"Horrors" Commited By the RCC

[Richard_Hurtz]

adnauseum:

Yes, of course, the Salem Witch Trials were short lived.

But is it not a fact that protestant “christians” proactively aligned with Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood?

That’s a yes or no question, and I notice you avoided answering it.

Deep down, I suspect you know how much blood is on your hands in the VERY RECENT past.

I have no knowledge of the relationship between “protestants” and Margaret Sanger and therfore did not comment on it. Were some protestants supporters of Sanger’s actions and philosophy? I’m sure there were. So what? Are Ted Kennedy and John Kerry “Catholic”? Do they support a “pro-choice” agenda? Yes.

The difference is that I don’t extrapolate an indictment against Catholicism for the beliefs of some of its parishoners.

I did and do have knowledge about the false information related to the Salem Witch Trials that you were putting forth and commented on that.

Speaking of the VERY RECENT past, I live in the arch-diocese of Boston…does that ring any bells? Again, unlike you, I’m not trying to indict every Catholic because of the actions of a few.

The purpose of my post was to correct historical inaccuracies which you were putting out there as fact. Your silence on those points speaks volumes.

Peace to you,
Richard

 

[Richard_Hurtz]

adnauseum:

I love the irony of a protestant hurling the old Inquisition/Crusades shibboleth, and then getting all technical about how the Salem Witch Trials, which every schoolboy learns about, were just a big misunderstanding.

I never mentioned the Inquisition. And I hardly think that my treatment of the Crusades was a polemic against the RCC.

I also enjoy irony too. I find it ironic that vitually any ‘protestant’ question, comment, or criticism automatically gets the ‘anti-catholic / Jack Chick’ label applied to it.

Peace to you,
Richard

 

[JoeyWarren]

Oh and let us not forget the Rapes and Murdering of Blacks here in the South during the Slave years by Protestants.

And Oh let us not forget the attempted extermination of the Native Indians here in the United States by the Protestants!

And should I mention the IRA?

And the persecution of Catholics in England during the 16th Century.

This is one topic, I lose all charitableness!

 

[adnauseum]

There is a wonderful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins about Margaret Clitheroe.

She housed a priest in protestant England, and her punishment was to be murdered by the protestant “christians.”

She was pregnant at the time, and the method of execution used by protestant “christians” was to suffocate her by placing enormous weights on top of her body. Of course, as the poem notes, her unborn child was murdered at the same time.

This form of murder took about 20 agonizing minutes before the victim fell unconscious.

So much blood on those protestant hands. So much blood.

 

[Richard_Hurtz]

adnauseum:

There is a wonderful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins about Margaret Clitheroe.

She housed a priest in protestant England, and her punishment was to be murdered by the protestant “christians.”

She was pregnant at the time, and the method of execution used by protestant “christians” was to suffocate her by placing enormous weights on top of her body. Of course, as the poem notes, her unborn child was murdered at the same time.

This form of murder took about 20 agonizing minutes before the victim fell unconscious.

So much blood on those protestant hands. So much blood.

I’ll not be put in the position of defending these actions.

When you can excercise some charity, we’ll talk.

Peace to you,
Richard

 

[JoeyWarren]

see below

 

[Richard_Hurtz]

JKirkLVNV:

I’ve no trouble at all accepting that people in the Church
have done atrocious things in the name of the Church. But that isn’t the Church, who is indeed, by Christ’s insistence, His spotless Bride…That doesn’t, however, violate the impeccability of the Church, because that’s protected by Christ.

The question I have is: if people in the Church are not the Church, who is the Church?

What constitutes THE Church, in your view?

Blessings,
Richard

 

[steveandersen]

Richard_Hurtz:

The Church’s motto is Semper Idem - “Always the Same” is it not?

Well the Church is always the same. As for the folks in it …well I suppose that they are always the same too in their capability for human error.

Richard_Hurtz:

One of the favorite claims of Catholics is that their church is the Church founded by Jesus Christ. Entrusted by Him as His Bride without ‘spot or blemish’. And you can’t understand why people can’t seem to ‘let go’ of the Crusades, the Inquisition, or other events, or scandals?

Nope, I can’t.

But then again I don’t think that 18th or 19th century slavery is a valid criticism for a certain North American nation in the 21st century either

Richard_Hurtz:

My guess is that most non-Catholics, after realizing what the RCC claims, ask the question: "Does the RCC comport itself in accordance with its claims?

