Catholic Telegraph Quotes
We have said and we now repeat it, that slavery and the Catholic Church could never get along well together.
Catholic Telegraph, Catholic Newspaper (Cincinnati, OH) “The Church and Slavery,” April 8, 1863
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Most fundamentalist Muslims view advocacy of any religion other than Islam as an “aggression” against Islam. While Americans are used to evangelizing and very aggressive attempts to convert others to and from various religion, the lack of freedom in most Islamic societies makes this a foreign notion. Also, Muslims read the works of some Christian missionaries and generalize this view to the West in its entirety. For example, See {607979}
While this apostolic letter condemned the slave trade, it fell short of clearly implicating the entire practice of slavery. It is clear that the Catholic Church at this time was reluctant to abandon its earlier teaching which approved of “just title” slavery. This distinction approved of “slavery” in circumstances in which the person was deprived of their liberty justly. Specific examples in the past have included slaves captured in war, persons condemned to slavery for a crime, and those who sold themselves into slavery.
This was the beginning of the inquisition.
Though Leo XIII was very much opposed to slavery, his claim that the Catholic Church “from the beginning” sought to end slavery overlooks the inconsistent reality of several of his predecessors’ teachings. For an example of this inconsistency one may find a relevant example as late as the 19th century, see the teachings of Gregory XVI {611428}, Pius IX {612304}, and Leo XIII {611844}
It is an error to say that He was the last Pope to hold temporal power. 101 years later, the Vatican rejected this view and accepted Protestantism at Vatican II.
American Catholic bishops were divided during the Civil War over the slavery question. For a bishop’s view opposing abolition of slavery, see Hughes {611579}.
Kennedy had never been at the left wiing of the Democratic Party. His father, Joseph Kennedy, was known to all Irish Catholic politicans and disliked by most. He had supported big finance and business and was no great friend of labor. He was fired by FDR for publicly supporting Hitler before WWII and urging non support of England. He badmouthed FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt--Democratic icons. President Truman had to be stopped by a Secret Service agent from throwing the elder Kennedy out the window of a Boston hotel. He was a nasty man who threw his money around. But Senator Kennedy himself had never said a word criticizing Joeseph McCarthy or comdemning McCarthism and his other exceses leaving the criticism to other Democrats and even Republicans. (His silence was at the advice of his father.) Ribicoff a strong liberal knew Kennedy well and felt that Kennedy would not be constrained by his father's views, and that Kennedy was a true liberal at heart and would demonstrate that if elected President.
In some countries political candidates run on religious platforms to convert the part of the population that is not of their religion and turn the nation into a theocracy.
Henry of Navarre. The practice of kidnapping children from parents of the other faith and baptizing them was rampant.
One remarkable aspect of this quote is that most Western nations have the exact same perception he claims the Islamic word does of what the West is doing. While the Western nations think the defense is necessary and desirable, the Muslim nations fundamentally believe that Christianity and Judaism should and will be supplanted by Islam. To the Islamic fundamentalist religion is a zero sum game. Every person in the world who is not a Muslim is an attack on Islam in that God wants all to follow Islam and wants the faithful to make it so.
Toleration is a relative term. The Muslim Moors made Christians (and Jews) pay a special tax. At times they were forced to wear special clothing so that they could be readily identified. And they could not build churches larger or taller than the smallest mosque in the community. At times, their occupations were restricted but at other times Christians and Jews were appointed to the highest positions like Vizier. The Inquisition, in contrast, forced all Muslims (and Jews) to leave the country without any of their property or money or be tortured and killed—usually by burning at the stake unless of course that they converted to Christianity.
While this was his opinion, it was never issued in a Papal Bull or had the force of Catholic law. Meanwhile, almost all of the socialist movements in the West have had Catholics in their leadership and many democrats of modern times would have been considered socialist. Many countries with high proportions of Catholic voters have elected socialist governments in secluding Spain and Italy.
The Catholic Telegraph is a monthly magazine published by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati primarily for its 500,000 congregants. The archdiocese covers 19 counties in Ohio, including the Cincinnati and Dayton metropolitan areas. Originally a weekly newspaper, the Telegraph has published continuously since 1831, except for a brief period in 1832, making it the first diocesan newspaper and second oldest Catholic newspaper in the United States. The Telegraph became a monthly newspaper in September 2011 and began publishing in magazine format in June 2020.
