Combox for:
"Reformation" Theft of Catholic Church Properties and Supposed Catholic Apologetic "Blind Spots": Counter-Response to Tim Enloe
[20 April 2008]
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...lic-
church.html
Wow, just scanning through this with a crying toddler on my lap making it hard to focus, I'm surprised at all the instance of "Tim is promoting slanders against me" and the like. I'm also surprised at the instances of "Tim needs to admit Protestant sins and problems," because it's precisely my insistent focus on those things that has been a major cause of my troubles with other Protestants.
What's with the attitude here, Dave? I thought we were past this kind of stuff.
Ok, the toddler found something to amuse herself, allowing me to read through the piece with more care.
Dave, I am perfectly happy to admit Protestant sins and failings, and not to downplay them. I have written a lot of stuff, for instance, about Protestant complicity in ungodly sectarianism, misuse and distortion of the historical record in the name of fanatical anti-Romanist apologetics, compromising with Enlightenment philosophies in ways where the Catholic Church has not, and so forth. You can't make the charge stick that I excuse Protestant sins and failings.
Much of your response is concerned to justify yourself against what you take to be unjust slurs of your person and work. I'm sorry you took my response this way. There was no personal attack intended in anything that I said, and no desire to slur or slander. A lot of your response consists of returning the perceived slurs in kind, and I'm just not going to respond to any of that. Again, I thought we were past this sort of thing.
It appears that to no small degree we've talked past each other in this exchange. I certainly have no wish to defend murdering people whose only "crime," apparently, was being Catholic. The 16th and 17th centuries were very violent times on all sides, and we all have much to be ashamed of in our respective forebears' behavior in the name of "Truth."
My response had nothing to do with "rationalizing sin," but with pointing out what I take to be the biblical and historical flaws of your particular approach to this one particular issue of Reformation thefts of Catholic property. You seem to have not understood the point of my mentions of Sts. Bernard, Francis, and Dominic, and the Venerable Bede and William of Malmesbury, nor my citation of the passage from Jeremiah. None of this was about trying to say that these men would have supported Protestant sins. It was about the simple fact that these men understood that when something claims to be the Church of God and its leader claims to have such great power, he has to be accountable for how he uses that power, and if he abuses it, neither he nor his supporters can complain about being judged for it.
Personally, I see the Reformation as a judgment of God on the Church, perhaps along similar lines as His judgments on His unfaithful people in the Books of Kings. Scripture says to be sure that one's sin will find one out, and that a man will reap what he sows. After the dust settled from the papacy's victory in the Investiture Contest, there began a lengthy period of the Church becoming excessively worldly and largely losing its spiritual focus. This is one reason why movements such as Francis' and Dominic's, and later, such as the Devotio Moderna and the Brethren of the Common Life, were even necessary in the first place. The papacy lost its way and became sunk neck-deep in the very sin and heresy which Gregory VII gave his life energies to fight: simony. As Dante has Marco Lomba
[cont]
As Dante has Marco Lombardo say in Purgatorio Canto XVI, the papacy has caused the whole world to err by confounding the shepherd's crook and the sword so that neither fears each other but both become forces of misrule, corruption, and blindness.
Now it is simply not my problem, Dave, that you don't have the time or the interest to descend into the historical particulars of classical Christian political theology and Medieval discussions of the limits of papal power and what can or should happen when the pope becomes a heretic teaching errors to the Church, and the responsibilities of rulers toward their subjects and remedies for tyranny which existed in feudal culture, and the like, but all of this has immense relevance to the claims of the Catholic hierarchy throughout the later Middle Ages. Your response doesn't touch any of this because, as you yourself admit, you haven't looked into these issues.
Now since you haven't looked into the issues that drive my criticism of your approach, and since most of what you offered in this post was complaints about perceived personal attacks, along with inflammatory insinuations that I approve of such things as murdering innocent people and that I want to rationalize sin because I hypocritically ignore Protestant sins, I confess to some reticence at continuing to discuss these things with you.
I fear, Dave, that you and I inhabit two thought worlds that are so vastly different that it may not be possible to truly effectively bridge them. I haven't decided yet what exactly to do, but I am strongly leaning toward the option that from this point on, in the name of maintaining our hard-won peace I may just have to let this go with you.
Blessings,
Tim
There was no personal attack intended in anything that I said, and no desire to slur or slander.
Same here.
Just let me know which sections of my reply were of the sort that you decry above, and I'll be happy to remove or modify them, till they do get your approval.
