Robert FitzAlan Quotes
We who are illiterate laymen do not understand one word of what the bishops have said to your Holiness.
The delegation consisted of 4 leading English nobles, accompanied by 3 chaplains, 4 bishops and an archbishop. The clerics spoke in Latin.
Robert FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, English Nobleman Leader of Embassy to the Pope sent by King Henry II, 1133-1189, Statement to the Pope, c. 1164
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This quotation, 500 years later, would be used by American anti-Catholics to justify their antipathy to the Catholic Church. This was about a most undemocratic statement about the common man and his capabilities which was completely counter to the American view. The fact that it was 500 years past or that many American Catholics did not believe it or that even if they did, it was restricted to matters of theological faith, was not considered by the Know-Nothings and others.
Smith was the first Roman Catholic to run for President. He was very popular but there was a substantial amount of anti-Catholicism in America at the time. He lost, probably by the margin of the anti-Catholic vote.
There was a continuing power struggle between the more powerful kings of Europe and the Roman Catholic Pope. This struggle however was not one of church and state. Neither the kings nor the clergy viewed the two as separate domains. Instead they saw the two in much the same way as the ancient Jews and many contemporary Muslims view relationship—as an inseparable amalgam. However there was much debate over who could best protect and manage the amalgamated entity. In this case Alcuin was arguing that Charlemagne could ensure the well-being of the church better than the Pope. The power struggle went on for centuries between more or less able, powerful, and corrupt kings and popes.
Priests at the time were mostly uneducated. They would tend to make up their own Biblical stories that the people would prefer rather than the official church versions. The bishops wanted this practice stopped.
The Islamic Holy Book even recommends against friendships with Christians and Jews. See {584381}.
Patton was no exception. The religious leaders of any community, if co-opted, can make occupation much easier.
Many of the Church wanted Wycliff excommunicated, but the King and Parliament seemed to like his writing and sermons. So he was protected in his lifetime. He died at the age of 60 of a stroke. After his death the Church burned all his books that had been banned, and exhumed his body. That was burned at the stake and his ashes scattered in a river. Martin Luther did not try to reform the Church in a vacuum. There had been various critics of the Church before Luther and Wycliff was one. The last statement in this quotation was the one that really hit the then mostly corrupt clergy where it hurt.
Liberal has a somewhat different meaning in English politics than the word as used in America. In England, the opponents of conservatives are of the Labour Party. The Liberals are a third party who on some issues are liberal in American terms and on others, conservative. However, they are very tolerant and somewhat intellectual.
The Christian Roman Empire was split in two—a Western (Latin) Empire led by the Roman Catholic Church in Rome, and the Eastern (Greek) Roman Empire led by the Orthodox Church headquartered in Constantinople (Byzantium). The two churches were not only in a theological conflict but violence broke out and the armies of the two religious empires attacked each other now and then. In 1439, leaders of the two versions of Christianity met in Florence, and they agreed to reunuion in which the Eastern Orthodox would again acknowledge the authority of the Pope. This was not a popular agreement with the majority of the Eastern Orthodox people and some of the clerical leadership. Constantine, realizing that he did not have pubic support at home for the end to the schism and the acceptance of the authority of the Pope, kept stalling on officially announcing and implementing the unity treaty. The Pope’s patience was wearing thin. Constantine did not adhere to ther treaty and the two churches have been apart ever since.
The telegram was sent in the name of the Irish Cabinet of the new government. This quotation shows the unique relationship that the Irish Republic has had with the Catholic Church. There was probably no other non Muslim country in the world where a political leaders could get elected avowing this kind of loyalty and control by a religious hierarchy. See {639725} for the Irish leader’s drastic departure from the concept of separation of church and state.
