Note that this page is about conspiracy theories, pseudohistory, and other crank ideas about the Church. For legitimate criticism of the Roman Catholic Church see relevant articles in the category Catholicism.

“”A penny loaf to feed ol' Pope. A farthing cheese to choke him.

—[1]

Anti-Catholicism refers to staunch opposition to the Roman Catholic Church and its members, usually grounded in conspiracy theory, nativism, and misrepresentation of Catholic theology (and, often, copious amounts of tangentially related wingnuttery). Some brands of the anti-Catholic conspiracy theory paint the Catholic Church as a lone conspirator seeking world domination, though many depict the Church as being in bed with the Illuminati or Freemasons. (Ironically, the former were suppressed by the Church, and they have been staunchly opposed to the latter since the beginning). While anti-Catholic bigotry was once rampant among Protestants, recent political re-alignments have strengthened ties between conservative Protestants and the Catholic hierarchy. Increasingly, so-called "anti-Catholicism" is merely whining about criticism of the Church, coverage being insufficiently pro-Catholic, or disagreement with Catholic positions on issues such as birth control, abortion, and gay rights.^[2][3]

Contents  [hide]  1 The Reformation and England 2 America and Know Nothingism 2.1 The US into the mid-19th century 2.2 Know Nothingism 2.3 Post-bellum America into the 20th century 3 Modern variants 3.1 New World Order conspiracists 3.2 Wingnut fundamentalist Protestants 3.3 The Da Vinci Code 3.4 Northern Ireland 4 Anti-Catholics 5 See also 6 External links 7 Footnotes

[edit]The Reformation and England

“”Anti-Catholicism has always been the pornography of the Puritan.

—Richard Hofstadter[4]

The idea of the pope as antichrist plays a central role in the anti-Catholic conspiracy theories. This idea dates back to the Protestant Reformation, whenMartin Luther, whose complaints about financial and theological improprieties the Church had ignored, set off a schism within Western Christianity. Luther believed, following a popular conception of the day, that during the End Time Satan would work to corrupt the Church. Luther believed that the institution of the papacy was that corrupting influence, and, borrowing the term from the first and second letters of John, he called it "antichrist."^[5] Luther produced a series of woodcarvings with side-by-side depictions of the pope (labeled as "antichristus") and Jesus in which the pope was doing the opposite of Jesus (e.g., in one carving, Jesus is washing the feet of the poor while the pope is having his feet washed by the poor).^[6]

Conspiracy theories about the Catholic Church found especially fertile ground in England due to the English Reformation and creation of the Church of England. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, an actual conspiracy by Catholics to assassinate King James I, also helped fuel anti-Catholicism in England. The most famous of these theories was probably the so-called "Popish Plot," a conspiracy theory cooked up by one Titus Oates that implicated the Catholic Church in a conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II. This led to a moral panic in the 1670s and 1680s that was used to justify the execution of at least fifteen alleged conspirators and the Exclusion Bill, which sought to de-legitimize James, Duke of York, as heir to the throne due to his Catholic faith. The idea that the Jesuits were foot-soldiers in the vast Catholic conspiracy, another common theme in anti-Catholicism, was also present in Popish Plot theories.^[7]

Beginning in the mid-16th century, a number of penal laws were passed with the intent of suppressing Catholicism and re-asserting the authority of the Church of England. The Clarendon Code, four acts passed from 1661-1665, targeted the political and religious freedoms of Catholics and other Protestantheretics.^[8]

[edit]America and Know Nothingism

[edit]The US into the mid-19th century

Protestant settlers in America often took with them the anti-Catholic sentiment found in Europe. However, due to the overwhelmingly protestant religious make-up of the nascent United States, anti-Catholicism did not become a major political issue until the 19th century. Anti-Catholic sentiment in the 1800s arose in large part as a response to the large influx of Roman Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany. One of the most popular early anti-Catholic tracts was written by none other than the inventor of the telegraph himself: Samuel Morse. In 1835, Morse published a book called Foreign Conspiracies Against the Liberties of the United States, which alleged the Catholics were part of a larger conspiracy based in Austria to install a member of the House of Habsburg as the imperial ruler of the US.^[4] During this period, anti-Catholicism began to become intertwined with early versions of the Freemason and Illuminati conspiracy theories, all of which played into nativist ideas about a European monarchical takeover of the US.

