France Thonon Quotes

Pope Innocent Iii was an interesting combination of primitive traditional Church inhumanity and intolerance for dissent and modern Christian views at the same time. Consider {45387} and {45384} for his proactive tolerance and protection of Jews and {45383} for his intolerance of Muslims and {45382} for his persecution of heretics.

He had just finished making a documentary on Angola, one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, with a thriving oil industry, a very wealthy upper class, and one of the worst health care systems in the world.

This quotation is a more sophisticated statement of the Magna Carta clause {583716}. Note that English law allowed redress against all other people including religions officials and government temporal officers. And everyone was entitled to justice and access to the courts including outlaws or people who have been excommunicated. In many countries these people do not have the protection of the law. This tradition allows prisoners in jail to sue the jailers for example. And imagine a person who had been excommunicated as a heretic and yet allowed to live turning around and suing clerics who were persecuting him in an Islamic nation other than Turkey.

It took only 10 days after the First Continental Congress met for religious bigotry to arise. After hundreds of years of Catholic/Protestant strife, each sect looked upon the other, not only as theologically wrong, but dangerous to the liberty of the other. Unfortunately, the organied religions had acted so badly towards other religions, that everyone was justified in fearing the other religions. This quotation illustrates a then typical attitude of many American Protestants that the Catholic Church was a threat to national security. Ironically, in modern times, anti-Catholic bigots use this quotation to demonstrate that the United States was founded as a Christian Protestant nation—not a general Christian nation. A small, vicious anti-Catholic sentiment still exists, usually by a minority of right wing Protestant religious fundamentalists. Protestant England had just repealed the laws making Catholicism illegal, but this was regarded at that time as intolerable for the new America. This was one of the disputes which that the Founding Fathers were faced with later and one of the reasons that they were so absolute in the need for the 1st Amendment.

The relationship between Irish Catholics and the organized priesthood has at times been contentious. Forced tithing to support clergy in a lifestyle that was greater than average, together with some corrupt priests and monks produced hostility from even many Catholics.

WHO is the World Health Organization which is a part of the United Nations. It’s major goal is to provide public health assistance to third world nations. It came under fire for a range of abuses including arrogance, waste of money for flying first class and opulent offices, trying to control the Internet health domain, allowing political considerations to influence public health policies and practices, nepotism and cronyism producing second rate staff “experts,” mismanagement, fraud, waste and abuse, and others. It does some excellent heath work, but like other units of the United Nations is am administrative mess.

This amazing pronouncement separated the right of citizenship from religion. This was opposed by most clerics as to them excommunication meant that the person should have no rights whatsoever. There was a practical side to the Chancellor’s view. At the time there were bitter religious civil wars in France. Each sect would castigate and excommunicate its religious and often military enemies. Things had reached such a point where anybody who was anybody had been excommunicated by somebody. If citizenship were to be nullified by excommunication, then the state would have to take sides. If it treated all excommunications as equal, too many people would be denied their citizenship. Therefore the only practical solutions were to have a single state religion or to separate excommunication from citizenship. France was beyond the possibility of a state religion with Catholics, Lutherans, Huguenots--all had large established congregations of followers and there were smaller sects.

Philip II, by this statement, and his subsequent behavior, made a major step forward in France for the separation of church and state. Previously, French kings played a major part in the selection of the bishops and other high clerics of the realm. Phillip ceased that type of interference. He did however, close down a religious commune for misbehavior, but that was at the request of both the church and civil authorities. See {617074} . The religious authorities at the time were delighted with this form of separation of church and state, but they were adamant that their church should be able to influence the monarchy and laws of the realm. In contrast today, the Chinese government does not allow any religion to interfere with the operation of the government, but insists that the Dali Lama and the Bishops of the Catholic church can only be appointed with their approval. Separation of church and state is a two way phenomenon.

Olivi was a brilliant scholar who ran afoul of the religious authorities on several occasions. He was accused of being a heretic for his writings, but was exonerated after intensive trials and debates. In this quotation, he attributed the religious error of Jews and others, not to the anti-Christ, human venality, or even fault of character, but from a difference in human perspective. He was a pioneering original thinker, who while not well appreciated in his lifetime, had a significant cult following including several cardinals of The Church that arose after his death. However, other conservative forces then decided that he was a heretic after all. They burned his writings and destroyed his tomb. Today, there is a street in France named for him.

The Vatican & the Chinese Communist Government had been at odds for years with much of the Chinese church going underground. Fr. Jin had been jailed for a decade. Then the government allowed him and the Catholic Church and operate openly, but there were still Vatican conflicts over numerous issues including the right of the Government to approve senior appointments of church officials—a privilege the church claimed exclusively. The Vatican ordered Jin not to cooperate and especially not to reopen the national theological seminary which the government had ordered closed. There had been no training for Chinese priests and Jin wanted to reopen the national theological seminary but the Vatican refused cooperation waiting for the government to capitulate to the Vatican’s various demands. Fr. Jin defied the Vatican & reopened the seminary. Without officially admitting their failed tactics, the Vatican let the discipline issue against Jin drop & the national theological seminary thrived.

Naples was an independent kingdom before the unification of Italy. This quotation illustrates one of the lowest periods of the Roman Catholic Church where the personal morality of the Pope and Cardinals was greatly at odds with the earlier and current positions of the Church. This hypocrisy, nepotism, and corruption was one of the major factors that led to the Reformation. Note that the Pope had an illegitimate son who he named a Cardinal and the Pope wanted his son to marry the daughter of the king. The king was not enthusiastic given the son’s status as a Cardinal of the Church.