B
badnewsbarrett
Guest
You ask is there some point on which you think the Church is being less than honest in today’s world- I would say that it depends on the historian. I suppose the main purpose of this thread winds up being as follows- to make the point, in terms as clear as possible, that Catholics in today’s world are not obligated to defend, justify, and demonstrate any level of comfort with every important thing that every important Catholic has ever done. To do so, or imply that of course you must take two or three pages to do just that, is certainly unnecessary and just a bit silly. Instead of doing that, it would be more open and honest to say yes, these were important Catholics who did important things, some of those things were evil and maybe those people were straight up evil. I am in no way ok or comfortable with what was done, something else should have been done and I’m glad that the Church has taken steps to do things in a better way. And then of course you point out how this has no bearing on the fidelity of Church doctrine or anything else that is basically protected material.
Now, I do say it depends on the Catholic historian because some Catholic historians will say none of those things, and when it comes to their approach to anything that’s controversial, they will do the exact thing that I said was silly to do. They will spend at least two or three pages defending and justifying actions and people that were evil, and they will try and show modern-day Catholics an actionable path that allows them to be basically ok with all of those things.
There are a variety of reasons why this is a bad idea, but one is very important for historical discussion with non-Catholics. A neutral point of view is more than preferred, it is basically necessary. First and foremost, if a Catholic and non-Catholic can basically agree on historical facts AND the basics of how to interact with them, there is very very much that can go toward mutual appreciation of the Catholic Church throughout its history. But you basically kill that possibility when you insist on a particularly Catholic POV, because it’s a POV that your non-Catholic friend cannot possibly share unless he or she actually converts to Catholicism.
And I think we all know that there is a whole family of well-known Catholic historians who provide you with this exact sort of POV material. Along with the practical disadvantages, it actually is moderately dishonest in its portrayal of heinous and unacceptable actions as if they were acceptable and somehow justifiable. Which, again, is not the sort of approach that any Catholic is obligated to take, and yet there’s a fair number of prominent Catholic historians who make it their life’s work to show you how to do just that.
One final thought- I am well aware of what Catholic doctrine is, it does not change and it is inerrant, so long as we’re clear on the fact that it’s actual Catholic doctrine. For all intents and purposes, these are a couple of basic propositions that I find I must accept in principle if I am going to avoid ill-conceived topics that will ultimately go nowhere. The Catholic Church, with two capital Cs, certainly is the entity that has created every bit of this sort of thing. But let me ask you this- when speaking of the Catholic Church with capital letters, can we really limit their activity over the course of its entire history to just that? Is that really all that it has done? Hasn’t it done some other things that do not pertain to doctrine, yet are the responsibility of the Catholic Church with two capital Cs? For example, the Crusades, the counter-Reformation movement apart from the doctrines condemning certain teachings, the formation of very important orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans and Jesuits, the fight against heretics in general (to which many orders owe their origin stories) apart from the decrees condemning certain teachings- if the Catholic Church is responsible for none of those things, may I ask who is?