PBS special, Inquisition, & Mortara Case

[Ani_Ibi]

chosen people:

What for instance was falsely presented in the Mortara case?

I think you are well aware that I was responding to what you said which is as follows:
chosen people:

However what is perhaps just as sad and just as outrageous as the acts of Pius ix or the indiscriminate murders of tens of thousands of Jews by Catholics during the Crusades and the inquisitions, the forced coversions of Jews and their forced expulsions are those Catholics who would deny these acts and their immorality, those Catholics who would even seek to justify and explain those acts.

Thank you Tantum Ergo for your illumination of the issue. More to that: there is a difference between the Church whose goal was to save souls and the secular powers whose goal was to grab other people’s property. Plainly put, the secular powers used the banner of the Church to persecute folks. What you are doing, chosen people, is blame-shifting.

 

[cor]

The kidnapping and forced conversion to Catholicism of a six year old Jewish boy by Pius ix caused international outrage including condemnations and petitions from the leaders of the United States, France and the Netherlands.

I’m not sure I’d call it a “kidnapping” since it was done by a lawful authority. Be that as it may, “forced conversion” is incorrect. The boy was not forced to convert to Catholicism AFAIK. No one forced him to profess faith in Catholicism. He was just raised in the religion. He was no more forced to be Catholic than other millions of children raised to be Catholic then and today. Perhaps you mean “forced conversion” as in “raised Catholic contrary to the will of his parents.” But that would be a strange use of words, since “forced conversion” implies that he himself was somehow “forced” to “convert” which AFAIK, was not the case.

Even many Catholics joined in the protests. This immoral and outrageous act helped to unite forces that lead to the end of papal state authority.

You seem to be expressing approval for the unlawful aggression against the Papal States. Why do you approve of aggression against a sovereign country? Would you approve of such aggression against the State of Israel? The war against the Papal States was a sad chapter in Italian history just as, it may perhaps be said, that the war against Israel by the Arab and Muslim peoples was a sad chapter in their history.

As he stated in 1870, “the Jews are dogs howling in the streets”. You really couldn’t expect the Pope to treat his “dogs” the same way he treated the “people” of Rome.

I punched your quotation into the google search engine and it turned up zero results. Do you have a citation or reliable source for that quotation (and more context would be nice too)?

However what is perhaps just as sad and just as outrageous as the acts of Pius ix or the indiscriminate murders of tens of thousands of Jews by Catholics during the Crusades and the inquisitions, the forced coversions of Jews and their forced expulsions are those Catholics who would deny these acts and their immorality, those Catholics who would even seek to justify and explain those acts.

My understanding is that no one who was a self-professing Jew was subjected to any Inquisition. Only those who are baptized are subject to the jurisdiction of the Church. Here is part of what wikipedia (an encyclopedia that is famed for its neutrality) says about the Spanish Inquisition (which is the one said to be the “worst”):

“The Spanish Inquisition was set up by King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile in 1478 with the forced approval of Pope Sixtus IV. In contrast to the previous Inquisition, it operated completely under royal authority, though staffed by secular clergy and orders, and independently of the Holy See. It aimed primarily at converts from Judaism and Islam (who were still residing in Spain after the end of the Moor control of Spain), who were suspected of either continuing to adhere to their old religion (often after having been converted under duress) or having fallen back into it, and later at Protestants; in Sicily and Southern Italy, which were under Spanish rule, it targeted Greek Orthodox Christians. After religious disputes waned in the 17th century, the Spanish Inquisition more and more developed into a secret police against internal threats to the state.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitions#Spanish_Inquisition

I guess these “converts from Judaism” may still be considered “Jews” in a certain sense, but they would be then Christian Jews or baptized Jews. I suppose also that who would be considered a Jew may differ from sect to sect and religion to religion.

Note also that it says the Holy See was “forced” into approving it. You can read more about how the Pope was “forced” here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

So if it be said by some that some Jews converted under duress, placing them later potentially under the Inquisition’s jurisdiction, it would then be as or more clearly the case that the Pope was under duress as well.

Also technically as the quoted portion above states, apparently, the Spanish Inquisition was an action of the State, not the Church, even though clerical members of the Church assisted in it and the pope, under duress, approved it.

