Anti-Catholics like to paint Church teachings in a way that makes them seem vain, backward, or superstitious, all in the hope of drawing people out of the Faith and into sects or unbelief. In 1 Corinthians 7, Saint Paul declared that “it is better to marry than to burn,” and encouraged married couples to exercise their “conjugal rights” regularly. That would be a damning indictment if true—but was it? “1. Nevertheless, reports reached Europe that Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land were being tortured, killed, and sold into slavery. Children often learn that, after the fall of Rome, Europe descended into a “Dark Age.” The medieval period was not just barbaric, it was regressive — people forgot the meaning of civilization and rejected all learning. His most recent book is Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (Templeton Press, 2016), which addresses ten prevalent myths about Church history. The Spanish government retaliated by arresting all Jesuits in Spain and deporting them to the Papal States. The wealth of monastic estates also led them to start lending money. Are anti-Catholic Myths the original "Fake News"? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Inquisition actually clamped down on witch hunting. Anti-Catholics like to paint Church teachings in a way that makes them seem vain, backward, or superstitious, all in the hope of drawing people out of the Faith and into sects or unbelief. Terms under which this service is provided to you, Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History, Nancy Pelosi Goes on CNN and Has a Meltdown Too Amazing to Miss, Antifa Rioter Tries to Weasel Out of Andy Ngo Lawsuit. Paul said, “Let the presbyters [priests] who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching; for the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages’” (1 Tim. 190 pages, $16.95. One of the juiciest is straight from Maria Monk. . Get Free Anti Catholic Myths Debunked Textbook and unlimited access … From the beginning, Christianity has fostered a healthy skepticism for state power. In fact, the greatest massacre of the entire period came in 1266, when the sultan Baibars killed and enslaved all inhabitants of Antioch, even after it surrendered! Roman Catholics have gotten a bad reputation: they’re responsible for the Dark Ages, the Crusades, and the Inquisition. That … Greg Daly September 22, 2016. September 14, 2017 at 12:10 pm. Eleanor Parker. As a reader of this book, I find myself in a bit of a strange position. A human biologist who also holds a doctorate in the philosophy of science, Verschuuren is a prolific writer and speaker on science and religion, faith and reason; and Forty Anti-Catholic Lies is the latest in a series of works he has authored debunking popular anti-Catholic myths. His essentialism is the obverse of the anti-Semitism that fails to distinguish between the actions of specific … The Catholic Church, so the old stories claim, ... Is the Catholic Church anti … Next Page: The “Protestant Ethic” birthed capitalism in the Catholic Middle Ages. Are anti-Catholic Myths the original "Fake News"? . Emphatically no. The great emperor Charlemagne also opposed slavery, and in the 1000s, Saint Wulfstan and Saint Anselm campaigned to remove the last vestiges of slavery. In the first comic book in the series, Rivera included a diagram showing a monastery and convent some distance apart, with steps descending from each into a connecting tunnel, along which are the graves. Although the Christian Research Institute and Christianity Today (both Protestant) demonstrated that Rivera was never a priest and never offered any proof for his allegations, the comic books keep popping up and people keep believing Rivera’s charges. The Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Judas are just three of the more well-known pseudo gospels which some authors today hail as proof that what we now know as orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism was really just one interpretation of the faith, and a less attractive one at that. But that is hardly the point, since the question is not the title used, but the existence of the office of pope, which has been united to the office of the bishop of Rome on the basis that Peter went to Rome and died there. This Judge Isn't Having It, To Accept or Not Accept Joe Biden as President, Livelihoods and Liberty Left in the Lurch, Newsom's Favorite French Laundry Restaurant Got 17 Times More COVID Relief Than Any Other San Fran Restaurant. Five Anti-Catholic Myths book. The author begins by examining slavery as it existed during the period of the Old Testament and how Jesus confronted this. Here is what Jones says: “A pope must be an opportunist, a tyrant, a