"Apostasy"

by Zilgee 22 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  ThomasMore

  aqwsed12345 - interesting read but I have been diagnosed with terminal imperfection and only have 20 years to live. Can you synopsize to the length of a twitter comment please. My ADD prevents me from absorbing long comments.
  
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  aqwsed12345

  Our Lord Christ did not remain on earth in visible form. Yet He wished to ensure that His teachings, gifts, and institutions would remain among us, and for the institutional preservation of all these, He founded the Church. The Church has become the custodian of His love and care for us, the guardian of His principles, the bearer of His laws and blessings. Through the Church, Christ showers us with His gifts. It proclaims, protects, and spreads the true faith, fights for the establishment of the Kingdom of God, sanctifies souls and leads them on the path to earthly and eternal happiness. Through the Church, Jesus nurtures and cares for us, guides our steps, and prepares our souls for eternal bliss.

  One would think that for this reason everyone would be passionately in love with the Church, as the bride and fiancee of Jesus (cf. Ephesians 5, 22-30), and the greatest benefactor of humanity. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Many people inexplicably alienate themselves from the Church, even if they otherwise profess to be followers of Christ. A peculiar phenomenon! There are those who carry Christ on their lips and occasionally use His name or a snatched phrase for the defense of their own worldview or direction, but as soon as Jesus urges order, discipline, organizational solidity, as soon as He talks about the Church, spiritual governance, religious supremacy, the custodians of spiritual power, they immediately flinch. Christ yes, but not the Church! - this is their motto. They do not dare to attack Jesus directly, but they attack the Church and everything related to it: the papacy, priesthood, sacraments, the institutions of church life, all the more fiercely.

  Vain and pitiable struggle! Jesus did not want mere individual piety, did not want to open a mere school, did not want to set a philosophical system into the world, but wanted a new world order, a kingdom, the "Kingdom of Heaven", the "Kingdom of God" on earth, a spiritual family, unity, an organization, or as He directly and repeatedly said: a Church. Therefore, whoever speaks against the Church, speaks against Christ, and whoever does not love the Church, cannot love Christ either. To love the Church is to love Jesus, to gratefully accept His most beautiful and greatest gift! However, Christ founded only one Church and since human capriciousness has resulted in numerous man-made "churches" vying for the palm today, we must also clearly see which is the one, true, lawful, Catholic Church.

  Some might say: "Religion is needed, but not the Church." You might as well say: a car is needed, but not a wheel. Health is needed, but not health care. Lunch is needed, but not a chef. The Church is needed precisely so that there is someone to proclaim religion, to manage its affairs regularly, to lead official worship, to guide people in religious life, lest anyone should do things that are inappropriate, unworthy, superstitious or even immoral in the name of religion.

  Anyway: whether the Church is needed is not for us to decide. It was decided long ago by the only one competent to decide: Lord Christ Himself. Because He Himself openly said that He is building a Church, indeed on Peter, and He and the apostles often talk about the Church, the Kingdom of God, the organized community of believers. Therefore, anyone who does not need a Church is arguing with Christ Himself.

  So what is the Church? The Church is the organized community of believers, appointed by Christ, which is characterized by the fact that, according to Christ's command, there are leaders and led, superiors and subordinates in it. The leaders are those who, by the command of Christ, exercise teaching, sacrament-distributing, and soul-governing power in the Church. This hierarchical (priestly) constitution of the Church is undoubtedly Christ's own ordinance.

  If we accept the gospel at all, we must also accept what we read in it about the Church being founded by Jesus. The gospel clearly and explicitly speaks of the Church, which Jesus built upon Peter as a rock and those who do not listen to it should be like the heathen and the tax collector (Mt. 16:18; 18:17). In addition, the gospel also lists those measures of Jesus, which, even if Jesus does not explicitly mention the Church, involve the organization of a religious community led by divine authority - the Church.

  What is the Church? It is the association of Catholic Christians living all over the world, whose visible head is the successor of Saint Peter. The marks of this Church all originate from Christ. Jesus entrusted the spiritual leadership of the faithful to his disciples, whose preaching and sacramental activity everyone who wants to be saved must use; that is, he established an ecclesiastical organization in which there are leaders and members, superiors and subordinates, priests and believers. Therefore, there is no doubt that Jesus wanted to establish not a mere school or religious philosophical theory, but a Church, which everyone is obliged to belong to, who learns about the Church as Jesus' creation.

