Inquisition, Crusades, Indulgences ....

[gurneyhalleck1]

In response to Answersplease post # 116:

It’s an old strategy to demonize one man’s holy visions or healings and accuse them of being diabolically-centered or a satanic phenomenon and yet of course one’s own personal experience is holy, Christ-driven, and grounded in the work of the Holy Spirit. The Pharisees did this to Jesus–said his miracles were the work of the devil. So your accusation that a good, holy man like Bishop Schofield’s experiences were not legit but rather diabolical are in the company of the Pharisaic claims of old. Not good company to be in IMO. You have decided that only miracles, holiness, and works of God can occur within the confines of your church and all others are satanic. That’s pretty tough to reason with or have a decent conversation. It’s like discussing something with a conspiracy theorist. Conspiracy theorists always want to accept everything as a cover-up or falsified or a hoax even if the truth is right in front of them or the opposite opinion is compelling. You have birthers who could see Obama’s birth certificate right in front of them but they’ll say it’s a forgery or the anti-Bush crowd who swear he blew up the World Trade Center with the help of the CIA and NSA to get us in a war-mongering mood. Both are silly but if you want to believe it, nothing can stop you.

Answersplease:

 

[Stephen168]

If it weren’t for Luther and company, there wouldn’t have been a Trent and a counter-reformation. Without Protestants, Vatican II wouldn’t have happened (many in CAF think that would’ve been a good thing). Without the media putting on the intense pressure on the Catholic Church, we’d continue with the status quo of cover-ups, moving sex predators around and shuffling, we’d have more of the same with bishops and priests committing sexual atrocities.

Conspiracy theorists always want to accept everything as a cover-up or falsified or a hoax even if the truth is right in front of them or the opposite opinion is compelling. You have birthers who could see Obama’s birth certificate right in front of them but they’ll say it’s a forgery or the anti-Bush crowd who swear he blew up the World Trade Center with the help of the CIA and NSA to get us in a war-mongering mood. Both are silly but if you want to believe it, nothing can stop you.

 

[KathleenGee]

Anode,

The Church does indeed have a very long history …of humanity…it is a human institution. Perfection won’t arrive for us until we are all in heaven, and I am not sure I will be there. All I can, as well as all others, is to trust in Christ’s mercy.

The Jewish relations towards Christians wasn’t better. It is interesting you mentioned the Jewish murranos. My Jewish friend’s cousin wrote about them, and I was able to contact and speak to one of them. I don’t fully know their history.

I do know that the Dominicans during the Inquisition, wrote very detailed reports and the documents of the Inquisition, after quite a bit of hear say for hundreds of years, was finally open to the public in 2003. I have never read the documents but what actually happened was not in the perspective of what you read, the most popular sources were American 1850’s followers of the Stone Campbell movement. They did draw on true happenings but with their perspective. The Domincans’ motto is Veritas and I do not believe they intentionally worked for falsehood. The Dominicans worked to remove charges of most accused. The Spanish rulers were very unpopular in Rome. The clerics were many times ignored by the lay rulers…and we can find that behavior today in difficult parishes. You have to also understand the history of Spain and its 700 ongoing plundering by Islam, and the period of time in which the Spanish were dhimmi in their own land. The relations with the Jews was bad. The Inquisition was addressing sacrileges committed by non-believers receiving Communion.

I try to read both sides of an event.

 

[chosen_people]

Anode,

The Church does indeed have a very long history …of humanity…it is a human institution. Perfection won’t arrive for us until we are all in heaven, and I am not sure I will be there. All I can, as well as all others, is to trust in Christ’s mercy.

The Jewish relations towards Christians wasn’t better. It is interesting you mentioned the Jewish murranos. My Jewish friend’s cousin wrote about them, and I was able to contact and speak to one of them. I don’t fully know their history.

