Note 694 — Chapter IX · CONCLUSION.

It would scarce seem possible that, in the full light of the nineteenth century, men could still be found hardy enough to defend the position of the Church towards heretics, but it is a sign of the progress of humanity that this is no longer done by justifying the irrefragable facts of history, but by boldly denying them. In a recent work by M. le Chanoine Claessens, “Camérier secret de Sa Saintété,” who informs us that after long and serious study of the original sources he writes with scrupulous impartiality and with the calmness befitting history, we are told that the penalty of the Church for public and obstinate heretics is simply excommunication, and that it has never allowed itself to employ any direct constraint, whether for the conversion of Jews and Pagans or to bring back wandering Christians to unity. At the same time he is careful to make the reservation that the Church possesses an incontestable right to use physical means to compel those who have been baptized to fulfil the obligations thus assumed.—Claessens, L’Inquisition et le régime pénal pour la répression de l’hérésie dans les Pays-Bas du passé, Tournhout, 1886, p. 5.