Jan Hus, Pope John XXIII, and the evil always with us

Jan Hus' execution

I just finished Stephen Greenblatt's book The Swerve. The thrust of the book is how an ancient poem, Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, was nearly lost during the Dark Ages, but was accidentally discovered by out-of-work papal secretary, Poggio Bracciolini, who then copied and spread it throughout Renaissance Italy. 

That's not what this post is about.

A fascinating side story in the book is about one of the popes Bracciolini served, the notoriously corrupt and worldly John XXIII, and how the pope dealt with one of his enemies, Czech priest Jan Hus.

At the time, the Catholic Church's epicenter of corruption was the selling of indulgences and papal bulls for massive bribes. (It was no accident Bracciolini became a wealthy man while working in the papal court.) A few priests and laymen dared point out the rampant amorality:

Forty-four-year-old Jan Hus, a Czech priest and religious reformer, had been for some years a thorn in the side of the Church. From his pulpit and in his writings, he vehemently attacked the abuses of clerics, condemning their widespread greed, hypocrisy, and sexual immorality. He denounced the selling of indulgences as a racket, a shameless attempt to profit from the fears of the faithful...In all matters of doctrine he preached that Holy Scripture was the ultimate authority...He argued that the state had the right and the duty to supervise the Church. Laymen could and should judge their spiritual leaders. (It is better, he said, to be a good Christian than a wicked pope or prelate.)

Hus' last point must've stung his superiors just a little bit. 

Because the Church had been riven by a schism with several people claiming to be pope, the various powers-that-be arranged a meeting in Contance (Konstanz), Switzerland to sort it out. Hus saw an opportunity to make his case for reform. He wanted to be cautious, as heretics could be burned at stake.

...He applied for and received a certificate of orthodoxy from the grand inquistor of of the diocese of Prague, and he received as well a guarantee of free passage from the emperor Sigismund...The Bohemian nobles who accompanied him rode ahead to meet with the pope and ask whether Hus would be allowed to remain in Constance free from the risk of violence. "Had he killed my own brother," (Pope) John (XXIII) replied, "not a hair of his head should be touched while he remained in the city."

The pope lied.

...[B]arely three weeks after (Hus) arrived, he was arrested on order of the cardinals and taken to the prison of a Dominican monastery...There he was thrown into an underground cell through which all the filth of the monastery was discharged. When he feel seriously ill, he asked that an advocate be appointed to defend his cause, but he was told that, according to canon law, no one could plead the cause of a man charged with heresy.

As a small matter of justice, John XXIII lost control of the conference, tried to escape, was caught and tossed into the same prison as Hus, and was formally deposed and stripped of his title. 

Alas, Hus was still brought before the council of church officials. He was tried, convicted of heresy, and formally defrocked. Then it got much worse:

A round paper crown, almost 18 inches high and depicting three devils seizing a soul and tearing it apart, was placed upon his head. He was led out of the cathedral past a pyre on which his books were in flames, shackled in chains, and burned at the stake. In order to ensure that there would be no material remains, the executioners broke his charred bones into pieces and threw them all into the Rhine. 

Hus was executed even after the main person driving his persecution was arrested himself for precisely the crimes Hus accused him of committing. While John XXIII's actions towards Hus were horrific, he had help.

Nazi Germany is our culture's go-to reference for evil, but the fear of the other and the temptation to cast out those who look, act, or say different (not to mention critical) things has always been with us. German citizens in the 1930s and 1940s were not uniquely evil in human history. In this case, a bunch of purportedly religious men in the 1400s jailed, tortured, and murdered a person primarily because he correctly denounced them.

At no time and place is evil unique.