Posted on 02/02/2009 6:39:40 PM PST by rogernz
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: One of the most overlooked facts of the American Civil War Era is the sympathy the South gained from Europe's most influential monarch - the pope of Rome.
Pope Pius IX never actually signed any kind of alliance or 'statement of support' with the Confederate States of America, but to those who understand the nuance of papal protocol, what he did do was quite astonishing. He acknowledged President Jefferson Davis as the "Honorable President of the Confederate States of America."
From this we can glean three things about Pope Pius IX...
1. He considered Jefferson Davis worthy of the customary title "Honorable."
2. He acknowledged him as president of a nation.
3. In doing so, he officially recognized the Confederate States of America as a sovereign entity, separate from the United States of America.
In the letter in which this recognition was made, he sent an autographed picture of himself, along with a miniature crown of thorns, woven by the pope's own fingers. The crown is currently on display at the Confederate Museum in New Orleans. Upon viewing the crown, one can't imagine how the pope could have woven it without pricking his hands and finders several times. The gesture was an act of supreme sympathy, for you see President Davis was awaiting trial in a Union prison at the time this crown was made.
There are many possible reasons why this pontiff would be sympathetic to the CSA and her president, but the most likely one was that Pope Pius IX recognized in the culture and ideology of the South a mindset opposed to the advance of liberal modernism. You see it was Pius IX who composed the famous "Syllabus of Errors," which condemned the modernist philosophies of liberalism, humanism, secularism and marxism. It is speculated that Pius IX saw in the Confederacy a political movement steeped in European Christian tradition, and therefore a potential ally against liberal modernism on the North American continent. Alas, the Confederacy was defeated, and President Davis was captured. As the 'Deconstruction' of the South commenced, and Davis awaited his trial, it is understandable why the pope would be sympathetic.
Pope Pius IX was a revered figure in the post war South. General Robert E. Lee kept a portrait of him in his house, and referred to him as the South's only true friend during her time of need. Both Davis and Lee were Episcopalians, a denomination which had many things in common with Catholicism before the 20th century influence of modernism of course. Davis was frequently visited by Southern Catholic nuns during his imprisonment, who delivered messages for him and prayed for his release. He eventually was released, having never stood trial, on the grounds that he committed no real crime. It is believed the majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court at that time acknowledged the right of secession.
Southern Americans of today should take comfort knowing that the old Confederacy did have a European friend, and it just happened to be one of the most respected people in the world - not only a head of state, but also the leader of the world's largest Christian religion. The day will come when Pope Pius IX will be canonized as a Saint. He has already been beatified, which puts him well on his way. When that day comes, Southerners will have a special bragging right, not enjoyed by many nations even today. They will not only be able to boast of his sympathies during and after the great War, but they will also have in their collective possession a relic of the man - the crown of thorns woven by his own hands.
Yes, when the CSA was running short of men, and, on the verge of defeat.
You forgot about their time machines.
You need to read some American history.
Easy to claim in retrospect, but you search in vain for someone in 1860 predicting that would be the case. What isn't hard to find is lots of statements by southern leaders saying that the reason they were seceding was because of the threat to slavery posed by Lincoln's election.
Wrong. Grant's wife's family owned slaves, but freed them during the war. Grant himself was given a slave, but freed him after a short time. And he did so at a time when he was in debt and could have used the money selling the slave would have brought in.
In contrast, General Robert E. Lee was an abolitionist
Lee thought that slavery was a moral evil, but that it was good for the slaves. God, he felt, would get around to freeing the slaves someday and it was no good for man to try to push the issue.
President Jefferson Davis requested land owners to promise their slaves freedom in exchange for military service.
I don't suppose you can find that quote, can you?
Granted, the USA had already banned slavery in some states, but the same movement was growing in some CSA states as well.
Yeah, you're going to need some citations for that, too. If anything, the opposite was happening. Slavery had been seen as a necessary evil during the post-Revolutionary period, but by the 1850s an extensive body of southern thinking had come along pronouncing slavery a positive good and something ordained by God. Confederate VP Alexander Stephens' opinion on the matter wasn't unusual:
With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them.
Absolutely. In addition, the concept of pure chattel slavery was probably not what the Pope had in mind. Slavery had died out in Europe long before and had only been revived in the course of ransoming the hostages that the Muslims had taken - and the Muslims did practice pure chattel slavery, where the slave was considered simply a piece of property. However, in the Catholic world, the slave had certain rights (religious instruction, baptism, marriage, the right to own property, buy his freedom, not to be sold without his family, etc.). This certainly was not always respected - the Portuguese completely ignored these requirements, for example - but theoretically, from the Pope’s point of view, slavery would have been more like a cross between serfdom and long-term indentured servitude.
