Does anyone still want to talk about St. Thomas More

[1234]

Though both were reformers, there is a world of difference between Francis of Assisi and Martin Luther.

As to the Jews in Spain, that is a historically vexed question. The Jews had a unique relationship with the Moslem rulers of Granada. As in many wars, there were those in society who did not accept the verdict of the battlefield as dispositive of the final decision. The Spanish crown did not consider the Jews to be loyal subjects, and did not consider its hold on the new territory to be complete. It therefore moved to consolidate its power. It was not very different from what Israel is presently doing in the West Bank today. …

Though both were reformers, there is a world of difference between Francis of Assisi and Martin Luther.

I think you exaggerate the Jewish-Moslem connection in Spain. This was the Spain of the Inquisition and Jews were extremely suspect. They had to convert or be thrown out or burned. Many converted and those were challenged, their homes invaded; many were made to eat pork, RAW pork. Many were persecuted and thrown out, despite conversion. Isabella of Portugal absolutely despised Jews. So did Saint Vicente Ferrer, a Dominican. Ferdinand didn’t. The Jews in Spain, who were generally prosperous merchants and bankers, offered Ferdinand a gigantic bribe to be allowed to stay. He reluctantly declined, though he could have used the money.

Spain declined after the expulsion of the Jews and because of the ongoing Inquisition. They lost many of their best and most prosperous citizens. Many chairs in the universities went unfilled because of the pervasive influence of the Inquisition. Although Spain had a huge empire, its control over it gradually began to decline in the 17th century.

Homosexuality is an easy target for blame in the pedophile scandal. but most psychologist feel that homosexuality and pedophilia are separate entities. The vast majority of male homosexuals, the principle target, are not pedophiles, and post no danger to children. Remember, also, that many priests preyed on young women and girls.

Re Luther vs. Francis of Assisi, no one argues that Luther was a saint. The Protestants don’t canonize anyone (they refer to the apostles as saints, out of usage) .Luther was a brilliant man, brave and a great leader, but in many ways deeply flawed and a product of his time. Lutherans and other Protestants don’t pray to Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Knox or to any other reformer, or anyone else. They honor and respect them, name colleges after them, and appreciate what they did. If Luther hadn’t broken away from the RCC, someone else would have.

The main reason Catholics ran into trouble under Elizabeth and later James I and II, is that they actively sought the death of these Protestant monarchs, or, in other words, committed treason. Elizabeth’s pope (another Clement) egged on the Jesuits and others to* assassinate* her. Priests stole into England to do just that, were caught and hanged and quartered as traitors. Ireland was used by the Spanish as a landing and staging area for the invasion of Britain, which made Ireland and its Catholic inhabitants very dangerous, ditto the Catholic Scots. The Gunpowder Plot by the Catholic, Guy Fawkes, sought to kill Protestant James I in 1606. At the end of the 17th c in 1685, a large force opposing the Catholic monarch, James II, sought to depose or kill him and were themselves sentenced to death, in the “Bloody Assizes”.

As I mentioned in another thread, no country regards traitors or treason lightly. The US electrocuted the Rosenbergs for treason in 1953, parents of two small boys. A recent spy for Israel, an* ally* of the US, was sentenced in the US to life in prison. During WWII, spies for Germany caught in England were summarily hanged.

One reason Mary I, the Catholic, is remembered so well is that not only did she burn over 300 people during her short 5 year reign, against the advice of Philip II of Spain, her husband and an ardent Catholic, but she was a miserable and incompetent ruler. The people of England, especially Londoners, hated her. Elizabeth I, by contrast, reigned 45 years, was much beloved by the English, and brought England to unprecedented power and glory, lending her name to the age.

 

[1234]

And because of that, we have another saint whose example of fidelity and courage we can follow.

In this age of political and judicial decadence, we can pray for his intercession.

More would have been better off if he hadn’t accepted the post of Lord Chancellor–why Henry VIII offered it to him, I have no idea. It usually went to noblemen or prelates. By accepting the post, More walked in to his own death.

 

[utah_rose]

I was enjoying the earlier thread on St. Thomas More, but unfortunately it went too far astray from the topic. I would appreciate hearing what others have to say about this saint. I especially liked this prayer of his that amsjj quoted in the earlier thread: From: “A deuoute prayer”:

Almighty god, take from me al vaynglorious mindes, all appetites of myne owne praise, all enuye, couetyse, glotony, slouth and lecherye, al wrathfull affeccions, all appetite of reuengynge, al desire or delite of other folks harme, all pleasure in prouoking any parson to wrath and anger, al delite of exprobracion, or insultacion against anye parson in their affliccion and calamitie.

