Prohibition of SLAVERY
QisQos
Subject: Juan's Brave New World This is the only article in this
thread
View: Original FormatNewsgroups: talk.religion.bahai,
alt.religion.bahai
Date: 1999/02/15
In article <7a5s4c$q1c$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
jrc...@umich.edu wrote:
<SNIP>
Cole:
> The authors of the Declaration of the Rights of Man in France also abolished
> slavery, by the way.
Dear Bahaist people:
The myth that Bahaullah's revelation somehow was responsible for he
abolition of slavery points up the very sad lack of historical depth
among the bahaist believers. Mr. Juan Cole's responses likewise betray
his own ignorance of the historical facts.
Far from being an event of the 19th century English speaking world,
the abolition of enslavement as a human endeavor by an institution
with the authority and power to make it binding was initiated by The
Vatican.
(Note: while the practice was condemned, the fact that disobedient
Catholics still engaged in slave trade for a time does not negate the
fact that they, not the Church, continued this practice.)
"IN SUPREMO APOSTOLIS" read to the Provincial Council of Baltimore
in 1839 Pope Gregory XVI puts the Catholic faithful in the United
States on notice that slavery is a prohibited act of the Church and
had been since the 16th century.
The Pope stated:
"Placed at the summit of the Apostolic power and, although lacking in
merits, holding the place of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who, being
made Man through utmost Charity, deigned to die for the Redemption of
the World, We have judged that it belonged to Our pastoral solicitude
to exert Ourselves to turn away the Faithful from the inhuman slave
trade in Negroes and all other men. Assuredly, since there was spread
abroad, first of all amongst the Christians, the light of the Gospel,
these miserable people, who in such great numbers, and chiefly through
the effects of wars, fell into very cruel slavery, experienced an
alleviation of their lot. "
The Magisterial See also explains the Pauline epistles so as to
contextualize their meaning; that is to say Paul wrote NOT as an
advocacy of slavery but as an exhortation to treat those slaves
already in possession by a Christian with justice and to withdraw from
the practice altogether:
"Inspired in fact by the Divine Spirit, the Apostles, it is true,
exhorted the slaves themselves to obey their masters, according to the
flesh, as though obeying Christ, and sincerely to accomplish the Will
of God; but they ordered the masters to act well towards slaves, to
give them what was just and equitable, and to abstain from menaces,
knowing that the common Master both of themselves and of the slaves is
in Heaven, and that with Him there is no distinction of persons."
The Pope continues:
"But as the law of the Gospel universally and earnestly enjoined a
sincere charity towards all, and considering that Our Lord Jesus
Christ had declared that He considered as done or refused to Himself
everything kind and merciful done or refused to the small and needy,
it naturally follows, not only that Christians should regard as their
brothers their slaves and, above all, their Christian slaves, but that
they should be more inclined to set free those who merited it; which
it was the custom to do chiefly upon the occasion of the Easter Feast
as Gregory of Nyssa tells us. There were not lacking Christians, who,
moved by an ardent charity 'cast themselves into bondage in order to
redeem others,' many instances of which our predecessor, Clement I, of
very holy memory, declares to have come to his knowledge. In the
process of time, the fog of pagan superstition being more completely
dissipated and the manners of barbarous people having been softened,
thanks to Faith operating by Charity, it at last comes about that,
since several centuries, there are no more slaves in the greater
number of Christian nations. But邑e say with profound sorrow葉here
were to be found afterwards among the Faithful men who, shamefully
blinded by the desire of sordid gain, in lonely and distant countries,
did not hesitate to reduce to slavery Indians, Negroes and other
wretched peoples, or else, by instituting or developing the trade in
those who had been made slaves by others, to favour their unworthy
practice. Certainly many Roman Pontiffs of glorious memory, Our
Predecessors, did not fail, according to the duties of their charge,
to blame severely this way of acting as dangerous for the spiritual
welfare of those engaged in the traffic and a shame to the Christian
name; they foresaw that as a result of this, the infidel peoples would
be more and more strengthened in their hatred of the true Religion."
Pope Gregory XVI then cites Papal decress which prohibited slavery
going back to the 16th century:
"It is at these practices that are aimed the Letter Apostolic of Paul
III, given on May 29, 1537, under the seal of the Fisherman, and
addressed to the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, and afterwards another
Letter, more detailed, addressed by Urban VIII on April 22, 1639 to
the Collector Jurium of the Apostolic Chamber of Portugal. In the
latter are severely and particularly condemned those who should dare
'to reduce to slavery the Indians of the Eastern and Southern Indies,'
to sell them, buy them, exchange them or give them, separate them from
their wives and children, despoil them of their goods and properties,
conduct or transport them into other regions, or deprive them of
liberty in any way whatsoever, retain them in servitude, or lend
counsel, succour, favour and co-operation to those so acting, under no
matter what pretext or excuse, or who proclaim and teach that this way
of acting is allowable and co-operate in any manner whatever in the
practices indicated.
"
So as we can see the Vatican has centuries of struggle against
secular and commercial powers and advocated the RIGHTS of the peoples
of Africa, the Americas and Asia, and condemned the slave trade.
No such protections were issued by any among the Protestant Chyrches
and it is known that the world of protestants was the most
recalcitrant in perpetuating the trade in slaves: Dutch and British
being the most obstinate owing to the Calvinist view of predestination
which gave these peoples the arrogance to presume the colored races
were of less merit than their own.
But note: the apostolic letter is addressed to a diocese in the heart
of slaving country and the Catholics in Maryland - a slave state- are
told under no circumstances that slavery is permitted for the
Catholic, nor could any Catholic even argue for its defense in the
social and political spheres.
"We reprove, then, by virtue of Our Apostolic Authority, all the
practices above-mentioned as absolutely unworthy of the Christian
name. By the same Authority We prohibit and strictly forbid any
Ecclesiastic or lay person from presuming to defend as permissible
this traffic in Blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse, or from
publishing or teaching in any manner whatsoever, in public or
privately, opinions contrary to what We have set forth in this
Apostolic Letter. "
Furthemore Blacks as well as American Indians and others are
specifically mentioned as protected by the Papal decress, and efforts
had been directed to the Portuguese in Brazil to cease and desist from
slave trading as well:
"Benedict XIV confirmed and renewed the penalties of the Popes above
mentioned in a new Apostolic Letter addressed on December 20, 1741, to
the Bishops of Brazil and some other regions, in which he stimulated,
to the same end, the solicitude of the Governors themselves. Another
of Our Predecessors, anterior to Benedict XIV, Pius II, as during his
life the power of the Portuguese was extending itself over New Guinea,
sent on October 7, 1462, to a Bishop who was leaving for that country,
a Letter in which he not only gives the Bishop himself the means of
exercising there the sacred ministry with more fruit, but on the same
occasion, addresses grave warnings with regard to Christians who
should reduce neophytes to slavery."
Pope Gregory XVI continues:
"In our time Pius VII, moved by the same religious and charitable
spirit as his Predecessors, intervened zealously with those in
possession of power to secure that the slave trade should at least
cease amongst the Christians. The penalties imposed and the care given
by Our Predecessors contributed in no small measure, with the help of
God, to protect the Indians and the other people mentioned against the
cruelty of the invaders or the cupidity of Christian merchants,
without however carrying success to such a point that the Holy See
could rejoice over the complete success of its efforts in this
direction; for the slave trade, although it has diminished in more
than one district, is still practiced by numerous Christians. This is
why, desiring to remove such a shame from all the Christian nations,
having fully reflected over the whole question and having taken the
advice of many of Our Venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the Holy
Roman Church, and walking in the footsteps of Our Predecessors, We
warn and adjure earnestly in the Lord faithful Christians of every
condition that no one in the future dare to vex anyone, despoil him of
his possessions, reduce to servitude, or lend aid and favour to those
who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman
traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not men but rather
animals, having been brought into servitude, in no matter what way,
are, without any distinction, in contempt of the rights of justice and
humanity, bought, sold, and devoted sometimes to the hardest labour.
Further, in the hope of gain, propositions of purchase being made to
the first owners of the Blacks, dissensions and almost perpetual
conflicts are aroused in these regions."
The papal letter may be read in its entirety at:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/G16SUP.HTM
It is evident that the so-called revelation of Bahullah abolishing the
"institution" of slavery was quite late on the scene. The efforts of
the Papal See to abolish the practice of slavery had been ongoing
since at least 1537 AD.
However, owing to the Protestant sacred cow of personal scriptural
interpretation and the heresy of "sola scriptura" (scripture only),
and their choice to interpret the Bible to condone slavery, to regard
the dark races as the children of Ham and thus ordained by God to be
slaves, etc. the condemned practice of slavery and slave trade among
the protestants continued well after it was condemned by the Catholic
Church.
