Posted on 06/18/2004 9:55:45 AM PDT by xsysmgr
Wasn't expecting that either. Monty Python's Holy Grail makes a lot more sense now.
Exactly. The Moorish "converts" to Catholicism weren't always sincere, either, as this article on the "Moriscos" points out.
Moors converted to Christianity after the Christian reconquest (11th–15th cent.) of Spain. The Moors who had become subjects of Christian kings as the reconquest progressed to the 15th cent. were called Mudéjares. They remained Muslim, and their religion and customs were generally respected. After the fall of Granada (1492), Cardinal Jiménez converted many Moors by peaceful means. However, the rigorous treatment of those who refused conversion or apostatized from the new faith led to an uprising (1500–1502) in Granada. This was soon suppressed. Faced with choosing between conversion or banishment, the majority accepted conversion, but many continued secretly to practice Islam. The Moriscos at times provided the Ottoman Turks with information facilitating Turkish raids on the Spanish coast. Persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition and subjected to restrictive legislation (1526, 1527), the Moriscos rose in a bloody rebellion (1568–71), which Philip II put down with the help of John of Austria. The Moriscos prospered in spite of persecutions and furthered Spanish agriculture, trade, and industries. However, in 1609 Philip III, influenced by Lerma, decreed their expulsion for both religious and political reasons.
Suppose we stick to the topic. The article basically points out that the Inquisition was not as bad as the secular courtsof the time, and that it is false to make it the epitome of injustice.
It was still God-Awful by the standards of a modern American Court, althoiugh these may in their own way be as impatient of the truth as a Nazi Court. Dostoevski may not have been "fair"to the actual Inquisition, or even to the best known of the Grand Inquisitors, Torquemado,after whom he modeled his character. but he caught the essence of the spirit that moves such men, which is the fear of losing control. It was that spirit which sent Jesus to the Cross. We knw only too well what men are capable of, and sometimes in our zeal to prevent evil, we kill Christ again.
The aim of the Austrians originally was to make the elected throne of Bohemia hereditary and theirs.
The Austrians had held the title as an elected one since 1520. The Bohemians elected the Count of the Palatinate.
The Austrians won, though not easily, and the the Bohemian's chosen monarch was called the "winter king" as he only lasted one winter.
Feeling their oats, the Austrians saw a chance to assert their domination over Germany as a whole. How much religion was a reason and how much it was nothing more then an excuse is murky.
The Danes and Dutch rallied to the Protestant cause...but it was not enough.
With the Brandenburgers and Saxons quaking in their boots - and considering bowing before the Austrians, the Swedes landed. While they were incredibly effective, it was interestingly French money that kept them in the field.
The Swedes managed to save Germany, and were actually starting to threaten Austria itself when their brilliant monarch was killed in battle.
Shortly thereafter, seeing Spain and Austria were weak from years of fighting, Catholic France officially joined the Protestant cause and thrashed the tired Spanish and Austrians.
So the 30 Years War came to a close with Catholic France the clear victor...though Austria would keep its hereditary claim to Bohemia until 1918...
Catholic Poland and Protest England both important powers at the time had managed to stay out of the conflict.
Overall, I think the religious elements of the 30 Years War have been exaggerated at the expense of the Austrian urge for territorial aggrandizement, though that was certainly an element.
Spain was the first society with three religions and could never come up with a polity that accomodated all three. But is was never more than a minority of the Conversos or the Moriscos who secretly practiced their faiths. There wre many more who were never more than nominal Catholics. Still others became fanatical Catholics, who turned on their compatriots.
It is always unquiet when consciences are suppressed. St. Augustine secured the suppression of the Donatists but that left Africa divided when the Vandals appeared.
Actually, the article goes further. It suggests that the Inquisition was enlightened. That it advanced justice by giving the unjustly accused a better chance of acquital, and saved lives. And the article is backed by pretty much the entire scholarly world in asserting this.
The problem is that those who want to hate the Church cannot allow themselves to see it as a good force in protecting the faithful. The secularists hate it for punishing for the sake of religious beliefs (which they regard as meaningless superstition rather than meaningful for the eternal life of a person's soul), and the anti-Catholics hate it for punishing their own personal beliefs about Christianity. Normal historical inquiry takes a back seat to those so agendized.
No one has claimed that "every Catholic alive at that time loved the Inq! They had a thing like All-Star voting, and people voted for their favorite torturer!" The thing existed, was monstrously evil, and trying to minimize the evil of it backfires with many people. Even if the Inq authorities had, and strictly adhered to, a 15 minute time limit that anyone could be tortured, I'm not impressed.
Glad to stick to the topic. I think that's generally what I have done all along. And for once you've said something leaning heavily toward sensible. Unfortunately, I don't believe it's for the right reasons; but, so be it.
