Our cultural biases show when it comes to the catholic church

[patcox2]

There is so much self-righteous indignation over the 400 year-old crimes of the spanish inquisition, and I think it shows that we all internalize, unconsciously, elements of our predominant english, protestant american culture.

There is nothing revisionist, or even surprising, about the result's of the Vatican's study on the inquisition. The fact is you would have a hard time finding a historian who would disagree with the proposition that the inquisition was sensationalized and exagerated, for political reasons, by the English, for hundreds of years.

This is a case of people continuing to beleive in ancient propaganda. Look at the geopolitical context of all this. Our american culture is largely english protestant. Most of us are unaware of the biases inherent in this background which we have unkowingly internalized.

During and after the time of the inquisition, Spain and England were the major rivals for dominance in world power. Then, as now, rivals tend to demonize each other, to use propaganda. The English propaganda from the time painted catholic spain as vicious and bloodthirsty and evil, and this ancient propaganda is still current in popular uninformed opinions about this subject.

The English protestants were in fact far more vicious and committed far greater atrocities. The English protestants and their cultural heirs, of which you are one, committed the most thorough and complete genocide in human history in the annihilation of the native americans, the remnants of whom still live in concentration camps we call reservations here in this country, your country.

All this moral posturing and holier-than-thou crap about the inquisition is ridiculous coming from people who live in a country stolen from another people through genocide. And by the way, we are much closer in time to our crimes, it only stopped 100 years ago (if it could be said to have stopped at all). If today's catholic church has to answer for the inquisition, we surely are much more bound to answer for the american indian genocide, and for slavery, for that matter. But of course, our cultural bias against the church allows us to comfortably impose a double standard, tra la la, I don't have to answer for slavery, we say, that was years ago and I reject that. but when the Pope rejects the inquisition, we get all judgmental, call him a hypocrite and start ranting about the cathars a thousand years ago, as if the blood is on this pope's hands. Its comical.

Because in reality, the catholic church has done nothing to match the native american genocide, nothing close.

And don't even start with the "great libel" (thats what its called) about the ruthlessness of spanish colonizers. Its a lie. The truth is apparent if you just look around. Look at an ex-spanish colony, like Mexico. The majority of the population is still native american. They may have been converted, but they were not slaughtered wholesale with only the few survivors driven to reservations in the most barren lands. Then look at the US, where the English and later the US government were much more efficient in committing genocide, in removing any trace of those who once owned this land.

Spare me the hypocritical indignation. You don't know it but you are just repeating the propaganda from one side in a war where both sides were equally evil.

[cheezus]

1. Most are just mad that the catholic church is taking sides in the election

how do any cultral biases come into play?

[merh]

27. I do believe it is the "Church" that is taking a side,

just individual "leaders" like that bishop in Denver. Bush asked the Pope to back him when he visited a couple of weeks ago but there has been no official stance by the Vatican (other than their stance against the war in Iraq and against capital punishment which are definitely not what Bush wants.) I would say that the lack of a formal position after Bush went over there seeking it shows that the Vatican is leery of him and his motives.


According to a May 2003 article published in the New Catholic Times "people close to the pope claim that, . . ., the pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations."

[merh]

28. link that have discussed this article are:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=55407

New Catholic Times, May 18, 2003

WASHINGTON DC -- According to freelance journalist Wayne Madsden, "George W Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs and his constant references to 'evil doers,' in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations--the anti-Christ."


http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_9_27/ai_108881880

[truthspeaker]

2. I admit it: I'm biased against murderers, torturers, rapists, and con-men

BTW I don't have much use for Protestant denominations either, they're just harder targets because there are so many of them.

Note: Protestants burned and hanged lots of "witches" too, some of them here in North America.

[LittleApple81]

3. I can only speak for myself: I don't like ANY church that uses its

influence to affect my life in order to try to make ME conform to its teachings.

The Inquisition was just an extreme demonstration of that power. And it happened to be the Catholic church. But this church has never had exclusivity in the use of terror against "non-believers".

[MAlibdem]

4. Sounds interesting

Sources?

I'm thinking mostly for your claims about natives in spanish colonies. As I understand it, North America was much less densly populated than central and south america, meaning the spanish could kill more and still have a lot of people left over?