[edit]Know Nothingism

See the main article on this topic: Know Nothing Party

In the mid-19th century up until the American Civil War, the nativist Know Nothing movement represented the high-watermark of anti-Catholicism in American politics. The Know Nothings believed in an imminent papal takeover of the US via the "political Romanism" of newly arrived immigrants and attempted to have Catholics banned from public office. They also managed to field Millard Fillmore as a candidate on the Know Nothing ticket in the election of 1856.

[edit]Post-bellum America into the 20th century

Smaller Know Nothing-esque movements, however, persisted in American politics. The Panic of 1893 was latched onto by the newly formed American Protective Association as "proof" of a Catholic conspiracy to destroy the financial institutions of the US. This fringe political movement spawned a host of new conspiracy theories, including allegations that agents of the Church had assassinated Abraham Lincoln.^[9]

Anti-Catholic conspiracy theories continued to incubate on the fringe right until the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century. The KKK promoted Protestant white supremacism, leading them to target not just blacks, but basically all minorities. The Klan worked at the local level to shut down Roman Catholic churches and schools largely in the 1920s.^[10][11]

Anti-Catholicism became a major issue once again during the presidential campaign of 1928, which pitted the Irish Catholic Governor of New York Al Smith, the first major-party Roman Catholic candidate in a presidential election, against Herbert Hoover. Smith's opponents used the phrase "Rum and Romanism" (Smith was also a "wet" opposed to Prohibition) as a pejorative reference to his campaign,^[12] echoing an earlier description of the Democrats as the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion."

The so-called "Catholic Question" once again became an issue in the 1960 campaign of John F. Kennedy. Prominent Protestant ministers, such as Billy Graham, distrusted Kennedy's Catholicism and tried to derail his campaign.^[13] The more extreme, paranoid wing of the American conservative movement dredged up the old anti-Catholic conspiracy theories in response to Kennedy's candidacy and subsequent presidential administration as he became the first Roman Catholic president of the US.^[14][15]

[edit]Modern variants

Anti-Catholicism as a political movement has mostly dropped off the radar in the current American political landscape. Most major criticisms of the Church originate in more secular issues like the child sex abuse scandal and the Vatican establishment's social conservatism, and come from lay Catholics themselves as often as not. However, hardcore anti-Catholic wingnuttery still finds a home in many fringe movements and subcultures. The following conspiracy theories often cross-pollinate into unholy alliances of crankery as well, just like in the good old days.

[edit]New World Order conspiracists

Conspiracy theorists pushing "New World Order" theories allege a vast global conspiracy made up of the (Jews/Illuminati/Freemasons/Insert your favored conspiratorial bogeyman here) will often throw anti-Catholicism into the mix, mining the conspiracist literature of yesteryear for ever more pseudohistory toshoehorn into the New World Order framework.

[edit]Wingnut fundamentalist Protestants

Hardline fundamentalists still continue to claim that the pope is the antichrist and that Roman Catholics engage in Satanic, demonic, occult or otherwise un-Christian practices. ^[16]

Chick tracts are replete with Evangelical hatred for the Church. One tract argues that the Church created Islam, Communism, Nazism, Freemasonry and more.^[17] In fact, there are more Chick tracts that condemn the Catholic church than there are Chick tracts which condemn Mormonism, Islam, and theJehovah's Witnesses combined.

The antichrist theory inevitably leads to a round of crankery every time a new pope is selected, i.e. "This time, he really is the antichrist and the end is surely nigh!"^[18] Wash, rinse, repeat.^[19] Pope Francis is due to be the very last according to some predictions,^[20] so mass hysteria may follow.