I do know that the Dominicans during the Inquisition, wrote very detailed reports and the documents of the Inquisition, after quite a bit of hear say for hundreds of years, was finally open to the public in 2003. I have never read the documents but what actually happened was not in the perspective of what you read, the most popular sources were American 1850’s followers of the Stone Campbell movement. They did draw on true happenings but with their perspective. The Domincans’ motto is Veritas and I do not believe they intentionally worked for falsehood. The Dominicans worked to remove charges of most accused. The Spanish rulers were very unpopular in Rome. The clerics were many times ignored by the lay rulers…and we can find that behavior today in difficult parishes. You have to also understand the history of Spain and its 700 ongoing plundering by Islam, and the period of time in which the Spanish were dhimmi in their own land. The relations with the Jews was bad. The Inquisition was addressing sacrileges committed by non-believers receiving Communion.

I try to read both sides of an event.

“The Jewish relations towards Christians wasn’t better”. Please explain and compare both as to attitudes and to actions.

 

[KathleenGee]

I remember reading St. Theresa of Avila in her times just commenting on the statements the Catholics endured about their faith…that before the Inquisition, non-believers were receiving Holy Communion without belief, while Jewish believers could practice their religion.

I go back to 80 A.D. when the Jews in the Synagogue pronounced maledictions against the Nazarene Jews who then left to form their own synagogues, the persecution by Jews towards Christianity, the particular maledictions in Jewish writings that blaspheme Christ, the ongoing attitude by some towards ‘goyem’…which I was called at one time by a Jewish lady who later came to love me and defend me.

I took her to a Jewish senior center. This was back in 2000. We would sit with other people. Several began denouncing Spain and how it was getting its payback for sins during the Inquisition. I spoke about it to my pastor and he considers it just as extreme to hold grudges for 100’s of years.

And you can’t claim all Catholic Christian cultures all anti-Semitic. I spoke about what happened at the luncheon table with the Jewish director of this senior program, and he agreed it also was an ethnic issue,…just as my Humanist Jewish acquaintenances say what is happening is not a religious war but actually a fratricidal war regarding Israel.

And there is a great denial by some Jews to denigrate Pope Pius XII who indeed did great work on behalf of the Jewish people saving many lives. Check out www.pavetheway.org…run by Jewish people who work for better inter-religious relations. They went to Rome to study Church documents, and had a change of attitude…they could not understand why the Church did not exonerate itself. The documents of the Spanish Inquisition only came out in 2003, and I have never read them. But it proved what many had thought…and that the Church itself exonerated many of the accused at that time rather than condemn them. There was a Catholic pope who detested some of the temporal rulers in Spain. So you can’t stereotype all Catholics or all regions or peoples as anti-Semitic.

 

[KathleenGee]

And people think the Church headed a shot gun Crusades. The Church finally responded after 400 years of Christians crying out for help in the Holy Land. And in those days the Christians and Jews did not get along.

I heard the other day about this Franciscan Church that was built in the Holy Land in the shape of a tear…representing all the tears shed by Christ for those in Jerusalem who would not believe Him or listen to His words.

Check out www.HebrewCatholic.org.

 

[Answersplease]

You’re insulting my intelligence and your own.

"Answersplease:

Read the following before you start jumping to false conclusions about intelligence.

Catholics have a lot to defend in their history.

"Answersplease:

That is your opinion and I’m guessing that some Catholics would agree with you.

I for one do not agree, the Catholics have to defend nothing because one should not be held responsible for actions made by predecessors especially if the present day Catholics were not alive or had no say at the time in question.

Specific people should be held accountable for more recent mistakes. Painting the entire group is the mark of an agenda driven anti-Catholic.

They have a lot of reasons to try to defend it, in that they are defending their religion at the same time.

"Answersplease:

False, the Catholic Church only falls if it can be proven that one of their infallible DOGMAS is incorrect.

If other religions had dominated European history for hundreds of years, they would have had a lot to defend, too.

"Answersplease:

Such a bold statement.

So not only are you “intelligent” but you also can see alternate histories that never actually happened?

Wow.

But the RCC was in the driver’s seat.

"Answersplease:

Not much of a driver’s seat if kings and priests can openly rebel and even start their own religions.

If you believe that you are the one true church and everyone else is wrong or threatens you, you tend to make mistakes.

