denied that a canonized saint is in heaven would not be a heretic, but he would be disobedient to the Church, who assures us with divine authority that he is in heaven, and bids us honour him as a saint. Formal heresy is committed not only by knowingly and wilfully rejecting a revealed truth which is proposed for our belief by the Church, but by wilfully doubting about such a revealed truth. For such a one positively doubts whether a portion of God's revelation is true, and thereby injures him as much as if he asserted that it was untrue. Similarly one who would not submit to the Church's decision, even if she defined some doctrine to be of faith, is a formal heretic. Negative doubt, by which assent to a revealed truth is withheld or suspended, and voluntary ignorance of the true Church or of other necessary truths of faith, are sinful, but they do not constitute formal heresy. Great numbers of baptized Christians who were born of schismatical and heretical parents, and who do not know the true Church, are material, not formal heretics. When they begin to doubt about their position, and advert to the obligation they are under of making inquiries, they sin against the faith, more or less grievously according to their negligence, if they remain as they are. They do not become formal heretics until the truth fully dawns upon them, or they are so disposed that they would not submit to the Church even if they knew that she alone is the true Church of Christ.
3. Heresy is punished by the Church as a crime which attacks the foundations and the very raison d'etre of her existence. In order to incur the penalties inflicted on heresy, the sin must be both formal and external, for the Church in her external forum does not take cognizance of sins of thought. The external act must be such as of its own nature, or from custom, or from the special circumstances, is held sufficient to manifest an heretical mind. The reception of the sacrament in an Anglican church, or being married in a non- Catholic place of worship by a non- Catholic minister, are considered acts of heresy and punished as such by excommunication.
A special form for the reception of converts into the Church, based on various Roman decrees, has been approved by the English Bishops.
4. Apostasy from the faith is the grave sin committed by one who throws the faith overboard entirely. The apostate not only rejects special dogmas like the heretic, but wholly abandons the Catholic faith, and becomes a free-thinker, atheist, materialist, Mohammedan, Buddhist, etc.