Well it tries to…have there been any crusades recently?

Richard_Hurtz:

What evidence is there to support its claims?"

Hospitals, schools, orphanages, libraries, Social Services,…etc

Richard_Hurtz:

Isn’t that a fair question for people considering the claims of the RCC? In my mind, that’s emminently fair.

Did I ever say it wasn’t fair?
I just think that the same old historical Big Three of Galileo, the crusades and the Inquisition are a little hackneyed (as well as being remote)

Any organization has a treasure trove of human failings; just imagine what a 1 billion member, 2,000 year old organization might have in the attic. Digging up 900-year-old muck shows a distinct lack of ambition on the part of a serious critic.
Besides, as many people’s historical understanding of the Crusades is fairly lacking.

Richard_Hurtz:

You don’t mind if someone looks into the claims of the RCC and despite some of the history decides its claims are true do you?

That would be fine by me

Richard_Hurtz:

So is it the questioning of the history or the conclusion that some people reach that’s frustrating

I’m not frustrated…just amused sometimes

I love historical inquiry

The Pornarchy, the Borgias, Gregory XVI’s ban on railroads…why limit yourself to just the Crusades?
Do you seriously think that any of those things changes the Church’s teachings?

Do you think that mistakes tarnish a person or organization forever? And how does this mesh with the theme of Christian forgiveness and redemption?

If Church activates are to be questioned why not go to the beginning and ask about Peter and Paul? Peter denied Jesus 3 times when the chips where down; does that mean everything he said or did after that was worthless? As Saul, Paul persecuted Christians with a vengeance; would that mean that his later writings were all suspect?

Isn’t it completely in line with Church teachings that individual members are capable of error?

 

[Thal59]

Dear Ricjard,

Regarding the crusades…

I understand that atrocities were committed by the Crusaders, the Byzantines, and the Muslims. But we are talking about people who lived almost 1,000 years ago. At that time, Islam was propagated by “conversion by fire and sword.” One either submitted to Islam, or one was considered to be at war with Islam. The forces of Islam made many attacks against Christian and Jewish territories over the centuries including, but not limited to, the middle east and both eastern and western Europe.

To the best of my knowledge, and you can correct me if I am wrong, no civil kingdom ever initiated an effort to stem the tide of Islamic forced conversions. In other words, if it were not for the RCC, you Richard would probably be Muslim as your ancestors would have been forcebly converted centuries ago.

If you study these “atrocities” with an unbiased eye, you will find that many such events did occur, but that the severity and extent of such actions have been grossly exaggerated by Protestants with an anti-Catholic axe to grind.

For the sake of fairness, you might want to look into a variety of Protestant atrocities. For instance…

1. During the reformation, several hundred churches and monestaries in England alone were plundered and priests and nuns were murdered. Thousands of the poorest of the poor, who could receive medical attention nowhere else but in these sites, where expelled and many died in the fields or by the roadsides. (We’re talking several hundred to a few thousand dead here all in all.)
2. Martin Luther incited the German princes to plunder the RCC in Germany the same way the English did in their country. It was assumed that the German princes would give a sizeable portion of the plunder to Luther for the purpose of funding the new German state church. When the German princes decided to keep the booty, Luther incited the peasantry to rebel against the princes who of course had the benefit of militias: hence the near 250,000 massacred peasants known as the “Peasant wars” I mentioned earlier. (Luther then distanced himself from the carnage with his writting he titled “Against thieving, murdering Peasants.”)
3. The vast majority, if not all, of the slave owners in America before, during, and after the war of Independence were Protestant. It was by the decision of the Baptist church in the early 18th century that, in order to show a black male slave who had escaped and been captured, that all he had or ever will have belongs to the white master - said slave would be castrated.
4. After the Stono Rebellion, the decision to execute all captured rebelling slaves, even those who surrendered peacefully, was instituted by the Presbyterian church who also established the practice of decapitating the victims and mounting the heads along the roadsides at the mile markers to discourage other slaves from rebelling.
5. The KKK, as we know it today, was a defunct society resurrected just before the first world war by a former Methodist minister. This society of white-anglo-saxon-protestants targeted blacks - Catholics - Jews - foreigners; in that order. There is no way to chronicle how many people from these four target groups were lynched/murdered but most scholars conservatively estimate several hundred.

Please note that these murders occured in the US in the 20th century.

I always find it amusing when a Protestant goes back several centuries to stir up dirt against the RCC.

