Posted on 01/24/2007 8:42:52 PM PST by xzins
Malcolm Moore
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Five hundred years after he was killed in battle, the remains of Cesare Borgia, the notorious inspiration for Machiavelli's The Prince, are to be moved into a Spanish church. Banned from holy ground by bishops horrified by his sins, the remains of the ruthless military leader lie, at present, under a pavement in Viana in northern Spain.
Borgia was the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, and was made a cardinal by his father at the age of 17. He was an accomplished murderer by 25 and had conquered a good part of Italy by 27.
He died in Viana in 1507 at the age of 31, after attempting to storm the town's castle and overthrow the Count of Lerin.
He was originally buried beneath the altar of the Church of Santa Maria in the town, in a marble tomb on which was written: "Here lies in little earth one who was feared by all, who held peace and war in his hand."
However, his body was dug up in 1527 when the Bishop of Calahorra visited the town and expressed his outrage that such a sinner was buried in church ground. The tomb was demolished and Cesare Borgia was re-buried in unconsecrated ground, where his body would be "trampled on by men and beasts," according to the bishop.
His remains stayed there until 1945 and locals used to scrupulously avoid the cobbled street March 11, when his ghost was said to be abroad and hungry for vengeance.
After workmen inadvertently dug him up, he was moved in a silver casket to the town hall, where local politicians pleaded with the Catholic Church to let him be buried properly.
The town of Viana looks fondly upon Borgia because of his link with the King of Navarre, whose sister he married. After fleeing the wrath of Pope Julius II, Borgia ended up in charge of his brother-in-law's armies and laid siege to Viana.
A bust of him has been erected in the town, with the inscription: "Captain of the Navarre Army."
But the local bishop rejected the requests for a proper burial and his body was placed under a marble plaque outside the church grounds.
However, Fernando Sebastian Aguilar, the Archbishop of Pamplona, has caved in after more than 50 years of petitions and Borgia will finally be moved back inside the church on March 11, the day before the 500th anniversary of his death. "We have nothing against the transfer of his remains. Whatever he may have done in life, he deserves to be forgiven now," said the local church.
Borgia took control of the papal armies in 1497 following the murder of his brother, and chalked up a series of astonishing military successes. He was greatly admired by Niccolo Machiavelli, who was at his court in 1502 for several months. Machiavelli drew on Borgia's exploits for The Prince - a treatise on the art of acquiring and maintaining political power - and advised politicians to imitate him.
The way in which Borgia pacified the Romagna is described in chapter seven. Borgia's assassination of his rivals in Sinigaglia on New Year's Eve, 1503, is also mentioned.
The correct answer is always there.
There are also an indeterminate number of wrong answers there, depending on how non-trivial the question is, how sloppily one exegetes the text, and how knowledgeable one is about the Bible and the culture that produced it.
It's those wrong answers that keep the FR religion forum in business, and the yellow pages under "churches" well-populated.
Dear xzins,
"see #37"
Okay. There, you say:
"If you were to actually read the sentence I wrote, you'd see that the word 'infallible' isn't in it anyplace.
"I simply asked if this character looked like one who had any 'openness to divine guidance.'
"If this one has no business speaking on behalf of the Holy Spirit, why should I think others have been any better?"
But I initially responded to this:
"Alex6 is not one you'd willing grant ex-cathedra authority to."
"Ex cathedra authority" is the same as infallibility.
sitetest
I'm unfamiliar with this, what are you trying to say?
If you are implying that all Christianity was united in submission to Roman domination prior to the Reformation I think you will find history proves this is false.
Alex6's corruption was in the late 1400's.
I haven't really looked at those immediately prior to him, but the few after him (excepting Adrian who died about a year after his ascension) were also seriously misguided.
If they weren't paying off bribes with indulgences, they were sending armies against innocents or wracking peoples' bones in dungeons.
I wouldn't trumpet them as the standards if I were RC and could avoid doing so. I'd just admit they were corrupt and drive on.
You know, I hope, that we didn't spring directly from hand-copied Bibles to paperbacks produced by the millions for 25 cents a copy?
The early printing presses printed one side of one page at a time. You inked them by hand. You might make 3 pages a minute, if you were good.
Nevertheless, by the time the Reformation started in England, it was common for reasonably well-off people to have a printed "primer," which was a combination catechism, missal, and often contained portions of Scripture, especially the Psalms or the Gospels. Some of them were in English and some were in Latin, but almost everyone who had been to school could read Latin. Those who hadn't been to school couldn't read, period.
Then the house of cards will collapse.
Perhaps that is true, at least during his life the histories seem to describe him as unrepentant in life. Hopefully as you imply, on his death bed he did repent.
