Posted on 11/19/2002 12:15:15 PM PST by LiteKeeper
Here's an example:
Beinedict XIV. saw that the best thing for lihu-iiaty, the only thing-was a surrender unlder forini of a compromise. In a brief hle decdared( s)stanti,ally that the law of the Church ISce rItationI f'roi Coocina in Lecky; also, acquiescence in this intc,l)rctati-'l,y Jfr. Dickinson, in Speech in Senate of Nw YIrk, al)ov-e quotel. 131
It's practically unintelligible.
But let's look at it, anyway.
What it appears to say is that Pope Benedict XIV somehow repealed the moral law of the Church concerning usury.
In order to substantiate his claim, White references not the Pope himself - whose writings on these matters are quite public - but two other sources. The first is Lecky, a Protestant historian who was a polemical opponent of the Church and not a dispassionate source. The second is apparently a speech given by a Dickinson in the New York State Senate - no date or even year given, as far as we can tell.
The obvious reference would be to Vix Pervenit - the letter to the Italian bishops which outlined Benedict XIV's policy on usury.
It's telling that White does not reference the primary source, because the primary source does not bear out his assertions.
The fact that the letter was addressed to the Italian bishops and not to the Church as a whole means that the letter is not a statement of Church law, but a statement of the recommended policy to be followed in Italy. So this is an outright fabrication on White's part.
The letter itself reiterates the Church's opposition to usury in forceful terms and does not contain a "compromise" or a "surrender." It reiterates that repayment of a loan is to be made in exchange for the value provided and also reiterates that Church law recognizes and has always recognized that legal contracts can be more complex than simple loan contracts. This was acknowledged by the Church for centuries.
If White had done his research he would have been aware of the existence of the mons pietatis of the XIIth century. He would also have been aware of the Salamanca School of economists of the XVth and XVIth century and the great advances they made in economics and finance.
So essentially, in the space of one paragraph White is dishonest in three ways:
(1) He makes a claim about Benedict XIV's teaching but fails to substantiate it from primary sources. Instead he cites one polemical secondary source and another secondary source almost impossible to substantiate.
(2) He mischaracterizes a letter as a statement of Church law. It is nothing of the kind. No consultative letter sent to a small number of local bishops can be considered legislative. In fact, as to the matter of the loan contracts under discussion, the Pope specifically states in paragraph 7: "We decide nothing for the present; We also shall not decide now about the other contracts in which the theologians and canonists lack agreement."
(3) He makes a misleading statement about the historical significance of the letter: it is in perfect harmony with the statements of his predecessors. There is no "surrender" or "compromise" - it states absolutely nothing new.
All this deliberate misleading is meant to buttress his larger argument which is also deceptive - that the Church was unalterably opposed to all forms of interest until matters came to a head in the late XVIIIth century and Benedict finally caved in and allowed Catholics to take and pay interest. This would come as a great surprise to all the bankers who operated with the Church's blessing throughout the Middle Ages.
This complete fabrication - that the Church opposed all forms of credit financing - ties in to the gneral pattern of deception in his book. He maintains that the Church acted to suppress developments in economic and financial theory. In point of fact the Church encouraged it, many Dominican philosophers made it their life's work, the school of Salamanca in Spain was the first group of free trade theorists in history, and the first great modern economist was the Irish Catholic, Jesuit-educated Richard Cantillon who was a student of the Salamanca school and was a financier in France.
White wants to pretend that the Church was at war with economic scholarship when it actually fostered it. To keep up the pretense he misrepresents, misquotes and misleads.
That's just one sentence in this execrable book.
This is not a fair comment. You may not agree with the conclusions of medieval exegesis, but the commentators of the Middle Ages read Aristotle through a Biblical lens, not the reverse.
Which scientists were burned at the stake by the Church?
And of course you realize that Bruno was not a scientist - he was an occultist.
Amen!
2Ti 1:12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
I don't disagree with your observations, but I am only reporting what he chose to do at the time of this lecture. It is easy to be a "Monday morning quarterback." What he had to say was good, and in my mind right on target, given the audience.
P.S. John A. Wheeler wrote once, "No one doubts today that the Shroedinger qeuation containts in principle all chemistry." I wonder what the esteemed professor thinks of that.
I don't expect Dr. Koop to apologize for Dr. Mengele. So you need to call up those who took responsibility for it. By the way you sound like some of those retributions folk.
I understand that you approve of the scope of the lecture, and I respect your opinion. I personally think that that the standards he chose are a bit low. Why do you presume that my opinion is devoid of experience?
Did I say something to make you think that? If so, it was done inadvertently. That was never my intent. Forgive me if I led you to believe otherwise.
Oh, my: your moral relativism has propagated so deeply...
It is very sad that you see no difference between the two. Someone has to point out that Mengele's actions were never sanction by the medical profession, which expressly admonishes the opposite from what he did; whereas Bruno, and hyndreds of thousands of other "heretics" have been burned at the stake not by a rogue monk but by the official representatives of the Church, by the office created expressly for that purpose.
You should acqaint yourself also with the notion of fiduciary duty before you turn table on others.
Finally, it is interesting that you can infer what I think about the world and my opinions on the issue solely from a question I posed. Someone has to tell you that you have no chance of being correct doing that.
Your accusation is not neutral, however: you put me in company with not-so-nice people, without a shread of evidence. Have you heard of Commandments, Andrew?
All I have learned from your post that you are moral relativist, not suffciently familar with commandments, who probably goes to church on Sundays and got offended at the possibility that the Church may have done something wrong in the past. Thank you.
(1) Christ was not divine, but a skillful magician
(2) the the Holy Spirit is actually the soul of the world and not part of a Trinity
(3) The devil and all the fallen angels will be saved?
That's what I understand him to have been executed for.
I hope this gentleman continues to give his lectures on the subject: he is a rarity in the the rabid anti-religious campus atmosphere of today. Thank you also for posting it: we too needed to see it.
Again, a claim that needs substantiation. Remember that the Spanish Inquisition, at the height of its activity in the period 1486 - 1650 executed approximately 4,000 people, and not all of them for heresy.
The Spanish Inquisition, of course, dwarfed the Roman Inquisition in the Albigensian Inquisition in scope and severity.
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