Do the Anathemas of the Council of Trent Pronounce Curses on Protestants or Merely Excommunicate Catholics? Church Association Tract 407

ROME’S CURSES AGAINST PROTESTANTS
“THE ANATHEMA”
Church Association Tract 407
(July, 1910)

Lord Braye and other Romish apologists find it convenient to try to minimize the meaning of “anathema” by alluding to St. Paul’s use of the term (Gal. i. 8); they pretend that it means only excommunication (Times, 21st May, 1910). The language of St. Paul, however, does not help them until they can prove that the Church of Rome uses the word in the sense in which St. Paul uses it, which they cannot do. If the Councils only meant “excommunication,” it was perfectly easy for them to have said so by employing the verb excommunicare; but on the contrary, the official documents of Rome—for instance, the decree “concerning Heretics” of the Fourth Lateran Council, and the Bull, In Coena Domini—draw a distinction between “anathema” and “excommunication,” as they generally run “We excommunicate AND anathematize.” The 56th Canon of the Council of Meaux, 845 A.D., says that “Anathema is the Damnation of Eternal Death” (Mansi, Concilia, xiv. 832).

Moreover, the form from the Pontifical proves that “Anathema” is truly and properly a curse, not an excommunication merely.

[To read the full article click here, Rome's Curses Against Protestants:  "The Anathema":  Church Association Tract 407 (July, 1910).  This is from the Church Society site listing the Church Association Tracts.  For a full list of the tracts click on full list of tracts.]

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