Posted on 07/29/2008 4:39:52 PM PDT by annalex
The fact that the Evangelicals defend their counterscriptural ecclesiology by defaming His Holiness is not a bad sign at all. The curses of heretics are blessings.
Thanks for offering these FACTS about the now Pope Benedict the XVI.
Yes to a point, but look into the Great Western Schism and the struggle between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope. The only real form of government that post Roman Empire Europe could agree on was ironically an Empire. Ironic because many of the states in the HRE came from the people that over ran the Western Empire!
Part of that system had the Pope as a major official. But whether he was supreme or not was really not settled. The French Church claimed many privileges that Rome could not infringe for centuries. Many a Pope was told to beat sand by the kings of France (which controlled the Papacy during the Western Schism), and many were pulled down.
That is not to say the Pope didn't have a lot of power. He could sanction war against you (which they did often) or even lead troops himself. He could lay a ban on sacraments which would put your people under very nerve wracking conditions. But even that was ineffective at times. The bishops in what is now northern Germany and Denmark usually just ignored it (the Interdicts happened so often, and communication was so bad, that to keep up was very frustrating and often impossible). Venice was also famous for ignoring the Pope and siding with Constantinople as often as not.
The Papacy was not as powerful as many suggest, nor as weak. Study the history, especially the times of the Western Schism (up to three Popes running around at once calling for Crusades against each other) and the Hundred Years war. You get the feeling that everyone just liked to whack their neighbor, and would use any excuse to do it.
In joyful hope, we do.
So do I. Maybe not joyfully, but with regret. That will just create more divisiveness in the religious realm and result in more amunition to be used against the papacy. One can see the pains that would hurt the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, all because of the actions of one solitary man who thinks he takes the place of Christ on earth as the head of the church of Christ - a false claim.
no matter what the pope or the Catholic Church does, it never seems to be enough ... not even here in this forum.
It takes a great amount of humility to apologize. It takes a charitable person to accept the apology. It's time to move on.
As I have pointedly declared upthread, my battle is with an errant church. if your Pope's apology extends in sufficiency to the point that the Roman Catholic Church, and it's adherents herein, admit that it was in fact, and in purpose, in error- THAT IT WAS WRONG- and that it's supposed inerrancy is in fact an error, then I will happily be done with it and move on.
Without the understanding that the RCC has made mistakes, and will make more in the future, it is only a matter of time until she repeats herself. I cannot abide that, nor allow her the reign to make her way toward that end. Because of that, I will *not* move on.
It is not the atrocities, sir (ma'am?), as I have said already. It is the lack of admission, and the foolhardy belief of inerrancy, which cannot be defended in the face of such. If not for those, the atrocities themselves are long in the past, and the apologies would not even be needed.
As to the charity, I am prone to it, but if the apology brings with it no admission of institutional guilt (error), then the charity need not extend to the institution either, or so it would seem.
Excellent observations.
As I’ve said many times, there was certainly blame on all sides and I am happy to discuss what happened (call me strange, but medieval European history is probably my favorite subject). However, the discussion must be based in VERIFIABLE FACTS, not propaganda from some anti-Catholic book.
While we do not consider it civilized today, up until a couple hundred years ago, wars were the normal method of settling political disputes.
But the overall deaths from the wars of Religion (depending on when you start and end) could possible be in the range roamer mentioned (100 million or so). If you figure the disruption war causes on any subsistence society, most of the deaths are disease and starvation unrelated to fighting. I have read those numbers also, from scholars not apologists, and they are very hard to estimate. For instance, we know that vast parts of France were depopulated during the Hundred Years war (where England was backing one Pope and France another). Population estimates from the times before the war show that possibly 1 million or more were killed or displaced in that war.
So it ends up a question of definitions. What is considered a religious war?
The Crusades — excluding the horrendous sack of Constantinople and the entire debacle of the 4th one — were simply a noble war of liberation of the Holy Land, the war that achieved its objective (the Jerusalem Kingdom expired of neglect a century after Saladin agreed to the crusaders’ demands of free pilgrimage routes) and was lead with bravery and according to the norms of military conduct of the time.
One might question the unnecessary brutality of the wars of Reformation, but then one should begin by questioning the so-called reformation itself.
The Holy Inquisition in its full vigor is something modernity sorely lacks, as the scandal of pederast priests demonstrated.
When substantive arguments are lacking, attempts to defame the winning side often ensue. It is no big deal.
It and the history of the Early Church are some of my favorite winter reading!
If you think this pope is too hard on the heresy, re-read the letters to the Corinthians, or St. Ignatius’ letter to the Smyrneans I posted at 299, and they were not even written by popes.
Some of them were. But often as not they broke down into petty arguing about who got what. After the First Crusade, they all failed because 1. There was no chain of command that was recognized by all. and 2. There were was no goal that as to what they wanted to accomplish. Many saw it as an way to make money, or adventure.
A lot of the eastern Crusades (to the Holy Land) died out because one guy wanted to attack X, and another Y, and another just to go on a pilgrimage.
We've seen the methods of war in the 20c; the 21c, from what we've seen so far is not going to be a badminton match either. I don't think we are in any position to consider what is and what is not civilized.
The execution was awful. Also, the lack of support for the Kingdom of Jerusalem once it was established is scandalous. But to use the Cruisades as some kind of a rhetorical club against the Catholic Church is ridiculous.
Precisely. The papacy may have been in the middle of the Hundred Years War, but the war was between England and France for control of French territory.
And while the Thirty Years War started as a religious war, in reality it soon became a political war between the French kings and the Hapsburgs (Holy Roman Empire).
Kings fought wars for land, because land meant money and power. They may have used religion as a pretense, but it was always about land, money and power. To believe otherwise is to ignore history.
When the Crusades started, the purpose was to secure the Holy Land for Christianity. The popes of the time realized that the kings would want something in return and they were given free rein to take whatever they wanted.
The kings dreamed of even more wealth, so they offered some of it to their noblemen, who in turn impressed peasants into fighting.
Did some go to fight for the noble purpose of saving the Holy Land? Certainly, but most went for money.
Nevertheless, to blame this on the Church is pointless, because this was the ONLY way to save the Holy Land and from the moment the Crusades started, the Church really had no control over the execution.
Excellent analysis!
Exactly! Ecumenism is one-sided. All to the benefit of the Papal churches. "Separated Christians" according to the papacy are not really "Christians", they are to be "converted" to the Roman Church model of a Christian. No wonder so many condemn your Pope's definition of Christians.
The efforts to insure that FR increasingly becomes a Vatican department seem to never end.
That is not a part of the gospel of Christ and thusly is merely the meanderings of man stating what he thinks. It is not bindable on anyone.
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.