"Answersplease:

That is not logical.

Belief that they are The One True Church, does not logically correspond to making mistakes.

Using the Catholic Church’s history to “prove” that using is circumstantial evidence and it is also false.

The Catholic Church only falls if its infallible Dogmas fall.

The Jews writing their history in Spain have nothing to defend.

"Answersplease:

The Jews have their religion and perhaps their behaviour to defend.

Either Jesus Christ was right and the Jews who rejected him were wrong,
OR
the Jews who rejected him are right and Jesus Christ is wrong.

They cannot both be right, some Jews see Christianity as a threat to Judaism, Catholicism just happens to be one of the easiest Christian religions to bash.

Some Jews (not all) are anti-Catholic and use the Spanish “history” as a stick with which to bash the Catholic Church with.

All Christians should know, that if the anti-Catholic Jews (some Jews not all Jews) ever succeed in disproving Catholicism, then the other Christian religions are next. But that probably won’t be neccesary as one of their favorite targets is Jesus Christ Himself, if Jesus Christ is disproved, then ALL of Christianity will fall.

They were kicked out…

"Answersplease:

I don’t doubt that.

There are a lot of eye-witnesses to what happened…

"Answersplease:

There were a lot of eye-witnesses to the miracle at Fatima also, maybe you will convert because you believe in those witnesses.

Only fleeing persecution would explain the presence of Spanish-speaking Catholic Jews in New Mexico–proven by DNA analysis, by the way.

Answersplease:

I am astounded by that absolute statement.

ONLY…???

Do you hear yourself?

What was it you said earlier about intelligence…

 

[SirThomasMore]

I agree. We have nothing to defend. I am not a fan of the inquisition or everything that happened in the Crusades, but I was not there.

No one here was there.

The problem most have on this topic, especially non-Catholics, is that they try to impose 2010 American morals and ideals on people that lived 500 years ago in a different country. That does not work. It is easy to look back and chastize for actions we do not approve of but that, in those days, might have been the norm. It was a much more brutal society back then.

To illustrate, it is not even good to do that in different eras in THIS country. In the old west, people carried guns and had gunfights all the time. We look at that 150 years as barbaric.

Even further, you can’t do it in different countries in THIS era. When I lived in Honduras, people would stop on the street and use the bathroom right in front of you, men and women. They married at 13, had kids by 14. They slept with the pigs and chickens in the house so no one would steal them. Many people I have told this to claim how gross and backwards they are and that it is all too barbaric.

So, if you can;t compare different eras 150 years apart in THIS country,

And you can’t comapre different countires in THIS era,

How can you possibly make moral judgements on this that happened hundreds of years ago in a different country?

 

[KathleenGee]

True…You have to study context in the times the people lived in. The other problem is that no matter what, there are people who have very negative opinions of the Catholic Church, that it can do no good, so whatever any propagandist says, they will believe.

We know the excesses of the Crusades and the Inquisition…but there is another side to the stories as well.

 

[distracted]

This is the kind of mindset that really irks me… some people should get sum educashun…

Distracted, you mentioned how you had trouble understanding papal infallibility and the priest asked you to go before the Blessed Sacrament and you said doing so helped you go forward…I call going before the Blessed Sacrament as praying…if I misunderstood you, sorry.

hmmm… now i am not understanding you…

are you saying you shouldn’t have called it praying?

 

[distracted]

Your statements are experiential. I respect that. I’ve never sought to imply that you’re crazy or wrong to feel the way you do about your faith. God bless you in your journey. I’m simply saying that there are people, the Anglican bishop John-David Schofield who is the shepherd of the Diocese of San Joaquin in the Central Valley of California, for example, who has told me with great emotion of a Eucharistic miracle in which He saw and heard the voice of Christ in an Anglican parish outside of London. He has also told me of charismatic experiences with evangelical Anglicans that led to speaking in tongues and all sorts of things that moved him deeply. He took a vow of celibacy to Christ when He met Him at the Tabernacle so his experience was a powerful one.

