The Catholic Confession

[Pius] the second, Roman Pontiff, in his History of Bohemia, chapter 35, touches upon these doctrines of the Waldensians: that the Roman Bishop is equal to other Bishops; that there is no distinction among Priests; that it is not rank, but the merit of one’s life that makes a Priest superior; that souls leaving their bodies are either immediately plunged into eternal punishment or attain perpetual joys; that no purgatorial fire is to be found; that it is vain to pray for the dead, an invention of Priestly greed; that the Images of God and the Saints (standing for worship) are to be destroyed; that the blessings of water and palms are to be mocked; that evil Demons invented the religious orders of Mendicants The "Mendicants" refers to friars like the Franciscans or Dominicans who lived by begging rather than monastery endowments.; that no mortal sin is to be tolerated, no matter how much it might avoid a greater evil; that Confirmation, which the Pontiffs perform with oil, and Extreme Unction The "Last Rites" for the dying. are not to be counted among the holy sacraments of the Church; that auricular Confession is a trifle, and it is sufficient for each person to confess their sins to God in their own chamber; that Baptism should be received in the flow of a river without any mixture of sacred oil; that the use of cemeteries is empty, having been discovered for the sake of profit; that it makes no difference in what earth human bodies are covered; that the temple of the far-reaching God is the world itself, and those who build Churches, Monasteries, and Oratories limit His majesty, as if the divine goodness were found more favorably within them; that Priestly garments, altar ornaments, altar cloths, corporal cloths, chalices, patens, and vessels of this kind have no importance; that a Priest, in any place and at any time, can prepare the sacred body of Christ and administer it to those who ask: and it is sufficient if he says only the Sacramental words; that the intercessions of the saints reigning in heaven are sought in vain, as they cannot help; that time is wasted in chanting and reciting the Canonical Hours The fixed schedule of daily prayers performed by monks and clergy.; that work should not cease on any day except the one now called the Lord’s Day; that the feast days of saints are to be rejected; and that there is no merit in the fasts established by the Church, etc.

Yet Sylvius Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405–1464), who wrote the "Historia Bohemica" before becoming Pope. explains these doctrines quite spitefully in his own words because of the hatred that burns within him against them. However, they are explained more clearly in the Confession of the Waldensians themselves, which was presented several times to the Kings of Bohemia by those who, driven out of France, had fled to Bohemia. Peter Referring to Peter Waldo, the 12th-century merchant from Lyon traditionally considered the founder of the movement. had