Filum Romanum - A Thread for the Catholic Church

Certainly it was a vital task before printing became common. So much that should not have been forgotten, was lost.

If you judged everyone in the past you will find they all sucked, pretty much. We live in the future and we have the incredibly advantage of knowing the consequences of certain things.

I think what the Catholic Church is of better use if we judge it on what it does today, rather than than what it did in the past. I bet any appraisal we could do both today and yesterday would pretty much be the same anyways. it did both good, and bad things. As it does, now, both good and bad things.

Sure, seems like a lame, centrist position but really. all things in the past will seem like that eventually, wont they.

Sure, it's all grey, but some shades are definitely lighter than others. Certainly we would not scrutinize the RCC if its aspirations to moral authority weren't so lofty.

They are. Even back when they were more problematic, they were still unfailingly Bad Ass Just ask the Iroquois.

edited 19th Jan '16 1:14:41 PM by TheHandle

I get cha, I say regurgitating a chain smoking spaniard priest. That dude is awesome. Jesuits are cool.

Jesuits are awesome. I went to a Catholic high school run by Jesuits, and the priests there were all really chill and intelligent guys. I learned a lot from the classes they taught (which for me was mostly my theology classes, though I know a few taught English).

I am not saying "it is all grey". I am saying that since it is so far in the past, we really are in little position to judge.

Historically, we can only be sure of one thing: it happened. But it was so long ago and its circumstances so varied, and we know so little of circumstance and situation that to judge it, specially judge it based on current situations, seems a bit...off to me.

In the late First Millennium, Western Europe was indisputably in "turtle up and preserve whatever you can" mode. What used to be the Western Roman Empire was a bunch of petty states—still Latin-speaking, but ruled by Gothic and Vandal princelings. The Church was in constant turmoil, because said princelings had a weakness for Arianism ... and from the time Rome fell, it kept getting imposed, stamped out, and reimposed all over the place, nearly up till the 8th century. And then, half the once-Empire got permanently overrun by Islam.

In such a steady, low-level siege mode, in an era that kicked off with the unseating of traditional vehicles of cultural transmission, and where the new temporal powers were barbarian newcomers, it's not surprising that those times featured little in the way of intellectual ferment. No need to accuse the Church of obscurantism: hoarding and copying what one could of classical/patristic learning seems like the best contribution they were in a position to make, and that's what they did.

However, consider what the Catholic Church managed to do in the stabler and less jeopardized parts of Western Christendom^note Viking invasions notwithstanding during the Early Middle Ages—i.e., the British Isles. As opposed to their continental brethren, Anglo-Saxon and Irish churchmen made notable contributions to Western learning throughout the Early Middle Ages. Bede, Patrick, Alcuin, Wulfstan, Joseph Scottus: nothing Aquinas-grade, but obscurantist and unproductive they weren't. So again, there's evidence that whatever other factors retarded Western culture & learning throughout this period, the Church wasn't exactly one of them.

I think we could argue endlessly about that. "The Church preserved most important texts" or "they trained and housed some of the most important personages of the times" can also be mentioned that "The political machinations of many christian sources, such as the inquisition, the catholic kings, and some popes, kinda endeavored so they were the ONLY ones who had any access to knowledge"

Which is also arguable given the political situation and how much of it was reactive to the political situations abroad (War. Famines. Diseases), for example would be hard to blame the Crusades solely on Popes, considering how much Byzantium had to do with them. I think that to condemn the church as book burners fails to take into account many of the preserver stuff they did and to praise them as keepers of knowledge seems to not just forget some actual book burnings, but other political intrigues that ensured none but them could prosper (which was common thing to do at the time from any political power).

It took strong political power to secularize education a bit, like Charlemagne tried to do and stuff...

I think the "Church helped more" or "Church helped less" as a judgment of history ends up being more a political statement than an academic one because of how impossible to gauge it becomes to argue one or the other given the results we see now.

Would we have the printing press without the church, which patronized Gutenberg? The art of Michaelangelo, or even Da Vinci? Maybe. No one could tell. Would we have had much more information and progress had certain church actors not forcibly repressed their knowledge (So called witches, or jews, or other?)

Maybe.

