NOTE: This entry was originally posted in my Livejournal account, then posted to my blogspot account. I am now posting it here as a sort of stock reply to atheists who conveniently use the Catholic Church as the scapegoat for everything.
The original post starts here:
Historically, religion has been used as a tool to oppress, marginalize and destroy. Granted, marami ring naidulot na mabuti ang relihiyon. But let’s not let our gratitude blind us to its hypocrisies
- prickster
I would have to say in defense of the Catholic Church that while errors may have proliferated, it has been consistent in upholding the dignity of Man, and that it served as a refuge to those marginalized by society, even by Catholicism in itself. Yes, there were persons that did not follow its tenets, but is it fair to judge a religion by its miscreants? Furthermore, is it fair to accuse the Catholic Church of hypocrisies when its own critics are guilty of the crime, a crime which it has not proven on the part of the Church?
I would think that these accusations would center on the Church’s role in persecuting non-Catholics/heretics, such as what is said to have happened in the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the allegations of collusion with fascists. Let us consider the facts, not just from within the Church, but also from outside it.
One must first understand that the Church has always had a complex relationship with the secular societies it interacted with. While there maybe self-professed adherents to Catholicism and act in its name, it does not necessarily mean that these misguided elements are representative of the Church itself. It is not fair to judge a religion solely on the actions of its miscreants. In this issue, the standard should be:
1. The tenets of the Church on issues concerned.
2. The adherence of the Church hierarchy to its own tenets.
3. Actions of the Church to redress any failures on its part to prevent the violation of its tenets.
On the first issue, there is the problem about relationships with non-Catholics. The popular idea is that the Church always moves to stamp out alternative religions. And that is true. It would be contrary to its tenets not to spread its beliefs for the salvation of humanity. Every religion would naturally do so, and since there are onyl so many people in any given time place, this expansion would of course have to come at the expense of other established religions in this point.
The question is the manner of its proselytization. The Catholic Church follows the standard of voluntary conversion, and it frowns upon forced conversions. Consider that during World War II in Poland, the Archbishop of Krakow approved the issuance of baptismal certificates for Jews to allow them to pose as Catholics, but these certificates were not considered binding on the Jews in question.
But has the Catholic Church in its entirety been able to follow it? I’m afraid not. Although the Curia is strict in its implementation, there are those, such as the Spanish conquistadors, who insisted on forced conversions in certain areas. But one must note that the friars who accompanied them often took the trouble to learn the local tongue and preach the Word in it, to facilitate the acceptance of natives.
What about those that did not convert? What about adherents of other religions? Generally, the attitude of the Church is that of repeated attempts at conversion, and in the time that they do not convert, it’s of peaceful co-existence. Hard to believe? It’s true. Consider the Crusades and the Inquisition (Examples most used by critics).
The Crusades were not carried out immediately after the Muslims captured the Holy Land. In fact, most of Christendom couldn’t care less about what happened to it, since it was the territory of the Byzantine Emperor, and therefore his responsibility. But how did the Crusades come about? It came about five hundred years after the Saracens captured Palestine, when they violated their own laws and allowed bandits and even their own troops to prey on the pilgrims who go to Palestine. Even with that going on for some time, there was no action from the Catholic Church until Emperor Alexius Comnenus of the Byzantine Empire requested aid from the Catholic Church. Pope Urban II acceded, but only because of the predatory raids on the pilgrims.
Yes, the crusaders pillaged and burned all the “infidel” cities that they came to. But that was at par for the standards of warfare for the time. Yes, there were those who joined the Crusades in hopes of glory and riches. But there were also those who acted for reasons of piety. Godfrey of Buillon sold all his estates and castles in France for a chance to go on the Crusade. King Louis IX spent much of his resources subsidizing the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, even when there was no strategic reason to do so. And when all else failed, he himself led the seventh Crusade. There were certainly more of them than the likes of Reginald of Chautillon who plundered Muslim caravans, whose death at the hands of Saladin was welcomed even by the Christian leaders of the time.
What is the point here? The Catholic Church acted in self-defense. The Monophysite, Coptic, and Orthodox Christians were left alone. There were no crusades against them. But there was a crusade against the Prussians and the Albigensians. The former because of their self-proclaimed war against Christendom and their raids into Christian settlements. The latter because they weren’t just heretics, they actively sought to bring about the fall of the Catholic Church and their own King. Can you fault an entity acting to defend itself? I think not.