Religious anti-Catholicism often merges into New World Order conspiracism. Pat Robertson's 1991 screed The New World Order is such an instance. That makes these theories a staple among the religious element of the hard right black helicopter set.

[edit]The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown's publication of The Da Vinci Code in 2004 made anti-Catholic conspiracy theories cool again by popularizing and ripping off the pseudo-scholarship of the 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The ideas about a cover-up of Jesus' relationship with Mary Magdalene and the true nature of the Holy Grail are sometimes subsumed into the wider anti-Catholic conspiratorial framework or, alternately, open up those with the inclination toward crankery to a vast wealth of anti-Catholic pseudo-scholarship. The secretive Opus Dei sect of the Church often plays a big role in these theories. Brown has admitted, however, that he does not believe in these conspiracy theories but only adapted them to suit his novels and write fiction.

[edit]Northern Ireland

Anti-Catholicism was cross-pollinated with Unionist (pro-British) extremism during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, with gruesome results. While the IRAare remembered as the main terrorist group of the conflict, Protestant extremists like the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defense Association had a major hand in the fighting. Ian Paisley, the ideological godfather of Protestant extremism in Northern Ireland, earned notoriety during his time in the European Parliament for denouncing Pope John Paul II as the antichrist. The Troubles are perhaps the most recent case in the Western world of anti-Catholicism contributing to actual bloodshed.

[edit]Anti-Catholics

THE REFORMATION:

ROSICRUCIAN CONNECTIONS

PART 1

Exhortations are frequently heard from Evangelical leaders that the Church needs a “new Reformation,” or a second or third Reformation.  For instance, Rick Warren’ statement of purpose:

“I intend to use the Purpose Driven movement to fulfill PEACE in a new reformation.” (Florida Baptist Witness, May 6, 2004)

By “new reformation” Rick Warren means the merger of Christianity into partnerships with other religions, social organizations, business and governments to work together to create a “healthy” global social order. In these various partnerships, Christian churches would be required to compromise the Word of God for the common good.  In the secular world, Rick Warren’s “new reformation” is known as Communitarianism.

   “Well, as I said, I could take you to villages that don’t have a clinic... But they’ve got a church. In fact, in many countries the only infrastructure that is there is religion... What if in this 21st century we were able to network these churches providing the...manpower in local congregations. Let’s just take my religion by itself. Christianity... The church is bigger than any government in the world. Then you add in Muslims, you add in Hindus, you add in all the different religions, and you use those houses of worship as distribution centers, not just for spiritual care but for health care. What could be done?

   “Government has a role and business has a role and churches, house of worship have a role. I think it’s time to go to the moon, and I invite you to go with us.” (Time Magazine, Nov. 1, 2005)

“In the 1990s I trained about a quarter of a million pastors. It’s now gone, as I said, to over 400,000... And we’re talking about all different kinds of groups, including priests in the Catholic Church, and including rabbis... So anyway, then in the 21st century I said that now we’re going global.” (Speech to Religious Newscasters Association Convention in 2005)

Here we see that, despite the positive connotations attached to the word, “reformation” does not necessarily mean that the end result will be the spiritual enrichment of Christianity, in other words, a Christianity more faithful to Scripture. To “reform” may also mean “to form again,” which is to restructure and, by implication, to change into a completely different entity. “Transformation”—another definition of “reformation”—is also a term commonly heard from today’s Evangelical leaders.  Given their unbiblical teachings, a “Transformation of the Church” by false teachers like Rick Warren would “transform” Christianity into another religion, even if it retained the nominal label of “Christian.” 

Plans for a future and final Reformation of the Church were developed by leading occultists of the 17th century Rosicrucian Enlightenment. The documentation we present on this report represents our research into the Rosicrucian infiltration of the Protestant Reformation and the Rosicrucian plan for yet another “re-formation” of the Church. Actually, our research was undertaken to determine if the Protestant Reformation was at the outset a work of the Rosicrucians for the purpose of dividing and conquering Christianity.

The following outline contains information gleaned from various sources, but primarily from the works of high level occultists, with special focus on the Rosicrucians. The Christian reader will find, as we did, some disturbing information in these sections.

