The dark side of Roman Catholic Church

No witches were ever burned at stake in the US. On that side of the pond they preferred hanging them.
I would also like to point out that witchhunts are always local affairs and that the higher levels of government are practically always appalled about what's happening.

 

rsr
Which one? The one found in the library of Trinity College in Dublin, or the one from Lyon?

 

Amazon has it for $38 new and $23 used, in paperback. I ordered one--thanks Mioque.

 

<Accepts thank you and hands it over to rsr were it belongs>

 

Comparing massacres seems a futile and not very Christian activity.

Few denominations are without stain, certainly no major ones. Let's just try to do better in the future.

 

At least the fact that Pope John Paul II apologized about the past is better than nothing.

Often Advocators for Roman Catholic say these:

1) Inquisition was performed unto the heretics.
In OT the heretics should not be allowed to live.

2) Most of the cruelties by Roman Catholic were not done by RC, but by the civil governments of Europe.

3) Even Protestants did such acrocities unto Indians and to African American slaves.

Now let's review them :
1) If anyone is found to be Heretics, then should Church torture them and kill them?
When Jesus said " Love your enemy" did it mean that we should torture and kill the enemy?
Is that the concept of RC's Love?

A man that is heretick after the first and second admonition, reject (Titus 3:10)
This is the teaching about Heretics. Did RC follow this?
Who were the Heretics?

2) This is the typical way of Denial by Holy Roman Catholic when they deny their own cruelties in the Dark Age, as Iranian president denies against Holocaust. However, what they cannot deny is their own record of Decrees by Popes, Declaration by Councils which are still kept in record. Let's have a look at one of the decrees by Lateran Council, which was posted by one of our thread:

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/3580/4.html
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that
whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the
supreme pontiff [the Pope], that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those
who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Are the Holy Roman Catholic not guilty?

3) I understand that there were some cruelties by presbyterian Protestants against Indians.
To me, Presbyterians are just Reformed Roman Catholics. They are not faithful with the Bible teachings.
Did Baptists perform cruelties against African American Slaves? I have not heard about it specifically. I would not rule out such possibility. But both of these cases would be very much minors cases compared to RC's Inquisition and RC' dominating countries such as Spain and Portugal invasion into South America and their massacres. Devout Roman Catholics like Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Himler, Eichman, Goebels etc, performed thousand times or million times more cruelties.

Any protestants who performed the cruelties against the human beings which are the images of God, will pay for what they did, and will be punished with just prices.

However, what we are talking about is the historical fact of the Inquisition or Persecution against the Believers branded as Heretics.

I deny calling Mary as Mother of God, disbelieve Immaculate Conception, disagree with Papacy, Assumption, Unction, Infant Baptism, Celibacy, Clergy System, Mass( Unbelieving the sins were already forgiven), Eucharist( Magic Show).
I hate making Idol of Mary or worshipping that Idol of Mary. Disagree to praying for the dead.
Could I have been alive under Roman Catholic dominated society?
Not only myself, all of my church member have the same belief. Would they have been allowed to live at the time of Roman Catholic dominated medieval or would we have been tortured and burnt alive?

If we had lived Medieval era under Roman Catholic, would we have been called as Orthodox or Heretics? ?

RC may be changing the criteria in a slick and tricky way about " No Salvation Outside Holy Roman Catholic Church "

Now, it is good that Roman Catholic has no such secular power, but someday may come again when RC may possess such power, then will they repeat the same torturing and killing people? May be by Proxy war by the Holy people ?

The people who advocate and excuses about the Inquisiton and Torturing by Roman Catholic must taste the delicious taste of Torturing and Burning for billion years and more in the hell. That is why Hell will welcome those people.

[ January 23, 2006, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: Eliyahu ]

 

I'm sure that many blacks in America are pleased that certain denominations no longer have the power to capture them, and steal their labor.

They say they wouldn't do that, now, but who knows...? What if they someday again possess such power? (WFTH-I)

The Church says that Protestants are our brothers in Christ. Even in error, such churches are capable of saving souls, and that's what counts.

It's useless to continue hating. That's what brought on the trouble in the first place.

 

Even any protestant church group which defend or advocate their torturing and killing in the past must be condemned, even if it be either Presbyterian or Baptists.

Sometimes, I just imagine how much condemnation as a Heretics would I have received, if I had lived during Medieval era under Holy Roman Catholic, since I refuse Theotokos, Immaculate Conception, Papacy, Infant Baptism, Extreme Unction, etc.

 

I doubt that Roman Catholic can save souls.

Because they teach the concept of salvation which is totally different from Bible. They don't teach Being Born again seriously.

They repeat the Sacrifice every week, because they themselves don't believe that all the sins were forgiven, or deny that the future sins were not forgiven, and believe that one can pay for their sins at the Purgatory by getting Torturing there.

