The Darker Chapters of Church History

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prodigalson2011

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I want to better familiarize myself with the less-than-pleasant parts of Church history, but I’m not sure where to find even-handed accounts. Does anyone have any recommendations?
 
Do you mean The Crusades, Inquisitions, etc? Or do you mean times of great Christian persecution?
 
My apologies. I should have been more specific. I’m not talking about the times of persecution, but neither am I talking about the more popular myths (Crusades, Inquisitions). Rather, I am curious about periods of widespread institutional corruption.

What sparked my curiosity here was reading about Victor Hugo’s criticisms of the Church–namely, that the Church in France was, in his time, indifferent to the oppression of the poor by the monarchy–as well as the events that spurred Martin Luther’s 95 theses, particularly his questioning of a new basilica being built with the money of the poor rather than the wealth the Church had already amassed.

I am curious as to whether there are any reliable historical accounts of Church “politics”, for lack of a better term, throughout history, and whether and to what extent such charges have held true throughout the ages.
 
prodigal son - It is indeed difficult to find ‘balanced’ accounts of the darker doings of ‘Catholic’ folks of past and present. It is by its own nature a sensitive subject and open to prejudice, bias and suspicion - they are also tempting furrows for the devil to sow rich crop of deception and misinformation.

I have picked about over the years, always bearing in mind the sources, and have gleaned much over time.

Always remember that the devil will focus his attention on folks and institutions he perceives as the greatest threats to his bent and twisted ‘progress’.
 
prodigalson2011 said:
as well as the events that spurred Martin Luther’s 95 theses, particularly his questioning of a new basilica being built with the money of the poor rather than the wealth the Church had already amassed…
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Ah yes, the wealth of the Church…:rolleyes:

The reason why the selling of indulgences was granted was to raise the money necessary to build the new St. Peters. Believe it or not, the Church has always had a very narrow existence financially throughout the centuries. This nonsense of the papacy sitting on piles of gold and silver are just that; nonsense.

There are plenty of historical treatments about events such as the crusades and the inquisition. The hardest job is to find one written by a knowledgeable and honest historian. It has been my contention that most of what we were taught as “history” throughout school is not just a bit off but flat out wrong. In a way, we have to start at the beginning.
 
prodigalson2011 said:
My apologies. I should have been more specific. I’m not talking about the times of persecution, but neither am I talking about the more popular myths (Crusades, Inquisitions). Rather, I am curious about periods of widespread institutional corruption.

What sparked my curiosity here was reading about Victor Hugo’s criticisms of the Church–namely, that the Church in France was, in his time, indifferent to the oppression of the poor by the monarchy–as well as the events that spurred Martin Luther’s 95 theses, particularly his questioning of a new basilica being built with the money of the poor rather than the wealth the Church had already amassed.

I am curious as to whether there are any reliable historical accounts of Church “politics”, for lack of a better term, throughout history, and whether and to what extent such charges have held true throughout the ages.
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I seriously doubt you’re going to find a resource that treats “…periods of widespread corruption” with anything like even-handedness, because probably no such thing exists or can exist. I do not consider myself a historian, though I have read a lot of history, and one thing one finds over and over again is that when one finds a period in which corruption or insoucience toward the poor was very serious in one place and/or among one group, it was not the same with everyone or everywhere.

There are a lot of myths, and it’s terribly difficult to separate the myths from the realities. Take, for example, the collections for St. Peter’s. Those were voluntary. But they coincided with a very major mercantilist view in the north German states. Under that view, a state’s prosperity depended on how much gold it had. So everyone with that view (and it was a growing view in Luther’s time) viewed any kind of gold outflow as a threat to the state. It was the flow of gold from their domains to Rome that troubled the German merchant princes, not the effect on the poor. Mercantilism has long since been discredited as an economic ideology, but it was very much in ascendance for a time. Interestingly, both the British opium trade with China and China’s resistance to it were motivated by mercantilist ideas, not because either much cared about addiction.
 
I say read the Saints of those times who dealt with those issues, since they are honest and do not pull any punches, but also provide the proper way to view and deal with such corruption…

St. Bridget’s revelations often deal with such issues and are online here–they deal with all sorts of bad things (some of which have resurfaced in our times):

archive.org/details/RevelationsOfSaintBridget

The *unabridged *Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena is another good read on these kinds of problems. This is the version I recommend (it’s important that it is unabridged; the common version translated by Algar Thorold is abridged and leaves out a lof the parts about corruption, liturgical abuse, etc.):

books.google.com/books?id=bsGXhNZyUSgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=catherine+of+siena+dialogue&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Qk2eUp24DrS0sQSnj4GoAg&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=catherine%20of%20siena%20dialogue&f=false

I also recommend the letters of St. Peter Damien, St. Bernard, and St. Vincent de Paul who all write about the corruption of their times, and who all worked against it.
 