  Protestants, of course, say that "the Church unnecessarily interferes between God and the soul." They also say that "no mediator is needed: the soul must directly connect to God."

  Both are needed: the soul's direct connection to God and the Church's role in establishing, strengthening, and correctly directing this connection. The Church does not "interfere" and does not separate the soul from God, but on the contrary: it leads the soul to God. Where there is no Church, there is no serious piety, or at least not the organized, protected, lawful piety that Jesus ordered. Anyone who sees a burden and obstacle in the Church is opposing Jesus' order; if someone perceives the Church as "interfering" between Jesus and the souls, this interference is due to Christ's own definite provision.

  Christ clearly established only one Church. He always talks about one Church, one kingdom of God, and wants everyone to belong to it in complete unity: "there shall be one fold, and one shepherd" (John 10:16). St. Paul derives the law of unity and indissolubility of marriage from the fact that the marriage of believers is "one body and one spirit, just as your calling is to one hope. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. 4:4-5). He specifically emphasizes that there should not be denominations or schisms in the Church. "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought" (1 Cor. 1:10).

  That's why Ignatius of Antioch, the great martyr-bishop, said at the beginning of the 2nd century: "Do not be deceived, brothers: he who follows schism cannot inherit the kingdom of God (Philad. 3, 2. 3.)"; and Saint Irenaeus, the great martyr-bishop of Lyon in the middle of the 2nd century: "Those who are outside the Church are also outside the truth." St. Augustine warns: "Therefore cling, my dear ones, all of you with one will to God as your Father and to the Church as your mother" (In Psalm. 88; 2, 14).

  So there is no question of reconciling the doctrine of "multiple churches", the bundle of denominations deeply differing in all essentials: doctrine, organization, ambition, with the principles of Jesus and the early Church. The Church ordained by Christ is not simply a collective term for the denominations of all Jesus-believers, but only the members of the Church Jesus built: those who stand on the rock foundation on which Jesus built his Church; who follow the shepherd whom Jesus entrusted with the governance of his entire flock. The rest may stand outside the Church perhaps from individual good-faith error, and may even be saved as a result of this good faith; but they are not on the right path and are not members of Jesus' Church.

  Why don't Protestants recognize the Pope?

  Because Martin Luther wanted to defend his errors even against papal authority and went into rebellion. He wanted to cause upheaval in the Church, and thus inevitably found himself in opposition to the papal authority that guards unity. Martin Luther was led into papal opposition and schism not by gospel arguments, but by rigid adherence to his own individual interpretation of Scripture. The same applies to the other reformers, who quite rightly saw in the Pope the guardian of ecclesiastical unity and legality, and since they wanted to push this unity and legality out of their way, they therefore waged a bitter battle against the symbol and guard of unity: the papacy.

  Individually, unfortunately, some Renaissance-era popes did indeed provide opportunities for accusations and attacks. But Luther and the others erred in that they not only chastised the individual faults of the popes, but also the papacy itself, the papal institution and the unity of the Church; and in this they were definitely seriously mistaken. This mistake of theirs was all the more serious because they themselves were not free from gross human deficiencies. Thus, Martin Luther publicly broke his priestly and monastic vows, encouraged the secular lords to unlawfully appropriate church property, thus inciting church robbery, caused a terrible moral decline by denying free will and emphasizing the supposed unnecessary nature of good deeds, and allowed himself unprecedented hatred and moral licentiousness in his "table talks" and writings.

  Calvin was morally stricter, but in turn perhaps surpassed even Luther in hatred and established a real court of emergency in Geneva, which punished with death, exile, confiscation of property, and imprisonment those who dared to contradict him. Yet he was not even an ordained priest or bishop and had no legal right to manage church affairs.

  Christ died for everyone, but for this reason, he wants everyone to belong to that Church through which He shares the fruits of His redeeming death with us and which He left to us as the instrument of salvation. Everyone can be saved, but then they must join the true Church: this is what Jesus Himself commanded. Only those who are not part of it due to good faith, insurmountable error can be saved outside the Church.

  No one says that the pope's word is "holier" than the Scripture. But the Pope never teaches anything that contradicts the Scripture. In the two-thousand-year history of the Church, we would search in vain for a single example! However, where the Scripture does not speak, or where it does not speak clearly enough and the question is what the correct interpretation of the Scripture is, the Pope's word is holy, precisely because Christ wants us to listen to him. Otherwise, He could not send us to him under the burden of eternal damnation (Mk. 16, 16); He could not oblige us to listen to the Church's word in such a way that anyone who does not listen to it should be avoided as a "pagan and tax collector". (Mt. 18, 17.)