What makes his experiences less valid, powerful, moving, or convincing than yours, respectfully? He has chosen NOT to become Catholic and he has great conviction in his Anglican identity. I have spoken with Protestants who feel they have experienced Christ in their Eucharist, prayer life, and in their missionary activity, etc. Some of them are former Catholics, very well-educated ones.

Your statement of consumerism and material greed is a valid one, but it need not only lend itself to Catholicism. Many people have given up attachment to material goods and hedonistic capitalism without going Catholic. Many have done as you say.

And to answer your question, yes, I have spent a great deal of time with Eucharistic Adoration. I will keep my feelings on that private.

It’s hard to describe something with someone who doesn’t know what you’re talking about, yes, but that goes both ways. You can’t fathom an intelligent, good, well-informed person leaving Catholicism. I could chronicle many. They don’t understand you, you them. But we cannot assume they’re ninnies without a clue because they chose a different path from you. There are educated, well-catechized Catholics who have gone Protestant. It’s just a fact. God bless.

as someone on CAF once said:

***If a person really knew Catholicism… s/he would NOT leave the Chuurch… ***

… unless s/he just didn’t care about holiness and going to heaven… guess there are some of those…

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

And that person is welcome to his opinion. I don’t happen to share it. If you want to convince yourself that the only people who leave Catholicism are uneducated morons and that it’s 100% impossible for an intelligent, well-catechized Catholic could just plain disagree and leave, that’s fine. You’re welcome to believe whatever you want. You don’t need giant fonts to convince either. And the preposterous idea that people who leave Catholicism don’t care about holiness or heaven or salvation is insane.

as someone on CAF once said:

***If a person really knew Catholicism… s/he would NOT leave the Chuurch… ***

… unless s/he just didn’t care about holiness and going to heaven… guess there are some of those…

 

[distracted]

And that person is welcome to his opinion. I don’t happen to share it. If you want to convince yourself that the only people who leave Catholicism are uneducated morons and that it’s 100% impossible for an intelligent, well-catechized Catholic could just plain disagree and leave, that’s fine. You’re welcome to believe whatever you want. You don’t need giant fonts to convince either. And the preposterous idea that people who leave Catholicism don’t care about holiness or heaven or salvation is insane.

i dont appreciate you putting words in my mouth…

is that sane?

 

[distracted]

And that person is welcome to his opinion. I don’t happen to share it. If you want to convince yourself that the only people who leave Catholicism are uneducated morons and that it’s 100% impossible for an intelligent, well-catechized Catholic could just plain disagree and leave, that’s fine. You’re welcome to believe whatever you want. You don’t need giant fonts to convince either. And the preposterous idea that people who leave Catholicism don’t care about holiness or heaven or salvation is insane.

if you have never been a fully-catechized, practicing Catholic you dont have any business speaking on this subject… you dont have a clue…

 

[anode]

Answeresplease:

You are off-topic.

We are talking about Catholic history. Most Catholic historians don’t dispute the history of the Inquisition . We are not talking about Judaism. Jews do not have to defend their religion.

Jews are talking about their history, not whether they believe in Jesus.

You are basically justifying the persecution of the Jews because they didn’t and don’t believe in Jesus. This represents anti-semitism.

And yes, people and historians, do make judgments about past events. No, they weren’t there. But they do. That’s history. Catholic historians don’t try to justify the events of the past. This is a losing battle. Catholics pay a heavy price in the present for their sins in the past, as various Protestant groups keep them very much at the forefront. I think that it is foolish to try to defend Catholic mistakes. It’s better just to deny ownership and say 'mistakes were made", than to try to mount elaborate defenses that will only fail.

 

[Answersplease]

Answeresplease:

You are off-topic.

"Answerplease:

No I am not off topic, SINCE YOU brought up the point that YOU take Jewish sources over Catholic sources because YOU THINK that anti-Catholic Jews (not all Jews) have nothing to defend.

We are talking about Catholic history.