hypocrite, and a deceiver or he cannot be a pope. 20:12). Image Via … 2. The total number of Russians executed for their religion is now estimated to be in excess of twenty million. Get Free Anti Catholic Myths Debunked Textbook and unlimited access to our library by created an account. And Saladin, hailed as a true knight, only allowed the inhabitants of Jerusalem to live because they did surrender without resistance. He told me that soon after the death of Pope Benedict XV, his own father was dying. Why not just slip into regular clothes, leave the monastery or convent late at night, and proceed in the darkness to a rendezvous point? When the Spanish occupied the Canary Islands, Pope Eugene IV (1431 – 1447) threatened to excommunicate everyone involved unless they released the Canary islanders from bondage. When they came to give him the last rites, the pope ordered the priest and acolytes from the room, crying, ‘Get out of here. As we have seen with the two earlier Anti-Catholic Myths and Lies (Constantine Founded the Catholic Church and the Pope is the Antichrist), the origin of these mendacious stories are always grounded in someone’s wild imagination, which has not connection to historical facts. New records from the Soviet regime showed that about two hundred thousand clergy, monks, and nuns — Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic — had been executed by the regime, many of them in gruesome ways. This … Bernard Berenson, in his Rumor and Reflection . Why, the late Holy Father on his deathbed sent away the priests with: ‘Off with you, the play is over’ (la commedia e finita). Conversely, Christian theology focused on reason, and was willing to reinterpret and reject former teachings if they ceased to make sense. This evil “God” is worshipped by the Jews, who are an accursed people, and orthodox Christians have bought the same lies. After the Battle of Hattin, however, he personally butchered the defeated knights and gave free rein to “devout men and ascetics” who lustily slaughtered the defeated. The reason Nast and others were concerned over the public school system was at this time Catholics were protesting the use of Protestant bibles and prayers at schools and wished to see the practice ended. Download and Read online Anti Catholic Myths Debunked ebooks in PDF, epub, Tuebl Mobi, Kindle Book. Rivera claimed that in the 1930s, the Spanish government, then in the hands of anticlerical parliamentarians, discovered graves of newborn children beneath monasteries and convents. Five Anti-Catholic Myths . In fact, they pioneered the practice of human dissection, which made a real understanding of anatomy finally possible. Catholics had no choice but to support Hitler’s ally Franco. In recent years, “lost gospels” have caused a real scandal. Bathilda used her position to mount a campaign to stop the slave trade and redeem those in slavery. A real whopper may never be believed fully by anyone, no matter how often or loudly it is proclaimed, but for a whopper to be effective, it does not need to be believed in every detail. Many examples of positive Baptist-Catholic relationships built over the last generation happily disprove the myth that all Baptists are anti-Catholic or that all Catholics are anti-Baptist. They’re anti-science, anti-Semites, and anti-freedom. Truth: Usually, the way this goes is that Protestants claim that Catholics put Tradition or the Magisterium over the Bible. Leftists attack the Catholic Church as reactionary because it opposed revolutionaries in France, Russia, and Spain. Windmills are a rather inefficient method of energy production today, but in the Middle Ages, people in what are now Belgium and the Netherlands used them to pump out the sea. The Conversion Center of Havertown, Pennsylvania, puts out some of the more amusing anti-Catholic leaflets, though none is supposed to be taken humorously. This is the entire diary entry for May 5, 1941, and it is found on page 43 of Rumor and Reflection, which was published by Simon and Schuster in 1952: “Yesterday a friend was here, a Roman of good family, closely related to the late Cardinal Vannutelli and thus in touch with the Vatican. Ironically, the Catholic Church allowed magic (medical science was only in its infancy, and magic seemed to work just as well), and most of those suspected of being witches were trying to use magic sanctioned by the Church. The Catholic contribution to free markets and modernity. Whether it’s claims about Catholicism’s supposedly pagan origins, old myths about Galileo or the Inquisition that never seem to go away, or more modern misconceptions that anti-Catholics cynically exploit, The Real Story provides the desperately needed corrective. That doesn’t sound so dark to me. "The Catholic … Throughout history, until very recently, a “comedy” was simply a play or story with a happy ending (the opposite of a tragedy). Whether they come from anti‐Catholic sources or just poor catechesis, Catholic myths are as much a part of Catholic life as attending weekly Mass or going to a parish picnic. Nevertheless, this was an impressive achievement, and a testament to the values of the Roman Catholic Church. In this way, monastic estates acted like modern businesses and banks. 