Do you know how many dictators that the U.S. supported in Latin America? In fact, many of those coups were backed BY the U.S.
Bolding mine.
Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? I never did quite get “canon law” down.
Also, thanks to Northern for his responses.
ETA: I think I get get it: Religous inquiry whether Bible as interpreted says about necessity of fasting for 3:24 hours as opposed to 3:23 hours. Here, now: you guys sort it out. There, then: if this bugs me, Henry VIII, its my call.
Right?
Well, the specific question in the canonical courts that Henry wanted not capable of appeal to Rome was whether his marriage to Katherine of Aragon was valid. Whether that’s a “secular” question is something we might debate today, but I don’t think they thought in such terms in the sixteenth century.
Church courts in sixteenth century England had jurisdiction over fairly obvious matters like lawsuits dealing with church property, church offices, the status of clergy, etc. This was much more significant then than now, since the church was a huge landowner and a major employer. Henry VIII’s programme of reform, and later dissolution, of the monasteries involved innumerable proceedings in the church courts. In addition the church courts had jurisdiction in matrimonial cases and, surprisingly to the modern mind, in probate/deceased estates. The business of the church courts was large enough to sustain a separate branch of the legal profession (advocates and proctors) who practised exclusively in those courts.
Note that Henry VIII didn’t want the formal right to control the church courts; he just wanted there to be no appeal from the English church courts to superior courts or tribunals in Rome. As he appointed all the English bishops, and had various other patronage and influence at his disposal, he could be reasonably confident of securing the outcome he wanted in the English church courts in any case that really interested him without the formal right to overrule, or hear appeals from, the church courts.
Thank you.
Right. This part is the one part of church history that everybody gets.
Which leads to:
I know this is a big near-hijack (but not entirely because it fleshes out this “Protestant”'s power):
Egs of “cases that really interested him”:
Appointing, by fiat, malleable bishops who would be on his side … for what?
Finding bishops who will say (like in the town run by a dictator/psychopathic god from *The Twilight Zone ) “that’s a good thing” when he wants money by selling a church?
Others, in general?
*I am not suggesting that Henry VII was a psychopathic god who wished people into the cornfield.
Well, again, the case that really, really interested him was of course the King’s Great Matter; his divorce from Katherine.
Once he concluded, or persuaded himself, that Rome had no right to a final say in that particular matter, consistency would have led him to the position that Rome had no right to a final say in any other matter. And this would have been a welcome conclusion; his monastic reforms (which were under way well before the Great Matter arose) proceeded very slowly for a long time, and took up a lot of time and effort, because of the need to keep the Roman authorities more or less on side. Once that need disappeared, matters proceeded a great deal more quickly, and reform could become dissolution.
As regards other people’s divorces, and as regards probate matters, Henry couldn’t care less. As regards doctrine and worship (which could also feature in the cases before the church courts, though probably not very often in practice) he was pretty conservative, so he didn’t put any pressure on the courts to change their attitudes there.
What bishops were mainly removed for was (a) denouncing the royal divorce or the royal remarriage, or (b) refusing to accept the royal supremacy (and as these acts were also treasonous, the consequences didn’t stop at deprivation of office). Henry didn’t seek to exercise total control over the church; he just wanted it to be onside with the projects that really interested him - his divorce and remarriage. It would have bothered him if the bishops had opposed his monastic policy, but since the policy tended to increase the power and influence of the bishops I don’t think very many of them opposed it.
It must however be remembered that restrictions on appeals to Rome in canon law cases and on the Pope’s powers of ecclesiastical appointments were not new. The English Crown and its Parliaments had long insisted on the concept of praemunire, so much of the legal framework for the royal supremacy already existed in English law. Henry VIII simply pushed this much, much further than any of his predecessors had dared. And exactly the same issues had arisen elsewhere. Thanks to the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges and the Condordat of Bologna, popes had already conceded most of those rights to the kings of France. Under slightly different political circumstances, Henry too might well have been able to extract similar concessions. Which only underlines that taking a hard line of these issues did not, of itself, make one a Protestant.
Yes, but the overwhelming majority were Catholic.
Newsflash! Majority of people in Latin America Catholic! Pope rumored to be, too! Almost all USSR dictators and Presidents Russian Orthodox!
I assume she was responding to the fact that a US-supported dictator was hardly a big deal in the 80s.
Also the bears, I’ve heard.
Argentinians don’t normally shit in the woods.
Mainly because they don’t have many woods. They do shit on the Pampas, though.
What about the National Party leaders of apartheid South Africa? They were all Dutch Reformed (Calvinists). While they were nominally elected by the white voters, there was a high degree of gerrymandering and fearmongering that kept them in, and a mass of repressive security legislation to suppress the opposition. And, of course, as far as the other 90% of the population were concerned, they were functionally dictators.
As was every US President until Lincoln. So he was the first non-dictator. Oh, wait…
While I tend to think that your reasoning is correct and only Congress can suspend habeas corpus, the issue in 1861 was not as one-sided as you imply. The Chief Justice in question was Roger Taney, the deeply racist author of the Dred Scott decision and a Southern sympathizer and enemy of Lincoln. And it is not the case that all previous understanding was that suspension was strictly a legislative power. General Andrew Jackson had suspended habeas corpus in 1815, following the Battle of New Orleans, and while he did receive a fine for that, the fine was subsequently refunded as an injustice to him. And who was one of the strongest proponents of the refund and of the view that Jackson had been treated unjustly? Roger Taney.
Lincoln had good reason to believe that suspension of habeas corpus was at least arguably an executive power, and he had received an opinion from his Attorney General to that effect. His acting on that opinion does not make him a dictator.