, and denied it, would not be a heretic even materially: thus heresy is distinguished from ignorance alone of faith;

the formal element: pertinacious, so that someone is opposed to the authority of God and of the Church, not indeed from ignorance even culpable, but knowingly and willingly, that is, with an evil will, while the truth and this authority are sufficiently proposed to him, whether it happens from pride or vainglory, or from the cupidity of contradicting, or from levity, or from any other cause; whence he who through ignorance even culpable did not know that the Church must be obeyed in faith, could sin, but would not be a formal heretic but only a material one: thus heresy properly so called and formal is distinguished from merely material heresy;

the subject: in one who professes the faith of Christ, that is, in one who received it, especially by Baptism, and did not totally cast it off: thus heresy is distinguished from apostasy and from the simple infidelity of Jews and pagans.

St. Thomas says that election signifies that which someone firmly wills after perfect consideration.

745. Heresy differs from infidelity as a species from a genus: for it adds something to infidelity.

Infidelity can be in every man using reason; heresy is only in a Christian, especially a baptized one.

Infidelity says only denial of faith in those things which God has revealed; but heresy says denial of faith in those things which are proposed by the Church as revealed and to be believed; whence he who denies a private revelation made to him would commit not heresy but the sin of infidelity, and he who denies a truth which he certainly knows to pertain to public revelation but which the Church does not explicitly propose as to be believed, would be a heretic, but not in the full sense and before the Church.

Infidelity is opposed to divine faith; heresy to Catholic faith.

746.

746. Heresy is divided in various ways. - Heresy is one kind material,¹ another formal. Material heresy denies the authority of the Church in proposing faith without pertinacity, because it was not sufficiently proposed; formal heresy sufficiently knows the authority of the Church, but refuses to embrace the faith of the true Church and denies it at least in one point. - One kind is internal, which so lies hidden in the mind that it is manifested by no external sign; another is external, which manifests itself by external signs (words, signs, deeds, omission of a deed), even if no one sees it; this is either occult, which is manifested either to no one or to one or another only, or public, which is externally manifested openly and before several.

¹ Material heresy is without sin, if the ignorance is invincible; if it is vincible, it is venial provided that grave negligence was not present; otherwise it will be a grave sin of ignorance in faith, but not the sin of heresy.

746.

The signs on account of which someone is to be judged materially a heretic are customarily indicated: 1. if he is prepared to submit himself to the judgment of the Church, when he recognizes the error, although in the meantime he holds his opinion tooth and nail; 2. if he has known nothing concerning Catholic faith, and has never doubted concerning his own; 3. if, while doubting, he has studied to recognize the truth, as much as he could. - But he who through human fear, or through neglect, procrastinates his conversion to faith, is not for that reason a heretic; nevertheless he sins against the affirmative precept of faith, if he defers it for a long time.

746.

On the contrary, one is to be judged pertinacious and therefore a formal heretic: 1. who doubts, and from pertinacity or from contempt of the Church refuses to inquire further; - 2. who deliberately turns the intellect away from truth sufficiently proposed, so that he may adhere to his own sect or opinion; - 3. who, once the truth is recognized, perseveres in contradicting the Church, as heresiarchs are wont to do from hatred of the Pope or of the Church. - These are the three principal grades of pertinacity, the first of which is founded upon truth studiously neglected; the second upon truth sufficiently proposed, but contemned; the third upon recognized truth maliciously attacked.

747. The sin of heresy is most grave (n. 737 and 739), which per se merits corporal and spiritual penalties at the same time.

Concerning corporal penalties St. Thomas teaches: "It is much graver to corrupt faith, through which there is the life of the soul, than to falsify money, through which temporal life is aided. Whence if falsifiers of money or other malefactors are at once justly handed over to death by secular princes, much more can heretics, at once from the fact that they are convicted of heresy, not only be excommunicated, but also justly killed" (a. 3). Death, however, although it can be decreed by the Church, is not to be inflicted by her herself.

Spiritual penalties are inflicted by Canon Law; according to which heretics:

incur by the fact itself excommunication specially reserved to the Roman Pontiff (can. 2314, § 1),

unless, after being warned, they recover their senses, they are to be deprived of benefice, dignity, pension, office, or other function, if they have any in the Church, are to be declared infamous, and clerics, after repeated warning, are to be deposed (ibid.),

indeed, if they have given their name to a non-Catholic sect or publicly adhered to it, they are by the fact itself infamous, and clerics, after warning has been premised, are to be degraded (ibid.),

they are irregular (can. 985),

they are deprived of ecclesiastical burial (can. 1240, § 1).