"Answerplease:

Yes, “history” that anti-Catholic people of ALL groups like to use as a stick with which to bash Catholicism with, people like anti-Catholic Jews (not all Jews) and anti-Catholic Protestants (not all Protestants) and anti-Catholic athiests (not all atheists) and any other anti-Catholics groups.

Most Catholic historians don’t dispute the history of the Inquisition .

"Answerplease:

“Most”? How about some sources and verifiable statistics on that.

And even if it were true, so what.

Present day Catholics have to defend nothing.

Do you blame present day Jews for the violence commited against pagan tribes and civilizations in the Old Testament?

We are not talking about Judaism. Jews do not have to defend their religion.

"Answerplease:

YOU brought the Jews up when YOU said YOU take Jewish sources over Catholic sources because according to you anti-Catholic Jews (not all Jews) have nothing to defend.

Anti-Catholic Jews certainly have their religion to defend.

Either Christianity is right and “modern Judaism” is wrong
OR
“modern Judaism” is right and Christianity is wrong.

There a Jews who try to discredit Christianity because they see Christianity as a threat to Judaism because the two religions have different ideas on who JESUS CHRIST actually WAS and IS.

There was an anti-Catholic Jew on this forum that said The New Testament itself was anti-semitic. It was clear that he considered Christianity to be a threat to Judaism because Christianity is based mostly on The New Testament.

Jews are talking about their history, not whether they believe in Jesus.

"Answerplease:

Anti-Catholic Jews use certain “history” (history according to them) as a stick with which to bash Catholicism and try to disparage Catholicism by playing up violence and playing the “victim card”.

You are basically justifying the persecution of the Jews because they didn’t and don’t believe in Jesus. This represents anti-semitism.

"Answerplease:

You are putting words in my mouth, that is not what I said at all.

You call me anti-semitic, then I call you anti-Catholic and even anti-Christian in general.

I NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT ALL JEWS.

I said SOME Jews are anti-Catholic, not all of them.
If that makes me anti-semitic then I say you are playing the “victim card”.

I am not allowed to call SOME Jews (not all Jews) anti-Catholic?

I am not allowed to say that SOME Jews (not all Jews) have an anti-Catholic and ultimately an anti-Christian AGENDA?

I AM NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE ANY KIND OF CRITICISM ABOUT JEWS OR JUDAISM?

SOME Jews (not all Jews) have an AGENDA that they wish to make it POLITICALLY INCORRECT to make any kind of CRITICISM about Jews or Judaism.

And yes, people and historians, do make judgments about past events.

"Answerplease:

So what.

No, they weren’t there.

"Answerplease:

That’s right, present day Catholics have nothing to defend because they were’nt there.

But they do. That’s history.

"Answerplease:

So you say that present day Catholics are required to defend the actions of their predecessors EVEN IF THEY WERE’NT THERE?

That is painting the entire group and it is the mark of an AGENDA drivin ANTI-CATHOLIC.

Catholic historians don’t try to justify the events of the past. This is a losing battle.

"Answerplease:

I have my own mind and I CAN decide things for myself. What you or your “Catholic historians” think is your own affair, AND don’t try to make me think that I HAVE to THINK LIKE YOU or THEM.

Many Catholics have bought into the anti-Catholic Jewish (not all Jews) propaganda that Catholics are “bad” and Jews are “good” and that the Catholics have to defend or answer for their past “history”.

Anti-Catholic Jews have made it so politically incorrect to criticize Jews and Judaism to the point that some Catholics attack other Catholics in order to defend Judaism.

So even if you do come up with “Catholic historians” , well like I said I have my own mind and I can decide for MYSELF.
Present day Catholics have NOTHING TO DEFEND because they WERE’NT THERE.

Just because you say that it “is a losing battle” does’nt make it so, AND again I am saying that present day Catholics have nothing to defend because they were’nt there, in this sentence I am not trying to justify anything.

Catholics pay a heavy price in the present for their sins in the past,

Answerplease:

YOU hold present day Catholics (who were not there) accountable “for their sins in the past” (your words)?

Like I said, you paint the entire group and that is the mark of an AGENDA drivin ANTI-CATHOLIC.