Mr. Cole's attribution of the abolition of slavery to the ideals of
the so-called European Enlightenment is erroneous. The abolition of
slavery has as its origins the Papacy, by decree in the 16th century,
and not as the result of any social movement, since the social
movements of the 16th century marked the descent of Europe into the
heresies of Luther and Calvin from whom the practice of slave trading
retained its justification by protestant interpretations of scripture.
In sum, Bahullah had nothing to do with the abolition of slavery, and
Victoria Imperatrix Britannia , being a heretic, cannot credited for
the end of enslavement; for through the enduring obstinacy of the
heretic English throne, slavery continued until late in Victoria's
reign. Furthermore the deist ideals of America's freemasonic founders
afforded no protections against slavery either - Jefferson himself
being notorious for his slaves and black concubine.
Then what of Bab and Bahullah's slaves and mootah mistresses?
QQ
Cal E. Rollins
not mistresses.
Are you saying that the slave-traders and holders who paid no attention
to the Pope's admonishions against slavery were Catholics? Did the Pope
excommunicate them? --Cal
Susan Maneck
If I'm reading the documents your posted correctly it appears that the only
form of slavery which the papacy prohibited in the 16th century was the
enslavement of Native Americans. As you surely are aware this was because
Native Americans were technically subjects of the Spanish throne under canon
law. Bartholome De Las Casas, the great champion of Native American rights, had
argued that those Native Americans then enslaved by the Conquistadores should
be replaced by African slaves!
As far as the 19th century documents which you cite, while they certainly do
criticize slavery they don't absolutely prohibit it. Only the trafficking in
slaves is being prohibited, which is not precisely the same thing.
When Baha'is say they are first religion to prohibit slavery we are largely
referring to prohibitions contained in the sacred scriptures themselves. And as
the documentation you posted itself points out, the Bible did not explicitly
prohibit the practice, and neither did the Qur'an.
But obviously one could find religous organizations, such as the Quakers, who
actively sought to eliminate it long before the Baha'i Faith was born.
warmest, Susan
Cal E. Rollins
either. As you point out, trafficking in slaves is not the same as
ownership, and, apparently, Baha'u'llah only forbade trafficking in them
in the Aqdas. --Cal
Adelard Rubangura
"Cal E. Rollins" <crol...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:27475-3E5...@storefull-2332.public.lawson.webtv.net...
Baha'u'llah has forbidden the ownership of slaves too in Kitab'i'Aqdas.
When he says below that *Let no man exalt himself above another* or * all
are but bondslaves before the Lord* that would of course mean that none can
be a slave of anyone, but the Lord.
Kitab'i'Aqdas Page 45
"It is forbidden you to trade in slaves, be they men or women. It is not for
him who is himself a servant to buy another of God's servants, and this hath
been prohibited in His Holy Tablet. Thus, by His mercy, hath the commandment
been recorded by the Pen of justice.
*Let no man exalt himself above another* ; *all are but bondslaves before
the Lord*, and all exemplify the truth that there is none other God but
Him. He, verily, is the All-Wise, Whose wisdom encompasseth all things."
God Bless
Adelard
Adelard Rubangura
the Qu'ran doesn't forbid the "Institution of Slavery". But of course, as a
Baha'i, I believe religion is progressive, otherwise it could not make
since.
Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and
trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ . . . (Ephesians 6:5)
Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a
Master in heaven. (Colossians 4:1)
God Bless
Adelard
"QisQos" <Qis...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:29a4262b.0302...@posting.google.com...
> number of Christian nations. But-We say with profound sorrow-there
Cal E. Rollins
the effect that Baha'u'llah forbade ownership of slaves. I don't agree
with your interpretation based solely on the information I have received
from scholars that He owned slaves after He had forbade trafficking in
them. Of course, I've never seen anything from the House of Justice on
this or even published in works by Baha'i scholars. Have you?
Plus, we exalt ourselves over other Baha'is all the time. We create
folk like Hands of the Cause, Counsellors, Board Members, the Learned
exalting them above all us peons. Right. So those words you quote from
the Aqdas don't seem to fit the actualities. --Cal
Adelard Rubangura
> Adelard, perhaps you're correct but I've never seen an interpretation to
> the effect that Baha'u'llah forbade ownership of slaves. I don't agree
> with your interpretation based solely on the information I have received
> from scholars that He owned slaves after He had forbade trafficking in
> them.
If you have any info. please show us? What if they were just Servants, but
not Slaves? I believe you would prefer to believe they were just Slaves.
Right?
> Of course, I've never seen anything from the House of Justice on
> this or even published in works by Baha'i scholars. Have you?
> Plus, we exalt ourselves over other Baha'is all the time. We create
> folk like Hands of the Cause, Counsellors, Board Members, the Learned
> exalting them above all us peons. Right. So those words you quote from
> the Aqdas don't seem to fit the actualities. --Cal
Out of Context !?!?
God Bless.
Adelard
Pat Kohli
QisQos wrote:
> Search Result 40From: dar...@my-dejanews.com (dar...@my-dejanews.com)
> Subject: Juan's Brave New World This is the only article in this
> thread
> View: Original FormatNewsgroups: talk.religion.bahai,
> alt.religion.bahai
> Date: 1999/02/15
>
> In article <7a5s4c$q1c$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
> jrc...@umich.edu wrote:
>
> <SNIP>
>
> Cole:
> > The authors of the Declaration of the Rights of Man in France also abolished
> > slavery, by the way.
>
> Dear Bahaist people:
>
> The myth that Bahaullah's revelation somehow was responsible for he
> abolition of slavery points up the very sad lack of historical depth
> among the bahaist believers. Mr. Juan Cole's responses likewise betray
> his own ignorance of the historical facts.
>
> Far from being an event of the 19th century English speaking world,
> the abolition of enslavement as a human endeavor by an institution
> with the authority and power to make it binding was initiated by The
> Vatican.
(snip)
Maybe your Inquisitorial pals did some serious slaving?
The Church, particularly in South America, supported the
enslavement of native inhabitants and the theft of native lands.
A 1493 papal Bull justified declaring war on any natives in South
America who refused to adhere to Christianity. As the jurist
Encisco claimed in 1509:
The king has every right to send his men to the Indies to
demand their territory from these idolaters because he had
received it from the pope. If the Indians refuse, he may
quite legally fight them, kill them, and enslave them, just as
Joshua enslaved the inhabitants of the country of Canaan.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/ellerbe0.htm
... At Andarax, for example, the principal mosque, in which
the women and children had taken refuge, was blown up with
gun-powder. At Belfique all the men were put to the sword
and the women were taken as slaves. All children under the age of
eleven years were spared, but were separated from their parents
and handed over to the Church to be brought up as Catholics. The
survivors were always forcibly baptized, thus preparing them for
further persecution from the Spanish Inquisition at a later date,
and all books in Arabic, especially the Qur'an, were collected to
be burnt.
http://cyberistan.org/islamic/beyond1492.html
After sailing through the islands, visiting and trading with natives
who had not fled, the ships came to another island on November
11. There a canoe with six “youths” in it approached the ship,
and five came aboard. Columbus captured them. Then he sent his
men ashore, where they captured seven women and three children.
Columbus was modifying a standard Portuguese practice used
in Africa, one he said he used many times when he was a slave
runner: capturing the natives, taking them back to Europe, teaching
them his language, and bringing them back as interpreters. It had
not worked well with Africans, because the natives were not
happy with their treatment, but Columbus felt that if he abducted
entire families, he might have better luck. That evening, with his
slave stock replenished, Columbus was delighted when a man
came to the ship and asked to come aboard, as among the new
captives were his wife and three children. Columbus gladly
allowed the man to become enslaved with his family.
http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/columbus.htm#first
They ultimately impoverished the societies that had them,
as the net result was wasting the effort of one segment of the
population (the miners, refiners, etc) so they could steal from the other.
The only way Spaniards were able to avoid an even worse economic
collapse was enslaving natives to do the work. They first stole the
results of millennia of native effort in creating their gold artifacts.
The Spaniards melted that all down, destroying all the artistic
value. Then they enslaved the natives as millions of them died
in the mining operations. If the Spaniards had to dig the gold, the
16th century gold rush would not have happened. Millions of
natives paid with their lives so Spain could leech off its neighbors for
a brief time.
http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/war.htm#colonialism
There was no option bestowed upon the Moriscos and few
Mudéjares. Except defeat, slavery, and utmost unforseable death
if captured. Thus the men fought though outnumbered valiantly,
but at the end of the battle of Galera, the might and superiority of
men by the army of Don Juan of Austria, prevailed his men to
victory, there laying on the ground was the stench of odor of
thousands of brave Mudéjares and Moriscos, who died as men in
battle as Muley ibn Humeya their once great leader, had
professed in Cádiar. There after the battle of Galera had abated,
huddled together in a square in Galera nearby, were 10,000
Moors, Mudéjares and Moriscos, women, elderly men, and
children who once cultivated the lands of Granada, there in
Galera, Alpujarras and others within the area with pomegranates,
oranges, lemons and many agricultural wonders to the Christian
Kingdoms of ere oddly enough, would find themselves scattered
in blood their own blood within these very things that they
cultivated, as they were massacred, as they cried out for mercy
and leniency!