For incurring these penalties formal and at the same time external heresy is required, and for the third and fifth penalties public heresy in addition.²

² Those suspected of heresy incur the same penalties, who after being warned do not remove the cause of suspicion and, once punished, within six full months from the penalty contracted, have not amended themselves (can. 2315). Such persons are held as heretics. Those to be held as suspected of heresy by law are: a) those who in any way spontaneously aid the defense of heresy (can. 2316); - b) those who communicate in sacred things with heretics (can. 2316 and 1258); - c) those who are united in marriage with an explicit or implicit pact concerning the non-Catholic education of offspring (can. 2319, § 2); - d) or procure the baptism or education of this offspring outside the Catholic Church (can. 2319, §§ 3-4); - e) those who sacrilegiously treat the consecrated species according to the norm of can. 2320; - f) those who appeal from the decrees of the Roman Pontiff to an ecumenical council (can. 2332); - g) those who, with hardened mind, for a year have persisted under excommunication... (can. 2340, § 1); - h) those who are ordained simoniacally, or ordain or administer other sacraments (can. 2371).

748. Corollaries. - 1. He is not a heretic who only externally denies faith, from levity or fear, by speech or work, because he does not have an erroneous judgment.

Pertinacity required for heresy does not signify duration of time in denying truth; but it is pertinacity of reason, which consists in denying truth sufficiently proposed, for which one instant suffices.

Since he who truly doubts positively concerning the truth proposed by the Church judges erroneously (at least equivalently or implicitly) that it is not certain, it follows that he is a heretic (can. 1325, § 2).

He who errs from culpable ignorance, even if it is affected and sought in order to sin, yet by another sin than heresy, provided he is prepared to submit himself to the judgment of the Church, is not a heretic, because pertinacity is lacking; but if the ignorance is affected, because he has decreed not to believe the Church so that he may err more freely in faith, that is, from a will by which he has decreed not to believe even if he knew that it was proposed by the Church, he is a heretic: for he has the will not to believe everything which is proposed by the Church, and internally he already dissents from one sufficiently proposed revealed truth, namely, from the authority of the Church, to which there must be total obedience in faith.

He who denies that which he falsely thinks to have been defined by the Church truly denies the authority of the Church, and is a formal heretic; nevertheless not in the external forum, unless he sufficiently brought forth his mind and sin.

749. Apostasy (afvalligheid), according to etymology, is defection; whence it signifies a retrocession from God. Moreover, in several modes we can be united to God: by faith, obedience in precepts, or by a special bond not commanded (but pertaining to counsel), namely, religion and Order. Hence there is given a fourfold apostasy:

from Order, when a cleric constituted in major orders transfers himself to the lay state;

from religion, when someone withdraws from the religious institute or order which he has professed;

from obedience, when someone altogether withdraws himself from the law of God and from obedience to the divine mandates;

from faith, when someone totally withdraws from the faith which he previously professed. This alone is a sin against faith and is apostasy strictly so called: for while the other apostasies exist, man can still remain joined to God through faith; but if he withdraws from faith, then he seems altogether to retrocede from God.

Apostasy from faith is defined: a total withdrawal from the Christian faith (can. 1325, § 2). Apostasy of itself indicates only the term from which: the faith which is abandoned; but not the term to which the apostate approaches, whether it is idolatry, or deism, or Judaism, etc., or even whether he passes over to no religion and remains indifferent. Hence it is not a species of infidelity, but adds to its various species an aggravating circumstance, namely, that faith is abandoned (a. 1, ad 3).

750. Observations. - 1. Apostates per se are punished with the same penalties as heretics (can. 2314, § 1); sometimes, however, special and graver penalties can be enacted against them: thus in certain places it is a sin specially reserved to the Ordinary.

Those are rightly to be held as apostates who from conviction adhere to the Masonic sect, which under the veil of philanthropy, solidarity, and mutual aid, craftily opposes true religion. Indeed all who (even without internal adherence) give their name to that sect, as to other associations of the same kind which plot against the Church or legitimate civil powers, contract by the fact itself excommunication simply reserved to the Roman Pontiff (can. 2335); but clerics and religious are in addition punished with special penalties and are to be denounced to the Congregation of the Holy Office (can. 2336).

Formerly there existed a positive precept of denouncing to the Ordinary heretics or those suspected of heresy, but this has fallen into desuetude. But by force of natural law one must denounce whenever it is a question of avoiding grave harm of souls, to which a superior can bring a remedy; this also holds for regions where heretics are mixed with Catholics, for example, if it is a question of an unusual danger which would threaten the Catholic religion, the superior being ignorant of it. Clerics, however, seem to be denounced in every case, so that the bishop may meet the harm both of the people and of the clergy committed to him.

Concerning the reconciliation of heretics and reception into the bosom of the Church, we spoke in the little work De Variis Peccatis in sacramentali confessione medendis, c. 2, q. 1, XI-XV.