"sending armies against innocents"
Everyone is always innocent when they fight the Papal States and start civil wars or invite invasions from outside powers, right?
"wracking peoples' bones in dungeons"
The First Protestants, of course, immediately abolishing torture by magistrates once they came to power, because they were such holy and wonderful people. Right? RIGHT?
And I responded to your response (or someone's) with that question.
Nice try. ;-)
The special powers given to the Apostles ended at the end of the Apostolic era, which just happens to be the time all "God Breathed" inspired writings stopped.
Do you see me standing around defending that kind of crap? No. When they're wrong, I say it. Then I drive on.
Can you say that those Popes were the dirtbags that they were?
Dear xzins,
"And I responded to your response (or someone's) with that question."
Your question was:
"If this one has no business speaking on behalf of the Holy Spirit, why should I think others have been any better?"
In the context of infallibility, I answered your question. Pope Alexander VI was as protected by the charism of infallibility from giving erroneous, binding teaching as any other person who has ever, or who will ever hold the office of the papacy.
It isn't about the fellow who is pope. It's about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is up to the job of keeping even bad popes from making erroneous binding teaching.
In that I was responding to your initial statement about giving Pope Alexander VI an office invested with the authority to speak ex cathedra, that is the answer to your question.
As for non-infallible teaching and actions, it is certainly more prudent to elect a good man pope than a bad man.
But that has nothing to do with the authority to teach ex cathedra.
sitetest
The Holy Spirit is up to the job of keeping even bad popes from making erroneous binding teaching.
nothing to do with the authority to teach ex cathedra.
My question remains. I'm an outsider. You're an insider. In my view, the reason you accept this stuff is because you're ALREADY an insider.
What would give me confidence as an outsider that some other bad egg won't get in there and start pronouncing idiotic things?
For example, can ex cathedra statements be rescinded? Can popes be fired?
I'm not sure I entirely disagree. My own view is that there were merits to both the Catholic and emerging Protestant viewpoint, but it must be remembered that the Reformation was a creature of its time. Both Protestantism and the Catholic church have evolved since then, so largely this is an academic, historical discussion.
My sole point in citing Exsurge Domine was that Luther was not some guy hell-bent on schism, at least not initially. He was sort of backed into that corner.
(Did he reject the Apocrypha and the Epistles as early as Worms? That is news to me - I was under the impression that occurred later in life.)
Dear xzins,
"My question remains. I'm an outsider. You're an insider. In my view, the reason you accept this stuff is because you're ALREADY an insider."
Got it. That's true.
I wasn't interested in trying to persuade you to "pope," just trying to explain Catholic understanding of the issue.
sitetest
You need widespread literacy first. That probably took a couple generations. As an analogy,
Before the Gutenberg press, and the associated increase of literacy, those who needed to know how to read knew how to read Latin. There was no grand conspiracy to suppress the vernacular Bible; just cold, hard economics. Even so, there were English translations by Alfred the Great (ca. 900 A.D.) and the Venerable Bede (ca. 735). for catechizing use; Charlemagne had a translation of the Vulgate made into Old High German around 800 A.D.
The Church's objections to the new vernacular translations were not that they were made, but that they were misleading in the Church's opinion.
This whole Catholic conspiracy to suppress the Bible is the product of the imagination of propagandists, not history. Unfortunately, it is indelibly ingrained in the Protestant subconscious.
Consider - the internet has been around since the 1960's, but it took 30 years for it to even be introduced to the general public. It didn't really become pervasive in everyday life until about 4 years ago or so.
Got Scripture?
A couple more random thoughts I had.
One was that there were indeed attempts to suppress the use and ownership of vernacular translations, especially in England immediately before the Reformation took place there. This was not because vernacular Bible-reading was viewed as evil per se, but because it was viewed as a sign that the reader held Protestant sympathies. (And, as you point out, some of the vernacular translations contained tendentious notes and put a doctrinal slant on the translation.)
Second, people forget that the Latin Vulgate was a "vernacular Bible translation" when St. Jerome made it. (That's where "Vulgate" comes from ... the "vulgar" tongue of the people was Latin at the time.)
Finally, it should be remembered that there were ways to teach people lessons from the Bible that didn't involve passing out Bibles and reading them. It was common in medieval Europe to stage plays dramatizing episodes from Scripture that had didactic value. Even the illiterate could learn from those. (The "Passion Plays" of, e.g., Oberammergau are a surviving vestige of this practice, but the dramatizations weren't limited to the Passion by any means.)
Also, hence, the stained glass windows, statues, and other medieval artwork; the Stations of the Cross, and so forth. Unfortunately, as the Reformers pointed out, these things did come to be abused - but that does not discredit their legitimate uses (and so did not justify the wanton destruction the Reformers levied upon Catholic churches).
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