[outinforce]

5. Error. Error. Error.

"The English protestants were in fact far more vicious and committed far greater atrocities. The English protestants and their cultural heirs, of which you are one, committed the most thorough and complete genocide in human history in the annihilation of the native americans, the remnants of whom still live in concentration camps we call reservations here in this country, your country."

Er.

Error.

Just look at all the "native Americans" still living in Cuba, or Argentina. Look at how much of indiginous cultures the Spanish allowed to thrive in South America.

You seem to want to critique some folks for having an anti-Catholic bias, but in doing so, you reveal a rather extreme anti-Protestant, anti-English bias.

[patcox2]

11. Not so much critique individuals, the point is the bias is subtly present.

The bias exists in our culture, and maybe I should use a less loaded word than bias, as what I am describing is unconscious, its just the received wisdom in our predominantly english and protestant culture (and thats an oversimplification as well).

I am fascinated by the longevity of the ancient propaganda, to be honest.

I believe all colonizers were equally guilty of atrocities, by the way. As an anglican, its certainly interesting to see myself accused of anti english protestant bias. I guess I am the only self-hating episcopalian around.

I look at the caribean islands and see that there are no natives at all, because of the cruelty of the spanish and the diseases they brought. And I see native populations descended from black africans, brought here and maintained as slaves, mostly by the british, but also the french and to a small degree the spanish. Not much to learn there, except that there is plenty of blame to go around.

I stand by my point that the north american treatment of native americans is a special case, the only largely succesful case of genocide on such a scale. The colony of Massachusets put a bounty on natives, as well as wolves, bring in a scalp, they would pay you cash. Oh but we are so superior to that evil pope, his organization killed people hundreds of years ago.

Its still comical.

[Sandpiper]

17. In your self righteous screed

You talk about "our" biases, yet the entire tone of your post is you wagging your finger at everyone else.

By "our," what you really mean is "your."

[seabeyond]

6. i didnt read all this. what is in a history

merely a story told. not something to deny or change the story, but merely a story. my suggestion is, with out trying to defend or justify, i might ask if you look at the events and you see similarities, and if so, maybe learn from history to not repeat. no more no less

i love you regardless of what story you chose, and is the catholics to do

[Cheswick2.0]

10. Very nice post

Very well put, thank you.

[immoderate]

7. What about the Catholic aversion to sex?

And their propensity for just plain superstition? Have they sent any exorcists your way lately?

Do you use birth control? Shower with your clothes on? Have you prayed to a smudge on a window lately?

--IMM

[Cheswick2.0]

13. I see you are quoting Marx

If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black. You are quoting a failed philosophy responsible for totalitarian states all over the world. But you bitch about the catholic church?

I could tell you stories about Ukrainian people and exactly what they think of your Carl and his followers.

[immoderate]

20. Marx also said:

"I could dance with you till the cows come home. Or I could dance with the cows till you come home." --Julius Marx

What do the Ukrainians think about Groucho? I would dearly love to know.

--IMM

[stavka]

25. Curses- beat me to it!

"Women should be obscene and not heard." Groucho Marx

[immoderate]

30. To bring it around though

In defense of Carl, Eastern Europe was not a shining light of democracy before Marxism. To say Carl Marx was responsible for atrocities in the Ukraine, is like saying Jefferson was responsible for selling guns to the Contras. A stretch to say the least.

Got any more Grouchoisms?

--IMM

[stavka]

31. ...ok

I would think Stefan Bandera thinking ultra-nationalist hyper catholics would hate Groucho Marx. He was Jewish after-all.

The Stalinist inheritors? Probably would hate him too...again Jewish, but more embarrassing to Leninism...

The current Ukrainian pulse? - I'd be lying to say I could guess. They clearly would want a Navy though, that was made clear with the dissolution of the USSR

"Military justice is to justice what military music is to music" G. Marx

[Cheswick2.0]

35. crusade on my fundamentalist lefty friend

:7

You honestly don't know how the Ukrainians feel about marxism? Get your google going.

[Cheswick2.0]

8. do you really want to set this debate up as Catholic vrs Protestant?

I don't think your problem here is with the protestants. It is anti-theist and anti christian folks who are your problem. Every religious group has only been as good or as bad as the humans in charge. Each one has been equally murderous and fanatical at some point. I include atheists in that assesment.

