The Donatists didn't say that someone who'd had dirty thoughts was to be exiled forever or killed They said that when Christianity was banned by the state, and Christians were told to hand over Christian holy texts to be destroyed, any priest who did so couldn't be a priest
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(When Christianity was a small persecuted religion, those texts were precious and often irreplaceable, which is why the Romans did it The term for priests who did that - "traditores", "handers-over", is where we get the word "traitor")
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They didn't say you couldn't still be a *Christian* - they explicitly said you could They just said you could no longer be a *priest* If you name names to the FBI you can still be a socialist but you don't get to lead the fucking protest
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The Catholic position - once a priest, always a priest - was a pragmatic one Lots of people had knuckled under to persecution, in some places if you turfed out all the collaborators you'd have no one left qualified to serve It's *understandable*
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But you can immediately see why, for all the pious talk about God's infinite forgiveness, setting this as a precedent is a bad, bad idea If you make it an actual formal rule that leaders still get to lead no matter how they betray their followers, what kind of leaders do you get
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This may or may not directly apply to modern leaders in modern contexts including the actual Catholic priesthood But it's worth thinking about
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Late Antique Heresy Twitter is my favorite Twitter
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even when it crosses over with Steven Universe discourse twitter?
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My impression was that it wasn't just that they couldn't be leaders but also that all of their actions were invalid.
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There actions as preachers, I think.
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