  The fact that the Pope himself is just a sinful, fallible, erring human does not change anything here. After all, it is not his personal holiness or wisdom that is the basis for why we should listen to him, but Christ's command and the support of the Holy Spirit, which cannot allow him to err whenever he, as the successor of the head apostle, speaks on behalf of the whole Church. (Lk. 22, 32.) The state law is also holy, the court's judgment is also holy, regardless of how excellent, perfect, or exemplary a person the legislator or the judge himself is in his own personal life.

  No one says that the popes cannot sin and that they have not sinned throughout history, sometimes indeed severely. Individual sinlessness is one thing and official infallibility is quite another. We say it is official because the Pope is not infallible in his personal opinions; he is only infallible when, as the head of the entire Church, he officially and solemnly (ex cathedra) declares that something belongs to the deposit of Christian faith.

  This infallibility of the Pope is a logical consequence of the infallibility of the Church, which Jesus solemnly proclaimed when he demanded listening to the Church under the burden of eternal damnation, saying "whoever does not listen to the Church, let him be to us as a pagan and a tax collector" (a public sinner; Mt. 18, 17).

  Unfortunately, there have been unworthy popes too; true, out of 266, only 8-10 at most. But most popes, even if they made individual mistakes, were serious high priests, many of them examples of sanctity of life and martyrdom heroism. Individual sinfulness is in no way contrary to the sanctity of office and Christ's ordination; and infallibility does not mean personal sinlessness.

  The Western world tends to forget that for two thousand years the Catholic Church has been the initiator or booster of every valuable progress. Who abolished slavery? Who elevated women, children, workers to human dignity? Who civilized the peoples of Europe? Who taught the wild nomadic peoples migrated here by the migration of peoples to settle down, to agriculture, to industry, to peaceful and civic life? Who sanctified the relationship between man and woman in Christian marriage and thus gave solid and secure moral foundations to child-rearing? The Catholic Church created the public education system, popular education, all types of schools, starting from elementary schools, through secondary education to universities; since almost every famous university still existing today was founded by the Church. The Church created science and culture, elevated art to unparalleled flowering: in the Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and modern styles. In the field of natural science, philosophy, historiography, and linguistics, Catholic, partly priestly scientists are still leading. The Catholic Church created care for the poor and the sick, established the first hospitals, poorhouses, orphanages, devised regular care for the blind and deaf-mute. The Catholic Church laid the foundation for social care, equality before the law, the protection of workers' rights (Leo XIII: Rerum Novarum, Pius XI: Quadragesimo Anno) - There is not a single institution or denomination in the world that has earned such great merits in the field of culture and progress as the Catholic Church. Anyone who calls the Catholic Church a brake on progress might just as well call the shining Sun in the sky a spreader of darkness.
• 

  joey jojo

  @aqwsed12345

  Your sycophantic writing almost makes me want to become a catholic.

  Do you actually give the catholic church a pass for :

  Supporting the abuse of native land owners during colonisation?

  The abuse of children in their care for centuries?

  The support of slavery - perpetual servitude for pagans? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dum_Diversas

  The silence of the papacy during the holocaust?

  Anti-science persecutions of the middle ages?

  A lot of people who went to catholic schools talk about the cruelty of the brothers and the nuns.

  They have enjoyed great power for about 2 thousand years and while they have done some good, they have abused that power and caused untold misery for a lot of people too.
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  Acluetofindtheuser

  It's best that Christianity remain as 1000's of denominations and not be one unified religion. It exposes all the bad interpretations and keeps it all transparent. Look at Islam. If you don't conform you will lose your head literally. The Catholic church used to be like that until the masses took away that power. One day Islam is going to lose that power too. I read recently that Sudan did a 180 on Sharia Law in 2021 and went totally secular. The world is finally figuring out religious extremism is not cool and will cut you out of prosperous business prospects for bad behavior.
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  Balaamsass2

  It always made me smile how Watchtower claimed the very same HORRIBLE 3rd-century "Apostate" Bishops and church leaders who decided on the Trinity doctrine.... decided which "SACRED" writings should be the Bible moving forward because of the "holy spirit's direction." :) lol
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  aqwsed12345

  WHAT IS ALL THANKS TO THE PRIESTS...