Thal59

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Richard_Hurtz:

The question I have is: if people in the Church are not the Church, who is the Church?

What constitutes THE Church, in your view?

Blessings,
Richard

The orgainization founded by Jesus Christ on the foundation of Peter.

 

[JoeyWarren]

Thal59:

I always find it amusing when a Protestant goes back several centuries to stir up dirt against the RCC. Thal59

Now since I have calmed down.

There have been atrocities on both sides of the fence. No one is without sin with respect to this issue.

But what we need to do is take into account the Barbaric nature of the times when these events took place. Just like the black people here in the United States need to stop looking back at the past and stop dwelling on it and start looking at ways to improve their future.

Why are we dredging up the dirty past when we should be looking to the future?

Bringing up the horrible past does nothing but Satan’s work of keeping us divided…

Please chew on that for a while…

 

[Fidelis]

Richard_Hurtz:

Thanks for the links.

I don’t see anything in any of them that disproves my assertion that no witches were burned during the Salem “witch hunt”. In fact the one link that had any mention of “witch burning” seemed to be completely silent regarding the Americas.

Blessings,
Richard

You’re a FAST reader!

And you’re right about the lack of mention of Salem in the article about witch burning. But the point in the wider discussion at hand is not the location, but the factors surrounding them.

Blessings,
fidelis

 

[ThisOne]

I suppose everyone knows today that there were, in fact, no witches in Salem, and that the symptoms were from ergot poisoning from an infected rye crop. That’s a fairly recent scientific finding, and I don’t know that it’s actually germane to this discussion, but it is an interesting tidbit: the mystery has been definitively solved.

For anyone who isn’t aware of this, see:

pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_salem/interview.html

 

[adnauseum]

“A prince can win heaven more easily by bloodshed than by prayer.”

• Martin Luther

“He who will not hear God’s Word when it is spoken with kindness must listen to the headsman when he comes with his axe.”

• Martin Luther

Sad.

 

[adnauseum]

Richard_Hurtz:

When you can excercise some charity, we’ll talk.

All I did was state a fact.

If the fact convicts you, that does not involve me.

 

[Richard_Hurtz]

Thal59:

To the best of my knowledge, and you can correct me if I am wrong, no civil kingdom ever initiated an effort to stem the tide of Islamic forced conversions. In other words, if it were not for the RCC, you Richard would probably be Muslim as your ancestors would have been forcebly converted centuries ago.
Thal59

I won’t address every one of your points because it wasn’t my intent to do historical accounting as to which denomination has stacked up the most bodies.

The original comment that I had made was for the most part correcting inaccuarte information: the ‘burning of witches’ at Salem, MA and the ‘ransacking and raping’ of the Holy Land.

To your statement above; I don’t believe it is correct. For example, the Byzantine Emperor Alexius was doing just that prior to his request for help from the West. Alexius was not a churchman. As you probably know the capital of the Roman Empire had moved to Constantinople several hundred years before. The Orthodox Church had a patriarch in place. There was ecclesial government and there was civil government, but the ‘kingdom’ had a civil head.

More than that though, was that at that time the Turks were not yet converted to Islam and they fought ‘forced conversion’ also.

Furthermore, Urban II’s call to Crusade did not specify the end of forced conversions as a reason for the Crusade but he did specify the securing of the Holy Land.

Peace,
Richard

 

[Richard_Hurtz]

“A prince can win heaven more easily by bloodshed than by prayer.”

• Martin Luther

“He who will not hear God’s Word when it is spoken with kindness must listen to the headsman when he comes with his axe.”

• Martin Luther

Sad.

Again you want to perpetuate the antagonism but at the same time complain about having people ‘drag up the past’.

Very curious.

Peace to you,
Richard

 

[Richard_Hurtz]

adnauseum:

All I did was state a fact.

If the fact convicts you, that does not involve me.

I’m not convicted by your attempt to smear me, and yes that does involve you.

Peace.

 

[ThisOne]

Martin Luther is no exemplar of Christianity – not by a long shot.

 

[Richard_Hurtz]

steveandersen:

Digging up 900-year-old muck shows a distinct lack of ambition on the part of a serious critic.

First of all, I’m not digging anything up. Secondly even if I had, what matter does it make if it’s 900 years old? I would think that ‘digging up’ something 900 years old actually is very ambitious, in fact, the further one goes back the more ambitious generally the research has to be.

Peace,
Richard