I live in a very catholic area and the church is indeed responsible for turning life long democrats into Rick Santorum voters or people who refuse to vote at all because they get preached to about abortion every sunday. So yeah, I have a problem with the conservative movement in the catholic church right now.

I do not blame the present Catholics for the Inquisition anymore than I blame the present Presbyterians for the Calvinist Puritans who burned witches at the stake.

[Sandpiper]

15. Delete

[Xithras]

9. I agree with everything right up to Mexico

The English/French colonizers and the Spanish simply had different goals. The English simply wanted land, so that the second-sons, dissidents, and their poor could be exported while still bringing wealth to the empire. Claiming land required the dehumanization and removal of the natives...a mindset that survived the revolutionary war and remained in the U.S. throughout the westward expansion.

The Spanish, on the other hand, didn't have a large population, religious dissent, or any of the other pressures to export people to colonies. They were interested in wealth, and without colonists they needed the native population to assist them. While they may not have slaughtered them wholesale as happened further north, they DID attempt to create a permanent, slave-like underclass...fiefdoms loyal to Spain truthfully...who's only purpose was to serve their Spanish "masters". Culturally, the native Mexicans were obliterated to a GREATER extent than the northern tribes. While the Cherokee and Sioux still have their legends, their ancient ceremonies, and their tribal identities, the Spanish culturally cleansed everything they touched. Nearly all of the ancient legends were lost, most of the languages were erased and replaced with Spanish, religious and ceremonial sites were leveled wherever possible (luckily for us, the jungles hid many of them before the Spanish could find them).

The Spanish took a land with numerous and varied cultures, languages, and traditions, and reduced them to a homogeneous mass of subservient, Spanish speaking Catholics. They may not have killed them, but it was cultural genocide just the same.

[patcox2]

14. Well taken.

Obviously true. Again, my point was just to recognize that we are still receiving propagnda from a 400 year old global conflict and it still colors debate.

[Cheswick2.0]

33. Pat some people here love to think in black and white just as much as

the freepers do. There is a group who want to frame every debate in terms of good and bad. Unfortunately they are determined that anything religious is bad. They are narrow minded, and frankly, part of the problem.
I never thought being left could also mean being stupid and divisive, but sometimes it can.

[Sandpiper]

12. Thanks for the whitewash job

And don't even start with the "great libel" (thats what its called) about the ruthlessness of spanish colonizers. Its a lie.

It's called the "great libel" by whom? The perpetrators of these acts?

Spanish Catholics single handedly destroyed all cultural vestiges of the greatest Native American civilizations of the time, Aztec, Inca, and Maya.

During the 16th century alone, the native population that lived under Spanish rule decreased by 40%.

[patcox2]

19. And because they didn't leave impressive ruins,

The north american native cultures don't count?

But anyway, instead of comparing the spanish and english atrocities associated with colonization, lets go back to the inquisition. How does the inquisition compare to the colonization of north america and the treatment of the native americans? And are we really applying the same standards, when we condemn the present catholic church for 400 year old crimes, while our greater crimes are much more recent?

If the pope is a hypocrite for condemning the inquisition, then what are we progressives when we condemn slavery?

[Sandpiper]

26. Since recency seems to be the most important factor to you

Let's talk about recent events. For example, how about Catholic complicity in Hitler's holocaust, an event that happened within living memory and took the lives of 12 million people.

I don't really understand where you're trying to go with the "more recent" argument. How exactly does that make one worse than the other? False tautology indeed.

[Solly Mack]

16. So who says both sides weren't equally evil?

Frankly, protestants and catholics can argue 'til their dying die on who harmed whom more....but it won't change the fact that they both caused harmed. They both murdered.

It's like 2 white people arguing on who caused more harm to african-americans....those who bought the slaves or those who shipped them for sale...when both the slave shipper and the slave buyer were part of the problem. Or those who grew the cotton..and those who bought the cotton...one system propped up the other... and both propped up slavery.

So,again..if the catholics and the protestants want to seek absolution through justification, by debating the degrees of guilt..let'em...but it won't change anything.

If a religion sought the elimination of original peoples culture, religion ,and life, then the religion is guilty of genocide.

