Fearless in the Face of Heresy, by Regis Martin

By Regis Martin, Crisis Magazine, Dec. 2, 2023

Regis Martin is Professor of Theology and Faculty Associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He earned a licentiate and a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.  …

[Editor’s Note: This is the ninth in a multi-part series on St. Ignatius of Antioch]

For all the outward hostility of the pagan world to the Church, it is as nothing compared to the threat from within.

Along with the usual repeated exhortations regarding submission to the bishop on matters of faith and supplications to God for St. Ignatius of Antioch on the matter of martyrdom—to cite the two most obvious and defining themes of the correspondence—there is a third item of unfinished business about which we cannot remain silent. Even in as short a missive as the Letter to the Trallians, it fairly screams for attention. Were one to leave it out, or even to marginalize its importance, the whole point of the correspondence would fall apart.

And that is the matter of heresy, a most wicked and unwelcome thing, which the Church has always seen as a scourge of the soul, fraught with the gravest possible peril to the life of faith. Indeed, from its poisonous fallout Christianity stands in greater danger than even that which the most brutal of imperial persecutions have sought to inflict. For all the outward hostility of the pagan world, it is as nothing compared to the threat from within. …

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