I guess I can understand it better in the case of somebody who’d never actually seen the US system in operation. The thing that always amazes me are some of the defenders of the South who declare that things were just great on the plantations and the master was really solicitous of the slaves and it was all just one big happy family. I actually heard an elderly docent in a museum say this - and the museum was in South Carolina, of all places, where the slaves on the rice and cotton plantations received such notoriously awful and brutal treatment that it even led to the famous Stono Rebellion. The slaves captured after the rebellion was put down were beheaded and their heads were put on stakes along the road as a warning.
You’d think that would be enough to make people see the reality of slavery, but as you say, there’s a lot of regional defensiveness and of course the rose-colored glasses of time. Naturally, nobody wants to think that they are descendants of people who treated other human beings like this.
As mentioned above, I don’t verify authenticity. cuil or yahoo “Roman Catholic Church” and “Lincoln Assassination”.
The Surratts, George Atzerodt, Michael O’Laughlen were all Roman Catholic and John Wilkes Booth was supposedly a convert. I personally find Booth’s conversion doubtful as he was a member of the Know-Nothing Party at the age of 16.
That doesnt change anything I said. The North still fought to impose a dictorial federal government.
Truth hurts but its still the truth.
Do you think it was coincidence Lincoln was shot on Good Friday?
So you think that the United States is a dictatorship?
In many ways yes.
Did the parents at your kids school tell the judge that your kids couldnt pray in school or did the judge tell then they wouldnt?
Did your state ever vote on abortion or were you told to shutup like it?
Gay marriage soon too.
Is that really what freedom is to you?
Tell me, is there any government on the face of the planet that doesn't qualify as a dictatorship "in many ways" in your eyes? Or is it only the slavery-allowing USA of 1776-1861 that qualifies?
“Tyranny [was] as much a burden from Richmond as it [was] from Washington. “
You are right about that.
You’re putting the ills of today upon the Union cause. Who knows what modern oppression would have come out of the Confederacy had it survived? But the years that the CSA did exist do not suggest a promising future.
“You’ve got an awfully loose view of what constitutes a dictatorship,then.”
I didnt say “dictatorship”, I said “dictorial”
Funny you ducked my question
“You’re putting the ills of today upon the Union cause”
Yes I am because the Union fought for an all powerful federal government.
...and now they’ve got it
If you look at the causes the originally propelled the Union and the Confederacy to warfare it was the United States army fighting to preserve the Union and the Confederate States army fighting to protect slavery. Read the words of Lincoln, read the words of the secessionists in their state declarations of causes.
That's not to say that other causes were not the important factors to individual soldiers. Many reb soldiers fought not for slavery, but merely to combat a perceived external threat and there were Union soldiers whose goal from the beginning was to eradicate slavery.
Okay, I'll answer your question. None of those things you list compel me to do anything. I don't have to pray if I don't want to. I don't have to have an abortion. I don't have to enter into a gay marriage. So, no, I don't feel that my freedom is impinged by any of those.
And the mechanisms that would allow you to change any of those are intact--the constitutional amendment process. Gather enough people who agree with you and you can change the laws, or the government, to suit you. Like I said, you have a loose definition of dictatorial. Or dictorial.
Now answer my question: Was the United States a freer country when it allowed slavery?
“Okay, I’ll answer your question. None of those things you list compel me to do anything. I don’t have to pray if I don’t want to. I don’t have to have an abortion. I don’t have to enter into a gay marriage. So, no, I don’t feel that my freedom is impinged by any of those.”
You’re trying to dumb down the conversation just to win a stupid argument on the internet.
You know darn well no community can stop abortion or pray in a public school.....and very soon you wont be able to stop your children from being taught YOU are a horrible person if you dont support gay marriage.
“And the mechanisms that would allow you to change any of those are intact—the constitutional amendment process. Gather enough people who agree with you and you can change the laws, or the government, to suit you. Like I said, you have a loose definition of dictatorial. Or dictorial.”
Like school prayer? forced bussing? gay marriage? (all imposed against the will of the people) Many states are heavily anti-abortion...where is the freedom on these things? All are imposed by the federal government against the will of the people.
If you honestly think these things will change simply because we choose to believe the same way you’ve been living in a cave.
“If you look at the causes the originally propelled the Union and the Confederacy to warfare it was the United States army fighting to preserve the Union and the Confederate States army fighting to protect slavery. Read the words of Lincoln, read the words of the secessionists in their state declarations of causes.”
Stop getting your history from Hollywood.
” My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
~Abe Lincoln August 22, 1862
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