Need help addressing church "crimes"

[Sir_Knight]

Can somebody with some historical knowledge help me address these charges …

Throughout the middle ages the Catholic Church sunk deeper into a pit of scandal and corruption. By the 1520s, Martin Luther’s ideas crystallized opposition to the Church, and Christian Europe was torn apart. In response, the Catholic Church set in motion the counter-reformation. An era of strict conformity and accompanying terror had begun.

During the reign of Pope Leo X, discontent amongst Catholics in Europe was at an all-time high. The sale by the Pope of indulgences, a guarantee of salvation, was the last straw. Martin Luther became a figurehead for the discontented masses, and his “95 Theses” proposed dramatic reforms of the Catholic Church. With the advent of the printing press Luther’s manifesto spread far and wide and garnered widespread support.

The challenge from Luther caught the Pope by surprise. The leaders of the Catholic Church were also frightened by how confidently the Princes of Germany resisted Vatican pressure. These leaders, supposedly subject to the authority of the Church, now declared themselves independent of Vatican rule. Ultimately the Princes’ defiance ensured Luther’s survival,and prompted the birth of a Catholic movement known as the Counter-Reformation.

Sale of Indulgences
In 1545, the leaders of the Catholic Church gathered in the Northern Italian city of Trent for an emergency conference. Their aim was to reclaim the moral high ground, and the superiority of the Holy Mother Church, in the wake of the Protestant challenge. The stakes were high. They were playing for the survival of the Roman Catholic Church.

After 20-years of debate, the Council of Trent established the basis for a Catholic counter-attack. Decrees were issued covering every aspect of Church authority, from the holding of multiple offices, to the chastity of priests, and monastic reform. Ignatius Loyola was charged with forming the Jesuits, a band of militant missionaries whose task was to reconvert the converted.

The “Index of Forbidden Books” was published, naming and shaming 583 heretical texts, including most translations of the Bible and the works of Erasmus, Calvin and Luther. New churches were ordered, with space for thousands of worshippers, and acoustics designed, for the first time, for vernacular sermons. The Catholic Church used the weapon of reform to entice back its disillusioned congregations.

Public burning
A new agency of obedience was created. Taking its cue from a successful Spanish model, the Council of Trent formally established the Roman Inquisition, to examine and try all evidence of heresy or dissent. No Catholic country was exempt. All crimes in the eyes of the Church would be handed to a local Inquisitor, equipped with all necessary means of persuasion. Guilt was always assumed, interrogation relentless, and torture deployed to squeeze the truth out of a witness.

As Giordano Bruno, Galileo, and even Cosimo I found out, once you were collared by the Roman Inquisition, the only thing you could do was pray.

… thank you in advance.

 

[Strider]

Here’s the link to the encyclopedia on New Advent. This one is on the Reformation itself, but you could look up Luther, Zwingly, etc individually.
I skimmed it, and it looked pretty good…honest and thorough.

newadvent.org/cathen/12700b.htm

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

Can somebody with some historical knowledge help me address these charges … … thank you in advance.

You just need to read it to see that it is anti-Catholic propaganda with no attempt at balance.

There are some errors. For instance the Inquisition acquitted plenty of people. Indulgences were never intended or claimed to affect slavation, only time spent in Purgatory.

However what the article hints at is true. “Princes” became much more powerful in the Early Modern period than they had been previously, as improved communications and education allowed them to build centralised administrations. Many took the opportunity to slip free of Church authority.

 

[rwoehmke]

The inquisition was not modeled on Spain, It came into being in France long before the Reformation started by Luther. I think it may have predated Luther in Spain as well as it was put into place at the request of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain who were contemporary with Columbus who in 1492 sailed the ocean blue. So the Inquisition was not fired off by the Reformation. People who were arrested or whatever much preferred the inquisitors to the civil courts as they were much more lenient. Moors and Jews were to convert or leave Spain. These conversos were hailed before the inquisition if they were suspected of practicing their pre-conversion religions. Uniformity in belief was held by the ruling Monarchies from Constantine on as one way to run a efficient government for people loyal to the crown. .

 

[jmcrae]

Can somebody with some historical knowledge help me address these charges … … thank you in advance.

Beat the sucker senseless, tie him up, and put him in the back of your car. When he wakes up, tell him you are taking him to the Inquisition to be burned at the stake for his heretical ideas - unless he buys this really cool Indulgence you’ve got for sale …

OH, you wanted to refute this thing -

(Just kidding. But it’s tempting - really tempting, sometimes. )

 

[Benedictus]

Burn him at the stake! The Church burned heretics like Giordano Bruno at the stake, why can’t we burn this guy? We should have never stopped doing that. Pope Leo X even said that it’s not against the Holy Spirit’s will to burn heretics.

Seriously though, the quote you posted has minor errors in it, but overall it’s fairly accurate. Some people seem to think that being a good apologist means denying embarrassing historical facts. I disagree.

 

[Liberian]

Can somebody with some historical knowledge help me address these charges … … thank you in advance.

Sir Knight,

Have you considered Voltaire’s argument? For anything that messed up to have lasted that long requires a miracle; therefore God is behind the Catholic Church.

• Liberian