 

[chosen_people]

I think you are well aware that I was responding to what you said which is as follows:

Thank you Tantum Ergo for your illumination of the issue. More to that: there is a difference between the Church whose goal was to save souls and the secular powers whose goal was to grab other people’s property. Plainly put, the secular powers used the banner of the Church to persecute folks. What you are doing, chosen people, is blame-shifting.

How silly of me not to understand the good motives and good intentions in the acts of murder, forced conversions and expulsions committed against Jews… How rediculous of me and the makers of the program to draw any sort of connection between the act of a pope, catholic inquisitions and and catholic crusades to anything having to do with the church, its catholic adherents and its attitudes towards the victims.

What a convoluted immoral assertion. It resembles a defense plea of a person accused of assaulting a Catholic in that “he was only trying to speed the victim on his way to heaven”.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

chosen people:

How silly of me not to understand the good motives and good intentions in the acts of murder, forced conversions and expulsions committed against Jews.

chosen: was the Church responsible for this?
chosen people:

How rediculous of me and the makers of the program to draw any sort of connection between the act of a pope, catholic inquisitions and and catholic crusades to anything having to do with the church, its catholic adherents and its attitudes towards the victims.

Are those connections reasonable or libellous in nature?
chosen people:

What a convoluted immoral assertion.

To what assertion do you refer?
chosen people:

It resembles a defense plea of a person accused of assaulting a Catholic in that “he was only trying to speed the victim on his way to heaven”.

This analogy makes no sense at all, I am afraid. Perhaps you would care to be more specific so that we can follow your line of reasoning. You do have a line of reasoning, don’t you?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

I guess these “converts from Judaism” may still be considered “Jews” in a certain sense, but they would be then Christian Jews or baptized Jews.

The Church also instructed the secular powers that forced conversions were not to be undertaken. The Church offered the Jews the option of reverting to Judaism. Many did not revert. We can’t say why but I think that it is reasonable to assume that they did not trust the secular authorities.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The Truth About the Spanish Inquisition

 

[chosen_people]

I’m not sure I’d call it a “kidnapping” since it was done by a lawful authority. Be that as it may, “forced conversion” is incorrect. The boy was not forced to convert to Catholicism AFAIK. No one forced him to profess faith in Catholicism. He was just raised in the religion. He was no more forced to be Catholic than other millions of children raised to be Catholic then and today. Perhaps you mean “forced conversion” as in “raised Catholic contrary to the will of his parents.” But that would be a strange use of words, since “forced conversion” implies that he himself was somehow “forced” to “convert” which AFAIK, was not the case.

No reply could have made my point better. The day you and others holding similar beliefs are able to understand the moral and ethical fallacy as well as the illogic of what you have written here is the day there will be no material or reasons for PBS specials like the one under discussion.

The quote concerning Pius ix referring to Jews as dogs may be found in countless books and articles. May I suggest the article at sdadefend.com/MINDEX-P-Q/PiousIX.pdf not only for the quote but also for general information purposes concerning the life of Pius ix.

 

[mercygate]

I’m not sure I’d call it a “kidnapping” since it was done by a lawful authority. Be that as it may, “forced conversion” is incorrect. The boy was not forced to convert to Catholicism AFAIK. No one forced him to profess faith in Catholicism. He was just raised in the religion. He was no more forced to be Catholic than other millions of children raised to be Catholic then and today. Perhaps you mean “forced conversion” as in “raised Catholic contrary to the will of his parents.” But that would be a strange use of words, since “forced conversion” implies that he himself was somehow “forced” to “convert” which AFAIK, was not the case.

You seem to be expressing approval for the unlawful aggression against the Papal States. Why do you approve of aggression against a sovereign country? Would you approve of such aggression against the State of Israel? The war against the Papal States was a sad chapter in Italian history just as, it may perhaps be said, that the war against Israel by the Arab and Muslim peoples was a sad chapter in their history.

I punched your quotation into the google search engine and it turned up zero results. Do you have a citation or reliable source for that quotation (and more context would be nice too)?