"Do not spare a living soul in Galera, because we have suffered
more losses, than their's is deserving. Thus, how are we to
dishonor our fallen men; for we have done no wrong in killing
heretics and infidels. This is God's work, which has been
accomplished!" Exclaimed Don Juan of Austria. For this Don
Juan was hailed by the pope, as the champion of Christendom!
Thus the exodus of the Moriscos from Granada befell, exiled to
either Northern Africa or the Middle East. The Mudéjares of
Castilla and León, were as well many who had participated in the
revolt, casted to the Americas primarily, and to the Balearic
Islands, Ibizza and to Extremadura. It was called, "La marcha de
la muerte!" in Spanish. "The march to death!" Soon the Moriscos
of Valencia, in 1609 would be expelled as well from Aragón.
There afterwards the Moriscos and several thousand Mudéjares,
were expelled from Catalunia, Murcia, Val de Piconte. Records
say that upto 3,000,000 Moriscos and Mudéjares were expelled
from Spain itself! In 1769, the last reported case of the (auto de
fé)was reported in which, a Morisco was imprisoned for saying
the adhaan!" Thus was the last Moorish victim of the Spanish
Inquisition reported.
Oddly enough the very same man Don Juan of Austria, who
slaughtered and massacred the elderly men, women and children
of Galera, wrote soon then after the battle of Galera, to Rúy
Gomez that from the many of the Moriscos, and several
Mudéjare's families who had been deported from the district of
Guadix, "Oh how pitiful this burden is upon me, to see a human
bear the suffrage of being desbar from their land, like worthless
cattle!" Not only was Spain depraved of a culture that gave so
much to it, but more importantly a people, who gave so much as
well but yet, would be erased completely in what to many was
considered not only ethnic cleansing but as well, an ethnic
holocaust!
http://www.angelfire.com/darkside/franco/Galera.html
Cal E. Rollins
issue of slavery in the Faith. I've never seen any official statement
from the Research Department except to barely acknowledge Mubarak and
the other four slaves mentioned in _Black Pearls_. Maybe some of the
scholars who claim knowledge will at some point come out with a book or
something. But I doubt it, since they will not get accolades and
probably won't pass review. I guess I could post some of my interviews
with identities carefully edited, but I suspect Susan would either
purloin them for her own book on slavery or start a campaign of
identification and torture of the scholars. Then, of course, she'll
blame me for revealing my sources. --Cal
Cal E. Rollins
abolished. As long as we have people on the top and people on the
bottom. Wasn't Baha'u'llah's shame about boys about just that:
Domination of masters over their slave boys? I don't speak Arabic or
Persian but I've heard from tons of scholars who do and say that.
Domination will take eons and eons to eradicate, in my opinion. --Cal
Cal E. Rollins
sparke303
deprive laborers of their wages.
--
Brian G. Engleman
"Adelard Rubangura" <Adelard_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:b2ubnj$1fvqki$3...@ID-75457.news.dfncis.de...
Adelard Rubangura
> Adelard. Out of context? No. They don't fit the actualities. --Cal
>
So, why don't you bring the actualities here if you want to convince anyone
here?
God Bless
Adelard
Cal E. Rollins
stake in slavery and don't want to be convinced of anything having to do
with the subject because it makes us uncomfortable and in a bad light.
The few I've met who are convinced are trying to develop some kind of
response that's compatible with our logic, emotions, critics, and our
plain common sense.
But to give you the benefit of the doubt, what of my interviews on the
subject would you like to see? What specific question do you have and I
will respond if one of the scholars has touched on the question? --Cal
Cal E. Rollins
Slaves just get bought. We in the Faith confuse slaves and servants and
don't know the difference, I guess. The Arabic word (or is it Persian),
'Abd-, used to mean slave. Now our Faith has evolved it into servant,
and all the slaves in the Faith's yesterdays are hired hands (servants),
no doubt paid quite handsomely for their work. Proving this one lovely
white Baha'i in Canada thought he had me painted into the corner of my
intransigience when he asked: "Well, wouldn't you have wanted to be a
slave of Baha'u'llah?" I threw back at him: "Would you have?"
Brian, what do you think my Canadian friend replied? --Cal
QisQos
I read your post but there appears to be some difficulty in your mind
about the documentation as well as confusion between the powers of the
Church, the Crown, and the laity.
First. You provide a reference to a Papal Bull, yet you cite some
document which was not written by the Papacy.
Second: you have confused the Inquisition with the Reconquista with
the establishment of the Spanish Crown over the Americas.
The Reconquista arose in Spain in response to continued jihad from the
Mahometan invaders. Contrary to popular belief, Moorish Spain was not
the paradise of tolerance later authors (mostly jewish) have
described. Under the Omeyad reign thousands of Catholics were
enslaved, their lands seized and those whose lands were not seized
were placed under heavy taxation. Catholics of the north were
routinely kidnapped and sold into slavery by the Mahometans. Things
were even worse under the rule of the Almoavides and Almohads, who
were mahometan fundamentalists not unlike the Al Quaeda of today.
"In reality, Muslim Spain was a country of constant jihad ruled under
Maliki jurisdiction, which offered one of the most severe, repressive
interpretations of Islamic law. Muslim Spain was populated by tens of
thousands of Christian slaves, and humiliated and oppressed Christian
dhimmis, in addition to a small minority of privileged Christian
notables. The muwallads (neo-converts to Islam) were in nearly
perpetual revolt against the Arab immigrants who had claimed large
estates for themselves, farmed by Christian serfs or slaves.
Expropriations and fiscal extortions ignited the flames of continual
rebellion by both muwallads and mozarabs (Christian dhimmis)
throughout the Iberian peninsula. Leaders of these rebellions were
crucified, and their insurgent followers were put to the sword. These
bloody conflicts, which occurred throughout the Hispano-Umayyad
emirate until the tenth century, fueled endemic religious hatred. An
828 letter from Louis the Pious to the Christians of Merida summarized
their plight under Abd al-Rahman II, and during the preceeding reign:
confiscation of their property, unfair increase of their exacted
tribute, removal of their freedom (probably meaning slavery), and
oppression by excessive taxes."
http://www.dhimmitude.org/archive/bostom_ltr_nro_25jul02.html
The Inquisition; so many like your self are woefully ignorant of the
facts; took place after the infiltration of the aristocracy and the
ecclesiastical hierarchy in Castile and Aragon by jews who had
converted to Catholicism under pretext in the wake of the Reconquista.
In secret these jewish converts practiced jewish customs and in
concert with their unconverted breteren sought to subvert the State
and the Church to their ends.
Especially in the Church there were priests and bishops who were
secretly judaized, who did not have the intent of the Church and thus
administered invalid sacraments. This to you as a bahaist may be a
small matter but to a Catholic it is a very grave matter.
"In the earlier periods of the Inquisition, moreover, when the
hierarchy was filled with New Christians of doubtful orthodoxy, it was
essential to know that the sacraments necessary to salvation were not
vitiated by the apostasy of the ministrant, for his intention is
indispensable to their validity. No man could tell how many priests
there were like Andrés González, parish priest of San Martin de
Talavera, who, on his trial at Toledo, in 1486, confessed that for
fourteen years he had secretly been a Jew, that he had no intention
when he celebrated mass, nor had he granted absolution to the
penitents confessing to him. There was also a classical story, widely
circulated, of Fray García de Zapata, prior of the Geronimite
monastery of Toledo, who, when elevating the Host, used to say "Get
up, little Peter, and let the people look at you" and who always
turned his back on the penitent to whom he pretended to grant
absolution. (2) "
http://libro.uca.edu/lea2/3lea1.htm
These acts place the soul of the believer in grave peril and threatens
the social order. It is not a mere matter of personal conscience, it
was the subversion of the sacramental office of the priest by these
judaizing elements and their sacreligious adminstration of their
offices that was the matter of extreme importance to Catholic Castile
at the time.
In other words they were infiltrators seeking to overcome the Throne
and destroy the Church from within - they call that "treason" in
modern language.
Not satisfied with administering invalid sacraments, the
pseudo-converts acquired positions of political power in the
reCatholicised Castile, and placed heavy taxation on the people of
Castile - the old Catholic families - and loaned money to these
families in distress under exorbitant amounts of usury. In 1391 the
people of Toledo rioted against the jewish converts who were taxing
the old catholics to death as well as extorting jewish converts to
apostatize the Church through fiscal instruments of usury. The problem
got so bad, the Throne eventually passed a law forbidding those of
mixed jewish blood from holding titles of nobility, or entering the
acclesiastical hierachy of the Church. The edict of Limpieza de sangre
was condemned by the Pope, BTW .
However, the continued sedition against the throne brought about the
request for the Inquisition by the Throne of Castile - the King
requested it of Pope Sixtus IV in 1478. This was not done at the
behest of the Church.