Thanks!
Personally, I see the Reformation as a judgment of God on the Church, perhaps along similar lines as His judgments on His unfaithful people in the Books of Kings. Scripture says to be sure that one's sin will find one out, and that a man will reap what he sows.
Well then, what about all the intervening centuries? Where was God’s "judgment” say, in the 3rd century, or the 4th? What about the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries? Any "judgment" there? How about the 9th, 10th and 11th?
Or was it only in the 16th century that the Church became corrupt?
But for the sake of brevity, let's just take the condition of the Church in one particular century - that of the fourth century. Listen to these words of Pope Leo.
“For that virgin is the Church, the spouse of one husband Christ, who suffers herself to be corrupted by no error, so that through the whole world we have one entire and pure communion.” - Pope Leo the Great (c 395-461), letter 80. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers...ers/
3604080.htm
Now, do you agree with Leo that, at least until the fourth century, the Church had remained uncorrupted? And if so, by what power? By her own? Or by the perpetual power, guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit, which Christ had promised?
I'm really not trying to be argumentative here; I'm just trying to understand the Protestant logic.
Wishing you peace.
Dave,
I already listed a few things that make your response not to the point - e.g., the remarks that I am trying to rationalize sin, that I approve of people being horribly murdered just because they were Catholics, and various remarks which seem to indicate you thought I was trying to slander your positions.
At any rate, I think I've said enough to get the basic point across. By the way, I happened to read a journal article yesterday on successes and failures in the first century of the Reformation, and it had quite a lot of negative things to say about the Reformers' problems. I blogged my way through the article - it's kind of long - and since I agree with much of what the author said, that's one more piece of evidence that you can't fairly charge me with ignoring Reformation sins and errors.
Ben M., I'm not promoting some kind of novelty talking about God's judgment on the Church. I've already mentioned this theme on two great Catholic historians, the Venerable Bede and William of Malmesbury. Other examples could be given, including that of the monks and priests at Lindisfarne when the first Vikings appeared and began a centuries-long period of slaughtering helpless Christians, burning monasteries and books, and stealing the treasures of generations of Churchmen. This was, the monks and priests said, God visiting his people with punishment for their sins. This is, of course, also a big theme in Holy Scripture. It has nothing to do with "Protestant logic," and Leo's words about the virgin purity of Rome are simply not to the point.
Leo lived in the "glory days" of Rome, when Rome was fresh from having weathered so many trials and tribulations that there had been no time to get corrupt. He didn't live to see the Pornocracy or to see the papacy sunk into the cesspool of the heresy of simony after the 11th century and all the way into the middle of the 16th. Again, this isn't about "Protestant logic." It's about biblical categories being applied to Catholicism. That is, after all, what our esteemed host is famous for. 
Oh, Dave, I just found another error on your part. You claim that for me the word "papalist" means merely someone who believes in papal infallibility. That's not accurate. The term "papalist" is pretty much universal in the scholarly literature on the development of the papacy in reference to the theory that the pope is the sole source of authority in Christendom, that all other authorities derive their legitimacy from him, and that no one on earth can hold the pope accountable for his actions on earth.
This is how I consistently use the term. It is not a reference to papal infallibility per se, nor is it equivalent to old Protestant slur words like "Romanist" and "papist." I would appreciate you correcting this, if nothing else.
You're right, Tim (as to "papalist"). That was a mistake on my part. It is true that you use the term for the hyper-ultramontanist position that was rejected by Vatican I. But in other utterances (in the past) you have tried to place the definition of 1870 into a somewhat similar sort of excessive mode of ecclesiology that you constantly rail against, and act as if it could be overturned, in order to achieve more ostensible "balance."
I already listed a few things that make your response not to the point - e.g., the remarks that I am trying to rationalize sin
You have yet to clearly, definitively denounce the massive Protestant theft of Catholic properties and so I cannot retract this charge. In fact, you even used the phrase, "so-called 'theft'" -- as if it wasn't what it was.
that I approve of people being horribly murdered just because they were Catholics
Where did I ever claim such a thing? Here is one related exchange:
TIM: ". . . I have chronicled complaints against papal simony during the 15th century."
ME: "Great. What does that have to do with Henry VIII stealing many hundreds of properties and butchering (often by hanging, drawing, and quartering) monks who denied that he was the head of the Church? Nothing, of course . . ."
