Posted on 02/18/2005 12:17:53 PM PST by lawdave
This is a shameless vanity for which I apologize. I am not HTML friendly. I read an article in this weeks Time Magaziner entitled "Bible-Belt Catholics," which discusses the upsurge in the number of Catholics in the Southern states. The author made one statement which I don't belive is accurate, to-wit:
Given how overwhelmingly Protestant the South was in the 20th century, it easy to forget that the Catholic Church - which, to its shame, condoned slavery - was a player there before the Civil War.
The author gives no attribution for this statement. I wanted to turn the power of the blogoshere loose on this issue, since I know from experience that there are many knowledgeable Catholics on this site. Did the Catholic Church condone slavery? Enquiring minds want to know.
And the hits just keep on coming...
I don't know, but fwiw the Democrat Party was the party of slavery in the 19th century and then Jim Crew for more half of the 20th century.
Wonder when Time Magazine will do an article about that.
But, man, I have got TONS of evidence that the Democrats have tried to keep blacks as second-class citizens from about 1850 to about 2005.
Jim Crew = Jim Crow
blogoshere = blogosphere
As early as the seventh century, Saint Bathilde (wife of King Clovis II) became famous for her campaign to stop slave-trading and free all slaves; in 851 Saint Anskar began his efforts to halt the Viking slave trade. That the Church willingly baptized slaves was claimed as proof that they had souls, and soon both kings and bishops—including William the Conqueror (1027-1087) and Saints Wulfstan (1009-1095) and Anselm (1033-1109)—forbade the enslavement of Christians.
Since, except for small settlements of Jews, and the Vikings in the north, everyone was at least nominally a Christian, that effectively abolished slavery in medieval Europe, except at the southern and eastern interfaces with Islam where both sides enslaved one another's prisoners. But even this was sometimes condemned: in the tenth century, bishops in Venice did public penance for past involvement in the Moorish slave trade and sought to prevent all Venetians from involvement in slavery. Then, in the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas deduced that slavery was a sin, and a series of popes upheld his position, beginning in 1435 and culminating in three major pronouncements against slavery by Pope Paul III in 1537....
Soon, in addition to the brutal exploitation of the Indians, Spanish and Portuguese slave ships began to sail between Africa and the New World. And just as overseas Catholic missionaries had aroused Rome to condemn the enslavement of Indians, similar appeals were filed concerning imported black slaves. On April 22, 1639, Pope Urban VIII (1623 to 1644), at the request of the Jesuits of Paraguay, issued a bull Commissum nobis reaffirming the ruling by "our predecessor Paul III" that those who reduced others to slavery were subject to excommunication.
"A second revival of slavery took place after the discovery of the New World by the Spaniards in 1492. To give the history of it would be to exceed the limits of this article. It will be sufficient to recall the efforts of Las Casas in behalf of the aborigines of America and the protestations of popes against the enslavement of those aborigines and the traffic in negro slaves. England, France, Portugal, and Spain, all participated in this nefarious traffic. England only made amends for its transgressions when, in 1815, it took the initiative in the suppression of the slave trade. In 1871 a writer had the temerity to assert that the Papacy had not its mind to condemn slavery" (Ernest Havet, "Le christianisme et ses origines", I, p. xxi). He forgot that, in 1462, Pius II declared slavery to be "a great crime" (magnum scelus); that, in 1537, Paul III forbade the enslavement of the Indians; that Urban VIII forbade it in 1639, and Benedict XIV in 1741; that Pius VII demanded of the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, the suppression of the slave trade and Gregory XVI condemned it in 1839; that, in the Bull of Canonization of the Jesuit Peter Claver, one of the most illustrious adversaries of slavery, Pius IX branded the "supreme villainy" (summum nefas) of the slave traders. Everyone knows of the beautiful letter which Leo XIII, in 1888, addressed to the Brazilian bishops, exhorting them to banish from their country the remnants of slavery -- a letter to which the bishops responded with their most energetic efforts, and some generous slave-owners by freeing their slaves in a body, as in the first ages of the Church." (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14036a.htm)
The MSM is attacking all non-leftwing religions.
Anything to attack religion. (perhaps there is something they need to cripple religious groups before the 2006 election.)
I know, no retribution, but you know, there wasn't a lot of support for abolition out side of New England in antebellum America. So, I wouldn't be surprised if some Catholics, in the south, supported slavery. Still, some evidence of such an assertion would be welcome.
I am Catholic and I must say this: Nothing, absolutely nothing, surprises me anymore. And yes, I staying with my faith.
Oops. I meant "no attribution." Sorry.
Southern Catholic leaders largely went along with the Confederacy and Northern ones remained loyal to the Union. Most protestant denominations split either prior to, or during the war. Some denominations reunited afterwards, some didn't.
Me too. The statement I cite seems utterly gratuitous to me. Methinks the author simply could not resist adding a little negativity to an otherwise positive story.
It's not without precedent, the Catholic Church, as well as other denominations and religions, have historically distanced themselves from any controversies considered to be in its interests not to comment upon. Sins of omission are, nonetheless, sins. Silence is the last refuge for those with final judgement. Not unlike the United States Supreme Court.
Wow, maybe next they can run a story on how liberal media supported communists governments responsible for the deaths of over 100 million in the last century.
http://www.catholicshrineatlanta.org/History/history_of_shrine.htm
According to this site, the Bishop of Atlanta was also a Confederate chaplain.
I am not a Catholic but am catholic. This is just another of the liberal hit pieces schemed to divide the Christian church so that they can make headway for the Democratic elites whose policies would enslave black, white and purple.
Are you people paid to promulgate the Commintern avowed goal of bringing division to our Nation? Or are you just paid to puff Time?
I think the reality is Catholicism "fits" into whatever culture where it's practiced. One can look at that in two ways:
The negative view would be the "do nothing" negatives of the specific culture (don't forget about the controversy of Catholics and the Nazis).
The positive view would be that the Catholic Church is dynamic and very tolerant.
link?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.