 

As to the English Colonies/US, to my knowledge, there were no "denominations" that enslaved anyone; that work was done by individuals from every denomination and from no denomination. If I were to guess, I would say that most of the planter class belonged to Episcopal, Presbyterian, or Roman Catholic churches, since Baptist and Campbellite groups were more working class in nature. However, to my knowledge, no one has polled the record of the 1700 families of the planter class to see what was the ratio of denominations within that class.

Outside the English Colonies/US, where 90% of Africans headed to the New World went, the Spanish, French, and Portuguese slavers were all Roman Catholic. About 400,000 Africans were sold to the English Colonies/US between 1500 and 1860, and close to 4 million were bought by our Catholic friends to the south of the US. And, of course, the reason that African slaves were needed is the mass genocide of Native Americans by the Catholic Conquistadors. Enslaved to work the sugar islands, the mountain/desert raised "Indians" died like flies. Best estimates are that 90% of the native populations of the Spanish Catholic colonies perished between 1500-1600, from war, overwork, intentional and accidental infection with diseases, and other "imported" causes. Facing this labor shortage, the Spanish Catholics brought in African slaves, a practice which soon spread to the English Colonies.

The "denomination" that has bought the most slaves in history is almost certainly Islam, because its slave trade dates from 900 years before the Euro-American slave trade, and has existed continuously up to the present. According to anti-slavery organizations and the UN, perhaps most of the 27 million slaves today are children involved in the Asian sex trade, but a significant number are owned in the Islamic world.

And of course, the actual enslavers and sellers were not Europeans, Muslims, or Asians--almost all African slaves were captured and sold by other Africans.

Facts are stubborn things.

 

Correction to numbers. The actual percentage of white families that had a minimum number of slaves to be considered "planters" (20 slaves) was 4%. However, the "real planters" (100 slaves or more) numbered 2000-5000, with the richest of them, the true aristocracy, numbering arount 1700 families, or 0.17% of the white southerners.

According to the sourses I checked after my post, I was correct that very few aristocrats belonged to either Baptist, Campbellite, or Methodist congregations. There were slaveowners in these groups, but they were the "yeoman" small farmers, who worked alongside their slaves, and who owned very few, usually 3-5.

And, as I related, most of the slaves that came to the New World (90%) came to the Catholic Spanish, French, and Portuguese colonies.

 

So, what would the Roman Catholic church do if again given the chance it had in 1492? Since the #1 "certain denomination" was the church of Rome, what would they do? Ask the South American Indians and the overwhelming majority of Africans traded to the New World.

 

Read this article about how Roman Catholic were hypocrites about the Slavery system:
details:
http://www.pacinst.com/terrorists/chapter4/lincoln.html

Excerpts:

In 1856, a runaway slave named Dred Scott had sought to gain freedom in the free state of Kansas. The case was so important that it went all the way to the Supreme Court. The infamous Dred Scott Decision was rendered by the fanatical Roman Catholic Judge Taney, the Chief Justice of the United States at that time. The Taney Decision, in a nutshell, was that the Negro had no rights that the white man had to respect. This basically said that the black man was inferior to the white man and had no rights. Abraham Lincoln as a child had watched the selling of young black men and women in a small Illinois town. As he and a friend walked past a slave auction, Lincoln turned to his friend and said, “Some day, I am going to hit it hard!”

In November of 1855, Charles Chiniquy, a Catholic priest of Kankakee, Illinois, had been attacked in a series of court cases by the Bishop of the Chicago Diocese. Chiniquy had spoken often on the subject of temperance and the evils of liquor. Since many of the priests were alcoholics, and most of the others were social drinkers, Chiniquy’s talks on temperance were not appreciated. Chiniquy often quoted the Bible in defense of certain positions he held. This greatly inflamed the Catholic bishop of Chicago against him. In order to silence him, Chiniquy was framed, being accused by an immoral priest’s female relative of misconduct towards her.

Charles Chiniquy’s case had been so publicized in the Illinois press that very few lawyers wanted to defend him. They realized that they were not just fighting against a priest in Chicago; they were fighting against the Roman Catholic Church. Charles Chiniquy learned of Abe Lincoln, a very loyal and upright lawyer in Illinois. Chiniquy sent Lincoln a wire asking for his services and within twenty minutes of Chiniquy’s wire, he got a reply that said, “Yes, I will defend your life and your honor at the next May term of the Court at Urbana. Signed A. Lincoln.”


I think the most of RC's were much more cruel to the Black Americans and to the Indians as they killed millions in South America.


Read this site about INQUISITION by Holy Roman Catholic

http://www.exposingchristianity.com/Inquisition.html

 

Chiniquy and Lincoln according to a somewhat more relable source.
http://www.geocities.com/chiniquy/lincoln_writings.html

 

The Church, when it had any power at all, opposed enslavement. Not that it mattered much; the government of Spain controlled the church as firmly as Henry XVIII controlled it in his country.