My understanding is that no one who was a self-professing Jew was subjected to any Inquisition. Only those who are baptized are subject to the jurisdiction of the Church. Here is part of what wikipedia (an encyclopedia that is famed for its neutrality) says about the Spanish Inquisition (which is the one said to be the “worst”):

“The Spanish Inquisition was set up by King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile in 1478 with the forced approval of Pope Sixtus IV. In contrast to the previous Inquisition, it operated completely under royal authority, though staffed by secular clergy and orders, and independently of the Holy See. It aimed primarily at converts from Judaism and Islam (who were still residing in Spain after the end of the Moor control of Spain), who were suspected of either continuing to adhere to their old religion (often after having been converted under duress) or having fallen back into it, and later at Protestants; in Sicily and Southern Italy, which were under Spanish rule, it targeted Greek Orthodox Christians. After religious disputes waned in the 17th century, the Spanish Inquisition more and more developed into a secret police against internal threats to the state.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitions#Spanish_Inquisition

I guess these “converts from Judaism” may still be considered “Jews” in a certain sense, but they would be then Christian Jews or baptized Jews. I suppose also that who would be considered a Jew may differ from sect to sect and religion to religion.

Note also that it says the Holy See was “forced” into approving it. You can read more about how the Pope was “forced” here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

So if it be said by some that some Jews converted under duress, placing them later potentially under the Inquisition’s jurisdiction, it would then be as or more clearly the case that the Pope was under duress as well.

Also technically as the quoted portion above states, apparently, the Spanish Inquisition was an action of the State, not the Church, even though clerical members of the Church assisted in it and the pope, under duress, approved it.

Footnote on conversos: Queen Isabella’s personal confessor was a converso – and a saint.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

chosen people:

No reply could have made my point better.

Your point being that no amount of evidence or reason will persuade you to change your preconceived notion or even to participate respectfully in a discussion. Well done, chosen people! Happy now?



As for material reasons for PBS specials espousing bias against the Church, it is like anything else on the market: Where there is a demand for unfounded accusations against the Church, there will be PBS specials, or CNN specials, or CBC specials making unfounded accusations against the Church. There is big money in propaganda apparently.

 

[cor]

No reply could have made my point better. The day you and others holding similar beliefs are able to understand the moral and ethical fallacy as well as the illogic of what you have written here is the day there will be no material or reasons for PBS specials like the one under discussion.

I didn’t watch the PBS special but the impression I get from some of the comments in this thread is that it wasn’t balanced or neutral in its presentation. I also think that we should study the perspectives of the historical actors as it existed in their minds at that time and place rather than judging them from our present point of view. To do otherwise would be to engage in “presentism”:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis

The quote concerning Pius ix referring to Jews as dogs may be found in countless books and articles.

Do you have the full quotation so that we can see its context?

May I suggest the article at sdadefend.com/MINDEX-P-Q/PiousIX.pdf not only for the quote but also for general information purposes concerning the life of Pius ix.

The quote there shows that there were some words missing from your original quotation, but even this new quotation has some words missing as indicated by the ellipsis:

(from your link)
In 1870, Pius IX publicly declared them to be “dogs . . there are too many of them in Rome, and we hear them howling in the streets.”

If Pius IX had indeed called Jews “dogs” there would have been a world-wide Jewish outrage that would have had expression in the media at the time. Since, apparently, there wasn’t, it seems doubtful that Pius IX ever called Jews “dogs.” And, notice that we don’t actually see here Pius IX’s own words calling Jews dogs; we have only the word of the author of the article since the words preceding “dogs” is not quoted as well as the words following “dogs” being missing.

If you have from one of your books the full quotation, perhaps the whole sentence, including what precedes the word “dogs” as well as what is missing in the ellipsis “. .”, then we could see for ourselves what Pius IX really said rather than relying on what could be an uncharitable interpretation.

For example, it might be that Pius IX quoted some NT scripture referring to “dogs” and then in a new sentence saying the words “there are too many of the in Rome and we hear them howling in the streets” – and then some person uncharitably interprets his use of NT scripture to be his calling Jews dogs, when that was not his intent.

We don’t know because we don’t have the quotation in full. For all we know there could be five sentences missing in the ellipsis and who knows what the context of “dogs” is.

I hope that you see what I mean.