You don't have to kill a people off to wipe their culture out. You can force them to give up their culture. Steal their children, make their language illegal..write the history that calls them savages...not matter how untrue it is...

[patcox2]

24. I am referring to a cultural bias rooted in catholic vs. protestant

But now divorced from its roots and floating around the culture, appearing as a general predisposition on the part of most americans, whether protestant, catholic, or atheist, to beleive the worst about the vicious spanish catholics, while paying little or no attention to the equal crimes committed by our own country. Manifest destiny was not a religious doctrine. I am not arguing which religion was better, only that certain biases which stem from the religious and political conflict between spain and england continue to color the views of even the atheists here, when it comes to the topic of the inquisition.

[Solly Mack]

29. I understood what you were arguing

and I am just saying from the perspective of someone whose family was on the receiving end of both Prostestant (England/American) and Catholic (Spain) expansion..both for material goods and the religious side job....they are both guilty in equal degrees.

in terms of guilt: "they all look alike to me"

how the 2 groups fight about it amongst themselves is indeed an exercise in hypocrisy.


I don't see the Spanish Inquisition any different than I see what happened to my ancestors....the motive may have been different but the result was the same...the murder of a minority group to satisfy the arrogance of others.

[punpirate]

18. False tautology--our country's crimes are more recent...

... and therefore more valid for criticism. I wasn't party to it, as almost all people in this country weren't party to those decisions. Same as for the Inquisition. Yet, I don't like what was done to Native Americans, any more than I like what was done to so-called heretics in the Middle Ages.

And, note for the record, that the assertion that the description of the Inquisition was overblown comes from the perpetrators, not the victims.

I wonder about your talk of the "great libel." The Spanish colonizers were brutal enough to prompt revolts all around what is now called New Mexico. And, in New Mexico and Mexico, have a look at how mestizos are treated as compared to those who claim to be full-blooded Spaniards.

Not precisely what you think, at least on the ground in my neighborhood. Here, among the Spanish, Mexican is a term of derision, a slur, meaning half-breed--part Spanish, part Indian.

The indignation is not exactly hypocritical if one's ancestors have lived through it. I live amongst people whose ancestors did.

But, as regards the Catholic Church, they seem to have a tendency not to admit the truth for many centuries after the fact. This latest revelation of theirs comes too late, and too disingenuously, to be taken seriously, as do your protestations about the "great libel."


Edit for syntax.

[arbusto_baboso]

21. Well, to a degree you are correct, but....

As a former Catholic, I can tell you that all the viciousness of the English Protestant culture has its BASIS in Catholicism. Also remember that English protestantism is closer to catholicism than any other protestant sect.

Yes, the genocide of the native American is a horrible mark on our history. But the catholic church isn't just responsible for the Inquisition. There's the whole Crusades thing, too. And the burning of witches, and the general lack of respect for women in western culture is our Catholic legacy, as well.

That being said, one has to distinguish between the Catholic church hierarchy (which speaks less and less for its American parishoners), and the churchgoers themselves, who tend to be somewhat more liberal in their views.

[carolinayellowdog]

22. Holocaust denial comes in many varieties, it appears

http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb99-1/books99-1.html
http://www.religioustolerance.org/genocide5.htm

Astounded by your assertion that Spanish Catholic genocide compares favorably to English Protestant genocide, I googled every combination of relevant terms and came up with no evidence supporting such a claim. In fact, every source I found points in the opposite direction. From the above source, for example:

"During the four centuries spanning the time between 1492, when Christopher Columbus first set foot on the 'New World' of a Caribbean beach and 1892, when the U.S. Census Bureau concluded that there were fewer than a quarter-million indigenous people surviving within the country's boundaries, a hemispheric population estimated to have been as great as 125 million was reduced by something over 90 percent. The people had died in their millions of being hacked apart with axes and swords, buried alive and trampled under horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked to death as slave labourers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases." (1)

2. Later he concludes, "All told, it is probable that more than one hundred million native people were 'eliminated' in the course of Europe's ongoing 'civilization' of the western hemisphere" (86). Yet this ghastly history is denied, suppressed, minimized, or even celebrated by deniers of what Ward Churchill calls the American holocaust.
END QUOTE

To minimize the crimes of the Spanish, whose victims outnumbered those of the English many times over (not by virtue of being inherently more evil but rather by their access to more potential victims), is a form of holocaust denial too. (Link added on edit.)

