Inquisition/crusades/galileo

[Katholikos]

One of the phatmassers recently wrote that he was misinformed about the Inquision by Catholic teachers in a Catholic school. He was taught the truth by a university professor who was an atheist.

Here's a website to help us be better informed about three controversial subjects. I would have put this under "open mic" but was concerned that it wouldn't receive the attention there that the subjects deserve.

Henry Kamen is a Jewish historian from Britain and an an expert on the Inquisition. He has admitted that his first book -- a bestseller used in classrooms all over the world -- was wrong. He calls his new book (Yale University Press, 1997) "The Spanish Inquisition, A Historical Revision." It is based on actual Church records of the Inquisition, which were recently made available to historians. He said on a video from the History Channel that "the Catholic Church has nothing to apologize for concerning the Inquisition." (1999 video "The Inquisition" catalog number AAE-40486, $29.95)

The following is from http://www.turrisfortis.com

This website has links to all the resources listed.

QUOTE

THE THREE PILLARS OF ANTI-CATHOLIC "HISTORY"

When people want an easy way to make the Catholic Church look bad with an historical argument, all they have to do is invoke one of three easy words -- Crusades, Inquisition, or Galileo. Just the mention of any of these subjects conjures up an image of an oppressive, violent, and narrow-minded Catholicism. But should it? Most of the time those who bring these things up are looking for a cheap shot. They don't need to know a lot about them to know that the Catholic Church was wrong. You'd be surprised how often I hear, "The Catholic Church can't be the Church of Christ because of the Inquisition."

"Really?" I respond. "What can you tell me about the Inquisition? Why do you think that?"

"I don't know, they killed all those innocent people . . ."

Or, "The Church can't be infallible because they were wrong about Galileo."

"Really? What do you know about Galileo and his conflict with the Church?" Usually, not much.

The reason they can get away with this is because most Catholics don't know much about these topics, either. It's hard to refute the argument that "The Catholic Church is wrong because of the Inquisition" when you don't really know what the Inquisition was (or more specifically, what the Inquisitions were). These are complicated issues, and not something that one can expect the average Catholic or non-Catholic to have common knowledge of. But because they are frequently used as tools by the anti-Catholic propagandist, I have taken the liberty of collecting, from various sound Catholic and Apologetical web sites, information about each of them to have ready and at-hand if needed.

The Crusades

from Crisis Magazine -- the Real History of the Crusades

from Crisis Magazine e-letter -- Crusades part 2

from Catholic Educator's Resource Center (11 articles listed as of 11/10/02)

from the Catholic Encyclopedia

from the EWTN document library -- Crusades: Truth and Black Legend

The Inquisition

from Catholic Answers

from Catholic Educator's Resource Center (11 articles listed as of 11/10/02)

from Crisis Magazine -- Who Burned the Witches? (the Inquisition was not really about witchcraft, but many think it was, and this article helps explain the reality behind the hype)

from the Catholic Encyclopedia

Galileo

from Catholic Answers

from Catholic Educator's Resource Center (6 articles listed as of 11/10/02)

from the Catholic Encyclopedia

UNQUOTE

Ave Cor Mariae, Katholikos

[Don John of Austria]

Thanks for posting this Katholikos, maybe now I won't have to keep defending the Inquisition so much.

[jasJis]

I've recently read an old book (Published in the 1800's in Dutch, translated into English in the early 1900's) titled "Stargazer", about Galileo. It was very in-depth. The amazing thing is, it already has the other side of the story from Galileo and the Church's point of view and co-relates all this "new" unbiased information that has come out recently. It seems the Truth was always known, but people worked to ignore and misrepresent it, and it wasn't the Church who was hiding it. In my opinion, the worst thing that can be said is the Church did a poor job in defending itself against biased twisting of fact that was used to attack Her.

[Anna]

Thanks for posting this Katholikos, maybe now I won't have to keep defending the Inquisition so much.

Now we can defend Catholic history all the better!

Thanks, Likos.

Pax Christi. <><

Edited October 20, 2003 by Anna

[Katholikos]

Thanks, jasJis. I'll try to find that book, "Stargazers."

"Black legends" about these events (Inquisition, Crusades, Galileo) were told by enemies of the Church. The legends (lies) have been repeated as fact for centuries, including by some "historians."

There are other "Black Legends." In 1552, Bartolomé de Las Casas, formerly Bishop of Chiapas, began what became known as the "Black Legend" by publishing a powerful and lasting indictment of Spanish behavior toward Indian populations in the New World. These lies have been retold in every Western Civilization and History of the Americas classes I've ever taken, and the Spanish have gotten a bum rap in my Anthropology classes as well.

Protestants have perpetuated and popularized these lies. The Internet is full of sites that pass these anti-Catholic legends off as "history."