The Inquisition was by and large an inquiry into the beliefs of the
converted jews - non-Catholic Jews were not subject to its authority
(c0ntrary to the propaganda spead by contemporary jewish historical
revisionists). For the most part those brough to the tribunal were
asked regarding the thoroughness of their Catholic beliefs, if they
continued to hold jewish beliefs or practices, they were then
instructed in the proper Catholic canons, admonished not to revert to
judaizing, made a profession of Faith and released.
Only those converts who actively expressed hatred for the Church or
refused to renounce their former practice of jewry were punished.
However, these were convicted of heresy and handed over to the Crown,
which administered the punishment. Heresy was punishable under the
laws of the State. The Church did not administer the penalty (another
common misconception). But Torquemada also condemned prosecution under
the Inquisition for the fact of merely being jewish - the errors in
true belief were being examined, not one's ancestry or ethnicity, so
the Inquisition can hardly be called anti-semitic.
Unbaptized jews and muslims did not fall under the jurisdiction of the
Inquisition and were more properly under the governance of the Crown
(and as such had no protection that the Church could afford). As I
have stated the Pope condemned the secular edict of limpieza de sangre
(blood purity), so the Crown and Church did not always see eye to eye.
A little known fact is that Torquemada himself was a converted jew ,
and many of the most zealous in the Inquisition were likewise
converted jews who wanted to rid their numbers of seditiousness and
treason.
By and large the Inquisition was not the ordeal that modern
anti-catholic historians have made it out to be. Compared to the witch
burnings in the Lutheran and Calvinist states to the North, it was far
more orderly and just. In contrast, accusation of witchery in a
Protestant dominion of the time was an automatic death sentence - the
trials were a sham and no one could hope for justice in a protestant
trial, which BTW was administered by the protestant "church" which
also administered the punishment.
Finally, the expulsion of the non-Catholic jews in 1492 took place
after numerous attempts by the Catholic Throne to maintain the peace
in Spain. Repeated requests had been made of the jews to cease from
trying to infiltrate their agendas among the converted, the expulsion
was a last resort after numerous attempts to work out a solution. The
edict of expulsion is available on-line:
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/decree.html
Now, many bahaists and liberals cry about "freedom of conscience" and
FORGET that this sacred cow of modernism was not invented until the
time of the so-called "Enlightenment" some centuries later. So Spain,
having had its Christian lands liberated by the Reconquista was now a
Catholic dominion, and the Throne was initially tolerant of jewish and
mahometan inhabitants. The jews being the first to actively attempt to
subvert the Throne and the Church were given many opportunities to
live peacefully in the land and failed to comply with the Sovereign
authority of the Crown and were expelled for being treasonous and
seditious.
Those ar e the historical facts - not the revised view the modern
historical revisionists would have us believe about the jews being
victims. In fact when in power in Spain they were oppressors, not
unlike their descendants in Palestine today.
Now, you can be as sarcastic and cynical as you wish, but the
suppressed historical facts of the Inquisition, the Reconquista and
the Expulsion are coming to light and it is not entirely impossible
to accept the Catholic argument.
Regarding slavery, again, you are confusing the authority of the
Church with the behavior of people who are not in authority in the
Church. You confuse the Crown with the Church. You confuse the layman
with the priest with the Crown with the Church. You confuse so many
things your points are not coherent.
You also fail to appreciate the historical struggle of the Church
against the mahometan invaders in Spain and the suffering endured
under the enslavement and oppression by the Mahometans. You are also
confusing the phenomenon of slavery with the phenomenon of warfare and
the phenomenon of the Inquisition - it is very hard to have a
meaningful discussion when you don't focus on the topic. This is not
unusual for a bahaist, since they for the most part have extremely
limited and stereotyped understandings of other religions, especially
of Catholicism.
You uncritically accept the propaganda of The Black Legend of the
Inquisition - why not pull out the jewish blood libels and other
things as well? It seems politically correct to rubbish the Catholic
Church using any instrument of lies and propaganda whereas it is
"anti-semitic" and "intolerant" to write the truth of what happened
based on sound, non-polemical materials and state the facts as they
are about the Inquisition - not the fairy tales spun by historical
revisionists that you provided.
QQ
Seegar
Rollins) wrote:
> Most Baha'is have a
>stake in slavery and don't want to be convinced of anything having to do
>with the subject because it makes us uncomfortable and in a bad light.
Let the chips fall where they may lie. The truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth.
Peace,
Chris
Brian Walker
Cal,
two things.
1. You are responding as if I were involved in the thread. I am not.
This suggests that you fail to read facts - this does not surprise me,
it seems to be your MO
2. Slavery may be the big issue for you, and you are welcome to it. For
the real world - the rest of us - it is a footnote, and a boring one at that
Brian
Pat Kohli
Brian Walker wrote:
I think he is responding to that other Brian, who might be of a different faith,
where Arabic and Persian etymology is much less significant. I don't know why
he brings up the Arabic, though.
Pat Kohli
sparke303 wrote:
> How about Malachi 3:5? -- I will be quick to testify against those who
> deprive laborers of their wages.
>
Hi Brian,
I had the impression that the point of slavery was to get someone to work
without paying them, that is, Biblically, slavery is distinct from wage labor.
- Pat
kohli at ameritel.net
>
> Brian G. Engleman
>
> "Adelard Rubangura" <Adelard_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:b2ubnj$1fvqki$3...@ID-75457.news.dfncis.de...
> > Here are the few verses of the Bible relating to Slavery. The Bible or
> even
> > the Qu'ran doesn't forbid the "Institution of Slavery". But of course, as
> a
> > Baha'i, I believe religion is progressive, otherwise it could not make
> > since.
> >
> > Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and
> > trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ . . . (Ephesians 6:5)
> >
> > Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a
> > Master in heaven. (Colossians 4:1)
> >
> > God Bless
> > Adelard
(long snip)
Brian Walker
>
> I think he is responding to that other Brian, who might be of a different faith,
> where Arabic and Persian etymology is much less significant. I don't know why
> he brings up the Arabic, though.
Ah! You are right Pat!
Cal, I apologize for having cast unjustifiable aspersions
The other Brian
Paul Hammond
> Pat Kohli <kohliCUT...@ameritel.net> wrote in message news:<3E52F40D...@ameritel.net>...
>
> I read your post but there appears to be some difficulty in your mind
> about the documentation as well as confusion between the powers of the
> Church, the Crown, and the laity.
>
> First. You provide a reference to a Papal Bull, yet you cite some
> document which was not written by the Papacy.
>
> Second: you have confused the Inquisition with the Reconquista with
> the establishment of the Spanish Crown over the Americas.
>
> The Reconquista arose in Spain in response to continued jihad from the
> Mahometan invaders. Contrary to popular belief, Moorish Spain was not
> the paradise of tolerance later authors (mostly jewish) have
> described.
Yeah, it was. btw - to truly understand the contrast between
early medieval Christianity, and the savagery of its conquests,
and Islam, and the relatively civilised manner of its conduct
in wartime, one has only to consider the history of
the Crusades. The First one started as a pretty low
point, and it was all downhill from there, as petty Christian
kings preferred their own material advantage over any
aim to actually control Christian places in the Holy Land.
Under the Omeyad reign thousands of Catholics were
> enslaved, their lands seized and those whose lands were not seized
> were placed under heavy taxation. Catholics of the north were
> routinely kidnapped and sold into slavery by the Mahometans. Things
> were even worse under the rule of the Almoavides and Almohads, who
> were mahometan fundamentalists not unlike the Al Quaeda of today.
>
There is absolutely no comparison between the islamic
regime in Andalusia, and a bunch of stateless terrorists
who stop at nothing to destroy innocent lives. Islam has
always had rules that protect the lives and livelihoods
of the "people of the book", Christians and Jews, and
its medieval record is admirable, compared to the
savagery common in Christendom. While Jews and Christians
were living peacefully in muslim lands, the Jews were
being expelled, persecuted and killed in many Christian
kingdoms.
>
> The Inquisition; so many like your self are woefully ignorant of the
> facts; took place after the infiltration of the aristocracy and the
> ecclesiastical hierarchy in Castile and Aragon by jews who had
> converted to Catholicism under pretext in the wake of the Reconquista.
> In secret these jewish converts practiced jewish customs and in
> concert with their unconverted breteren sought to subvert the State
> and the Church to their ends.
>
Ah, right. When the Catholics did anything wrong, it was the
Jews fault. When people write nice things about Muslims
Spain, that is the Jews fault too.
> Especially in the Church there were priests and bishops who were
> secretly judaized, who did not have the intent of the Church and thus
> administered invalid sacraments. This to you as a bahaist may be a
> small matter but to a Catholic it is a very grave matter.
>
"Baha'i" please. you've been told about this.
Tell me, why were there secret Jews within the church?