For those who do not know, Pius IX is a Blessed; he has been beatified. Also, the boy in question would later become a Catholic priest and would later testify in favor of Pius IX’s beatification. When meeting at times with his biological parents, he testified that despite their efforts, he did not seem to have the desire to go back with them. He was not held against his will. It was the choice of the boy’s family to live in the Papal States. They could have avoided the small risk of such a thing happening to them by living in another country (I assume they had the means to do so)

It is still permitted in the Code of Canon Law to baptize an infant against the will of the parents in danger of death.

Can. 868 §2. An infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of the parents.

I think if the boy’s family had been Satanist or Wiccan or something like that, there would have been and would be today, much less controversy about it. What does that tell us?

 

[AnthonyM2]

The quote concerning Pius ix referring to Jews as dogs may be found in countless books and articles. May I suggest the article at sdadefend.com/MINDEX-P-Q/PiousIX.pdf not only for the quote but also for general information purposes concerning the life of Pius ix.

That article appears to from a biased source (the “sda” in the link probably stands for Seventh Day Adventist) with no citations to back it up. Try coming up with some other of those “countless books and articles.”

 

[cor]

That article appears to from a biased source (the “sda” in the link probably stands for Seventh Day Adventist) with no citations to back it up. Try coming up with some other of those “countless books and articles.”

I googled the quotation starting with “dogs” and then ellipsis etc. (the ellipsis as well as other words were missing in the original quotation posted by chosen people but it’s there in her link) and it did come up on the TIME magazine website as well.

time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997840-3,00.html

which in the United States is considered by most to be a mainstream news magazine. But, regardless, the absence of words before “dogs” and immediately after “dogs” means that the quotation does not speak for itself.

 

[bones_IV]

I’m glad Pius IX was beatified! And if you can’t except it, it’s your problem. I didn’t make the rules. Some people do not want to admit they hate the Church.

The PBS special is a US-taxpayer-supported attempt to generate hatred and discrimination against the Church and the clergy. Worse, it was based on distortions, exaggerations, and outright lies about incidents that occurred 500 YEARS AGO.

Many PBS and History Channel programs are of such poor scholarship that they border on the comedic. Sadly, the average viewer (with almost no scholarly background) believes such rubbish to be truth.

 

[chosen_people]

I googled the quotation starting with “dogs” and then ellipsis etc. (the ellipsis as well as other words were missing in the original quotation posted by chosen people but it’s there in her link) and it did come up on the TIME magazine website as well.

time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997840-3,00.html

which in the United States is considered by most to be a mainstream news magazine. But, regardless, the absence of words before “dogs” and immediately after “dogs” means that the quotation does not speak for itself.

If you enter the words pius ix jews dogs you will find a “mere” 58,700 hits. As stated the Edgardo Mortara kidnapping has been the subject of books, plays and newspaper articles. It is used as an example in law and ethics of carrying out inherently illegal acts under the guise of the law (for example all the acts against the Jews in Nazi Germany were “legal” under the laws in existence in the third riech).

Some things should require no explanation. There should be no need to explain why Jewish parents to a Jewish six year old child should have the same rights as anyone else to bring up their child in their household and to bring up their child in their religion and as a member of the Jewish people.That the Jews of Rome under the authority of Pius ix shouldn’t have had to live in a ghetto and shouldn’t have been virtually stripped of all civil and legal rights because of their religion.

There should be no need to explain why it was wrong to make Jews choose between conversion to Catholicism or expulsion from countries where they lived for centuries and no need to explain what was wrong in later torturing and often murdering those same forced converts because of the “horrendous” crime that they were in fact secretly carrying on in the belief of Judaism.

There should be no need to explain why locking up all the Jews in a synagogue and then setting it on fire and burning them all to death is wrong.

According to views stated here, mutatis mutandis, a German would be entitled to reject any documentary about the holocaust as mere anti German propaganda. Fortunately this is not the case.

Even viewed apart from the PBS special, the Mortara affair, the inquisitions and the attrocities of the crusades should have engendered universal condemnation. Here some have attempted to justify, explain and dismiss these historic acts. Forgive me if I believe that those who would justify or try to explain such acts are either bigots or at the least lacking in moral wisdom. One can only hope that the posts here on this thread are not representative of Catholics in general.