Certainly it does. I don't see any other interpretation of this statement:
We should not expect people in the past to view the world and their place in it the way we do today.
Same with Stalin and Al Quada ... what we think is happening is just our imagination and if some of it really is happening it really is a good thing.
The author of this article is a devout Catholic. He's just trying to pave the way in somehow trying to give the Catholic church credibility even though it's been in self destruct mode for a long time.
It's mostly ignornant people in third world countries that sign up for that belief system. If they ever get their hands on a Bible and actually read it they spiritually flee their system.
You can say that the Inquisition was "enlightened." if one confines oneself to the field of jurisprudence. I think its rules of procesure was an advance over the Civil Law. Still I can justify it only by remembering that sometimes it was dealing with people as rabid in their rejection of convention as the radical Islamists who cut off the head of Mr. Johnson. When someone as mild and rational as St. Thomas can accept its actions, people like the Cathars must have been something else.
The invention of the printing press scared the hell out of the Catholic church. The church was no longer the only source of spiritual information for the people.
As a result, the inquisition was invented to insure that the people were obeying the teachings of the Catholic Church and were not being contaminated by reading the actual scriptures.
This is a sad part of your history.
It has been in "destruct mode" since 1519, by your estimation, I would guess, but it keeps coming back. As you say, it is widely accepted in Third World Countries, but they do not seem t be no more ignorant of Christ as the people of our World, who have easy access to the Bible.
This is a weird statement. The Inquisition was more humane both in asserting guilt and inflicting punishment than any other legal body available at the time. Yet you can only justify it because those they condemned were really nasty? Doesn't sound well reasoned.
That is an important point. It's just as important to say that most catholics today would find it abhorent. But they don't have one lick to say in what the church does because unlike the Biblical model, the clergy doesn't answer to the Body of Christ.. UNLESS as in the pedophile scandals of recent history, the US government leaned on the Church and the congregants stopped paying tithes - all of a sudden, Rome was all ears. They still foot dragged, and so on; but, they at least began to look concerned enough to do more than shuffle people around, cover up and let it continue elsewhere.
Scripture tells us that our ministers are to be judged on their message against that which was delivered by Christ and the Apostles - period. Paul said that even to the extent that if he should come preaching another Gospel, the congregants should curse him. Not the clergy, the congregation! He wasn't speaking to the southern baptist convention of ministers, he was speaking to the church congregation. The clergy did wrong and the congregation did nothing to stop it of any measure and were rather complicit.. but as if they had any choice. The clergy in the Roman church isn't of them, it is over them. That isn't biblical. The clergy answers only to itself up or down and the Pope essentially answers to no one. That isn't scriptural. It may be Catholic; but, it isn't scriptural.
Killing people over their sin isn't scriptural under the new covenant either. These are the Christian lessens to be learned - they haven't been and in fact are utterly rebuked by the Church as anti-catholic.
From a purely practical standpoint, there is no remedy here that I can see.
Moral relativism asserts that morality is as good as another. What he said is unremarkable. It is like saying that we should not expect people in the Middle East to view the world as we do. To do is to misunderstand much of what they do. That dos not mean that there are no fixed standards by which to judge their society--or ours, for that matter. By certain principles of jurisprudence, the Inquisition was an improvement, just as the xommon law courts were an improvement over the manorial courts, in large part because there was less injustice. But to assume this is to accept that there is such a thing as justice and even by our imperfect lights, we can see the Inquisition did much injustice.
Often they were doing the best they could. In early Texas the settlers were confronted by the Comanche, who were probably the most formidable of the Plains Indians. It took General Sherman himself to subdue them, by methods he perfected in Georgia. You didn't sit down and reason with a Comanche. The samething was true of heretics like the Cathars, whom the Catholic subdued not by persuasion--although St. Dominic tried--but by main force.
If you haven't noticed, you are dealing with reason most directly. His reasoning is based on an end model of defend at all costs. From his standpoint, he is being reasonable. His world is what he knows and believes - he isnt' concerned with anything else. If this is an eye opener, you might try listening to some things like Walter Martin's "Q&A" and "Under Fire" tape sessions. You ain't seen nothin. Martin was the foremost expert on comparative religion till his death some years ago. I've got 3 gig online of his debates, discussions and run downs on cults and the like. The mindset is the norm.
They can't see it; but, then scripture tells us why. Now I'll be quiet and prepare to roll my eyes a bit ;)
Here's you problem. No. They did better than that. They did better than any other court system in the world they could read about or experience. That's an important historical distinction from "they were doing the best they could."
These guys advanced the cause of human rights and justice. And to the extent they appear barbaric: that was the extent to which they were unable to rise above their times, not the extent to which they subjected their times to otherwise unknown hardship.
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