Could it possibly be because the alternatives of not
converting were so horrible, that deception was the best
course?
Even from your own biased evidence, it is clear that people
could openly live as Christians or Jews in Muslim Spain -
why could not Jews do the same in Catholic Spain??
> "In the earlier periods of the Inquisition, moreover, when the
> hierarchy was filled with New Christians of doubtful orthodoxy,
forced conversions of the Jews - Muslim's are not allowed by
the Quran to forcibly convert people. i don't think Jesus
approves of it either - but the Inquisition thought it just
peachy - that, and witch-burning, which was, of course, only
done with the welfare of the witch's soul in mind.
it was
> essential to know that the sacraments necessary to salvation were not
> vitiated by the apostasy of the ministrant, for his intention is
> indispensable to their validity. No man could tell how many priests
> there were like Andrés González, parish priest of San Martin de
> Talavera, who, on his trial at Toledo, in 1486, confessed that for
> fourteen years he had secretly been a Jew, that he had no intention
> when he celebrated mass, nor had he granted absolution to the
> penitents confessing to him.
How terrible that the Jews were forced to such desperate measures
because the Catholics would otherwise persecute them!
There was also a classical story, widely
> circulated, of Fray García de Zapata, prior of the Geronimite
> monastery of Toledo, who, when elevating the Host, used to say "Get
> up, little Peter, and let the people look at you" and who always
> turned his back on the penitent to whom he pretended to grant
> absolution. (2) "
>
Shocking! Why couldn't these forced converts have more
respect for the dictatorial regime that had oppressed them
their whole lives?
Ah! So this is where they forced them to swallow ham sandwiches!
> Only those converts who actively expressed hatred for the Church or
> refused to renounce their former practice of jewry were punished.
>
> However, these were convicted of heresy and handed over to the Crown,
> which administered the punishment. Heresy was punishable under the
> laws of the State. The Church did not administer the penalty (another
> common misconception). But Torquemada also condemned prosecution under
> the Inquisition for the fact of merely being jewish - the errors in
> true belief were being examined, not one's ancestry or ethnicity, so
> the Inquisition can hardly be called anti-semitic.
>
That Torquemada, he was really a nice guy, you know!
It is when you present them this way!
> Regarding slavery, again, you are confusing the authority of the
> Church with the behavior of people who are not in authority in the
> Church. You confuse the Crown with the Church. You confuse the layman
> with the priest with the Crown with the Church. You confuse so many
> things your points are not coherent.
>
> You also fail to appreciate the historical struggle of the Church
> against the mahometan invaders in Spain and the suffering endured
> under the enslavement and oppression by the Mahometans. You are also
> confusing the phenomenon of slavery with the phenomenon of warfare and
> the phenomenon of the Inquisition - it is very hard to have a
> meaningful discussion when you don't focus on the topic. This is not
> unusual for a bahaist, since they for the most part have extremely
> limited and stereotyped understandings of other religions, especially
> of Catholicism.
>
"Muslim", please. "Baha'i" please.
> You uncritically accept the propaganda of The Black Legend of the
> Inquisition - why not pull out the jewish blood libels and other
> things as well? It seems politically correct to rubbish the Catholic
> Church using any instrument of lies and propaganda whereas it is
> "anti-semitic" and "intolerant" to write the truth of what happened
> based on sound, non-polemical materials and state the facts as they
> are about the Inquisition - not the fairy tales spun by historical
> revisionists that you provided.
>
You know, if the cap fits, wear it. Your post has the stink of
anti-semitism about it to me - apparently you believe that
everything that went wrong in your religion was the jews fault.
I don't believe you.
Paul
> QQ
Cal E. Rollins
they either don't know about it or hope it will be hidden from the rest
of world, especially Africans and Third World folk. Why do you think
some NSA members tried to squelch publication of _Black Pearls_and why
there is little to no information about slavery in our history, yet we
can castigate other religions for their problematic histories on race?
Be bored all you like, but the fact still remains. --Cal
Susan Maneck
>deprive laborers of their wages.
Dear Brian,
Typically slaves were paid in the Islamic world. In fact in the Ottoman Empire
slave soldiers were the only ones paid wages rather than given land grants.
Strikes by slaves who were not paid promptly were frequent both in the Ottoman
and the Mughal Empire. In the Mughal Empire the Siddi slave navy would resort
to extortion and piracy when their wages weren't paid on time.
So Micah gave very good advice.
warmest, Susan
Susan Maneck
>> Brian, nice try but slaves are not servants.
Cal, as I have told you ad nauseum, Arabic uses the same word for servant as
slaves.
> Servants get wages.
>> Slaves just get bought.
In the Islamic world slaves were typically paid wages as well, whereas someone
technically free might be getting nothing more than room and board. That's why
it is not so simple to distinguish between the two.
Susan Maneck
>without paying them, that is,
Dear Pat,
Not necessarily. In the Islamic world slaves were often preferred not because
they worked for nothing (they usually didn't) but because they had no other
family ties which might compromise their loyalty to their owner. In other
words, they could be counted on more.
warmest, Susan
Cal E. Rollins
were paid to be slaves, or what? --Cal
Cal E. Rollins
Islamic world? --Cal
Susan Maneck
>The Reconquista arose in Spain in response to continued jihad from the
>Mahometan invaders.
Continued jihad? Muslims by this time were merely trying to retain what little
territory they had left! They were completely on the defensive.
> Contrary to popular belief, Moorish Spain was not
>the paradise of tolerance later authors (mostly jewish) have
>described.
Gee, now why would Jews have this opinion?
>those whose lands were not seized
>were placed under heavy taxation.
I believe if you looked into this you would find that taxation under Muslim
rule was considerably less than it had been under the Vandals whose rule they
replaced.
>Catholics of the north were
>routinely kidnapped and sold into slavery by the Mahometans.
You mean Catholic combatants were sold into slavery. As Catholics sold Muslims
into slavery. That's what you did with prisoners of war during those times.
That is a completely different issue from whether or not they practiced
religious tolerance.
>Things
>were even worse under the rule of the Almoavides and Almohads, who
>were mahometan fundamentalists not unlike the Al Quaeda of today.
They generally persecuted one another, not Jews and Christians.
>http://www.dhimmitude.org/archive/bostom_ltr_nro_25jul02.html
Your 'source' would be more impressive if it were a historian prepared to
document her claims instead of an MD merely making assertions.
>The Inquisition; so many like your self are woefully ignorant of the
>facts; took place after the infiltration of the aristocracy and the
>ecclesiastical hierarchy in Castile and Aragon by jews who had
>converted to Catholicism under pretext in the wake of the Reconquista.
That a Jew might find it convenient to convert to Catholicism is certainly
credible. But whose fault is it that this was deemed necessary?
That they would have taken orders and entered into the church hierarchy as
pretext is hardly credible. I've read the writings (in Spanish) of prelates of
Jewish descent who found themselves subject to the Inquisition. They were most
definitely Christian.
>In secret these jewish converts practiced jewish customs and in
>concert with their unconverted breteren sought to subvert the State
>and the Church to their ends.
And their end was what? To be able to practice their own religion in safety?
Sadly, though, the real truth is that those Jewish converts who became bishops,
etc. were the first to persecute their uncoverted brethern.
>who did not have the intent of the Church and thus
>administered invalid sacraments.
Hmmm. sounds like an sneaky way to get around the Donatist heresy. As you know,
the efficacy of the sacraments doesn't depend on the morality or even the
belief of the priest performing it. But if you can invent fantasies about
Jewish converts secretly doing other thing while pretending to perform the
sacraments you can create panic everywhere. I give this about as much
credibility as I do stories during this same time of Jews torturing the
sacrament and making it bleed.
>"In the earlier periods of the Inquisition, moreover, when the
>hierarchy was filled with New Christians of doubtful orthodoxy
Now, before you go any further, why don't you explain to your readers why there
would be so many "new Christians" of doubtful orthodoxy? People weren't being
pressured to convert were they? On the pain of expulsion perhaps? So whose
fault was it if some were insincere? Would not it have been justice to have
tortured those who forced people to convert rather than those who felt so
compelled? Or does the church not care about such matters?
> it was
>essential to know that the sacraments necessary to salvation were not
>vitiated by the apostasy of the ministrant,
Oh, dear. Here it comes again, the Donatist heresy. Apostacy does not
invalidate the sacraments, whose efficacy depends solely on the grace of God as
mediated throught the church. This is the case even when the priest in question
is not just a sinner but an unbeliever. The Donatist heresy started
specifically because they refused to receive the sacraments from priests who
had been ordained by "traidores" bishops who had apostacized and turned over
their sacred scripturs during the Diocletian persecution. Another "classic"
case would Talleyrand, a consecrated a bishop who played a leading role in the
French Revolution.. When the Revolution required French priests and bishops to
swear an oath to the new Constitution, most refused, left France, went into
hiding, or died. Talleyrand was called upon to put on the sacred vestments for
the last time in order to consecrate bishops loyal to the Revolution which he
did. When Napoleon sought to restore order following the Revolution, one of the
first things he did was to negotiate a concordat with Pope Pius VII. Among
other things, the Concordat of 1801 required the resignation of all French
bishops loyal to the Pope, and granted Napoleon the right to appoint bishops
for all the dioceses of France. Napoleon appointed roughly as many
"constitutional" bishops as he appointed "non-juring" (those who had not sworn
the oath to the revolutionary constitution) bishops.9 Once again, the Church
upheld the validity of the Sacraments conferred by evil men, those separated
from Itself, and even "skeptics" like Talleyrand.
