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CWBetts
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I would even say that state religion partly misses the point. Christ’s kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. You aren’t going to win this one. State religion has no place in modern society.
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Timothy17
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But this religion is not the state’s.
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CWBetts
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But it has been used as a weapon by the state. Proposing the repeal of the establishment clause is a feckless suggestion, In this country, Catholicism would not be the winner.
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Timothy17
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But the establishment clause in your country excludes specifically the Church; not, for example, the mosque, yet it is understood, and as I have stated earlier, the Church - by its very nature - is independent, institutionally, of the State, which thing is quite peculiar to the Catholic religion, arising from its own Divine Institution, as being subject to Christ. Now, if tomorrow your Congress were to pass a law stating that the official religion of the State is to be Christianity, by what reckoning would that mean everyone must then convert, seeing as Christianity itself does not permit forced conversion ? For when the Romans adopted the Christian religion as official and formal, they by no means exacted that all persons were to thus then become Christians, or even demanded they abandon their previous rites or religions, but stated that this religion was reckoned by the State to be preferred and true, and would thus not recognize the rites, precepts, etc., of other religions as efficacious. In fact, even at the time of the fall of Rome, it is said most of the Roman Senate was still ardently pagan, and only the imperial purple was at least nominally Christian. So even an official religion does not necessarily demand the abolition of religious freedom.
Now, by professing no religion at all, we have - as I stated earlier - found that quite from this being the case, a new synthesis religion has developed ; namely, the religion of no-religion : secularism, which is itself hostile to and tends to persecute all other religions. Not surprisingly, secularism everywhere tends to adopt Nationalism as part and parcel of this religion, so much so that, though each secular country boasts of itself, they yet all appear in no wise different to one another, except in such distinctions as a different tongue espousing the greatness of the nation, and a different colour of flag symbolizing it.
But let us imagine that Christianity was made the official religion of the United States, for example. What might we find ? Do you believe your Congress would at once begin persecutions and forced conversions ? Based on what grounds ? Does not everyone agree - Christians or otherwise - that the Spanish Inquisition was an abuse of the State ? So by what precedent or reasoning would legislatures feel compelled to repeat mistakes, especially seeing as that not even the officially adopted religion, Christianity, condones such mistakes to be repeated, and hardly a person can be found who desires such a grotesque and un-Christian re-enactment ? Does the state, when declaring some foods healthy ; others not, not merely indicate a better or preferred diet ? Does it at once follow that all foods thought unhealthy ought be gathered up and burned ? Does it even follow that citizens should be outright barred from consumption of any food at any time that is not deemed healthy ? Yet no one alleges the state is committing some crime by recommending some foods over others to its citizens ; on the contrary, it is said to be seeking their welfare and happiness, which thing is natural and fitting for a state to do, and arguably irresponsible for it not to do. Now, if we suggest to citizens they eat foods fit for the body, as being congruent to their health, by what reasoning are we barred from recommending a particular religion, seeing as it is so wonderfully fit for their spiritual health, and the general welfare and happiness of all ?
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CWBetts
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You start on a slippery slope. I assume due to the French, there is a much larger Catholic presence in Canada. In the united States there are heavily Catholic areas, most notably Boston, New York, and New Orleans, we are very much in the minority, and at times there was some persecution. At one point we had a political party based on an anti-Catholic platform. In this country, if a state religion would be established, it would be evangelical protestantism. (My brother and his wife would LOVE that!) I think what would be better would be the codification of Christian principles without saying that x faith is the official religion of the country. Setting up a single faith community allows for the outlawing of the others.
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Timothy17
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When can conversion itself not be likened to a slippery slope ? When we approach each new doctrine, is there not within us a certain timidity ; namely, fear on one hand that Holy Mother Church may teach something we think we cannot or could not agree with, or fear perhaps that papal infallibility and conversion to the Faith might mean willfully subjecting ourselves to some kind of slavery - but here is my confession, and my witness, as I believe you likely share - that far from being enslaved, we are freed ; far from slipping, and falling, we walk straight, and stand firm in the Faith ; far from being dumber, we grow wiser ; far from falling into darkness, we emerge into the Light. So we can agree it is the better course, lest by denying it we should somehow suggest regret. I read your blog, “Marching Orders,” and strongly agreed with much of what you wrote in regards to the political situation in your country, and also enjoyed your writings in regards to Purgatory on your “Debunking Myths” website : both sites, in my opinion, work to make that slope less slipery. But let us be frank, and let us be honest : if Christianity is not a fit religion for each and every nation, than it is not what it claims to be ; namely, universal truth and salvation, for - as I argued earlier - no Truth, once understood, can cause harm, but rather it does quite the opposite, and benefits us all. So if Christianity be true, then truly it is worthy of practice, and also recommendation, though as always it requires Faith, which we acquire from Holy Mother Church, as our baptism confesses :
Q: What do you seek from Holy Mother Church?
A: Faith. (Rite of Baptism, Adult converts - from my memory)
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CWBetts
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I am not saying that Christianity is not fit. I am saying that human leaders cannot be trusted to not try to make it a weapon with which to subjugate the people
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Axion
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Timothy 17, I find the font you’re using very hard to read on my computer.
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1ke
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Those people were not killed by any inquisition.