• Esoteric Christianity
  • Medieval Gnostic Sects
• Pre-Reformation
  • Avignon Papacy
  • John Wycliffe
  • Jan Hus
• The Protestant Reformation
  • Martin Luther
  • Ignatius of Loyola
  • John Calvin
  • John Knox
• Rosicrucians & Protestants Together
• The Rosicrucian Enlightenment
• The Puritan Protectorate
• The New Reformation
• “Christian Rosencreuz”

ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY

• Christians have been misled to believe that the “one world religion” will eradicate Christianity.

FICTION: The one world religion will exclude evangelical Christianity.

   “The most likely scenario in the years following this Parliament (of World Religions) will be the gradual formation of a ‘World Council of Religion’ which will function in a way similar to that of the present World Council of Churches or the United Nations.  Despite their differences, this league of religions will be most united in three particular areas:
    “1. To foster the view that all religions (in which they mistakenly include Christianity) share the same God and are one in their ultimate ambitions. 2. To create permanent world peace and justice through cooperation with a similarly-confederated form of world government (e.g., the United Nations). 3. To propagate the concept that biblical, evangelical Christianity is a hindrance to ‘evolutionary’ progress and spiritual growth on this planet.”  (Alan Morrison, The Serpent & the Cross, K. & M. Books, 1994, 1999, Chapter 12.)

FACT: The “one world religion” will be a Gnostic form of Christianity.

“Is Christianity to survive as the religion of the West? Is it to live through the centuries of the future, and to continue to play a part in moulding the thought of the evolving western races? If it is to live, it must regain the knowledge it has lost, and again have its mystic and its occult teachings; it must again stand forth as an authoritative teacher of spiritual verities, clothed with the only authority worth anything, the authority of knowledge.  If these teachings be regained, their influence will soon be seen in wider and deeper views of truth; dogmas, which now seem like mere shells and fetters, shall again be seen to partial presentments of fundamental realities. First, Esoteric Christianity will reappear in the ‘Holy Place’, in the Temple so that all who are capable of receiving it may follow its lines of published thought; and secondly, Occult Christianity will again descend into the adytum, dwelling behind the veil which guards the ‘Holy of Holies’, into which only the Initiate may enter…” (Annie Besant, Esoteric Christianity, pp. 26-7)

MEDIEVAL GNOSTIC SECTS

• The Merovingian Jews converted to Christianity and founded monastic orders in order to infiltrate the Roman Catholic Church.

“The Merovingian Franks (450-741) built monasteries as a means of infiltration...for Merovingian monasteries later became Benedictine/ Cistercians... Pope Gregory the Great…promoted Benedictine monasticism. His feast day is the day he became pope, September 3 [590 AD]. This was accomplished by the infiltration of the Church, for Gregory was part of that infiltration. Sept. 3 became a day of victory for the Red Movement when he was installed as their pope, for Gregory marks the history of the papacy in that he was the very first ‘MONK’ to become a pope.” (Merovingian Infiltration of the Church Through Monasticism)

• Gnostic sects of the Middle Ages preached the divinity of man, and called this false gospel the Eternal Evangel.

“John of Parma, Boccaccio, Petrarch, St Catherine of Sienna, and St Bridget of Sweden...as also various sects, Waldensians, Albigensians, Begards, Dolcinists, all of whom, according to Quinet, Joachim of Fiore and the Eternal Evangel appear as a constant...” - 256:79

“Leroux saw the thirteenth century as one of extraordinary religious ferment and, with a fine disregard for doctrinal differences, put all the heretics into one basket -- Amalricians, Albigensians, Waldensians, Cathars, Apostolic Begards, Followers of Eon de l’Etiole, and Pierre de Bruys, Joachites, and so on -- for according to him they were all preaching the doctrine of the new evangel, of a religion superior to Christianity.” - 256:88

“...[George Sand] echoes Leroux in pointing to all those earlier ‘voices of St John’ who sustain the heresy of the Evangel, including Joachim of Fiore, John of Parma, St Francis... In other lists, he names the Poor of Lions, Wycliffites, Pickards, Taborites, Adamites, Fraticelli, Begards, Waldensians... Here, she says, is the key to all the convulsions and mysteries of the Middle Ages, and she asks the question: where shall we find another key to open the problems of this present time?” - 256:100

THE PRE-REFORMATION

THE AVIGNON PAPACY

• The Avignon Papacy was corrupt to the core which gave rise to legitimate protest within the Catholic Church.