And the Inquisition? It is an institution that has existed since the Middle Ages. No, it is illegal for the Church and its priests to practice torture, or to carry out the death penalty. As such, interrogations were often carried out by secular institutions and then given to the Church. So someone else is doing the dirty job? Not really. Note that the Templar Knights who proved that they were tortured immediately had their convictions on heresy revoked. Of course, for those in France, they still died because of the machinations of Philip IV. But not in England, not in Portugal, and not in Navarre.
Self-defense also applies to the wars of the Reformation, when princes justified their wars grabbing other princes’ territories through their religion. It becomes natural for the aggrieved prince to use a similar justification. But it never achieved the level of a papal sanction, and secular princes acted as they saw fit.
Yes, Fray Torquemada was excessive. Yes, the Spanish Inquisition was supported whole-heartedly by the Catholic hierarchy in Spain. And it is a mistake that even now the Church is trying to rectify. And no justification for it would come from me for this isolated incident.
Yes, the Catholic Church preferred the fascists over the communists. But consider the 1920’s and the 1930’s. It was a time when the choice was between the two extremes for most nations, and the Church would naturally support an ideology that does not profess its aims to eradicate it from the face of the earth. The Catholic Church may have preferred fascists, but it did not mean that they followed fascism blindly. Examples abound of church defiance to the Nazis and even to Franco. The church stood firm on its core values, and took on those who went against it. Just like in communist states where they have puppet churches, there were also priests and bishops amenable to control of the fascists. Even now, there are corrupt priests and bishops who collude with drug lords and other scum. But does it mean that because of this, the Church has failed?
The Catholic Church has made great strides in repairing the damages caused by these incidents, ever since St. Agustine preached against bigotry of the Jews, to the apologies issued by Pope John Paul II. Given that these actions were consistent with the Church’s doctrines from the very onset, can it really be considered hypocrisy?
Religion, communism, fascism, and all sorts of -isms have been used to justify tyranny everywhere, and at all periods of human history. The question is why single out religion for something that it may not really be its fault. To fault religions and causes would be to exonerate the truly responsible for the crimes. Those who used it as a shield when they were committing the crime, and those who allow them to continue using the shield after the fact. It’s a travesty of justice.
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It doesn’t matter if other entities have done the same thing. The bottom line is that Ratzinger’s cult is responsible for a lot of crimes. It’s not unfair. It’s even an understatement.
It’s unfair because these “crimes” were taken out of context, as explained in my entry. Some of them, like pillaging conquered cities during the Crusades, were not considered crimes until the 20th century. And even if they were already crimes to begin with, you cannot attribute responsibility to the Catholic Church simply because they claimed to be acting in its name. In that regard, I can say that the 100 million victims of Communism could be laid at the feet of atheism because they are all professed atheists.
So you apply that reasoning for religion, but atheism does not get the same “benefit of the doubt”?
What kind of double standards do you have?
I don’t know where you got the idea that I had double standards. If it was in my response to the comment of Benj, I was merely drawing an analogy.
In the absence of laws, there is your Bible. At least 8 out of 10 commandments make the Crusades a major crime, dude.
Again, taking it out of context. The Bible also mentioned that God called on the children of Israel to level the city of Jericho, expel the residents of Canaan, and He Himself smashed the Egyptian army. The reason for these things is the same as the reason for the Crusades as called by the Church: defense.
Oh, I won’t deny that the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade wasn’t a tragedy, but the Church did excommunicate those responsible, meaning that they themselves did not approve of those acts.
The followers of the false prophet will be repaid with a thousand painful deaths. The perversions in the Church are widespread and despicable, but they are not of the Lord’s faithful. The Deceiver has infiltrated the ranks and spread many falsehoods.
You wrote:”I can say that the 100 million victims of Communism could be laid at the feet of atheism because they are all professed atheists.”
Yeah, some Atheists have mass murdered people for their own agenda. In the name of communism, a lot of people were slaughtered. They wanted 100% loyalty and control from their populace and saw religion as a conflict of interest.
Killing for greed, wealth, or power has been perpetrated by both religious and non-religious people. No massacres have been made in the name of Atheism itself. None. Religion has been the basis for many atrocities. That is the difference.
Ha! I’m about to post a shirt about Catholicism on my tshirt website!
Catholicism:
Ruining Weekends
Since 235 A.D.
Forget whether there is religion or not for a moment. How many more times in human history than not have people in power abused the current religio-political situation to their advantage to wipe out their enemies?
Remember…up until about 200-300 years ago, politics and religion were one and the same: to criticize one was one and the same as criticizing as the other.
