“Do you know anything about history?”
I think you need a bit of a refresher yourself.
“England had NOTHING to fear from Spain”
But the pope had a great deal to fear if he grated the divorce, which is why no divorce was granted to Henry as was customary at the time.
Rome was a political cesspool, much as Washington DC is. That, ultimately was what drove the English Reformation. I’m not fan of tyrants - be they in 15th century Rome or England. Neither were paragons of virtue - or Christianity. England’s separation from Rome was the driver of progress in Western Civilization. Rome as a political seat had far outlived it’s usefulness.
Think of England as modern day Republicans and Spain as modern day Democrats - the same political intrigue and use of the bureaucracy against one or the other was what killed Catholicism in England. It’s the same thing in Washington today.
Total putrid political corruption, medieval style. Rome blew it. It lost it’s empire, and it lost control of Christianity. Both the world and Christianity (including Catholicism) were better for it.
The feigned surprise in the article that the adoption of the COE in England was a “top down” event is especially amusing. As if Rome had been chosen through democratic majority! It was a tyrannical monarchy. The people did what they were told, in large part. They weren’t asked if they wanted to.
That article peers upon history using modern measures of “good and bad”. It’s nonsense.
“I think you need a bit of a refresher yourself.”
1) Are you saying that Catherine of Aragon was not from Spain?
2) Are you saying her marriage to Arthur and then Henry wasn’t part of a marriage alliance between England and Spain?
3) Are you saying that England did not ally itself against Spain AFTER the Protestant Revolution took hold of England?
I don’t need a refresher bud, but you sure do.
“But the pope had a great deal to fear if he grated the divorce, which is why no divorce was granted to Henry as was customary at the time.”
False. There was no such thing as divorce within Catholicism. Thus, no divorce could be granted by the pope. You probably mean an annulment. And that couldn’t be granted precisely because a dispensation had been granted originally. No annulment was possible. Also, it was not “customary” for annulments to be granted. Few were granted.
“England’s separation from Rome was the driver of progress in Western Civilization.”
Actually, no. 15th century England was far more totalitarian than any Catholic state of the Middle Ages. Historians have long recognized that England was culturally held back by the early Protestant Revolution. The Protestant meme that Protestantism is the mother of all good in the West is rubbish. I’m certainly not the only one to know that fact. http://www.brandonkendhammer.com/democratization_winter2012/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/13868711.pdf
” the same political intrigue and use of the bureaucracy against one or the other was what killed Catholicism in England.”
Protestants WERE the political intriguers. They were the conspirators against the history, culture and people of England. They destroyed the culture, monasteries, libraries, closed and sacked colleges, and so on.
“Total putrid political corruption, medieval style. Rome blew it.”
Sorry, but you’re just embarrassing yourself regurgitating Protestant propaganda. http://www.the-orb.net/non_spec/missteps/ch11.html