Louis MacNeice Quotes
Though I do regard the Inquisition in general and the burning of Giordano Bruno in particular as blots on the history of the Roman Catholic Church, I am far from being actuated by hatred of that church, and in fact cannot imagine that European civilization would have developed or survived without it.
MacNeice, Louis. The Strings Are False: An Unfinished Autobiography. Faber and Faber, 1965.
This was the beginning of the inquisition.
The Catholic Church was allied with the Fascists in Spain in the 1930’s. In the Spanish Civil War many Americans supported democracy and the Republicans. Historically in these days the Church had been associated with the power establishment and when there was a revolution as in Mexico, the Church was seen to have been part of the problem and its assets were nationalized and its influence diminished. Spellman and the Vatican were worried about the same thing in Spain and hence allied themselves with Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. As a result of backing the wrong side morally at that time, the Church after WWII became a leader in advocating freedom and democracy in many parts of the world, but still had historical ties to the right wing elements of a new nations in South America.
Coughlin was a great admirer of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and the Fascists. He was one of the American “heroes” in Nazi Germany, receiving assistance from the Nazi government. Between his anti-Semitism and support for Hitler, Fascism and radical socialism, the Vatican ordered him off the air and shut down his political demagoguery.
While Aquinas brought much wisdom and good to the Church, this statement and others laid a foundation for murdering non-believers and organizing the Inquisition.
Lowery was one of the senior Black leaders in the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. In this interview, he was describing the atmosphere in Mobile, Alabama. Clergy of most faiths were active in the Civil Rights Movement in the South with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church which was very institutionally conservative. The Catholic leaders had a problem in that Catholics had been heavily discriminated against in early America and this prejudice was heaviest in the South in the 20th century. They feared that Catholic Activism against the status quo would create more problems for Catholics so they were not very helpful or supportive. This was NOT true for Catholics in general. Many individual Roman Catholics marched in the demonstrations, and some Catholic clergy from outside of the South came to the Southern protests and demonstrations. In the 20th century, the Catholic Church was divided between social activist reformers and in some cases revolutionists and the conservative wing of the Church who had supported the status quo.
The origins of the extreme religious intolerance of Spain occurred centuries before the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition. Before the Conference the Visigoths and their king had been converted to Christianity but not all cared for the new religion.
Frederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright from Northern Ireland, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely appreciated by the public during his lifetime, due in part to his relaxed but socially and emotionally aware style. Never as overtly or simplistically political as some of his contemporaries, he expressed a humane opposition to totalitarianism as well as an acute awareness of his roots.