That is hardly accusing you of somehow approving of Henry VIII's sins. I was simply objecting to the non sequitur.
In other places, I use my customary reductio ad absurdum technique. As anyone who studies logic knows, this does not necessarily imply that the person being critiqued accepts the conclusions at all. To the contrary, it is intended to make the person feel the logical pressure to reject a position that he himself doesn't hold, but that seems to follow from other of his statements. Hence, the following exchange:
TIM: "The problems and widespread discontent with the corrupt feudal lords masquerading as bishops and misusing the power of the Church for ill-gotten gain and other forms of oppression formed a substantial part of the cultural and spiritual backdrop to the Reformation . . ."
ME: "So let's replace these evil bishops with the pure and saintly Henry VIII and selfless German princes? That wasn't the will of the English people, since the vast majority of them remained Catholic (even in 1558 when Elizabeth continued the revolution, even deepening it)."
We see the reductio again used in a statement such as this one:
"Tim acts as if Bede would be right in league with Cromwell and Henry, standing there while Fisher and More were beheaded, etc. This is as ridiculous as it is outrageous."
You often talk about rhetoric and Cicero and so forth, and the need for readers to understand that element. It would be nice if you would also understand my use of the reductio ad absurdum: one of the classical techniques of argument often used in the Middle Ages. But you rarely seem to know when I am using it, and so you think I am accusing you of nefarious sins.
and various remarks which seem to indicate you thought I was trying to slander your positions.
The word "slander" is never applied to you even once in the paper. But I quote Luther attributing it to Erasmus. The word "lie" is never applied to you, either. But I accuse Henry VIII and Luther of that sin.
When I refer to your argument, I use terms like "falsehood" (once), "distorts" (once), "caricature" (once), "misrepresent" (once), and "empty polemics" (once). But even then I do not claim that this was deliberate. In other words, I accuse you of misinformation, borne of faulty thinking, not malice, flowing from a bad character or ethical belief-system.
It is stating what I take to be a fact, that my position (and sometimes that of the generic "Catholic apologist" that you insist on going after) was not accurately portrayed. It either was or it wasn't. But since you refuse to engage in an actual dialogue, then the reader cannot get a fuller picture of what happened, because you absolutely refuse to subject your critique to the proper scrutiny. Too bad . . .
And this is why I brought in the motif of what you will have to do when you are in the world of academia. You won't be able to excuse yourself from scrutiny and critique, then, as you habitually do now. So why not get used to the routine of your future career with me? A little sneak preview of what is to come? If you don't learn the art of interacting with critics soon, you'll be one unhappy camper when you are in the world of peer-reviewed journals.
I treat you infinitely better than your former Protestant buddies Svendsen, King, and White do. I haven't personally attacked you, as they have. But I have offered a robust critique of your A R G U M E N T. If you want to avoid that happening, then I suggest you don't critique my paper, as you did, unprovoked by me, because when someone does that (i.e., excepting the anti-Catholics, that I am through with), I will defend my positions unless and until I am persuaded to reject and retract them, as the case may be.
Well, Dave, where to begin?
Supposedly I don't engage your paper at all. Yet I did offer a SPECULATIVE counter-argument based on the papacy being neck-deep in the sin of simony throughout the later Middle Ages. That is, with widespread buying and selling of properties and their attached offices for the corrupted purpose of increasing the Church's temporal magnificence, is it possible that the papacy itself committed a great deal of theft from various feudal lords? When the possibility of papal abuse, via spiritual extortion, of the powers of excommunication and interdict is added, this question becomes all the more relevant to your paper.
Now, IF the papacy itself was mired in the sin of theft, then removing said stolen properties from the papacy in the 16th century COULD actually constitute (forced) restitution, and would not be an instance of a mortal sin - let alone a victimization of Holy Mother Church, pure and spotless like the virgin Leo I spoke of. This was a SPECULATIVE argument (because I have not the time or the resources to follow up on it) but at the same time it was a REAL argument (because it is founded upon demonstrable facts about papal sin). As such, my reply would be an example of your much-vaunted reductio ad absurdum.
Second, I continue to be confused as to how you and I can carry on a real DIA-logue ("two speaking") about subjects that you repeatedly inform me you have no time or interest in looking into in any detail. You can talk all day long about how in academia I won't be able to run from critiques of my positions issued by my peers, but frankly, on most of the issues which I discuss from Church history you're not my peer. You don't have the tools to translate the relevant texts, you don't have the necessary scholarly resources to analyze them, and you haven't done the necessary work to competently discuss the issues. How can there be a real "two speaking" between us - at least, in any sense that is going to be constructive?