  "The knights of darkness"
  

  A UNIVERSITY professor took great pleasure in criticizing the priests: "The priests are the vampires of human civilization, the inhibitors of sciences and arts, the highwaymen of progress, the knights of darkness and conservatism" - these were his favorite sayings.
  

  However, there was a decent and highly talented student of his who eventually got tired of the professor's outbursts and one beautiful day paid a visit to him.

  - Professor, I would like to ask for your help in dispelling some of my scientific doubts - he said.

  - With the greatest pleasure, my young friend. Please, take a seat.

  - First of all, I would like to know who preserved the ancient classics for us? How did they not get lost in those perilous times when barbarism inundated the whole cultural world at the beginning of the Middle Ages?

  - It's a known fact: the monks copied the classics in their monasteries and thus saved them from destruction.

  - What!... the monks?

  - Yes, yes; primarily the Benedictines.

  - So it was the monks after all? The priests? They saved the ancient codexes for us? That must have been incredibly tiresome work? How many of them could have contracted lung disease from all the library dust! This happened when the princes couldn't even sign their own names, right? What strange times! And even stranger friends, who fancied copying Livy, Caesar, Cicero, Vergil, and - not to forget them - Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, letter by letter! So it was really the work of the monks, all those carefully written codexes? The letters all look as if they were painted; the initials are real masterpieces! Oh, those priests! But allow me another question, professor! Is it really true that without priests we would not have Columbus or Vasco de Gama? They say that a friar, Fra Mauro, drew that famous map in 1450, which awakened the idea of a round-the-world journey in Columbus.

  - It's true, young man - the professor replied, shifting in his seat - although we must not forget that someone else could have drawn that map as well.

  - Oh, of course, of course. Why should such a genius idea occur specifically in a priestly head?... Right, one more thing! I read that a Pope introduced Arabic numbers to arithmetic in place of the inconvenient Roman numbers.

  - Yes, that's Sylvester II. But someone else would have done that too. However, the intrusive dominance of the popes...

  - I also heard something about the first telescope and microscope being invented by a priest. This can't possibly be true? Does all good originate from the priests?

  - The fact is true. The aforementioned instruments were invented by the Franciscan Roger Bacon. However, I note that Roger Bacon was a monk of modern spirit, not some cloaked monk lurking in the dark.

  - When did Roger Bacon live? He died in 1292, right? Hm, hm, so there were modern priests even back then? One more thing! The first person to teach that the sun stands still and the earth rotates wasn't Galilei, right, professor?

  - No, indeed, it was Copernicus.

  - Again a priest? Moreover, they say that even this canon wasn't the first one because about a hundred years before him, the bishop of Regensburg, Regiomontanus, taught the same thing.

  - It's possible!

  – Just a bit more patience, please, professor! Why is it that the era in which sciences, arts, and literature flourished so greatly is referred to as the Golden Age of Pope Leo X?

  – Why? Because Pope Leo X was a unique patron of scientists, artists, and writers.

  – But how can this be? After all, Pope Leo X was, to my knowledge, a pope.

  – Sir, it appears to me that you only came...

  – To dispel my doubts, my troubling doubts, professor. I can't label priests as being conservative or ignorant, while these terrible doubts plague me. May I continue my questions, professor? Is it true that the first public schools were founded by John Baptist de la Salle?

  – Yes, the French de la Salle? The saint?

  – Yes, the priest!

  – And that the cause of the deaf was first taken up by the Spanish Pedro de Ponce, followed by l'Epée?

  – Indeed, the Spanish de Ponce, then de l'Epée.

  – The monk de Ponce and l'Epée, the priest? Curious! Wasn't it enough that the monk Berthold Schwarz invented gunpowder, the monk Guido d'Arezzo the scale, a Bavarian monk from Tegernsee invented stained glass, the Jesuit Cavalieri polychromy, the Jesuit Secchi spectral analysis?

  – Sir, if you only came here to annoy me... thunder and lightning!

  – Not at all, professor! But it's true, the lightning rod was not actually invented by Franklin, because as early as 1754 a Premonstratensian parish priest, Prokop Divisch, was making lightning rods. I also read this in Kürschner's lexicon.

  – Your tongue, it seems, never tires.

  – Ad vocem! The greatest language master of our time was Cardinal Mezzofanti, the polyglot, right?

  – That did not prevent him from being conservative.

  – The most conservative person, however, was undoubtedly Cardinal Mai, the greatest paleographer of the 19th century, who unveiled the secrets of palimpsests to the scientific world.