2110–2112, 2114). No effort is made to be conciliatory, as the first line demonstrates: “Pope Paul VI, archpriest of Satan, a deceiver and an anti-Christ, has, like Judas, gone to his own place.” It goes downhill from there. At one point, Jones attempts to raise the level of discussion, if only momentarily, by citing a diary kept by Bernard Berenson, the famous art collector and critic (who was, by the way, an Episcopalian). According to a new, groundbreaking book by sociologist and historian Rodney Stark, the truth is far more friendly to the Catholic Church, and those who say otherwise are overlooking important developments in the study of history. Furthermore, where was all the excavated dirt put, and why didn’t the neighbors inquire what all the picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows were for? Extreme asceticism, including celibacy, is the only way to free yourself from evil. Medieval musicians invented polyphony — the playing of multiple musical lines at once, thus producing harmonies. He was so effective, he said, that he was secretly made a bishop. Later, … This is emphatically not the case. Five Anti-Catholic Myths, by Gerard M. Verschuuren It is telling what an author considers to be a myth worth countering. To order: angelicopress.com Posted on December 31, 2018 by Bryan Mercier. Too often, non-Catholics believe lies about what Catholics do and believe. Those who miss her will be pleased to know that there is a twentieth-century replacement, the late Alberto Rivera, whose life was immortalized in the pages of several comic books published by Chick Publications of Chino, California. It is also a book which highlights the need for a radical alternative to the self-righteous progressive triumphalism so prevalent in Western discourse." From game shows to comedy sketches, from allegedly serious scholarship to anti-Catholic tracts stuck under windshield wipers in the parish parking lot, Catholic urban legends are the myths of history that everyone—including many Catholics—assumes to be true. As the great technological achievements (crop rotation, water mills, and windmills, et cetera) increased productivity, the various monastic estates began to specialize and trade with one another. On the one hand, I have no particular interest in supporting or endorsing myths … There are myths of persecution and myths of a lack of persecution. After all, Catholics believe that God was born of a woman, an extraordinary … In Five Anti-Catholic Myths, Gerard Verschuuren provides a clear, forceful, and eminently factual refutation of some of the foundational … The First Crusade was launched in 1095, centuries after Muslims defeated Christians in Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Sicily, Spain, and even southern France. . Stark is not a Catholic, and neither am I, but these truths are very important for everyone to know. The Inquisition actually listened to these people, and unlike other courts at the time, they made a distinction between “the implicit and explicit invocation of demons.” In Barcelona in 1549, a local branch of the Inquisition ordered 7 suspected witches be burned, but the overarching authority, the Suprema, sent an investigator who ended up pardoning the women and executing those who conducted the witch hunting! The beginning years were poorly documented, and historians agree those were the bloodiest — about 1,500 people were executed (by the Spanish authorities — the Inquisition never executed anyone). Debunking Anti-Catholic Myths, Part 1 No other institution in the world has contributed as much as the Catholic Church to human rights, international law, education, social services and organized charity. Furthermore, the “divine right of kings” originated with Protestants! Finally, Stark did an analysis of all major scientific thinkers from 1543 to 1680, and discovered that half of them were Roman Catholics, 60 percent were devout, and 38 percent at least declared they were Christian (and there is no evidence to consider them skeptical or atheist). On the contrary, these “gospels” are younger and less reliable than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — and they are not even truly Christian. Reality: Actually the Catholic Church holds women in high esteem. The word “comedy” is used in a much older sense than the one having to do with humor. Some even attribute the idea of the “divine right of kings” to this tendency among Catholics. The world is corrupt because it was created by an inferior and evil, renegade god-ling. Catholic apologists fight … This too, however, was overblown. Far from being "Hitler's Pope", Pius XII saved many Jewish lives. Protestants longed to hear of the horrors of Catholic prisons and tribunals, and Montanus gave them an “inside view.”