“But when from 1305 to 1378 the papal curia was at Avignon and the cardinals were nearly all Frenchmen, Englishmen were offended: and from 1378 to 1418 the two popes, at Rome and Avignon, caused scandal to all. Men could only suggest that both popes should be persuaded to resign (which they would not), or that a great council should be held, as long before at Nicea or Chalcedon. Canon law, however, would not recognize the possibility of such a council unless convened by the pope, and the fourteenth century canonists had worked out an extreme doctrine of the plenitude of papal power. The study by the twelfth century canonists at Bologna of the Digest and the Code had influenced the concept of papal sovereignty: theologians, for the great canonists were theologians, had restated the limits of the plenitudo potestatis papae after this study of Roman sovereignty. Dr. Walter Ullmann, in his recent notable book on Medieval Papalism, quotes the fourteenth century papalists as asserting that the pope, in the fulness of his power, was beyond the reach of any mortal, emperor, king or any other. There was no one who could say to the pope, ‘Cur ita facies?’ The pope could do and say whatever he pleased to do and say in all and everything: he was above the law, whether natural (and, as it were divine) or whether humanly devised. The Roman principle that the prince was above the law was translated to the ecclesiastical prince. All human and divine law was entrusted to him alone: whoever resisted his power, resisted the ordinance of God. ‘In the conception of the canonists,’ Dr. Ullmann writes, ‘the pope was truly God on earth.’” (Margaret Deanesly, The Significance of the Lollard Bible)

“Popes, Cardinals, and officials of the Chancery and Apostolic Camera appointed bishops, collected taxes, and imposed disreputable political interdicts and excommunications throughout much of Christendom with greater abandon than ever before. They did so in tight association with countless princes and other representatives of the late medieval Establishment. Bankers were particularly welcome in their entourage. As Alvaro Pelayo, himself a fervent supporter of the Holy See, noted in De planctu ecclesiae, ‘Whenever I entered the chambers of the ecclesiastics of the Papal Court, I found brokers and clergy engaged in weighing and reckoning the money which lay in heaps before them.’ (Pastor, I, 72).

“A myriad of astonishing abuses, many of them the product of exceedingly pro-papal canonists influenced heavily by Roman Law and purely utilitarian power considerations, became associated with the Avignon administration. Charitable covers for raking in illicit funds were multiplied. Sees were left vacant or filled in ways that furthered the increase of gross curial muscle and wealth. Legal cases were painfully delayed so as to milk more loot from long-suffering plaintiffs and defendants. And, once again, all this was done in dangerous cahoots with locally important political and banker hacks.

“Even more destructive was the treatment of diocesan matters as property rather than pastoral questions. Bishoprics were assigned either to curial officials—to provide, from their endowments, salaries the Papacy could not otherwise pay—or to friends of political allies whose cooperative behavior needed to be rewarded. Since it was impossible for papal employees to leave their governmental positions in Avignon to tend to even one diocese—much less the two or more often entrusted to their misuse—episcopal charges inevitably entailed the same absenteeism already practiced by the pope himself. Perhaps the most bizarre long term development from such unfortunate policies was to be the creation of nominal ‘bishops’ who were often not even priests. Lay ‘bishops’ got the revenues from their ‘property’, and then employed some hireling to do the episcopal tasks they themselves could not legitimately perform.

