How the Catholic Church Adopted the ‘Heresies’ of Jan Hus, a Reformer It Burned at the Stake, by Jules Gomes

Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.

First, they falsify your writings. Then they brand you a heretic and burn you alive at the command of an infallible council. Centuries later, they canonize the heresies for which they burned you at a different infallible council.

It is a plot only Franz Kafka could craft for the beleaguered protagonist of his novel, The Trial. But in our story, it is the Roman Catholic priest Fr. Jan Hus and not the bank employee Joseph K who is the protagonist of this plot.

On July 6, 1415, Hus, who is smeared by Catholic apologists as a heretic and hailed by evangelicals as a proto-Protestant, was burned alive by the orders of the Council of Constance (1414–1418) — an ecumenical council which is accepted as one the 21 infallible councils of the Catholic Church. …