Same banana. Even in the context of the definition of crime, what the communists did was no different from what the church has been doing: the elimination of threat.
So yes, there IS a double standard, wherein what the church did was justified in its own terms. What the communists did was justified in their own terms.
Neither makes either set of actions correct.
============
Geez I really hate the old testament.
Antibarbie: Well, yeah, no one has killed anyone over atheism. But atheism is not a system of belief, it’s an act of denial. Even the defense of atheism is an act of active passivity, where atheists simply deny the existence of higher intelligence at work. So, does this mean that religion/ideology can be used to justify excesses? Yes. But does that mean that the Catholic Church is to blame for all this? No. It has been consistent with the defense of the dignity of man, even if there were faults by its adherents, the Church has moved to rectify those errors in a manner consistent with its faith.
Jon: Everything is justifiable by its own standards. However, what are those standards? The Catholic Church has consistently defended the rights of men, even if you may not agree with their idea of what human rights actually are. In an age where torture is endemic, they condemned it. When people considered it normal to burn and pillage another town because their liege lord fancied it, they imposed the Peace of God. Where kings considered it their divine right to war, they had the concept of justifiable war. And the standards they set is pretty much consistent with most other people’s standards, no matter the persuasion. Self-defense, defense of others, etc.
Never did the Catholic Church promote the use of terrorism or violence to forcibly convert others. Sure, its claims of being the path to salvation and entreaties to others to believe so that they can be saved might be annoying, but you can always walk away.
Compare that to Communism, where the very foundation of their belief was that threats had to be eliminated by force. And their definition of a threat included everyone who was not a communist. Both Lenin and Trotsky wrote about world revolution where the most barbarous acts against non-communists, and even communists that did not toe the party line are justified. Catholic dogma does not condone that. There you find the difference between the two.
So what was the Spanish Inquisition all about?
Granted that the RCC already apologized for all of it, it doesn’t give the Pope a right to label atheism like that simply because atheism is neither a movement nor is it a religion.
Ratzinger can single out communism, fine. Ratzinger can single out Nazism, well and good. But he cannot single out atheism. That’s a clear case of twisted myopia IMHO.
Appealing to religious belief to justify violence, on the other hand, is more dangerous. Consider the jihadists and extremists — all of them are appealing to religious belief for violent activities.
Using the same appeal makes a person no different from such vermin.
[...] Jump to Comments My post defending the Catholic Church from allegations of injustice is so far the most popular post in this [...]
The Pope’s argument makes sense, at least for modern history. Niall Ferguson has shown in _War of the World_ that much of the death and destruction during the twentieth century was prompted by secular movements, especially Communism and Capitalism, particularly along ethnic or nationalist lines.
On the other hand, if we follow Elaine Pagels’ argument that all religious groups have a secular base, then we have a more interesting view: the Pope’s argument is incorrect if it implies that religion is less evil, as religion is nothing more than another aspect of the human condition.
“Never did the Catholic Church promote the use of terrorism or violence to forcibly convert others.”
“It is not fair to judge a religion solely on the actions of its miscreants.”
are we that naive to think that all the catholics that acted in the crusades, the inquisition, the witch hunts, etc. were all miscreants?
Furthermore, if they were indeed miscreants, why weren’t they stopped by the catholic heirarchy immediately? all these incidents lasted more than a decade.. Was it ignorance? or collusion?
And a further question… why is it so easy in the first place to misunderstand the message of the catholic church such that it justifies violence? The vast majority of these ‘miscreants’ sincerely believed that they were doing God’s and the church’s will when they persecuted non christans, tortured heretics (Galileo and other free thinkers included), burned witches, etc.
It is so easy to say that the Church publicly never called for the violent conversion of other faiths (although acounts of medieval antisemitic pogroms and the suppression of the early christian heresies disprove this).. However, the church has remained passive and often very conspicuously silent when its name and god’s was used to justify violence and abuses.
As to secular causes of violence, these will always be the case with the human condition regardless of whether persons involved are theists or atheists.. but in every major secular conflict in the modern world, religious faith has more often been the complicating factor rather than the solution… (Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Balkans, present Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Israel-Palestine, etc.).
“Examples abound of church defiance to the Nazis and even to Franco.”
Are you kidding?
http://tinyurl.com/25drdy
“Generally, the attitude of the Church is that of repeated attempts at conversion, and in the time that they do not convert, it’s of peaceful co-existence.”
I hope this is true
http://tinyurl.com/33d63y