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1ke
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Nor were there 68 million of Native Americans and slaves that were killed.
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Timothy17
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Sorry Axion, I am using Times New Roman, because I write at length, and fonts like Times New Roman are actually “softer” on our eyes, because each letter has a “tail” that subtly guides the eye from one letter to the next. Now, usually Times New Roman is a standard font on most browsers, but if it is not on yours, or if the font is disagreeable to you, please try copy and pasting my posts into something like WordPad or NotePad, and then you could possibly see the text more neatly, or change it to suite your preference.
Pax,
Tim
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LilyM
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Mais quelle horreur!
Every source I’ve read quotes the Roi Soleil as saying “l’etat, c’est moi” and not “je suis l’etat”
(<-- Gallic shrug 
)
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CWBetts
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My bad. I simply translated the English back into French (“I am the state.”)Mais quelle horreur!
Every source I’ve read quotes the Roi Soleil as saying “l’etat, c’est moi” and not “je suis l’etat”
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didymus
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Spain may have been a special case also because after the expulsion of the Jews (we can discuss another time) there remained a small but not insignificant community of false Jewish converts who continued to secretly practice their faith. This cast doubt on the loyalty of all Jews who had converted.
I can’t lay hands on it but I read a book a few years back, The Mezuzah in the Madonna’s Foot which tells the tale from her own perspective as one discovering her “roots”.
She mentions w/o realising what it means that some secret Jews became priests and even Bishops so they could look out for their families and community.
My first thought even as a so-so Catholic was, “What about all those Masses? Confessions, last rites? Were all the ordinations done by those Bishops invalid?”
Yikes! No freakin’ wonder there was a Spanish Inquisition. Not to justify everything the Spanish Inquisition did, just saying this particular paranoid did have enemies.
Now, of course the world looks at the Inquisition as a horrible thing and the secret Jews a a minority surviving oppression. But if we are told that we mustn’t judge other cultures by our “Western standards” we might hold off on judging the past by our “temporal” standards.
A couple other interesting things from the book. Many Jews remained hidden for centuries. In Belgium (orig. the Spanish Netherlands) they decided to come out as Jews after WW1 only to be swept up by the Nazis three decades later.
Most interesting to me, Franco’s Spain was a haven for Jews from all over Europe. He was a nominal ally of Hitler but Jewish relief agencies operated freely there and helped refugees move on to S. America.
I can’t lay hands on it but I read a book a few years back, The Mezuzah in the Madonna’s Foot which tells the tale from her own perspective as one discovering her “roots”.
She mentions w/o realising what it means that some secret Jews became priests and even Bishops so they could look out for their families and community.
My first thought even as a so-so Catholic was, “What about all those Masses? Confessions, last rites? Were all the ordinations done by those Bishops invalid?”
Yikes! No freakin’ wonder there was a Spanish Inquisition. Not to justify everything the Spanish Inquisition did, just saying this particular paranoid did have enemies.
Now, of course the world looks at the Inquisition as a horrible thing and the secret Jews a a minority surviving oppression. But if we are told that we mustn’t judge other cultures by our “Western standards” we might hold off on judging the past by our “temporal” standards.
A couple other interesting things from the book. Many Jews remained hidden for centuries. In Belgium (orig. the Spanish Netherlands) they decided to come out as Jews after WW1 only to be swept up by the Nazis three decades later.
Most interesting to me, Franco’s Spain was a haven for Jews from all over Europe. He was a nominal ally of Hitler but Jewish relief agencies operated freely there and helped refugees move on to S. America.
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Major_Tom
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Lately, I’ve been trying to get my arms around the subject, trying to figure the difference between the Spanish version vs. the Roman one, civil authorities vs. clerical, etc. Thanks for the great, cogent introduction on the subject…!
Just for curiosity sake, I thumbed thru a half dozen books in my library, mostly world history and religious overview texts. None had any numbered attached to the number killed in any of the Inquisitions. Wikipedia had the most information, curiously, citing several different authors, but all within the range of 1,200-2,000, which is on the low end of that range that you posted. I hadn’t spent much time wondering, but I’m convinced that the number of deaths was, as you suggested, on that low end.
However, beyond the number of casualties, I think that to understand the full ramification of the events requires acknowledging 1) the impact to the Jews who were killed or forced to leave Spain, and 2) the stifling of creative thought. Regarding the first. Karen Armstrong in A History of God writes that 150,000 Jews were forced to leave Spain after refusing to be baptized, an event she describes as being “mourned by Jews throught the world as the greatest disaster to have befallen their people since the desturction of the Temple in 70AD”. In addition, I’ve read of pogroms committed against Jews, as well as to some of the remaining moriscoes.
On the second issue. The scientist Giordan Bruno was burned alive for his work. My memory is slipping, but I’m pretty sure it was Copernicus who delayed printing of one of his works until after his death, for fear of being placed on the Index of Forbidden Books, even though he was a committed Catholic himself. The number of deaths can be quantified, but the fear generated by those deaths can’t.
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BrianH
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I cannot say that I agree that would be the state religion. Evangelical Protestants do not make up the largest percentage of Christians in this country when I do the Math. I think perspective must be regionally based.
ncccusa.org/news/100204yearbook2010.html
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