[DrWeird]

23. And then don't forget the Holocaust.

You know, the one in nazi germany.

[truthspeaker]

39. the one supported by the Pope

Also, don't forget that Hitler didn't invent European anti-Semitism. It was nurtured by Christian churches, protestant and catholic, for centuries.

[mmonk]

32. While I'm very frustrated at my church

right now (Catholic), I always found it ironic to listen to people talk about how bad the Spanish were to the natives in Central America, and Mexico because they were "Catholic' while the same folks don't mention the slaughter here on our soil. By the way, I always pointed to the fact you run into natives all the time in Mexico, but seldom in many Eastern US cities to people that wanted to make that argument.

[truthspeaker]

41. ?!? I've never heard anyone do that.

[sendero]

34. A pox on both your houses..

... organized religion is a fraud and neither the Catholic or Protestant branch can evade the fact that plenty of evil has been done in their names.

[Cheswick2.0]

36. oh bullshit

plenty of evil has been done in the name of Atheism and every religion that ever existed. That because people are often evil no matter what their religion or lack of it. It's power that corrupts.
What a tired old "World Religions 101" argument you make.

[sendero]

37. It's hard to do evil....

... in the name of "nothing".


The current mess we are in can be laid right at the feet of the abuse of religion. "God" told Bush* to do it.

You can say it is not God but Bush*, but I'll say without religion and all of the evil enablers it spawns, we would not be in Iraq right now.

Until I see the "good people" toss fuckers like Falwell and Robertson into the gutter, I will never see religion as a force for good. The only good it ever does is in an effort to win converts. It is a giant hydra.

[Trajan]

40. Explain which part of atheism promotes the 'sinfulness' of humanity

WHICH tenet of atheism approves of wholesale degradation of human beings ? ...

One CAN find, embedded in the canons of the abrahamic 'faiths', a wholesale disregard for the basic dignity of mankind; except as a function of 'salvation through faith and grace' ..

NONbelief is apostate and heterodoxical ... NON belief is 'sin', and is punishable by an eternity of suffering and torture .... The fact that SOME believers purport to do the work of god against nonbelief blemishes not only those who commit vicious acts, but the very basis on which those acts were established ... theological precept ..

Now: tell us of a similar parallel of atheistic belief, held true by most atheists, that provides the basis for the wholesale disregard for the inate dignity of human beings ... give a citation ....

[Trajan]

38. Unfortunate Catholic Apologia ...

The Vatican's recent revelations can only be explained as self serving ... the 'inquisition' is not the only awful experience the world has with catholic creedalism ... one MUST admit that such brutality began during the era of Constantine (the battle between arianism and trinitarian theology caused the death of tens of thousands), through the ravages of Theodosius (violent supression of paganism, the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria, and the brutal murder of the Neoplatonic philosopher Hypatia by a monkish mob), the Crusades (CERTAINLY an excess of brutality against 'heretics'), and the vicious suppression of the catharii in Albi (over 25 years of massacre and bloodshed) ...

DOnt forget the mutual hatred of the protestants and catholics of the jews, where BOTH sects of christian theology viciuosly hounded, persecuted, pogromed and massacred the jews wholesale ....

And still: there is a long running contest of bloody combat between european protestants and catholics themselves, where BOTH sects treated each other like animals for the slaughter: the Defenestration of Prague, the St Bartholemew's Day Massacre, the 'catholic wars' of the counter-reformation ....

I appreciate your declarations of catholic exculpation, but they simply do not hold water: the brutality extends way beyond the inquisition, and appears to express on the whole a basic disregard for the dignity of mankind ... The theology itself defines humanity as sinful and unworthy of decent love; no wonder these expressions of brutality against fellow human beings is such a prominent feature of the history of the catholic AND protestant churches ....

I say this as one who was raised and reared in the bosom of the catholic church and its strict catechisem, all with the guidance of a pious worshipper of the Holy Mother, and the 'vicarii christi' ...

THAT woman of piety was my dear mother ....

I rejected the claim of holiness of the catholic church long ago, and of christian, judaic and islamic theology in general ....