Genesis315 said:
I also recommend the letters of St. Peter Damien, St. Bernard, and St. Vincent de Paul who all write about the corruption of their times, and who all worked against it.
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Ooo. I haven’t considered these writers. Bookmarking your suggestion. Thank you very much (if you’re still around; this is an old thread).
 
adawgj said:
I would look up Vericast.net they could be helpful
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I second that, I would check out Vericast if I were you. I would also check out the YouTube channel “Sensus Fidelium”, there’s some content on things like the French Revolution, and recorded sermons by very faithful and orthodox priests.
 
If you want to do research, make sure that you find non-biased sources. Failing that, try to find sources from both sides.

For example, say you wanted to look up the Blood Verdict of Verden. Some sources side with Charlamange (“In 782, Charlamange executed 4500 Saxon Rebels for the crimes of Oathbreaking and Treason”) while other sources side with the Saxons (“In 782, Charlamange murdered 4500 Innocent Saxons for worshiping their own Gods”). If you look at both, you can form your own opinion of the events.

Remember Remember Remember to pay close attention to the details. If an analysis of The Crusades leaves out atrocities committed by one side or the other, or if it glosses over important factors, than you might need a new source.

In the battle for learning, generalizations are your worst enemy. If possible, look at things from a case by case basis. Some Templar Leaders were kind, some were cruel. If looking at things from a case by case basis is impossible, then preface statements with “in general” or “in the majority of cases” or “often” to avoid sounding absolute.

Credibility is important. A College Professor knows more about The Conquestadors than a Blogger.

Finally, remember that Morality is Universal. A general who tells his soldiers to rape, murder, and rob the civilians of a captured enemy city in 200 BC is as evil as one who did so today. It won’t seem like “acceptable practices for the time” to those on the receiving end, and it certainly won’t be enough to save Boudicca or Genghis Khan from the lake of fire.
 
BornInMarch said:
If you want to do research, make sure that you find non-biased sources. Failing that, try to find sources from both sides.

For example, say you wanted to look up the Blood Verdict of Verden. Some sources side with Charlamange (“In 782, Charlamange executed 4500 Saxon Rebels for the crimes of Oathbreaking and Treason”) while other sources side with the Saxons (“In 782, Charlamange murdered 4500 Innocent Saxons for worshiping their own Gods”). If you look at both, you can form your own opinion of the events.

Remember Remember Remember to pay close attention to the details. If an analysis of The Crusades leaves out atrocities committed by one side or the other, or if it glosses over important factors, than you might need a new source.

In the battle for learning, generalizations are your worst enemy. If possible, look at things from a case by case basis. Some Templar Leaders were kind, some were cruel. If looking at things from a case by case basis is impossible, then preface statements with “in general” or “in the majority of cases” or “often” to avoid sounding absolute.

Credibility is important. A College Professor knows more about The Conquestadors than a Blogger.

Finally, remember that Morality is Universal. A general who tells his soldiers to rape, murder, and rob the civilians of a captured enemy city in 200 BC is as evil as one who did so today. It won’t seem like “acceptable practices for the time” to those on the receiving end, and it certainly won’t be enough to save Boudicca or Genghis Khan from the lake of fire.
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Well said, well reasoned. Though I would consider the historical standards of the time perhaps a little more closely than mere dismissal.

History is complex, full of people and stuff. A careful consumption of quality books, not chosen for a particular slant, is the key. Reading from a variety of view points helps form a rounded picture of the subject.

May your tribe increase.
 
You don’t need to look far. One such issue today is that the Church screens out those who had (alleged)scrapes with the law. In the past this was a case of excommunication by delict. The subject at least was formerly processed and knew the consequences. Because it was made official, he could follow a process of reconciliation and settle the matter, eventually regaining their place in the community.

Today all is covert, thus withholding the right of formality and have it formalized. The Church is under pressure, but not obligated, to do it’s part in adopting secular institutional norms for today. No one in the Church has the courage to say to these people that these vulnerable are also members and have rights of due process. It is not a civil institution. So they opt to refuse them participate in community service hoping things will remain quiet. It becomes for them a de facto excommunication which never formerly is addressed. The Church desires to impose the final act which is sentencing, but purposely restricts them their rightful due process that brought them to that point.

One may think the justification is the common good. One of the conditions of a valid common good is that there cannot be any deception or lies in it’s implementation. The screening process in every diocese, put on public notice that records will be checked to screen out cases dealing with sexual misconduct. The reality is the Church does not selectively screen for that category, but considers the existence of a record has sufficient cause for rejection. This is a lie against those who trust the Church to be honest. It is also a mortal sin, since it does so with full understanding of the consequences. These vulnerable act to become community members not knowing they are automatically disqualified.

Sr. Prejean in her apostolate working with the justice systems for some years concluded that there is blatant corruption in the justice systems. Having been told this, the Church must consider it’s source of information from a corrupt entity institution to be unreliable, and secondly, given the Laws of Wisdom, has justifiable reason to distance itself from it.
 
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