>No man could tell how many priests
>there were like Andrés González, parish priest of San Martin de
>Talavera, who, on his trial at Toledo, in 1486, confessed that for
>fourteen years he had secretly been a Jew,
Given the fact that all these confessions were made under torture we can't
really say there were any at all!
>
>These acts place the soul of the believer in grave peril and threatens
>the social order.
Yes, and if you could make people believe such acts were indeed taking place
you could persuade them to commit all kinds of atrocities!
>Not satisfied with administering invalid sacraments, the
>pseudo-converts acquired positions of political power in the
>reCatholicised Castile, and placed heavy taxation on the people of
>Castile <snip> > In 1391 the
>people of Toledo rioted against the jewish converts who were taxing
>the old catholics to death as well as extorting jewish converts to
>apostatize the Church through fiscal instruments of usury.
Ahh, now we come down to the nitty-gritty. The Inquistion was really about
money and wanting to avoid taxation repaying their debts.
> The problem
>got so bad, the Throne eventually passed a law forbidding those of
>mixed jewish blood from holding titles of nobility, or entering the
>acclesiastical hierachy of the Church.
In other words, they discriminated.
>The Inquisition was by and large an inquiry into the beliefs of the
>converted jews
By means of torture, let's not forget.
> For the most part those brough to the tribunal were
>asked regarding the thoroughness of their Catholic beliefs, if they
>continued to hold jewish beliefs or practices, they were then
>instructed in the proper Catholic canons, admonished not to revert to
>judaizing, made a profession of Faith and released.
You forgot to add tortured.
>Only those converts who actively expressed hatred for the Church or
>refused to renounce their former practice of jewry were punished.
You mean burned at the stake.
>However, these were convicted of heresy and handed over to the Crown,
>which administered the punishment.
i.e. 'relaxing the secular arm.' Which means having the government burn them at
the stake. But the torture itself which took place under the label of 'inquiry'
was conducted by the church not the state.
>many of the most zealous in the Inquisition were likewise
>converted jews
Yes, and often they found themselves later subjected to it.
>By and large the Inquisition was not the ordeal that modern
>anti-catholic historians have made it out to be. Compared to the witch
>burnings in the Lutheran and Calvinist states to the North, it was far
>more orderly and just.
Well it was orderly, if not just. One was always examined by a physician before
torture was administered. And before the torture began one was always shown the
instruments of torture, etc.
> In contrast, accusation of witchery in a
>Protestant dominion of the time was an automatic death sentence
In other words, they didn't necessarily torture them into confessing first?
>Repeated requests had been made of the jews to cease from
>trying to infiltrate their agendas among the converted
Which means what?
>Now, many bahaists and liberals cry about "freedom of conscience" and
>FORGET that this sacred cow of modernism was not invented until the
>time of the so-called "Enlightenment" some centuries later.
Largely yes. But the Qur'an itself affirmed "Let there be no compulsion in
religion."
>The jews being the first to actively attempt to
>subvert the Throne and the Church
Subvert it how? What exactly are we talking about?
Brian Walker
Dear Cal,
the slavery issue is boring because it is
1. not a modern issue
2. has historical interest as a minor footnote
3. is irrelevant to the vast majority of Baha'is and non-Baha'is, black
and non-black
4. pales into insignificance in the face of the real physical and
spiritual issues of today
Now you, in the pursuit of your issues, make it important. It is
important - for you. Go for it. Write it up. But I have an idea, Cal.
*Do research the facts*
*Do your own research*
*Publish your results*
*Try to distinguish between facts and factoids*
*Reduce bias in your views*
*Learn to appreciate the value of truth - and practice it*
When you can do that, you might move my current assessment of your
passion up a notch from the current *he is a WOMBAT* to *there are some
interesting points, made cogently* and I will take you seriously.
Brian
Susan Maneck
>> they either don't know about it or hope it will be hidden from the rest
>> of world, especially Africans and Third World folk. Why do you think
>> some NSA members tried to squelch publication of _Black Pearls
I believe at the time most of the members of the NSA were not white.
>and why
>> there is little to no information about slavery in our history
Couldn't be because records weren't kept on them.?
sparke303
>
> sparke303 wrote:
>
> > How about Malachi 3:5? -- I will be quick to testify against those who
> > deprive laborers of their wages.
> >
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> I had the impression that the point of slavery was to get someone to work
> without paying them, that is, Biblically, slavery is distinct from wage
labor.
> - Pat
> kohli at ameritel.net
>
>
First off, let me say thank you for answering in a respectful manner. It's
surprising how rare that is around here!
I would like to point out that the passage does not specify wage labor. I
think it is referring to anyone who benefits from someone's labor without
compensating them. Nonetheless, slavery as we think of it today is a "New
World" phenomena, in size, scope, and brutality. I would think that this
passage was intended to let it be known, unequivically, that even slave
laborers needed to be paid.
Keep in mind also that the passage I referred to was in the book of the
prophet Malachi, one who was known for his sharp tongue and his tendency to
leave the "sugarcoating" off of the Word. Have you read the part of Malachi
about those who "rob" God of his tithe?
The passages referred to by Adelard were both from letters Paul wrote to
Pagans. Paul was much more likely to offer a compromise to those he hoped
to convert, as a concession but NOT a condonation. He knew that if he told
slaveowners to give up their slaves, they would be likely to tell him where
to stick it and, therefore, never reach the kingdom of God. When Paul
(Saul) was converted, he developed a belief that it was his responsibility
to lead as many as possible down the same path God had chosen to lead him
down, and he was willing to do almost ANYTHING to accomplish that.
God Bless
--
Brian G. Engleman
Cal E. Rollins
to do with attempts to squelch _Black Pearls_. Two prominent blacks, I
understand, were the driving force behind that attempt. It's been my
experience that, in the past, some blacks became Baha'is as a shelter
against discrimination and were able to hide out in the Faith not
wanting any threat to them. I knew some who discovered that we had our
race problems as did other religions and left the Faith. --Cal
Cal E. Rollins
one I've talked to about slavery in the Faith was anxious to hear more
of what I found out. One group even established a Black Rose Conference
adopting Mubarak's broom wrapped in black and green as their standard.
They were hungry for more information, but, of course, couldn't get any.
Race unity conferences are now starting to talk about the meager bits of
info we have on slavery.
So you're living in a white world in China. Talk to some American or
African blacks to see if they think slavery in the Faith is relevent.
First thing they'll ask is: "Slavery? What slavery? The Baha'i Faith
had slavery? Tell me about it?" And you'll say, "Oh, I don't think
it's relevent to you as a black person." Right? --Cal
Pat Kohli
QisQos wrote:
> Pat Kohli <kohliCUT...@ameritel.net> wrote in message news:<3E52F40D...@ameritel.net>...
>
> I read your post but there appears to be some difficulty in your mind
> about the documentation as well as confusion between the powers of the
> Church, the Crown, and the laity.
>
Yes, I had labored under the impression that the laity, to include the
Crown, were part of the Church.
>
> First. You provide a reference to a Papal Bull, yet you cite some
> document which was not written by the Papacy.
>
Oh, my bad.
Wasn't the papal bull the part of your post that was an outrageous bit
of revisionist misquoting? IIRC you tried to allege that the 1839
proclamation was really an extension of a long-standing policy against
slavery, stretching back hundreds of years, and then simply repeated in
English?
On the contrary, wasn't the papal bull issued over an _outrageous_ case
of clerical slaving in the US, the year before, when the one or more
priests of the Society of Jesus had sold _hundreds_ of slaves from one
or two plantations in Maryland, which were owned by the order, to
distant Louisiana? Given that most of these slaves had no means of
remote communications with their extended families: aunts, uncles,
adult parents, cousins, etc. relying solely on the occasional
face-to-face encounters in rural Maryland, to stay in touch, didn't this
bit of slave trading cause such an outrage that even the Pope heard
about and felt compelled to condemn this?
Be honest; isn't the historical fact that the Society of Jesus owned
plantations in the United States, worked them with slaves, and, in the
1830s, sold off _hundreds_ of slaves to new owners far from their
plantation? Wasn't the local bishop hounding these Jesuit priests for
thousands of dollars, such that this 'sale' looked like an attractive
means to pay their debt?