. Quite true. Sep 7, 2020 - Explore Joe Aboumoussa's board "Anti-Catholic History, Myths, & Legends", followed by 479 people on Pinterest. Top 10 Modern Myths About the Catholic Church. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God. “There are a lot of … Shutterstock.com. 10 – The Catholic Church is anti-woman and misogynistic. Another reason for Nast’s anti-Catholic drawings was a fear that Catholics were attacking the public school system, which Nast saw as integral to the foundation of the United States. “Mariolatry” means the worship of Mary, giving her the kind of honor due only to God (Greek: latria). But learning about the Catholic Church is harder than it sounds thanks to a slew of anti-Catholic myths floating around. A priest clever enough to operate a scheme for making money would surely be clever enough to choose something that generated a better income, especially since priests are permitted to accept only one stipend per day. “3. Did Constantine start the Catholic Church? People will think that if anyone bothers to promote such a lie, there must be a kernel of truth in it. He is unable to distinguish mere honor from adoration. Paganism still survives today among rural and small-town Europeans, who preserve the mentality of spirits in nature. Debunking the myth of Catholic authoritarianism. 7 Common Catholic Church Myths That Critics Believe. Vatican Council II. The Inquisition didn’t support witch hunting, instead “it was their influence, and especially their discrediting of evidence gained by torture, that brought witch-burning to an end in Catholic areas–an effect that soon seeped into the Protestant areas as well.”, Next Page: Hitler’s Pope and the myth of anti-Semitism, Is Roman Catholicism the author of anti-Semitism? During the fully recorded period (1480 to 1700), there are 44,674 cases, and only 826 people were executed. Next Page: How the Catholic Church fostered learning and science. This is a travesty, but nothing close to the horrific myths we know and love. Luckily, the actual Inquisition kept meticulous records for hundreds of years. “There are a lot of resources for theological topics, but when you look for history, there’s really not anything geared toward historical apologetics,” says Catholic History Professor Steve Weidenkopf. One is called 10 Reasons Why I Am Not a Roman Catholic. "So are you Catholic or Christian?" The story becomes more improbable as the questions multiply. The diagram includes a little arrow pointing to the tunnel and captioned “bodies of babies.” Rivera claimed the children were the result of illicit unions between monks and nuns. By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History by Rodney Stark (Templeton Press, 280 pages, hardcover $27.95; call 800-621-2736 or 773-702-7000). They have a few major themes: These themes are more Neoplatonist than Christian. While some European conquerors argued that Native Americans and Africans were not fully human, the popes consistently opposed New World slavery. As Clement of Alexandria wrote during the third century, “He who has received these things fortified by reason, can never lose them; whereas he who receives them without proofs, by an assent to a simple statement of them, can neither keep them safely, nor is certain if they are true; because he who easily believes, also easily yields.”. . The system of uncoerced labor, free markets, and secure property rights which we today call capitalism developed in medieval monasteries. It is a money-making scheme.”. Five Anti-Catholic Myths - Slavery, Crusades, Inquisition, Galileo, Holocaust. Next Page: The discredited myth of the “Dark Ages.”. In 1768, they finally defeated the Guarani and ended the civilization. There are so many arguments against the Catholic Church that are false or skewed. In fact, the Catholic Church forbids Mariolatry because it forbids us to worship anyone other than God himself: “Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Christians have long debated the benefits of commerce, with some claiming that biblical condemnations of “usury” forbids lending money at interest. Sacred Scripture. 10:10; Luke 10:7). 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