And geue me good Lorde an humble, lowlye, quiet, peasible, pacient, charytable, kinde, tender, and piteful minde, with all my workes, and al my wordes and all my thoughtes, to haue a taste of thy holy holy blessed spirite.

Geue me good Lorde, a full faythe, a firme hope, and a feruent charity, a loue to the good lorde incomparable aboue the loue to my selfe, and that I loue nothing to thy displeasure, but euery thing in an order to the.

Geue me good lord, a longing to be wt the, not for thauoiding of the calamities of this wretched world, nor so much for ye auoiding of the paines of purgatory nor of the paines of hel neither, nor so much for the atteining of ye ioyes of heauen, in respect of mine own commodity, as euen for a very loue of the.

pp. 229-230 of The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Volume 9: The Apology.

St. Thomas More is one of my favorite saints. I wish that our so-called Catholic politicians and especially judges used his life as a model.

 

[SunnaB16]

More would have been better off if he hadn’t accepted the post of Lord Chancellor–why Henry VIII offered it to him, I have no idea. It usually went to noblemen or prelates. By accepting the post, More walked in to his own death.

Thats right! And because he was a man who was faithful to the teachings of his Church: ie knew theres an afterlife, he knew that his death would not be in vain. Just like the early Christians who were butchered by various emperors. They had the courage of their convictions.

Ultimately, your statement doesnt make sense. Mores level of bliss in Heaven is greater than it would have been if he hadn`t suffered martyrdom.

 

[floresco]

Luther was a brilliant man, brave and a great leader, but in many ways deeply flawed and a product of his time.

You seem to have a higher opinion of Luther than of St. Thomas, for you at least acknowledge some good points of Luther.

You do not seem to approach the questions discussed in this thread from a Catholic perspective. If you are not Catholic, that is to be expected, but, if you were Catholic, I would be troubled that you received such poor formation.

 

[Warrenton]

1234: We may have to agree to disagree about the primary reason for the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. As to the expulsion leading to Spain’s decline, however, it is hard to see how assembling one of the greatest empires ever can be construed as a decline. To say that it declined over the course of its 300 year life is merely to observe that Empires decline. Spain’s empire lasted between 50 and 100 years longer than Britain’s, and its legacy is pretty good: not many African cities the British built compare favorably with Caracas, Mexico, Lima. The economic decline you refer to was as much a factor of the sultanate’s refusal to trade with Spain as the deportation of the Jews, at least for the period after 1492.

It is not clear what distinction you are drawing between homosexuality and the priest scandals. Something like 80% of the allegations concern male on male acts. While some priests engage in sexual conduct with females, I question whether “many” abused girls or women. Do you mean absolute numbers or as a percentage of the 100,000 plus priests in the country?

I also have read some “expert” attempts to dissociate homosexual behavior from pedophilia, but have not found them persuasive. The problem is about a third of allegations concern boys over the age of 14, and the closer you come towards 18 years old, the closer you come to an average age of sexual activity anyway.

But returning to the 16th Century: Whatever else he was, Martin Luther was not much of a leader. The petty nobles who used his theology to loot the Church did not listen to him, the other reformers soon broke away, each with his own theology, and only a minority of Protestants today agree with much of what he said other than independence from the pope. To say someone else would have done the same thing is no different than saying someone other than Osama would have knocked the World Trade Center down, or someone other than Boothe would shot President Lincoln.

The Catholic martyrs were not traitors, because their sovereigns swore an oath to defend the Church. They broke their oaths, the martyrs kept them. The traitors you mentioned may have had good intentions, but this country never was constituted to serve or obey the USSR. That was St. Thomas More’s whole point when he said in truth, the King had no subject more loyal.

The aristocracy of England hated Mary because she was prepared to make them disgorge the booty that they stole, and in their greed, they hated her. The Catholic faithful, as long as they existed, were a living rebuke to their rapacity. The penalties they suffered were severe, and if some, like Fawkes, tried to strike a blow for liberty, they did so in defense of the Church that had been established in Britain for 1000 years before Henry. To say they were traitors is like saying you can rob a thief.

 

[Anna_jane]

I think this topic probably needs to be moved to another forum, since it isn’t specifically related to Traditional Catholicism.
Now, in response to some points raised: the Church didn’t commit genocide, genocide is defined as the attempt to extirminate a people, which is clearly not the case in any of those instances mentioned. The Arians, on the contrary, were the violent ones: the Vandals, the Visigoths, and the Ostrogoths all belonged to this sect, and all wreaked devastation on Europe. The Albigensians also , as a part of their theological Gnosticism, believed murder and suicide were good things, since they freed the imprisoned soul stuck in a body. The crime rate in southern France, when they dominated, skyrocketed. The secular government was no more wrong for supressing them than our government was in supressing the Manson family.
Now I disagree with the claim that the Church allowed the state to burn heretics purely to keep the Church in power. It makes no sense. Take up any history you like of the Middle Ages, and you will note that the State and Church rarely had a good relationship. Frederick II, Henry II and King John of England, King Phillip of France are the most famous examples, but there are many more. So why on earth would the Church give the job of keeping themselves in power to someone they could never really trust? Why not do it themselves? I have a hard time believing that these rulers were so obliging as all that. No, heretics in revolt were a danger to the secular authorities, which is why those authorities had them put to death.
On Elizabeth of England: it depends entirely whom you ask when you say she was a great monarch. Not to the Irish she wasn’t; their culture, religion, and rights were ruthlessly squashed under her rule.