 

[Answersplease]

as various Protestant groups keep them very much at the forefront.

"Answerplease:

So what.

I think that it is foolish to try to defend Catholic mistakes.

"Answerplease:

First you called me stupid by saying that I insult my own intelligence.
Then you call me anti-semitic for criticising anti-Catholic Jews (some Jews not all Jews).
Then you call me foolish for saying that present day Catholics have nothing to defend because they were’nt there.

Your level of debating shows your true self very clearly.

How many times do I have to say this…

Present day Catholics HAVE NOTHING TO DEFEND because THEY WERE’NT THERE.

It’s better just to deny ownership and say 'mistakes were made", than to try to mount elaborate defenses that will only fail.

Answersplease:

“Elaborate defenses…”?

How many times do I have to say this…

Present day Catholics HAVE NOTHING TO DEFEND because THEY WERE’NT THERE.

“deny ownership”?

I guess you would like present day Catholics to “take ownership” just so you and the other anti-Catholic groups can keep using that “history” as a stick with which to bash the Catholic Church with.

 

[why_me]

I agree. We have nothing to defend. I am not a fan of the inquisition or everything that happened in the Crusades, but I was not there.

No one here was there.

The problem most have on this topic, especially non-Catholics, is that they try to impose 2010 American morals and ideals on people that lived 500 years ago in a different country. That does not work. It is easy to look back and chastize for actions we do not approve of but that, in those days, might have been the norm. It was a much more brutal society back then.

How can you possibly make moral judgements on this that happened hundreds of years ago in a different country?

These are good rationalizations, Tom, but they also need to apply to other faiths, like the mormons. Mormons also attempt to rationalize and these rationalizations are usually attacked by the catholics on this forum.

Catholics need to come to terms with their history. It is not a pretty history. And it is one reason why the founding fathers of america wanted a separation of church and state. Power corrupts.

During the Inquistion there were a lot of abuse by the catholic church. It has been said that priests would blackmail ladies by threatening them with the Inquisitors. I don’t want to say what the blackmail was for, but you can make a guess.

The question is: would god be disgusted by the actions of the early catholic church? That is the question that needs to be answered.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

That’s a pretty big “if.” I have indeed been one such person and I don’t appreciate your silly generalizations that are irrational. You cannot argue, debate, or make a point without a generalization that you learned in some apologetics talking points. You have no business declaring who and who does not have any business speaking on the subject. Anyone in here has the right to speak, yes, even those who disagree with you. It’s a terrible shock for you to fathom a difference of opinion and somebody disagreeing with your religious views, I know. But it’s reality. There are smart former Catholics. You don’t have to agree with them, like them, or see their point of view even but you should at least respect intellect and the ability to form an opinion different from your own. You don’t know who does and does not have a clue. It’s uncharitable and goofy. None of your posts have debated facts either historical claims or dogmatic, theological ones. You just keep mentioning the fact that anyone who disagrees with you must not be catechized. That’s not having a clue.

if you have never been a fully-catechized, practicing Catholic you dont have any business speaking on this subject… you dont have a clue…

 

[why_me]

**

Answersplease:
Originally Posted by Answersplease

“Elaborate defenses…”?

How many times do I have to say this…

Present day Catholics HAVE NOTHING TO DEFEND because THEY WERE’NT THERE.

“deny ownership”?

I guess you would like present day Catholics to “take ownership” just so you and the other anti-Catholic groups can keep using that “history” as a stick with which to bash the Catholic Church with**

Now answers, you must take responsibilty for past actions of the catholic church. I have seen your comments on the mormon threads and they haven’t been nice. You seem to hold them to a higher standard. Could not the mormons claim the same claim as you: I guess you would like present day mormons to ‘take ownership’ just so you and the other antimormon groups can keep using that ‘history’ as a stick with which to bash the mormon church…

You and others have brought up constantly the mormon past as a justification that the lds church is not true. We can not be hypocrites here. You will need to accept the same criteria for the catholic church. Or your anitmormonism will not have teeth.