Is the Pope seeking to end the Great Schism?

[Bridget_Burke]

@BrainGlutton

That phrase is unfamiliar to me, but you appear to use it as if you had not coined it – is it some well-known meme in Catholic countries?

By being first out of the starting gate (or second, right after Portugal). But note where the scientific and industrial revolutions happened – not in any Catholic country.

The Black Legend is a concept known to those who’ve bothered to study the history of Europe and/or The New World.

The Black Legend (Spanish: La Leyenda Negra) is a term coined by Julián Juderías in his 1914 book La leyenda negra y la verdad histórica (The Black Legend and Historical Truth), to describe Spain and Spaniards as “cruel”, “intolerant” and “fanatical” in anti-Spanish literature starting in the 16th century. The Black Legend propaganda is said to be influenced by national and religious rivalries as seen in works by early Protestant historians and Anglo Saxon writers, describing the period of Spanish imperialism in a negative way. Other examples of the Black Legend are said to be the historical revision of the Inquisition, and in the villains and storylines of modern fiction and film.

That is, only the Spanish were evil conquerors. No other Europeans practiced Imperialism in The New World. Many of the dreadful stories are true–but they only came to light through the work of Bartolomé de las Casas. He was protesting Spanish abuses. Which Protestant clergy spent so much effort protesting The Trail of Tears?

[Captain_Amazing]

@BrainGlutton

That phrase is unfamiliar to me, but you appear to use it as if you had not coined it – is it some well-known meme in Catholic countries?

The black legend is the name given to the argument that Spain was somehow unusually cruel and intolerant in its domestic and colonial policies. Here’s the wikipedia page to give you a starting point, if it helps:

Black legend

By being first out of the starting gate (or second, right after Portugal). But note where the scientific and industrial revolutions happened – not in any Catholic country.

The scientific revolution happened in a lot of places all over Europe, from Catholic Poland (Copernicus) to Protestant England (Newton) to Catholic Italy (Gallileo), to Protestant Denmark (Brahe), to Catholic France (Descartes). And then you have people like Kepler, who was a Protestant scientist who was funded by a Catholic government. So claiming the scientific revolution was caused by Protestantism is kind of a stretch.

As for the industrial revolution, it originated in Britain and spread from there. but I don’t know if that alone proves the superiority of Protestant states over Catholic states in encouraging innovation.

[BrainGlutton]

@Bridget Burke

The Black Legend is a concept known to those who’ve bothered to study the history of Europe and/or The New World.

That is, only the Spanish were evil conquerors. No other Europeans practiced Imperialism in The New World. Many of the dreadful stories are true–but they only came to light through the work of Bartolomé de las Casas. He was protesting Spanish abuses. Which Protestant clergy spent so much effort protesting The Trail of Tears?

What of that? I am not blaming the Catholic Church’s hegemony for Spain’s cruelty; I am blaming it for Spain’s stupidity and stagnation. No doubt there were many other factors in play, but the Church is not to be discounted.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Bridget Burke

Which Protestant clergy spent so much effort protesting The Trail of Tears?

Samuel Worcester, but that’s neither here nor there.

[gigi]

@unconventional

Actually, the Catholic Church does charge for holy water that is bottled in plastic bottles of the Virgin Mary. I have strong memories of this as a kid. They also sell other blessed items and relics. They certainly don’t charge for the holy water at the entrance of church. This is free.

There may be churches where they charge the cost of materials in giving out bottles of holy water. At my (admitted wealthy) church, we can take a bottle of holy water at Easter for free.

@Rico

If you look in the Book of Common Prayer, you’ll notice the Nicene Creed uses the small c “catholic”. This does not mean only the Roman Catholic Church, but the universal Christian body.

IIRC, “one”, “holy” and “apostolic” are not capitalized either. So I don’t know if Skammer meant “Catholic” or “catholic” in his quote.

[BrainGlutton]

@Captain Amazing

The scientific revolution happened in a lot of places all over Europe, from Catholic Poland (Copernicus) to Protestant England (Newton) to Catholic Italy (Gallileo), to Protestant Denmark (Brahe), to Catholic France (Descartes). And then you have people like Kepler, who was a Protestant scientist who was funded by a Catholic government. So claiming the scientific revolution was caused by Protestantism is kind of a stretch.

Not caused, but a Protestant society was IMO more congenial to its developments.

Here, however, is a persuasive and (somewhat) contrary view, from “Which Civilisation?” by Michael Lind, Prospect, 10/25/01:

My claim is that the civilisation shared by most Prospect readers is humanist, a relatively young global civilisation based on the post-medieval, Italian-Dutch-Anglo-American tradition of the constitutional, commercial society. Needless to say, this definition of humanist civilisation differs dramatically from conventional catechisms about the “rise of the west.”

For example, the familiar idea that there is a unitary liberal “west” that is defined by the RRE tradition – Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment – is untrue. Renaissance humanism is incompatible with Reformation Protestantism, while Enlightenment rationalism is alien to both. The fact that these three traditions have coexisted in Britain, the US and other countries does not mean that they are three phases of the same tradition.

Another version of the “rise of the west” story, more sympathetic to Catholicism than the RRE approach, holds that the “west” is a synthesis of the “Greco-Roman” and “Judaeo-Christian” traditions. In fact, the “Judaeo-Christian” tradition has little to do with the tolerant, individualist, commercial society.