 

[floresco]

I think this topic probably needs to be moved to another forum, since it isn’t specifically related to Traditional Catholicism.

While the expression “traditional Catholicism” may evoke the idea of liturgical expressions of our connection to the past, devotion to saints can also play a key role. Personally, my affinity for the traditions of the Church means that both these ways of connecting to my Catholic faith are very important to me.

 

[1234]

1234: We may have to agree to disagree about the primary reason for the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. As to the expulsion leading to Spain’s decline, however, it is hard to see how assembling one of the greatest empires ever can be construed as a decline. To say that it declined over the course of its 300 year life is merely to observe that Empires decline. Spain’s empire lasted between 50 and 100 years longer than Britain’s, and its legacy is pretty good: not many African cities the British built compare favorably with Caracas, Mexico, Lima. The economic decline you refer to was as much a factor of the sultanate’s refusal to trade with Spain as the deportation of the Jews, at least for the period after 1492.

It is not clear what distinction you are drawing between homosexuality and the priest scandals. Something like 80% of the allegations concern male on male acts. While some priests engage in sexual conduct with females, I question whether “many” abused girls or women. Do you mean absolute numbers or as a percentage of the 100,000 plus priests in the country?

I also have read some “expert” attempts to dissociate homosexual behavior from pedophilia, but have not found them persuasive. The problem is about a third of allegations concern boys over the age of 14, and the closer you come towards 18 years old, the closer you come to an average age of sexual activity anyway.

But returning to the 16th Century: Whatever else he was, Martin Luther was not much of a leader. The petty nobles who used his theology to loot the Church did not listen to him, the other reformers soon broke away, each with his own theology, and only a minority of Protestants today agree with much of what he said other than independence from the pope. To say someone else would have done the same thing is no different than saying someone other than Osama would have knocked the World Trade Center down, or someone other than Boothe would shot President Lincoln.

The Catholic martyrs were not traitors, because their sovereigns swore an oath to defend the Church. They broke their oaths, the martyrs kept them. The traitors you mentioned may have had good intentions, but this country never was constituted to serve or obey the USSR. That was St. Thomas More’s whole point when he said in truth, the King had no subject more loyal.

The aristocracy of England hated Mary because she was prepared to make them disgorge the booty that they stole, and in their greed, they hated her. The Catholic faithful, as long as they existed, were a living rebuke to their rapacity. The penalties they suffered were severe, and if some, like Fawkes, tried to strike a blow for liberty, they did so in defense of the Church that had been established in Britain for 1000 years before Henry. To say they were traitors is like saying you can rob a thief.

Everyone hated Mary. She was immensely unpopular. If Mary put down the aristocracy it remained in very good shape much later under Elizabeth. Mary married Philip II of Spain; everyone hated him but especially his Spanish guard, who paraded around the court and London in their hated colors and livery. Mary burned over 300 people in 5 years. Mary was an incompetent monarch. As Mary fell terminally ill, those around her couldn’t wait for her to die. Elizabeth was hailed as England’s savior.

It is understood that a citizen has to swear to be loyal to the sovereign in power. “I pledge allegiance to the United States…”. If there is a disagreement between the sovereign an an outside power which threatens the sovereign, the citizen has to swear loyalty to the sovereign. The sovereigns in question, Henry VIII, Edward VI, his son, and Elizabeth I, his daughter, had broken with the pope, who was openly calling for Elizabeth’s assassination, and for rebellion against her rule. Those obeying the pope against the English monarchs were, therefore, traitors. It’s not acceptable for a citizen to say, “I obey a higher power”, if that higher power is calling for the violent overthrow of the that citizen’s government. The same thing would happen in the United States and any country in the world today.

Regarding Elizabeth’s repression of Ireland, it was unfortunate that Ireland was under the domination of Spain, which was using Ireland as a staging ground for an invasion of Britain. It is unfortunate that Ireland openly rebelled against Elizabeth and also threatened her by its proximity. If Canada or Mexico threatened the US in the same way today, our response would be similar to Elizabeth’s. And Oliver Cromwell, much later, did far more damage to Ireland than Elizabeth did.