  – All right, all right, young man. Where do you intend to go from here?

  – Where? In what direction? I should ask Flavio Gioja, who made the compass usable around 1300. But he was also a priest!

  – Oh, oh, you're really fired up!

  – Fired up? Well, against that the best thing is a water pump. But the first fire pump was also designed by priests, Cistercians. And the Capuchins of Paris were Paris's firefighters until the 17th century.

  – If you weren't chattering so interestingly, I'd throw you out.

  – Where to, professor? Perhaps into the airy heights? This reminds me of the airship. The first airship, I believe, was invented by Monk Berthold Gusmae 60 years before Montgolfier, who in 1720 ascended in his airship in front of the entire Portuguese court. Professor, you're cleaning your glasses. This is also an invention of priests! The glasses were invented in the 13th century by the Dominican Alexander Spina. Are you in such a hurry that you're looking at your watch? This is also a priestly invention: the first clock was made by Cassiodorus, the famous church writer; Gerbert, later Pope Sylvester II, improved this invention. The first astronomical clock was made by Abbot Richard of Wallingford in 1316. Am I bothering you, professor? I'm leaving now! The gas lamps are already burning outside. It cannot be unknown to you that the gas flame was discovered by the Jesuits, these spreaders of darkness. They first used gas light in Stonyhorst, England in 1794. The Jesuit Duan founded the first gas company in Preston in 1815. I bid you farewell, professor! Excuse me... Oh, you have a bicycle too? This device was invented by the priest Pianton, who was already riding a bicycle in 1845. Good night! I apologize once again. But you should know, I can't rest until I know the truth...

  ... A loud door slam ended the conversation.
• 

  road to nowhere

  Didn't you hear? Jehovah caused the bible to be canonized.

  Actually there was a big , mostly american, adventist movement that used protestant ( king james) scripture.
• 

  Balaamsass2

  I enjoyed watching this History Channel program and a few others. Really got me thinking.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x3FxfkJqLI
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  aqwsed12345

  joey jojo

  Is that all? What about the other other black legends and anti-catholic memes? Let's see some typical anti-Church topics:

  1. The indignity of medieval church leaders

  It is especially painful for a Catholic to hear about the unworthy popes, bishops, and priests of the medieval church. And this is an undeniable fact.

  It is a general rule that it is difficult for people or groups in power to remain clean. (Every day we hear news in the media about domestic or foreign political, economic, party, etc. leaders involved in serious corruption.) Of course, one would especially expect a church leader to live in the purity of Christ, even in his position of power. And in many cases, this was wonderfully realized – which tendentious history books write less about. At other times, church people were also defeated by the temptation of power.

  At least it makes it more understandable for us how the church leadership could be so distorted in the Middle Ages if we consider its historical background: - The church, in its authentic realization, was the herald of a wonderful new value order, the protector of the poor, the needy (the carer of the sick, the founder of hospitals, etc.), and the bearer of science and culture (the founder and maintainer of schools, universities, the cultivator of sciences). From the first centuries of Christianity, many rich people converted, who, seeing the values of the church, left their wealth and lands to the church leaders to use them for the benefit of humanity. The rulers also enriched the monasteries, the bishoprics with huge donations, for the purpose just mentioned. Bishops also became part of the highest leadership bodies of the countries. - When the wealth and influence of the church grew extraordinarily in this way, it became increasingly in the interest of the rulers (and ruling groups) to have people in the episcopal chair who were "their men". This is mostly how the decay began. The rulers increasingly seized the right to appoint bishops, often appointing completely unfit people as bishops. And, especially from the 9th-10th centuries onwards, it was often political-power interests that determined who should be the pope. This is the sad explanation for the fact that there were many (in some centuries very many) truly unworthy bishops and popes.

  Similarly, unfortunately, many people entered the ranks of the priesthood - due to the rank and financial situation of the priesthood - who were obviously more attracted by human aspects than by the gospel. All these explain the reformers' anti-hierarchy and anti-papacy as well.

  It is a miracle of the Holy Spirit that, even under these circumstances, the Gospel did not lose its power, that from age to age there arose Christians (saints) and saintly movements of shiningly pure life who renewed the Church, and that the Church was able to remain a bearer of the Gospel.