This is well seen, I think, by your deployment of Brittanica and Wikipedia articles against scholarly monographs whose subjects you have never heard of before, the original source citations of which you cannot read, and the arguments of which you cannot responsibly evaluate because of your aforesaid lack of training and resources.
There are indeed people who can hold me accountable for the things I argue from primary sources and scholarly secondaries, but frankly, you aren't one of them. You're not a scholar, you're a layman. You're not a professional student of the things you study, you're an Internet apologist. The community you serve isn't as a whole (there are exceptions) a community seeking long-term understanding, but a community seeking short-term victories. These facts limit your horizons and limit the extent to which you can claim to be engaging opposing positions. I don't "excuse" myself from your critiques so much as I generally
[cont]
I don't "excuse" myself from your critiques so much as I generally don't recognize your critiques as being properly formed or informed, and thus, not in need of extended attempts to engage them "line by line."
I'm sorry if this offends you, but if you can be blunt enough to imply that I'm an irrational and unethical intellectual coward, I will be blunt enough to remind you of the category of individual that Aristotle called the "intellectually incontinent". I assume that you, like me and all other truth seekers, don't want to fall into this category, so perhaps a little less rhetorical posturing on your part and a little more recognition of your limitations would be in order. Thanks,
Tim
IF the papacy itself was mired in the sin of theft, then removing said stolen properties from the papacy in the 16th century COULD actually constitute (forced) restitution, and would not be an instance of a mortal sin - let alone a victimization of Holy Mother Church, pure and spotless like the virgin Leo I spoke of
Do you really feel that speculation about centuries-old sin gives anyone a good reason to force restitution? Don't you need something close to proof? Maybe even due process? By your standard anything done against an imperfect victim is OK. After all they probably had it coming.
If I am such an imbecile, then why did you bother to critique my paper at all?
I never claimed to be other than a popular apologist. I reiterate that endlessly.
You've made good points and clarifications, Tim. Get back to MA work now.
Hi Tim (little late responding I know),
Leo lived in the "glory days" of Rome, when Rome was fresh from having weathered so many trials and tribulations that there had been no time to get corrupt.
No time to get corrupted? After four centuries??? I’m tempted to call that, well, miraculous! But of course that can’t possibly be since, as our good friend John Calvin informed the Protector Somerset ( Oct. 22, 1548 ), “the gift of miracles has ceased.” 
http://www.archive.org/details/
l...hncal00calvuoft see p. 180.
But seriously, even within the pages of the New Testament we find a number of churches which somehow did manage to find time to become corrupt (check out the seven churches in revelation, for example). So to say there wasn’t enough time simply doesn’t make much sense.
He didn't live to see the Pornocracy or to see the papacy sunk into the cesspool of the heresy of simony after the 11th century and all the way into the middle of the 16th.
Oh yes, I agree with you here; the Church was at a low point in the sixteenth century (and even before), although I would disagree that the Church officially taught heresy. As for moral corruption within the Church, even by the popes acknowledged it. See for example, this letter of Adrian VI (1459-1523).
http://books.google.com/books?id...nations+%22&
lr=
But see also the “indefectibility of the Church” in the Cath. Encyc. article on the Church.
If nothing else, at least note the following:
“The gift of indefectibility plainly does not guarantee each several part of the Church against heresy or apostasy.”
“It was said above that one part of the Church's gift of indefectibility lies in her preservation from any substantial corruption in the sphere of morals. This supposes, not merely that she will always proclaim the perfect standard of morality bequeathed to her by her Founder, but also that in every age the lives of many of her children will be based on that sublime model. Only a supernatural principle of spiritual life could bring this about. Man's natural tendency is downwards.…According to the laws of unassisted human nature, it should have been thus with the society established by Christ. Yet history shows us that the Catholic Church possesses a power of reform from within, which has no parallel in any other religious organization. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/...then/
03744a.htm
But now all this contention is undoubtedly a little stressful. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a bit of relaxation. And to that end, I invite you (and everyone else) to just take a moment, sit back, relax, and enjoy this short excursion into that somewhat ethereal universe inhabited by one of the world’s most masterful and “focused” skydivers - the great Omar Alhegelan!
This is surreal!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u...h?
v=u3AmZ6aJldI
Peace.
Commenting by HaloScan
