Heretic

Oversimplified

• A heretic is not simply someone who is mistaken, but one who obstinately holds a teaching contrary to the Church's faith after correction.
• The label describes culpable pertinacity, not honest confusion — and it names a boundary, not a final verdict on the person's soul.

Summary

A heretic is a baptized Christian who, with pertinacity, holds or teaches doctrine contrary to the revealed faith of the Church and refuses her correction. The decisive element is the act of will — preferring private judgment to the Body of Christ — which is why not everyone holding a heterodox opinion is a heretic in the culpable sense. See Heresy for the substance of the error; this entry concerns the person who holds it. Cross-link Heresy, Anathema, Schism.

"Isn't calling someone a heretic just judging their heart?"

A boundary marker, not a sentence. To name a teaching heretical is to say "this is outside the faith," not "this soul is damned." The Church's anathema is medicinal — it fences the poison so the faithful don't drink it — but where any given person stands before God is God's judgment alone. A heretic can repent; the door back is always open. And Scripture keeps the orthodox honest: correction without love is its own sickness (1 Corinthians 13). The category exists to protect communion with the true God, not to license contempt. Cross-link Heresy, Anathema.