“...Avignon’s abuses merely confirmed the convictions of those who already thought of the Church and her mission as a blasphemous work of Satan. This was the major reason why her scandals were so detested by orthodox believers.” (“The Great Western Schism”) 

JOHN WYCLIFFE

“A word then about Wycliffe’s anti-clericalism, a factor now so much stressed as one of the causes of the sixteenth century Reformation. Anti-clericalism did not begin with Wycliffe or in England: it existed in France at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It spread from the south French university of Montpellier, a great law school, which trained most of the anti-clerical courtiers and ministers of Philip IV...

“To sum up, then: Wycliffe’s translation of the whole Bible was an undertaking with a political side: the lay party could use it against the clericals: disendowment was in the air. But the spiritual side of Wycliffe’s intention was much the stronger. He desired to put the clock back: to restore the Church to her poor and primitive state. He had no realisation that in destroying the institutions of the Church of his day he might be endangering the Christian religion itself...” (Margaret Deanesly, The Significance of the Lollard Bible)

The purge of the Knights Templar occurred from 1307 to 1314 at which time the Merovingian Pope and his curia were setting up their headquarters in Avignon. John Wycliffe was born in 1327 and entered the political scene around 1376, at the close of the Avignon Papacy and onset of the Great Schism. Wycliffe may have been an agent of the network of the secret societies that Henry Saint Clair had established on the British Isles. According to Prince Michael Stewart, President of the European Council of Princes, said to be a constitutional advisory body to the European Union, following the Templar purge on the Continent, the Celtic Church of Scotland welcomed the refugee Knights Templar who then formed the Order of the Rosy Cross. The first order of business of the Knights of the Rosy Cross was to meet with the Pope at Avignon. 

“The established Roman Church may have betrayed the Templars, but in Scotland they found something far more trustworthy and tangible: a sacred royal house, and a Priest-King of the Celtic Church succession. ...the Knights became part of the Scottish Government as the appointed Royal Bodyguard, with the Order established as ‘Guardian of the King of Scots by day and by night’... A new order was then formed, called the Elder Brothers of the Order of the Rosy Cross, and several of the Rosy Cross Knights then sailed to France for a meeting with Pope John XXII at Avignon.  

“Many historians have presumed therefore that the Knights Templars must have been disbanded in Scotland, but this was not the case; it was simply that [Robert the] Bruce had contrived the secret Order to become even more secretive. Indeed, the Order of the Knights of the Rosy Cross...was a very successful cover.” (The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland, p. 65)

Having formed the secretive Order of the Rosy Cross in Scotland, the Templars sent a contingent of Rosy Cross Knights to France for a meeting with the Pope at Avignon. This is documented with a footnote: “The Vatican Archives, Rome”  What would prompt the persecuted Templars to return to the headquarters of the Catholic Church which had martyred many knights of their Order?  The high-level meeting between the fugitive Templars and the Avignon Pope reeks of collusion. The Templars’ newly-formed Order of the Rosy Cross had been absorbed into the Celtic Church of Scotland, and it is with the Celtic Church of Scotland that a connection to John Wycliffe is found. On the website of The Bible Museum, Inc., a source for rare and antique Bibles, is a chronological history of the English Bible. A section of this history, titled “The Pre-Reformation History of the Bible,” states that a secret society known as the Culdees “chose John Wycliffe to lead the world out of the Dark Ages.”

“On the Scottish Island of Iona, in 563 AD, a man named Columba started a Bible College. For the next 700 years, this was the source of much of the non-Catholic, evangelical Bible teaching through those centuries of the Dark and Middle Ages. The students of this college were called ‘Culdees’, which means ‘certain stranger’. The Culdees were a secret society, and the remnant of the true Christian faith was kept alive by these men during the many centuries that led up to the Protestant Reformation…

“In the late 1300’s, the secret society of Culdees chose John Wycliffe to lead the world out of the Dark Ages. Wycliffe has been called the ‘Morning Star of the Reformation’…

“…It was not as a teacher or preacher that Wycliffe gained his position in history; this came from his activities in ecclesiastical politics, in which he engaged about the mid-1370s, when his reformatory work also began. In 1374 he was among the English delegates at a peace congress at Bruges. He may have been given this position because of the spirited and patriotic behavior with which in the year 1366 he sought the interests of his country against the demands of the papacy. It seems he had a reputation as a patriot and reformer; this suggests the answer to the question how he came to his reformatory ideas.” (Greatsite.com)

