Historical Analysis of Catholicism

A concise impartial Historical analysis of some aspects of the Catholic Church
Devin Robertson
The Roman Catholic Church throughout its ‘long’ (approximately 1,500 years) history of activity and inactivity has been a duality between pernicious corruptibility and benevolent contributing philanthropy. From its ‘heyday’ at the height of the miserable crusades(inquisition included) to its praiseworthy sanctioning of Great Art and literature during the Renaissance, no other topic in western civilization has caused in me such keen fascination. For me, the History of the Catholic Church is so full of such rich complexity and interlinked concepts; key terms spring up in my mind instantaneously: Factions, Schism, divorce, excommunication, Heretic, persecutions, Latin, Monastery. Indeed, it must be said that any fundamental teaching of the history of Western Civilization, inextricably, has to begin with Christendom. I realize that some may criticize my explicit denotation of the Catholic Church as a ‘whole’ or collectivization, rather than by taking account of the individual figures and persons instead. My answer would be that, leaving aside the individualist selfish ends of those specific people, most of them were devout themselves and operated on behalf of the Vatican.

To me the Catholic Church has resulted disproportionally in negative aspects, rather than positive contributions. I glare as I read of its intolerably blatant anti-Semitism, its treatment of Jewish citizens (indeed it wasn’t until relatively recently that the Vatican dropped the accusations of deicide upon the Jews) as also its sanctioning of programs, as well as its fascistic treatment of intelligentsia (i.e. William of Occam, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Vanini, Voltaire, Etc.) Also by its barring of education to the layperson, resulting in pandemics of gullible illiterates and philistines. But, it also must be remembered; it had once produced and fostered intricate labyrinthine abbeys of Architectural ingenuity nearly unprecedented. And in these abbeys Monks and friars preserved the academic works of of ancient Greek and Latin’s; such as, Pythagoras, Aristotle and Cicero. Indeed many of these Monks were highly literate scholarly and attentive- almost painstakingly so (one may see the contrasting correlation between layperson and cleric).

A brief overview and yet satisfactory descriptive analysis of the historical aspects of Catholic Church has to begin In medias res, rather than from the beginning (which would be when Emperor Theodosius proclaimed Christianity as the state religion in 380 A.D)and that is how I am going to write this-a concentrated analysis of the important aspects of the crusades. Fundamentally, let’s begin(I know the humorous paradox, because this is the first crusade) in the late 11 century; this would be when Pope Urban II fervently, with his council, summoned layperson and lord alike throughout all France from Avignon to Boudreaux- on a journey of epically disastrous proportions! This would be the First Crusade: 1096-1102. The climax of which was the seizure and capture of Jerusalem on July 15 1099: two years before this the crusading caravan was racked by fearsome suffering and deprivation, especially in the ghastly protracted siege of Antioch in 1097-8. Also the testified evidence of cannibalism that was recorded after the siege of Ma’arra in 1098, this definitely is not the romantic chivalric depictions of crusading of Sir Walter Scott. After the Siege of Jerusalem, the Christian Army proceeded to massacre the Jewish and Muslim civilians within the city walls, as well as pillaging and destroying mosques and Hebrew Temples. This sort of Atrocity and destruction on innocents was not to be seen until the night of the broken glass in WWII, or Armenia during WWI.

The first Crusade was an act so expensive, long, and emotionally and physically arduous that it amounted to a ‘satisfactory’ penance capable of undoing all sins which intending crusaders confessed. Pope Urban Knew the Psychology of the average layperson’s religious sentimentality and he used that to his advantage. The fundamental feature of people’s religious fervent drives was that they were conditioned by reactions to sin and appreciation of its consequences. No aspect of human conduct and social interaction was immune from the taint of sinfulness. The first crusade was therefore preached at a time when many lay people were sensitive to communal pressure, used to dwelling on their behavioral shortcomings, and convinced that their spiritual welfare depended on taking positive action. Mainly the idea that that the relationship between this world and the next was governed by cause and effect. In the eleventh century the belief remained that penitential acts could suffice to wash away sin. Even before the First Crusade acts of pilgrimage as penance to the holy land were common seen.

After the First Crusade there followed a series of pointless and futile military expeditions (one may say comparable to the Vietnam War) aimed at strategically withholding the Levant, Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Malta in the east; all of which ended pitifully-with the exception of Malta in the Mediterranean- 200 years after the first crusade. It used to be that Medievalist Historian used to think of the Crusades as a series of rather exotic and irrational episodes of limited significance. This has changed quite considerably. The effects of the crusading movement were almost limitless; few regions of the western world, leaving aside its immediate neighbors, were not affected in some way, directly or indirectly. Objectively the Crusades fundamentally altered the political and cultural map, since it deeply conditioned the process of expansion of Latin Christendom, contributing to the emergence of new Latin states in north-eastern Europe, the Iberian peninsula, and of course the east, although some of these proved only to be temporary. This helped to contribute westerner’s view of themselves, before this there was no central government, it was much disorganized, and the monarchies of France and England were not fully developed-A time of endemic lawlessness! But the crusades helped to accelerate whereby Europeans came to appreciate that they possessed a common identity rooted in a shared cultural tradition, despite local difficulties. Another main factor was the scientific discoveries and inventions that made their way east to west. Arab and Greek advances (including the development of algebra, optics, and the refinement of engineering) that inevitably resulted in the Renaissance centuries later.



Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal in the borderlands of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina provided a nesting spot for the proselytizing of Guarani Indians by the Jesuit fathers. In the 17 century Mission territories were granted to Jesuits and the construction of reductions (communal farms) with this allowance the Jesuit order converted and pacified throngs of openhanded natives. A form of communistic idyllic society pervaded throughout South America and the protection of Indians from colonial mercenaries and secular authority plantation owners looking for fresh slaves was instilled. The Jesuit missionaries were inspired by the ideological works of Thomas Moore who published his Utopia in 1516. The fundamental idea of Utopia was to “restore society to its Christian bases, adopting as supreme guide the norms of natural rights.” The Jesuits felt honorable and upright in what they were doing by venturing into the impenetrable jungles of South American to ‘Rescue’ Indians by benevolent conversion. By the seventeenth century the Jesuit order was the foremost cultural organization and one of the strongest economic and political forces in the entire colonial world. However by the mid-17 century internal conflicts in the ‘old world’ mainly within the papacy and monarchy created a backfire to the new world. As also, by the political negotiations between Spain and Portugal monarchies, who eventually formed a treaty that ceded Paraguay land to Portugal, for its scheme of enslavement and ownership of the Indians and their territories. This was known as the treaty of Madrid, in which a document was signed by both Ferdinand the VI of Spain and John the V of Portugal on January, 13 1750, concerning their empires and status of their territories in what is now Brazil. This resulted in the Guarani War of 1754-1756, during which historical Guarani’s defended their homes against combined Spanish-Portuguese forces implementing the treaty of Madrid. In this ensuing conflict the Jesuits organized and firearm equipped the Guarani forces against the Paulista slave raiders and Spanish and Portuguese invaders.



During the time of the Enlightenment and the Philosophes , there occurred paradoxically, a wave of Christian religious intolerance and atavistic fanatical bloodletting that shook the core of Voltaire’s conscience. Three in particular: Jean Calas, Jean-François de La Barre, Pierre-Paul Sirven of who were heinously executed by torture methods that would make your average psychopath cringe. All three Cause cệlệbre’s were subjects to an unjust biased trial. Jean Calas was one of a small group of Huguenots –Calvinist Protestants- left in Toulouse after a century of persecution, confiscation of property, and compulsory conversion to Catholicism. If they had not baptized they had no civil rights whatever. Southern France was especially intense in its religious hatreds; there the struggle between Catholics and Huguenots had been merciless; each side committed atrocities that were yet warm in transmitted memories. France was mostly a catholic country; Catholicism was the state religion. Jean Calas son who converted to Catholicism was found dead, hanged, by suicide, when the authorities found out they interrogated Jean Calas about his son’s death. Because suicide was a heinous crime against oneself in those times, jean calas arranged for his son’s death to look like a murder. Jean Calas pressured into interrogation, was quickly charged on all counts of murder, and was sentenced to be put to death on the wheel. Voltaire, horror stricken by the incident, began a campaign to get Calas’s sentence overturned. He appealed throughout Europe to monarchs and contemporary assistances to rouse the conscience of Europe: “cry out yourself, and let other cry out; cry out for the calas family and against fanaticism.” As well as, “Shout everywhere, I beg you, for the Calas family against fanaticism, for it is l’infậme that has caused their misery.” With fastidious beseeching his efforts were successful, and on 9 March 1765, the Kings council, declared the condemnation of innocent jean calas as posthumously annulled. Another catholic barbarity that stemmed from medieval inquisition, which shocked Voltaire was the case of Jean-François de La Barre. The antecedents of de La Barre sentence are inconclusive, as are the testimony of the people. In any case, the sentence conformed to a statutory penalty for blasphemy and sacrilege. Accordingly, the story has it that he refused to remove his hat while a Corpus Cristi procession went by. Other more damning testifying has it that he defecated on crucifix, singing impious songs and spitting on religious images. The outcome was definitely not to be a pleasant one; de La Barre was sentenced to be tortured and beheaded before his body was burnt on a pyre along with Voltaire’s “philosophical Dictionary.” After this horrible incident, Voltaire reacted with righteous indignation, and warlike polemic, with the phrase “Ècrasez l′infâme!” “Crush the infamy!” henceforth he repeated the phrase well over a hundred times in his letters. What he meant by l′infâme!” was not religion in general, but religion as organized to propagate superstition and mythology, to control education, and to oppose dissent with censorship and persecution. And such was Catholicism as Voltaire saw it in history in France. I may add my own juxtaposition that never was there to be such as staunch, strident, stance on polemical issues against the Catholic Church to be seen until Christopher Hitchens in the 21-century.