Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:04:47 -0400 From: basilio Monteiro <[email protected]>
Today the history of Inquisition is a convenient tool in many hands with disparate motives. In some hands it serves to keep the Church forever on the defensive; for others to excuse or justify their disenchantment with the Church. The devout sons and daughters of the Church get perplexed, and some defend the Church, unnecessarily, at all costs, others simply and uncomfortably choose to remain oblivious of the troubling segment of the past. Mario observes: Dear Padre Basilio, First of all, I commend you for another measured essay written in your trademark collegial style. http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-June/179077.html Regardless of how others try to use the human frailties, atrocities and abominations that have cropped up from time to time within the body of the Church, like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the excesses prior to the Reformation, the caste system in India, the pedophile priests, the abuse of nuns in Kerala, the most important issue in my mind is what did Christians do in response. If Christians played a primary role in exposing, opposing and stopping these practices, the subsequent Christians have nothing to be defensive about, in my never-humble opinion. These were aberrations caused by human zealots and perverts and supremacists that have nothing to do with the teachings of Christ, which is all that I focus on any more almost to the exclusion of all the man-made, albeit well meaning, traditions, teachings and practices of Christianity. The Gold Standard which every person of good will, whether Christians or not, should be able to agree on from the Christian tradition are the last seven Commandments, the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount. Much of the rest is incomprehensible to me as a practical matter and therefore an unnecessary distraction from my focus, which is hard enough as it is. If non-Christians or agnostics bring these awful things from Christianity's past up to me, I like my never-defensive response to be, "Yup, that was awful, and it was mostly other Christians that confronted and stopped it because that was not what Christ was all about." When I can't say that unequivocally, I have a problem, which is why I have publicly criticized Pope John Paul II for being far too late in confronting the pedophile priest atrocities, then being far too concerned about the pedophiles and their enablers like Cardinal John Law, and not concerned enough about the victims, who were scarred for life. I also excoriated the Cardinal in Kerala who waited to admit the abuse of nuns in a book he wrote after retirement instead of confronting and stamping it out during all the years he was their leader. What was he thinking he was doing all those years? It is also why the caste system is the one remaining institutional abomination that remains among some Catholics in some parts of India and woe the person who defends it or excuses it in my presence. Basilio wrote: In general history is written by the victors. Today there many "victors" and each one of them is trying to re-write history, and of Inquisition in particular. Unfortunately in the post-modernist times "wanna-be-historians" are writing history without foundations. While pseudo-historians will use the history of Inquisition to sow discontent and disharmony, good historians will continue to work with the "facts of history" to develop a more wholesome understanding of this human compulsion to torture, whether it is for interrogatory or punitive purposes, which will help us to acquire greater and better self-knowledge. Mario responds: If such research leads us to a more factual record, I'm all for it. If it is an attempt to whitewash what happened then I would oppose it. If "understanding" past atrocities helps to avoid repetition, I'm for it. However, some human behavior is beyond comprehension, which include some of the atrocities I have mentioned above. Sometimes the details are irrelevent. For example, is it useful to know every detail of how horribly Christians mistreated others during the Inquisition? Some things are simply evil and un-Christian if Christ is the standard, and the best we can do is stamp it out and be vigilant to make sure it never recurs.