Consider the claim that Christianity is responsible for the liberal ideal of political equality. In reality, early-modern liberal republican theorists derived this from Cicero and the Stoics. Christians and Muslims believe in the equality of believers before God, a conception which was not interpreted until recently to mandate equality. Indeed, Paul admonished slaves to return to their spiritually-equal masters. The Christian churches only turned against chattel slavery after secular philosophers like David Hume had begun denouncing it. Southern Protestants in the US defended slavery throughout the civil war, and the Catholic church defended it until it was abolished decades later in Catholic Cuba and Brazil.

Popular sovereignty, republicanism, democracy, the rule of law rather than the rule of men, the idea of a natural law transcending the conventional law of nations – these, too, are part of a pre-Christian, Greco-Roman heritage familiar to educated Europeans and westerners from the Renaissance until the 19th century. Credit for these concepts can no more be given to Moses and Jesus than to Muhammad.

But didn’t Protestantism produce capitalism? The intellectual historians who vulgarise Max Weber’s nuanced discussion of the affinities between Protestantism and capitalism into a cause-and-effect relationship are easily refuted. Commercial capitalism, in a remarkably familiar form, evolved in Catholic Europe, particularly in northern Italy, for half a millennium, between the 1100s and the 1500s. Only the political repression of Italy by counter-Reformation Spain gave the lead to northwestern Europe – and there capitalism and industry burgeoned in pluralist Holland and in Britain after the invasion of “Dutch William” in 1689. It did not happen in Puritan societies like Calvin’s Geneva or Cromwell’s England or the Scotland tyrannised by the kirk. In the US, the centre of capitalism has been not Puritan New England or the Southern Bible Belt, but polyglot, secular, permissive Manhattan – formerly known as New Amsterdam.

What about natural science? Christian apologists nowadays claim that Christianity cleared the way for natural science by demythologising the world. This would come as news to Pope John Paul II, who in September 2000 performed a 30-minute exorcism on a 19-year-old woman who began shouting at him during a public audience. Evangelical Protestants, as well as Catholics, believe in demons and engage in exorcism. The conservative Protestant JF Cogan says that the growth in the human population, relative to the fixed number of fallen angels, means that some overworked demons are forced to commute among a number of possessed individuals at “the speed of electricity.” Even more innovative is the Rev Jim Peasboro of Savannah, Georgia, who in his book The Devil in the Machine: Is Your Computer Possessed by a Demon? explains that “any PC built after 1985 has the storage capacity to house an evil spirit.” All this is justified by reference to Jesus whose many successful exorcisms are recounted in the New Testament.

Modern natural science was built in the last several centuries on the surviving foundations of ancient Hellenic science – the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, and the heliocentric theory of Aristarchus (310-230 BC). Like Muslims, Christians repeatedly have tried to repress science when it threatened their dogmas, from the days of Galileo until the present, with Protestant fundamentalists in the US still waging a campaign to ban discussion of Darwinian biology from classrooms or to pair it with Biblical “creation science.” According to Stephen Hawking, who attended a 1981 Vatican conference on cosmology, “the Pope told us that it was fine to study the evolution of the universe after the big bang, but we should not inquire into the big bang itself because that was the work of God.”

[dropzone]

Speaking of Evangelical Protestants and exorcisms, I saw one and the preacher was using the Catholic Latin text. It was funny to hear this guy muttering “Exsurgat Deus et dissipentur inimici ejus: et fugiant qui oderunt eum a facie ejus,” with a Southern accent. Haven’t demons learned English yet?

[Skammer]

Wow, thanks for all the replies. Er, most of you anyway. I was away from my laptop this weekend so I’m glad the topic has generated some discussion.

Regarding my quote of the Nicene Creed – I capitalized the words for emphasis and didn’t mean to imply that “Catholic” meant RC. I am, after all, Anglican, so I can’t really claim to believe that the Roman Catholics are the one true church. However, if the church were perfect, it would be unified, and the Catholic/catholic distinction would be meaningless.

The commentary I’ve read elsewhere has speculated that papal infallibility will be a big hurdle – but, since the pope speaking ex cathedra has been so rare anyway, it might not be insurmountable. And the RC would not be forced to start allowing married clergy - I’m sure they could maintain that discipline if they wish. What were talking about is a recognition of communion and sacramental validity – so the RC would recognize Orthodox clergy and sacraments (including ordinations) and vice versa. Hierarchical structures and rites would probably remain mostly unchanged, although the Pope’s authority would be reduced to “first among equals” - kinda like the Archbishop of Canterbury is recognized in Anglicanism.

Those of you following this thread just to take swipes at Catholics or Christianity - that’s really off-topic. Please take it to the Pit if you want to insult people or their faith.

[Lissla_Lissar]

(Sorry, continuing mild hijack) I think in that case you are paying for the pretty Virgin Mary bottle, not the water. Holy water’s always been free at the churches I’ve been to. There’s a nice big samovar-type contraption at the back of our church. We fill a bottle for our home holy water font from that.

As far as I know, the Eastern Rite Catholic priests are allowed to marry. I don’t see that the possible reunion would have any effect on either’s rules regarding marriage. It’s a Roman discipline- it’s not universal in the Church.

[Askance]

@Skammer

The story goes on to say that Benedict has called a meeting of cardinals from all over the world in Rome next week to discuss the document, which among other things suggests a new ecumenical council of Catholic and Orthodox bishops to attempt to formally end the Great Schism of 1054.

It didn’t go so well last time: they had an anti-pope for ten years, the “real” pope fled Rome hidden in a rowing boat, the RCs took blatant advantage of the weakness of the Byzantine Empire (by then basically just Constantinople) to force the Orthodox side into concessions they didn’t actually believe nor could sell back home by promising to save them from the Ottomans, and 14 years later Constantinople fell anyway.

To the best of my knowledge the RC still regard this agreement as operative and the East never did, so lotsa luck working it out this time!