Were Aquinae, Thomas, and several other great authors and scientists from Mendel to Pope Gregory not incredibly relevant to the arts and sciences, the maths and philosophies? Undoubtedly

Did others also not order genocide amongst natives, jews, or promote ideas of misoginy hatred and fear? Perhaps unwittingly, but some certainly did.

So as a whole when it comes to historical judgments I think it is important NOT to separate the facts of what they did from the political, economical and societal situation of that time and moment and place. I do not mean to make a "golden mean" sort of thing here, it is just that I honestly do not believe it is an actually productive thing to quote what some people did or did not do...for the purpose of classifying the church of the past (and even less of the present) as "good or bad guys". Book burners or lore keepers.

Catholic Kings (the two ironically-named psychos were Lannister-grade shits) and Inquisition (who weren't nearly as bad as English propaganda painted them) are early Renaissance.

I still mourn the fall of Granada, and the resulting ethnic cleansing. What a waste.

Its worth noting that the Church was one of the primary agents responsible for the rise of Universities. The two big early universities were in northern Italy, sponsored by the Holy Roman Emperor and the Church, and in France, sponsored by the King of France and the Church. Also important is that the main reason for the founding of the university in Italy was to train men capable of arguing for the legal and theological disputes between the Pope and the Emperor during the 1100s and 1200s.

Bologna (the one in Italy) was first a civil law school - and it was set up by a bunch of immigant welfare societies that started hiring scholars to teach them. Paris was the theology school.

Salamanca?

It was a Cathedral School first, and became recognized as a University through a papal bull by Alexander IV (which was basically a confirmation of the Royal Charter of Alfonso X.

So, out of curiosity, I checked Latin Vulgate version of some of my favorite Bible verses of all time, Ecclesiastes 3:1~8:

No wonder why Latin is the official language of the Vatican.

Everything DOES sound absolutely epic in Latin.

Sed et si ambulavero in valle mortis non timebo malum quoniam tu mecum es virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa consolabuntur me.

Not really...

Quam pulchra es amica mea quam pulchra es oculi tui columbarum absque eo quod intrinsecus latet capilli tui sicut greges caprarum quae ascenderunt de monte Galaad.

Dentes tui sicut greges tonsarum quae ascenderunt de lavacro omnes gemellis fetibus et sterilis non est inter eas.

Sicut vitta coccinea labia tua et eloquium tuum dulce sicut fragmen mali punici ita genae tuae absque eo quod intrinsecus latet.

Sicut turris David collum tuum quae aedificata est cum propugnaculis mille clypei pendent ex ea omnis armatura fortium.

Duo ubera tua sicut duo hinuli capreae gemelli qui pascuntur in liliis.

The second one just made it sound even more highfalutin...

edited 23rd Jan '16 7:49:18 PM by entropy13

At least valle mortis is a cool way of saying valley of death.

There is no uncool way of saying Valley of Death.

Try German: Tal des Todes

Though I don't think I've ever seen a German translation of Psalm 23 that uses the word "Tod".

But there seems to be a newer bible translation from 2000 where the valley of death becomes "Tal der Todesschatten".

edited 24th Jan '16 6:48:35 AM by DrunkenNordmann

The original Hebrew phrase is (forgive my possibly cockeyed transliteration) gey tzal-maweth, which seems to bear out The Handle's claim.

If only one of the purported authors of the bible were named Todd...

edited 25th Jan '16 7:32:17 AM by Aszur

In Korean, it's pronounced Jugumi Gegok.

It sounds both generic and umimpressive.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/758660/cardinal-slams-chinas-persecution-of-christians

Major presence of someone in the conference in Cebu.

So, Lent 2016 began yesterday.

I'm a Protestant, but also a Protestant who's seriously thinking about converting to Catholicism, so I would be observing that. Well, it is a good practice in general, methinks.

*Keeps overeating non-fish meats*

Of course I ain't lapsed-

* Spent Ash Wenesday asleep after drinking booze at the carnivals and watching the three-way battle of thw Reinas del Carnaval.*

-Who am I kidding. The floats are rad tho.

I'm not exactly a devout Catholic either. I rarely go to mass and I ate pork during Ash Wednesday...