Re:A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
by anon291 on Monday June 20, 2022 @12:01AM
(#31806156)
> – you have to ask whether the Church encouraged or discouraged the civil authorities from imposing capital punishment on those it convicted of heresy
That's literally why I started off my comment with "I'm not going to excuse the church". You're absolutely right that there ought to have been a reckoning with the consequences.
Re:A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit
by olddustytrail on Sunday June 19, 2022 @10:39AM
(#31799820)
If you can describe exactly what Bruno's heresy was and the effect it had, I'm happy to continue this conversation.
If you can't, then it's just a waste of my time.
The whole "it was the civil authorities not the Church" line doesn't really work there, since the Pope was ultimately in charge of both, even if the two were still nominally distinct.
Even in the case of the Spainish Inquisition, where the Church-va-State distinction was somewhat more real – you have to ask whether the Church encouraged or discouraged the civil authorities from imposing capital punishment on those it convicted of heresy. I think you will find that the answer was very much "encourage", not "discourage" or neutral. "We didn't execute anybody, we just encouraged the government to execute them" is a rather laughable defence.