I can concede that the sale was so outrageous that the principle(s)
needed to be punished and the whole episode condemned by the Church, as
you almost touched upon, but don't pretend the Church didn't own the
hundreds of slaves in the first place, making their sale possible, in
the late 1830s, in the English speaking US of A.
>
> Second: you have confused the Inquisition with the Reconquista with
> the establishment of the Spanish Crown over the Americas.
>
The Inquisition got big after your so-called Reconquista had finished.
The two are essentially phases in the Catholicization of the Iberian
Peninsula, I'd call them phases two and three. Even if we ignore what
happened on the Iberian peninsula, there is still a bit of slaving
going on in the Catholic New World, even places closer to (my) home
than Saint Augustine, and more recent than the American Revolution.
>
> The Reconquista arose in Spain in response to continued jihad from the
> Mahometan invaders.
Wrong. There was no reconquest. What makes Spanish fundamentally
different from Romanian, as romance languages, is the influence of
the Arabs. Spain, as a nation, did not exist until the late 15th
century, although there were Catholic kingdoms on the peninsula. It is
true that the Romans did conquor the Iberian Peninsula, and the Vandals
after them, and the Visogoths after them, and a join army of Arabs and
Moors after them. There even was one Catholic king, Roderic, IIRC, but
to categorize the Frankish invasion as a "reconquest" is a perverse
semantic to somehow distinguish one invasion from the others. The Moors
might have categorized theirs as a Reconquest in that it restored the
Peninsula to the African influences it had enjoyed before the Punic
wars.
> Contrary to popular belief, Moorish Spain was not
Andalusia?
>
> the paradise of tolerance later authors (mostly jewish) have
> described. Under the Omeyad reign thousands of Catholics were
> enslaved, their lands seized and those whose lands were not seized
> were placed under heavy taxation. Catholics of the north were
> routinely kidnapped and sold into slavery by the Mahometans. Things
> were even worse under the rule of the Almoavides and Almohads, who
> were mahometan fundamentalists not unlike the Al Quaeda of today.
>
Uh huh. So, it is not paradise in absolute terms. It is only paradise
relative to the nearest part of Western Europe which did not have
Moorish and Arabic influnce, Provence.
>
> "In reality, Muslim Spain was a country of constant jihad ruled under
> Maliki jurisdiction, which offered one of the most severe, repressive
> interpretations of Islamic law. Muslim Spain was populated by tens of
> thousands of Christian slaves, and humiliated and oppressed Christian
> dhimmis, in addition to a small minority of privileged Christian
> notables. The muwallads (neo-converts to Islam) were in nearly
> perpetual revolt against the Arab immigrants who had claimed large
> estates for themselves, farmed by Christian serfs or slaves.
> Expropriations and fiscal extortions ignited the flames of continual
> rebellion by both muwallads and mozarabs (Christian dhimmis)
> throughout the Iberian peninsula. Leaders of these rebellions were
> crucified, and their insurgent followers were put to the sword. These
> bloody conflicts, which occurred throughout the Hispano-Umayyad
> emirate until the tenth century, fueled endemic religious hatred. An
> 828 letter from Louis the Pious to the Christians of Merida summarized
> their plight under Abd al-Rahman II, and during the preceeding reign:
> confiscation of their property, unfair increase of their exacted
> tribute, removal of their freedom (probably meaning slavery), and
> oppression by excessive taxes."
>
> http://www.dhimmitude.org/archive/bostom_ltr_nro_25jul02.html
>
Dhimmitude, very funny! How about the question of who said, "Slay them
all, for the Lord doth know His own"? Some say it was Simone de
Montfort. These other guys say it was some cleric. If these Moors
were persecuting Christians, that is bad, yet, compared to de Montfort,
killing Catholics simply because they interacted with Cathars, the Moors
do look pretty good, heavenly, even, in the contrast of the day, though
beastly in our eyes.
"The pope asked Philippe II Auguste, the French king (and a cousin to
comte Raymond VI de Toulouse), to take action against high nobles in
southern France who permitted Cathars to openly practice their faith."
...
"In 1206, the pope's legate, Amaury, sent his assistant, another
Cistercian monk, Pierre de Castelnau, to Provence to form a league
of knights to fight Catharism. Castelnau invited comte Raymond VI
of Toulouse to lead this host. Raymond saw no value in such a
campaign against this community that was widely spread and well
ingranied in his lands. He rejected the "idea of waging war
on his own subjects," and Castelnau called for Raymond VI's
excommunication. The pope ratified the excommunication of Raymond
in May 1207."
...
"Raymond-Roger III de Trencavel (age 24/25 and nephew of Raymond
VI de Toulouse) realized that the crusaders were heading for his
lands. Though he was a Roman Catholic, Roger de Trencavel tolorated
particularly strong Cathar concentrations in his viscounties of
Carcassonne and Albi. He met with the religious 'commander' of the
crusade, Arnaud-Amaury, at Montpellier, to 'surrender to the Church'.
However, Amaury refused to receive Roger de Trencavel. Knowing that
his lands were to be attacked, Raymond-Roger deTrencavel quickly
returned to Carcssonne to organize his defenses."
...
"On the afternoon of 22 July, the town launched a sortie which, when
forced back into the town, was closely persued by a band of the
crusaders. Once inside the walls of the town, the crusaders seized
Béziers within an hour. Immediately there began a mass slaughter of
Catholics and Cathars, alike. When asked by one of the crusader
warriors about the possible killing of Catholics along with the
heretic Cathars, Arnaud-Amaury is supposed to have delivered his
nefarious statement "Kill them all! God will recognize His own!"
Accounts vary as to the numbered slaughtered (10,000 to 20,000, with
just over 200 estimated to have been Cathars) in this, the bloodiest
and first, battle of the crusade. The massacre frightened many
other towns to surrender without resistance."
"Present among the crusaders was a Cistercian monk, Pierre des
Vaux-de-Cernay, who ten years later would write his chronical Historia
Albigensis of the campaign."
...
http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/albigens.htm
Even this Catholic Encylopedia seems to suggest that this slaughter of
the Cathars was necessary to preserve humanity. I hope someone can
explain to me how I've misread this?
"Properly speaking, Albigensianism was not a Christian heresy but
an extra-Christian religion. Ecclesiastical authority, after
persuasion had failed, adopted a course of severe repression,
which led at times to regrettable excess. Simon of Montfort
intended well at first, but later used the pretext of religion to usurp
the territory of the Counts of Toulouse. The death penalty was,
indeed, inflicted too freely on the Albigenses, but it must be
remembered that the penal code of the time was considerably
more rigorous than ours, and the excesses were sometimes
provoked. Raymond VI and his successor, Raymond VII, were,
when in distress, ever ready to promise, but never to earnestly
amend. Pope Innocent III was justified in saying that the
Albigenses were "worse than the Saracens"; and still he counselled
moderation and disapproved of the selfish policy adopted by
Simon of Montfort. What the Church combated was principles
that led directly not only to the ruin of Christianity, but to the very
extinction of the human race."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01267e.htm
>
> The Inquisition; so many like your self are woefully ignorant of the
> facts; took place after the infiltration of the aristocracy and the
> ecclesiastical hierarchy in Castile and Aragon by jews who had
> converted to Catholicism under pretext in the wake of the Reconquista.
> In secret these jewish converts practiced jewish customs and in
> concert with their unconverted breteren sought to subvert the State
> and the Church to their ends.
>
Wow! Blame the Jews! My, but that is _so_ original, not.
Does anyone really believe that the grace of God is constrained by the
intentions of a priest? If you really do believe this, please don't
blame the Jews.
> In other words they were infiltrators seeking to overcome the Throne
> and destroy the Church from within - they call that "treason" in
> modern language.
>
> Not satisfied with administering invalid sacraments, the
> pseudo-converts acquired positions of political power in the
> reCatholicised Castile, and placed heavy taxation on the people of
> Castile - the old Catholic families - and loaned money to these
> families in distress under exorbitant amounts of usury. In 1391 the
> people of Toledo rioted against the jewish converts who were taxing
> the old catholics to death as well as extorting jewish converts to
> apostatize the Church through fiscal instruments of usury. The problem
> got so bad, the Throne eventually passed a law forbidding those of
> mixed jewish blood from holding titles of nobility, or entering the
> acclesiastical hierachy of the Church. The edict of Limpieza de sangre
> was condemned by the Pope, BTW .
That is nice that the Pope eventually took issue with the outrages of
the day, all done under the eyes of the local priests and bishops, when
not being done _by_ the priests and bishops.
> However, the continued sedition against the throne brought about the
> request for the Inquisition by the Throne of Castile - the King
> requested it of Pope Sixtus IV in 1478. This was not done at the
> behest of the Church.
You seem to be 'not having your Inquisition in the church' in any
meaningful way.
> The Inquisition was by and large an inquiry into the beliefs of the
> converted jews - non-Catholic Jews were not subject to its authority
> (c0ntrary to the propaganda spead by contemporary jewish historical
> revisionists).