For what it's worth, I am pleased that the Catholic Church has apologized and expressed regret for it's former stand on Jews, which was different from that of Martin Luther only in degree.

And yes, I am aware that the SBC has publicly repented for its support of slavery and segregation. It is commendable and Christian, and stands to their eternal credit.

 

You mis-state yourself, sir.

The PROTESTANT Puritans of New England...
The PROTESTANT Quakers of Pennsylvania...
The PROTESTANT Scots-Irish Presbyterians of Appalachia...

all NEVER owned black forced laborers.

Who did?

The CATHOLIC (and "High Anglican") Royalist Cavaliers who fled to Virginia after they were booted out by the PROTESTANT Puritans under Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War (1642-48).

The CATHOLIC (and "High Anglican" Royalist Cavaliers who had fought for their CATHOLIC Stuart ruler Charles 1 fled to Virginia and there tried to RECONSTITUTE the massive manors and plantations they had left behind in ENGLAND.

Black forced laborers were merely a CHEAPER SUBSTITUTE for the white forced laborers ("serfs") they had left behind in ENGLAND.

Who owned blacks in this country?

CATHOLICS.

 

The Church, when it had any power at all, opposed enslavement. Not that it mattered much; the government of Spain controlled the church as firmly as Henry XVIII controlled it in his country.

For what it's worth, I am pleased that the Catholic Church has apologized and expressed regret for it's former stand on Jews, which was different from that of Martin Luther only in degree.

And yes, I am aware that the SBC has publicly repented for its support of slavery and segregation. It is commendable and Christian, and stands to their eternal credit.</font>[/QUOTE]That is a most grievous and offensive comparison.

Martin Luther wrote a book called "On the Jews and Their Lies".

He did so because 3 Jewish Rabbis tried to convince him to return to Judaism and deny the Messiah. They told Luther that the Virgin Mary was not virgin, but a promiscuous slut. This so enraged Luther he wrote his book.

He never advocated, or supported anybody who advocated, the mass murder of Jews.

The Pope supported Hitler.

 

The Church, when it had any power at all, opposed enslavement. Not that it mattered much; the government of Spain controlled the church as firmly as Henry XVIII controlled it in his country.

For what it's worth, I am pleased that the Catholic Church has apologized and expressed regret for it's former stand on Jews, which was different from that of Martin Luther only in degree.

And yes, I am aware that the SBC has publicly repented for its support of slavery and segregation. It is commendable and Christian, and stands to their eternal credit.</font>[/QUOTE]When it had any power at all?

This is Revisionist History, sir.

The Church owned 1/3 of all lands in Europe.

It was the hegemonic force up through the Reformation, with only a slight break during the "Western Schism" of 1378-1418.

The Church was the organization the commanded the building of Notre Dame and other Cathedrals that took literally hundreds of years to complete.

Rome always stood over Europe and drained it of its monies through tithes, taxes, indulgences, etc.

Why did England enter a Golden Age during the Reign of Elizabeth (1558 - 1603)?

Because as a PROTESTANT Elizabeth no longer had to pay Peter's Pence to Rome.

Let the taxpayers keep their own money, and life sure gets allot better.

"The" Church always had hegemony. And they always tolerated human captivity as a "necessary evil".

From the Journal of Souther Religious Reviews:
http://jsr.as.wvu.edu/2002/Reviews/Farrelly.htm

It is no coincidence that the Society of Jesus turned to slave labor in the last third of the seventeenth century, at about the same time as the rest of the free, land-owning population in Maryland. To say that the Jesuits had "unique" motives is not to imply that they did not have the same motives for slaveholding as everyone else. In the Great Debate over whether Chesapeake-area planters abandoned white indentured servants, or white indentured servants abandoned them, Murphy sides with those who argue the latter. But unlike the Protestant majority in Maryland, the Jesuits had rich philosophical and theological traditions to draw from when justifying their decision to use slave labor on their plantations.

...the fact remains that in all cases, Catholic theological thought viewed slavery as divinely ordained...

The Jesuit plantations, which were financial disasters, were not benefiting from the use of slave labor. Additionally, the writings of American-born Jesuits began to express, as Murphy says, the "racist" notion that African Americans were inherently incapable of salvation....


AGAIN, WE SEE THAT CATHOLICS DIRECTLY OWNED BLACKS, AND WORKED THEM ON PLANTATIONS.

TODAY, I AND THE PROTESTANT MAJORITY IN AMERICA TAKE THE WRAP FOR THE DEEDS OF, AS ANOTHER POSTER SHOWED, 0.17% OF THE WHITE POPULATION... IN THE SOUTH ONLY.

(And the South only had ~1/4 of the total White Population at the start of the War Between the States, so you might cut that down by as much as a factor of 4 to 0.045%....

Blaming AMERICA for slavery...

is exactly like blaming the haystack for the needle.)