  2. The Crusades

  Every country celebrates and considers it legitimate for its people to defend themselves. Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. By the time the Crusades started, Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the Christian world. The Crusades were a direct response to more than four centuries of Muslim aggression. Fantastic article:

  The Real History Of The Crusades

  During the era of the Crusades, Europe and the closely connected "Christian world" experienced itself in a certain sense as a single unity. And so they experienced the Mohammedan attack, and the occupation of the holiest places of Christians - the Holy Land. Islam, by the way, aimed to conquer Europe and destroy Christianity. Wasn't it natural if the European peoples and rulers united for mutual defense and aimed to recapture the holy places of Jesus' life?

  The current assessment of the Crusades is not fair. The Crusader armies' Eastern campaigns were self-defense offensives of Christian Europe (see the speech of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095!) (at least the first two were definitely), and they did defend Europe. It is regrettable that in the later Crusades, not only religious enthusiasm but also the desire for acquire wealth and adventure played a role. Shameful events also occurred, such as the occupation of Byzantium (This also states that the sins of the Crusades were the consequences of human frailty, but this does not mean that there was no great need for the institution itself.). But the assertion that the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre, the protection of Christian pilgrims, the unification of Christianity, and the prevention of Islamic terror were purely propagandist goals, behind which there were actually economic interests (such as the impoverishment caused by the primogeniture law of the knights, the desire for trade monopolies by Italian cities, and the flight of serfs from feudal exploitation.) is nothing more than a common fabrication of incidental causes turned into main causes, driven by the deliberate prejudice of the "Enlightenment". After all, there were "Crusader" armies even before the proclamation of the Crusades (1095). For example, they defended Spain from the Moors who infiltrated at the Strait of Gibraltar, whom Charles Martel and his armies were only able to repel from the territory of present-day France (732). Without them, today - probably - all of Europe would live under the rule of Sharia. But can a war that protects Europeans and takes place far beyond Europe's borders be driven by self-defense? The affirmative answer consists of two parts:

  A) Any homeland defense or so-called "just" war may involve offensives beyond borders (Think of the US's role in World War II in Europe [e.g., the landing in Normandy] and Asia [e.g., Hiroshima, Nagasaki], the Soviet Union's advance in Europe, the Korean and Vietnamese wars, the Gulf War, the United States' anti-terror campaign in Iraq, and the armed conflicts of the re-established state of Israel with neighboring states. - the note does not intend to sanctify or condemn any of these historical events, as it is not the purpose of the catechism to evaluate the history of the most recent age, we simply wanted to show that in public consciousness the concepts of military action beyond borders and self-defense fight can easily coexist.) (such as a preemptive strike [The fact that Christianity struck a devastating blow to Muslim armies four times on its own territory (in Europe) is ample evidence that the Muslim world set out to swallow up Europe, and this could and should be countered with means beyond the border:

  • 732: Tours and Poitiers - Islamic aggressor: Abderrhaman — victorious Christian leader: Charles Martel.

  • 1456: Belgrade - Islamic aggressor: Mehmed II - victorious Christian leader: John Hunyadi.

  • 1571: Lepanto - Islamic aggressor: Ali Pasha - victorious Christian leader: Don Juan d'Austria.

  • 1683: Vienna - Islamic aggressor: Kara Mustafa - victorious Christian leader: Jan Sobieski.

  The Islamic invasion was therefore independent of the activities of the Crusaders, as the western movements of Muslim aggression caused serious military problems for Europe centuries before and after the campaigns.]).

  B) A country and a community are obliged to protect their citizens or members of the community even if they are attacked beyond the country's borders or the community's possessions (Think about what would happen today if a superpower's citizens were being systematically slaughtered in a foreign country based on a state-supported ideology, just because they belong to a particular country.). After all, Christian pilgrims were systematically exterminated or harassed by Muslims for centuries, depending on the interest of the ruling power. We take it for granted and justifiable that any country or nation should defend its interests with armed force. After all, we can appreciate the well-being, the existence of a country or nation. However, we deny the same thing from the Church. But by doing so, we are either inconsistent or we do not appreciate spiritual values enough.

  The so-called Children's Crusade (1212) should be discussed separately, the assessment of which is also questionable. Because it is true that there was such a thing, and it was madness, but it should not be forgotten that it was not organized by the Church, but was a spontaneous popular initiative. The Church did not even support it, in fact, several bishops managed to turn back thousands of children from certain death.

  Undoubtedly, there are serious sins and inhumanities in the history of the Crusades, as is unfortunately characteristic of any protracted war. And only the attitude of the age somewhat explains such - from today's perspective - total absurdities as the children's crusade. - But in essence, we must consider these wars as the self-defense of Christian Europe.