The Inquisition was just as ecclesiastical as an Exorcism; if it were
contrary to Church policy, they would not do them!
>For the most part those brough to the tribunal were
> asked regarding the thoroughness of their Catholic beliefs, if they
> continued to hold jewish beliefs or practices, they were then
> instructed in the proper Catholic canons, admonished not to revert to
> judaizing, made a profession of Faith and released.
>
> Only those converts who actively expressed hatred for the Church or
> refused to renounce their former practice of jewry were punished.
I guess they were not really converts, then. If they were not really
converts, the Church should really have had nothing to do with them,
unless of course, it were some medieval time of theocracy.
> However, these were convicted of heresy and handed over to the Crown,
> which administered the punishment. Heresy was punishable under the
> laws of the State. The Church did not administer the penalty (another
> common misconception).
That should not really be a miconception, but I suppose, for the sake of
poetic justice, it must be misconceived.
When Jesus was tried by the ecclesiasticals of His day, the Sanhedrin,
they condemned Him, and since they did not claim the prerogatives for
capital punshment, they turned Him over to the state for execution. In
turn, the state, not wanting to appear to simply rubber-stamp the
decision of the clerics, would have their own trial, to determine, that,
the accused, had, in fact, as alleged, in due course, in a manner
proscribed by statue umpdee scratch, had, to wit, offended the natural
order of things, arousing the condemnation of the religious authorities,
and per the laws of this land, were hereby condemned to be hung by the
hands and feet until dead, said punishment to be executed forthwith.
The clerics investigate and try; the state convicts and executes, a wall
of separation, good in the time of Blessed Jesus, and good in the time
of Tomas de T.
> But Torquemada also condemned prosecution under
> the Inquisition for the fact of merely being jewish - the errors in
> true belief were being examined, not one's ancestry or ethnicity, so
> the Inquisition can hardly be called anti-semitic.
Well, "no". If, as you say, the Inquisition were invoked to quell the
influence of _Jews_, and/or _Arabs_ it would be anti-semitic.
> Unbaptized jews and muslims did not fall under the jurisdiction of the
> Inquisition and were more properly under the governance of the Crown
> (and as such had no protection that the Church could afford). As I
> have stated the Pope condemned the secular edict of limpieza de sangre
> (blood purity), so the Crown and Church did not always see eye to eye.
Limpey dimpey, did the Church excomunicate Ferdinand and Isabelle for
deporting/killing/enslaving all non-Catholics? It would seem to me that
this sort of government incentivization might explain why some, such as
yourself, _feared_ that Jewish people might be getting into the Church
(cringe, shudder, cringe).
> A little known fact is that Torquemada himself was a converted jew ,
> and many of the most zealous in the Inquisition were likewise
> converted jews who wanted to rid their numbers of seditiousness and
> treason.
I guess that makes it _all_ right, not.
> By and large the Inquisition was not the ordeal that modern
> anti-catholic historians have made it out to be. Compared to the witch
> burnings in the Lutheran and Calvinist states to the North, it was far
> more orderly and just.
Orderly, yes; just, no. Certainly, as with slavery, the Roman Church
was not exercising moral leadership at the time. In fact, one doctor,
Michael Servetus, an Arian, risked the witch hunts of the north over the
Inquisition of Spain.
> In contrast, accusation of witchery in a
> Protestant dominion of the time was an automatic death sentence - the
> trials were a sham and no one could hope for justice in a protestant
Ahem, if it were an automatic sentence, why do you suppose there were
trials. Do you know what "accusation of witchery in a Protestant
dominion of the time was an automatic death sentence" means? It would
_seem_ to mean no trial.
> trial, which BTW was administered by the protestant "church" which
> also administered the punishment.
Ah come on! Are you saying the Prods got beyond the traditions of the
Christ killing Romans, and their pals, the Sanhedrin?
> Finally, the expulsion of the non-Catholic jews in 1492 took place
> after numerous attempts by the Catholic Throne to maintain the peace
> in Spain.
Uh, no. 1492 was when the Spanish finished their so-called
'Reconquest', prior to then, they had been besieging the Muslim lands,
so, categorizing their actions as an attempt to maintain peace, is
deceptive.
> Repeated requests had been made of the jews to cease from
> trying to infiltrate their agendas among the converted, the expulsion
> was a last resort after numerous attempts to work out a solution. The
> edict of expulsion is available on-line:
>
> http://www.sephardicstudies.org/decree.html
>
Propaganda!
> Now, many bahaists and liberals cry about "freedom of conscience" and
> FORGET that this sacred cow of modernism was not invented until the
> time of the so-called "Enlightenment" some centuries later.
Nonsense, wherever someone is being martyred for their faith, this thing
which you suppose to be 'modernism' is flashing. Some say this is one
of the pivotal moments in the life of Blessed Jesus Christ, when He was
the victim of religious violence.
> So Spain,
> having had its Christian lands liberated by the Reconquista was now a
> Catholic dominion, and the Throne was initially tolerant of jewish and
> mahometan inhabitants. The jews being the first to actively attempt to
> subvert the Throne and the Church were given many opportunities to
> live peacefully in the land and failed to comply with the Sovereign
> authority of the Crown and were expelled for being treasonous and
> seditious.
Nonsense, they were kicked out with the Muslims, likely for associating
with the Muslims in much the same way that the Catholics of Provence
were murdered simply for associating with the Cathars.
> Those ar e the historical facts - not the revised view the modern
> historical revisionists would have us believe about the jews being
> victims. In fact when in power in Spain they were oppressors, not
> unlike their descendants in Palestine today.
Nonsense, your fixation with the Jewish victims of the Inquisition
suggests that you are unaware of its scope and effects. Had you noticed
that there were significant Protestant presences in Sweden, Denmark,
Germany, England, even France, you might begin to understand what the
Inquisition was for.
> Now, you can be as sarcastic and cynical as you wish, but the
> suppressed historical facts of the Inquisition, the Reconquista and
> the Expulsion are coming to light and it is not entirely impossible
> to accept the Catholic argument.
1) The slavery w/in Spain is the tip of the iceberg compared to the
slavery outside Spain. 2) The Inquisition was an institution to
intimidate all whose beliefs did not conform to Catholic orthodoxy, and
its state support in places like Spain, meant that it had influence far
beyond who would get to buried in the Catholic graveyard when they died
naturally. 3) The simple name 'Reconquista' smacks of revisionism, and
ignores that the Christian Church in Spain _before_ the Moorish invasion
was an Arian Church, and the Arians suffered under the Inquisition just
like the Muslims, the Jewish people, and the Protestants.
> Regarding slavery, again, you are confusing the authority of the
> Church with the behavior of people who are not in authority in the
> Church. You confuse the Crown with the Church. You confuse the layman
> with the priest with the Crown with the Church. You confuse so many
> things your points are not coherent.
The Society of Jesus owned hundreds of slaves in Maryland and sold them
to a distant state the year before the Papal Bull which you
misrepresented as a statement affirming the Church's long standing
policy against slavery.
> You also fail to appreciate the historical struggle of the Church
> against the mahometan invaders in Spain and the suffering endured
I don't think you appreciate the suffering endured by many Christians
under the influence of the Roman Church, its oppresion and enslavement
of Christians and non-Christians who did not conform to its beliefs.
> under the enslavement and oppression by the Mahometans. You are also
> confusing the phenomenon of slavery with the phenomenon of warfare and
> the phenomenon of the Inquisition - it is very hard to have a
> meaningful discussion when you don't focus on the topic. This is not
I had thought that I had several quotations regarding slavery in the new
world, particularly the areas under Spanish influence. Your inability
to recognize and address relevant material is not _my_ problem.
> unusual for a bahaist, since they for the most part have extremely
> limited and stereotyped understandings of other religions, especially
> of Catholicism.
Haha. I know enough to find your version of things most suspect. Most
Catholics I know would tell me taht _I_ was grossly mistaken if _I_
suggested that the intentions of the priest could negate the
sacraments. Wait until the Spanish Inquisition finds what you've been
saying. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
> You uncritically accept the propaganda of The Black Legend of the
> Inquisition - why not pull out the jewish blood libels and other
> things as well? It seems politically correct to rubbish the Catholic
> Church using any instrument of lies and propaganda whereas it is
> "anti-semitic" and "intolerant" to write the truth of what happened
> based on sound, non-polemical materials and state the facts as they
> are about the Inquisition - not the fairy tales spun by historical
> revisionists that you provided.
Ho ho ho! IIRC, _you_ were the one who turned the Spanish Inquisition
into an anti-semitic exercise! I was quite content to imagine that it
was the instrument for ridding the new nation of its previous
Christianity, much like the Pope sending Henry IIIV to invade Ireland.
I do appreciate that the Catholic Church did preserve the Gospel during
the Dark Ages, but I don't suppose it was oh so much better than all get
out by 1839, so that its cahcah was odor-free!
Best wishes!