Ave Cor Marie, Katholikos

[Don John of Austria]

We were discussing the Black legend here a year ago, It was largely based on Elizabethan english Protestant works. Who woulsd look at an old Soviet propaganda tract about the US and take it as History? I luckily was given the gift of honest teachers.

[Anna]

bump

[Hermione]

Hey yeah... that site is pretty good~ Thanks Katholikos :D

And forget what I asked about the Holocaust.. I just found this...

The Catholic Church and the Holocaust

by Michael E. Telzrow

The unjust vilification of Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church for supposed collaboration with the Nazis during World War II is only part of a broader campaign to condemn all Christians.

In an editorial published on March 18, 1998, the New York Times took up the subject of Pope Pius XII and the activities of the Catholic Church regarding the Nazis during World War II. "A full exploration of Pope Pius’s conduct is needed...," stated the Times’ editorial writer. "It now falls to John Paul and his successors to take the next step toward full acceptance of the Vatican’s failure to stand squarely against the evil that swept across Europe."

How times change. In the waning days of December 1941, the view from New York City was remarkably different. Those were dark days. The backbone of the U.S. Pacific Fleet lay in ruins in Pearl Harbor; France (France!) had fallen to the Nazis; and England, poor England, was surrounded by Admiral Donitz’ deadly u-boats in the Atlantic and a hostile, German-occupied continent across the Channel. Europe, from the Pyrenees to Poland (and beyond), from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, lay in Hitler’s fatal grasp, sealing the fate of millions of innocent people.

Amidst the grotesque tide of evil sweeping Europe was one man and his church: Pope Pius XII. inDouche, the same Pius XII now demonized by the Times for his supposed failure to stand up to the Nazis was, during those dark days, lauded by that very same paper for his courage in opposing them. On Christmas Day, 1941, during perhaps the lowest point of the war, the Times opined: "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas.... He is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all."

Other influential voices concurred with the 1941 Times, not just during the war but afterward. Perhaps the most compelling vindication of Pope Pius XII’s record vis-à-vis the Nazis and the Holocaust can be found by simply reading the remarks of the many Jewish government officials and Holocaust survivors who have offered their opinions of his pontificate.

Dr. Raphael Cantoni, director of the Italian Jewish Assistance Committee, wrote: "The Church and the papacy have saved Jews as much and in as far as they could save Christians.... Six million of my co-religionists have been murdered by the Nazis, but there could have been many more victims, had it not been for the efficacious intervention of Pius XII."

Albert Einstein, too, praised the Catholic Church: "Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty," he wrote. And when Pope Pius XII died in 1958, Golda Meir, who later became Prime Minister of Israel, remarked:

We share in the grief of humanity at the passing away of his Holiness Pope Pius XII. In a generation afflicted by wars and discords, he upheld the highest ideals of peace and compassion. When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace.

Inventing History

The myth that the Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII failed to do anything to stop the Nazis under Hitler from carrying out the murder of millions of Jews, and that the Church’s supposed failure in this regard was due to an affinity of Pius XII or of the Catholic Church for the Nazis, got its start in 1963 with the opening of Rolf Hochhuth’s play Der Stellvertreter (The Deputy). The play asserted that a craven Pius XII was partly responsible for the extermination of millions of Jews because he failed to publicly challenge Hitler.

Hochhuth’s play opened five years after the death of Pius XII, so he was unable to mount a defense against such charges. But subsequent popes have done so, as have several wartime diplomats who had been accredited to the Holy See. Ambassadors Grippenberg of Finland, Haggelof of Sweden, Kanayama of Japan, and Sir Francis d’Arcy Osborne of Britain all publicly rejected Hochhuth’s premise.

The truth notwithstanding, in recent years the vilification campaign against Pope Pius XII has picked up steam, especially with last year’s publication of John Cornwell’s book, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, in which the author draws a caricature of Pius XII as a de facto Nazi collaborator. In March of this year, Pope John Paul II’s apology for Catholic sins was occasion for much of the latest criticism. "The Church still wants to steer clear of dealing with the role of the Vatican during World War II," said Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. His comments were echoed by Abraham H. Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League. The papal apology, he said, "stopped short in addressing specific Catholic wrongs against the Jewish people, especially the Holocaust."

The evidence, however, simply does not support the supposition that the Catholic Church shares the blame for the Holocaust. Only Adolf Hitler could have prevented the Holocaust. But, while incapable of preventing Nazi atrocities, the Catholic Church under Pius XII did more than any other organization to help the Jewish people. Rabbi Pinchas Lapide, a former Israeli diplomat, credited Pius XII and the Catholic Church with saving 860,000 Jews. "It’s a big number, to be sure," says columnist Sidney Zion in the March 16th Houston Chronicle, "but even if we halve it and then subtract by two, we have more Jews saved by the Vatican than by the Allies."

There's actually more~ you can read it here: The Catholic Church & the Holocaust

[Hermione]

Oops wrong thread