According to The Bible Museum, Inc., the name “Culdee” means “certain stranger,” however, according to the Ancient Order of the Culdees of Iona, the word means “Chaldea,” as in ancient Babylonia: “Origin of the word Culdee. The name Culdee comes from Chaldee, (Chaldeans pronounce the word Chaldee as Kaldee or Culdee), in the sense that it alludes to Abraham the Chaldee, who left his home, worldly wealth, kindred and idol making to find the Promised Land.” The 1611 King James Version used the word “Caldees” with reference to the Babylonians or “Chaldeans,” which was the updated spelling in later editions.

See: The Lollard Movement: Avignon Papacy: John Wycliffe

JAN HUS

“We often think of Martin Luther lighting the torch of the Reformation, but the Czechs have the oldest Reformation tradition in mainland Europe. Long before Luther nailed his theses to the door of Wittenberg Church in 1517, the Czechs had established their own national Protestant church with their own vernacular Bible and hymn book. In 1406 or 1407 and perhaps as early as 1385, Czech students studying at Oxford brought back to Prague the writings of John Wyclif.

“The rector of Charles University in Prague, Jan Hus (1372?-1415), a man of outstanding intellectual gifts and personal integrity, took up Wyclif’s ideas. In particular, he took up the belief that, in true remembrance of the Last Supper, the Communion, or Eucharist, should be given in both kinds—bread and wine. The chalice became the symbol of the Hussite revolution, and Hussite supporters were often referred to as ‘Utraquists,’ meaning ‘in both kinds.’  Jan Hus was a great scholar and a gifted preacher. Between 1402 and 1403 the Bethlehem Chapel in the Old Town district of Prague was regularly packed, standing room only, with people eager to hear him expound on the Bible in their own Czech tongue.

“In 1412, Antipope John XXIII declared war on Naples and, to raise money, instituted the practice of selling indulgences — official forgiveness by the Church. Hus was outraged and was promptly excommunicated for his protest. Outlawed from Prague, Hus wandered about the countryside preaching and spreading Reformation ideas throughout the country. In 1415 the Council of Constance invited him to explain his views and promised him safe conduct. It was a trap: on false charges he was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake on July 6, 1415. It was his birthday he was just forty-three years old. Jan Hus began, and Comenius continued, even in exile, the reformed group that came to be called the Unitas Fratrum (the Unity of Brethren), also now known as the Moravian Church, which still exists with a worldwide following. Its formation was formalized in 1457, and it is the oldest of all Protestant churches, with its own hymn book (1505) and Czech-language Bible.” (The Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited, p. 201)

“Prague became a Mecca for those interested in esoteric and scientific studies from all over Europe. Hither came John Dee and Edward Kelly, Giordano Bruno and Johannes Kepler. However strange the reputation of Prague in the time of Rudolph it was yet a relatively tolerant city. Jews might pursue their cabalistic studies undisturbed (Rudolph’s favourite religious adviser was Pistorius, a Cabalist) and the native church of Bohemia was tolerated by an official ‘Letter of Majesty’. The Bohemian church, founded by John Huss, was the first of the reformed churches of Europe. Rudolph’s toleration was extended to the Bohemian church and to the Bohemian Brethren, a mystical brotherhood attached to its teachings. Prague under Rudolph was a Renaissance city, full of Renaissance influences as they had developed in Eastern Europe, a melting pot of ideas, mysteriously exciting in its potentiality for new developments.” (Francis Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (p. 26)

“Wyclif came from England, they explain, from whom Huss took his teaching, alluding to Wyclif’s influence on the Hussite reformation.” (Yates, p. 32)
 

THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

• The Reformation divided and destabilized the Roman Catholic Church so that it no longer had the manpower to prosecute heretics.

“[I]n 1546...

“

MARTIN LUTHER