  3. The Inquisition

  How could the Inquisition come into existence? And what did it mean? This question can only be approached within its historical context.

  The Holy Inquisition: Myth or Reality

  Historical revision of the Inquisition

  34 Common Errors About the Spanish Inquisition

  Our current era is pluralistic. The great ideal of modern man is freedom. Everyone has the right to believe in and to preach what they want... There is much beauty in this: it is wonderful that the human mind and conscience are free. But this also carries dangers – for behind these beautiful slogans, true freedom can diminish! For example, we see that due to economic freedom, the liberal capitalism, financial and power groups can form (even true global mafias), causing serious harm to many people and entire societies. - And the false fruits of freedom are also those institutions that can poison entire societies with impunity if their financial or other interests require it (like certain TV channels repeatedly inciting millions of viewers to reject humanity's fundamental moral values - fidelity, purity, modesty, honesty - or to engage in vulgar language, violence, destruction, murder, etc.). And hundreds of thousands of people perish from these intellectual and physical poisonings.
  

  As a result of freedom, intellectual mafias can also arise: star- and other fortune tellers, witches, magicians, Satanist groups, etc., can operate, and there can be global interconnections of these intellectual mafias. Of course, the law prohibits groups (whether religious or otherwise) that obviously harm humans and society. But it is not easy to determine when and what is harmful. Laws can ban certain businesses that endanger society as a whole (or youth), such as drug trafficking, but we see that they can barely restrict the big mafias.

  The medieval outlook was not pluralistic and not liberal: The Middle Ages, or even the Roman Empire, thought in terms of a unified society. (With the dissolution of the traditional closed, village-like society, and in parallel with urbanization, this homogeneous society understandably transformed into a pluralistic-multifaceted society - giving much more room to human diversity.)

  According to Roman law, then German and Frankish law, the greatest sin that could be committed against society was not treason or spying (which were universally and universally punishable by death until recently), but the preaching of doctrines contrary to the state's unified and functioning worldview: because this can shake the foundations of the state and society. The Christian states of the Middle Ages (and Europe) adopted this view: - This is the basis of the Inquisition. This view can be said to have been generally widespread in the closed religious societies of the past two millennia, even among other peoples. (The reformers: Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin also applied the Inquisition, and had more people executed because they - in the territories they controlled - preached doctrines other than theirs.)

  The Inquisition means "investigation", i.e. the investigation of teachings that are contrary to Christianity, and therefore - according to the understanding of the Middle Ages - harmful to the healthy development of society.

  Several facts need to be known about the Inquisition:

  The first major Inquisition trials began against sects that themselves used violence (Donatists), or that denied the fundamental values of society. Thus, the Cathar heresy in the 12th-13th centuries denied the value of life (its members often killed each other, expressing their belief in reincarnation), denied family, marriage, social and ecclesiastical authority, and violently confronted state authority. The protest of state power and the church against these was understandable. And it is no coincidence that the harsh era of the Inquisition begins in the 12th century, during the Crusades, when European powers wanted to prevent a domestic enemy (the Cathar heresy) from attacking them in addition to an external enemy - the Ottomans.

  The task of the ecclesiastical inquisitors, theologians, was to examine and call for better judgment and repentance when suspicions of teachings against faith (and hence treason) arose somewhere. The approach of the church's inquisition towards common heretics (Gottschalk, Abelard, Gilbert, Berengar, etc.) was mild; they sought to make them harmless to the faithful by excommunicating them, or at most putting them in prison as punishment. However, if their teachings and attacks also aimed at the disruption of ecclesiastical and social order, and if they did not abandon their heresy, but stubbornly clung to it, they were found guilty and rebellious against not only faith but also state laws, and were delivered to secular authority, which ordinarily punished such people with death by fire (burning at the stake) according to their laws and confiscated their property. Only if he was unwilling to do this was he handed over to the state judiciary. The physical punishment and execution of false teachers was always carried out by state power.

  It is important that the Church itself never burnt anyone at the stake or otherwise. The burning at the stake is a horrific remnant of pagan German law, which was unfortunately adopted and maintained by virtually every state in the Middle Ages; and what is crucial: it was a state punishment, not a church one. Just because the state was so intertwined with the Church at the time, and state crimes also considered religious crimes: they were characterized as subversive, rebellion, therefore the state power often persecuted the perpetrators of religious crimes with its often brutal tools, including torture and burning at the stake. In determining the religious crime itself, of course, church factors were consulted and this is how the mixed courts were established, such as the Inquisition. The church factors sadly erred in that they often overly identified themselves as defenders of state excesses and did not sufficiently oppose cruel and often unjust torture and punitive methods. In most cases, however, they did this and it was the Church itself that repeatedly spoke out harshly against these barbaric customs.

