I am really amazed at this ridiculous justification of an evil man who is directly responsible for the death and suffering of millions of people … a suffering that continued for hundreds of years after his death.You are suggesting that without such incentives offered by the Pope …
Nowhere in his decree did Pope Nicholas V specify that it was only applicable to those non-christians at war with Christians.Anyone without a Christian affiliation was subject
to abuse…Furthermore, the slave trade in West Africa gained momentum as a direct result of his decree.The West Africans were not at war with Christians.
He his the author of a philosophy and policy that ultimately
led to nearly 400 years of African slavery on the American continent as well as the genocide and atrocities committed against the indigenous people of same continent,
and other parts of the world.
The Dum Diversas is proof that Pope Nicholas V was not a Christian at all.His way was not the way of Jesus.Jesus would have never written such a decree.Jesus allowed himself to be beaten,and tortured ,and then crucified.If necessary,we as followers of Christ must have the strength to do the same…
How can any man say he is a Christian when he looks to the sword for his salvation.The fact that the bones of this monster rest at St Peters Basilica says a lot about the Catholic Church itself.
Cody5
Cody, you are judging from a distance of many centuries from the events and without any real historical basis or insight into what was going on at this time. You judge a man’s soul to be evil - would Christ have done that? You are falling into the trap of anachronistic projection - using the triumphant fruits of current Christian mores to judge a time that was extremely barbaric and where life was cheap. In these days slavery was the NORM all over the planet as was serving in the military or as a mercenary as a means of employment. The Muslims were the aggressors and were invading through Christian lands - North Africa, The Holy Lands (controlled by Christians 600 years BEFORE Muhammad even allegedly lived) Spain, France, the entire Mediterranean sea lanes and trade were being controlled by the Muslims in a stranglehold on Christendom. Muslims routinely sacked Christian cities, took Christian virgin girls as sex slaves and gifts. The boys were castrated and forced into military service (Janissary) and indoctrinated to fight to the death AGAINST their own people when they grew up of age. You have closed your mind to what conditions were like and have some naive love-and-lollipops world view that is not rooted in reality.
If not for the Catholic Popes rallying the Christian Kings out of their petty infighting to defend Christendom all of it would have fallen. In fact, the historical myth is that the Germanic barbarians are the one’s who ushered in the dark ages when they sacked Rome - not true. They were in fact part of the Roman empire and just wanted more of the wealth and retained the greater part of the culture though it was weakened. It was the Muslims who really caused the collapse of the Roman Empire (opportunistically playing into the losses of Byzantines in the Persian wars and the devastation of the black plague). It LOOKED like Armageddon to the Christians with all the wars, pillaging, kidnapping and encircling Muslim armies. Luther later went into hysterics about it and equated the Muslim persecution as evidence of disfavor of God for The Church.
Christendom was fighting for its very existence as the Muslims took no prisoners who did not convert or pay homage or could not be sold as slaves. Humans ALWAYS have a right to self defense.
And yes the European Kings often did not desire to fight these wars and it took a lot of persuasion by individual Christian religious (e.g. St. Bernard) to get them roused to arms. The first crusade was over a century late in responding to the first wave of Muslim country aggression. African slavery came out of ISLAMIC expansion into Africa (and their own inter-tribal fighting). Ironically it was later some Protestant Bishops of England along with many British nobles and opportunists who were owners of slave trading companies. They took advantage of the large number of prisoner African slaves. They “bought low and sold high” from the Muslims to the America’s as intermediaries (since they could not tax America as a colony after the revolution).
The Catholic Church had nothing to do with the slave trade. You can’t blame that on The Catholic Church. Catholics had been outspoken against slavery as far back as St. Patrick (himself a slave) in the 4th century. It took a long time to change attitudes about slavery since it was vital to most nation’s economies and trade.
What is ironic is that in the west it is BECAUSE of the Catholic Church forming and advancing its teachings against slavery that is slowly became the normative for The West (although its still in existence in various forms in many other places). So you’re in a position of using the current mores to beat up the very organization that was morally instrumental in banishing slavery. How very ironic. You need to step back and see that history is not so long. It was not even a century ago until most people could even read and write. Slavery was banished in the USA only a century & a half ago. Humanity is still not very civilized and is currently regressing toward rank hedonism and paganism once again as it abuses the fruits of its Christian blessings. We can expect dystopia and a return to it all again (possibly in our own generation) unless we turn the current trends.
My advice is don’t be so judgmental about condemning a person as evil who you have only anachronistic historical knowledge of at the same time you harp on about them being non-Christian. You set yourself up for making yourself a hypocrite by the same standard of judgement…
If you don’t mind, please send me a private message (PM) or an email at pholter@amrl.net if you get a significantly better translation going. For some reason, I am getting email notifications for PMs, but not for threads that I’m subscribed to.