The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on September 13, 2015, 11:10:06 am ---One interesting factoid: Centuries before the big witch hunts started, the Christian church had tried to debunk the idea that witches existed!
--- End quote ---
I remember reading that somewhere, too.
--- Quote ---Then it sounds like Catholic clergy and people found to be practicing Catholicism were just as persecuted as witches were.
--- End quote ---
Well, they were, because Catholicism became linked with treason, after 1570, when the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth I and absolved her subjects of their allegiance to her. The Protestants in power believed that the Catholics were told they would not be committing a sin if they assassinated the queen--I can't remember if that was true or not, but the Protestant English certainly believed it, so maybe it doesn't matter whether or not it was true. All of the plots against the queen were Catholic-based. And then in 1572. just across the Channel in France, occurred the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, when thousands of French Protestants were murdered by their Catholic fellow countrymen. All of this built on memories of the persecution of ordinary Protestant folks, housewives and shoemakers and so forth, during Bloody Mary's reign--memories that were kept alive by the best-selling Acts and Monuments, by John Foxe, more familiarly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs. So Roman Catholicism became equated with treason and murder in the popular mind.
Anyway, meanwhile, I just read the short personal memoir about "filter fish," by the late Oliver Sacks, in the Sept. 14 issue, and also Atul Gawande's appreciation for Sacks, in The Talk of the Town. I recommend them both.
Front-Ranger:
To close the loop a bit, last night I was reading the article about Pope Francis. I'm not finished, but so far there is too much about the ex-pope Benedict and not enough about Francis.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on September 14, 2015, 09:56:39 am ---To close the loop a bit, last night I was reading the article about Pope Francis. I'm not finished, but so far there is too much about the ex-pope Benedict and not enough about Francis.
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I just started that one. I'll read more of it at lunch today.
Meanwhile, I neglected to mention that I found "An Exile in the Corn Belt," about the Arab Israeli writer (Sept. 7), interesting.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on September 14, 2015, 09:56:39 am ---To close the loop a bit, last night I was reading the article about Pope Francis. I'm not finished, but so far there is too much about the ex-pope Benedict and not enough about Francis.
--- End quote ---
The title does seem to suggest that the article would have more about Francis, but maybe the problem is with the title, not the article.
I did, however, smile at this statement: "It is the particular genius of Catholicism that it continues to change while insisting that it has never changed." I've heard that before, and it sticks in my mind that the Jesuits are particularly good at it. And let us not forget that Francis is a Jesuit.
Front-Ranger:
I see the last part of the sentence, that Catholicism stays true to its core values, more than the first part, that the church changes. But I'm looking at it from the outside. Someone who is close to the church would of course see that it has changed a lot over the years.
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