  So the Church itself never used corporal punishment and certainly not capital punishment. During the later interrogations - although the Popes prohibited it - the torture (torturous interrogation) was indeed used following the unjustifiable customs and procedural models of the secular courts of that era, but much less frequently and much more leniently than the contemporary secular courts, and always considering the individual's constitution and the nature of the offense.
  

  Everyone was equally guilty in the distribution of death by burning at the stake at the time: individuals, society, people, cities and states, not least the heresies themselves, which also widely used death by torture and other tortures against Catholics. The slightest charge in this regard weighs on the Church.

  For those things that our refined perception and more humane feeling do not approve of in the procedure of the Inquisition, it is not the Church, but the age that must be held accountable. Moreover, we must not forget that the maintenance of unity of faith and the Christian social order demanded strict and effective procedures against disruptive elements, dangerous fanatics, and deliberate evildoers in a crude era; the heresies that called the Inquisition into existence threatened the family, the state, marriage, private property, and the foundations of society, and if they won, culture would have perished and humanity, after the Church's 600 years of sacrificial work, would have plunged back into barbarism.

  The official ecclesiastical procedure against false teachers did indeed have its excesses, but we should not judge events of several hundred years ago with today's eyes. To understand this, consider the development of the Inquisition. The old heretics (Cathars, Waldensians, Bogomils, Hussites) were far from being pious religious dreamers. They burned or looted churches, cities, killed people, and lived or propagated abnormal civil and sexual life. The state had to take action against these. When the state began to use the charge of heresy for political purges, the Church intervened and did not allow the state to arbitrarily decide who is a heretic and who is not. Thus, the Inquisition saved many people's lives, but the history books don't mention a word about this.

  The perception of the Inquisition's scale and methods is also unfair. Many have been led to believe that the Inquisition burned people en masse and easily, while subjecting them to horrific torture. While it is true that torture was used in some cases, this was due to the spirit of the times, and the Church also practiced mercy here: the Inquisition court used one type of torture, the secular court's torture devices were only limited by imagination. Unsurprisingly, many caught criminals invented a religious aspect in court ("the voices said"; "God messaged") so their case could be transferred from the secular court to the Inquisition, where they could hope for a lighter punishment. Thus, the majority of Inquisition trials were ordinary criminal proceedings, and far from being "dramatic collisions of conscience and power." Death sentences were only handed down in serious and common law cases. The number of these was not more than two or three per year. The severity of punishments is also relative. Sometimes the punishments were indeed harsh. But the medieval man could take them. Among less softened peoples, justice is served with more penetrating means even today.

  There are no exact data on the number of those executed. Anti-church currents refer to upwards "estimated" data as they please. (In no way can they be compared to the genocides of modern times in Armenia, Kurdistan, Africa, not to mention the genocides of fascism and communism - against which many modern states do not or do not raise their voices, because it would not serve their political interests.)

  True religious judgment was rarely made, and only very significant or particularly violent heretics were executed (e.g., Jan Hus). However, two things play a role here. In the Middle Ages, God was considered the King of Kings. Whoever insulted the king was sentenced to death for treason. The heretic teaches error about God or falsifies his word - they thought in the past. This insults the King of Kings, so the heretics were also destined for death. But let's not forget, in the Middle Ages, Christianity was the state ideology, the main force of social cohesion. An attack against it violated societal interests. Open critics of state ideology have always been punished. Today is no different: And one does not necessarily have to think of the mass executions of the Great French Revolution, the Nazi concentration camps or the communist gulags. Just keep an eye on the activities of national security agencies. In many Western countries, if someone is the instigator of a movement that the official environment treats as "heresy", then state power watches and possibly shuts it down. Not without reason. Modern freedom of speech is not as clear as many believe. In many European countries, the open or even covert insult of certain nationalities or deviations is punishable by prison. The essence does not differ much from the persecution of heretics, and the methods do not deviate much from the methods of the Inquisition.

  Spain is an exception. Not only because the Inquisition operated most harshly here, but also because here the Inquisition was not ecclesiastical, but primarily in state hands. This resulted in many abuses and mercy, but there was a fundamental reason for this. Spain was full of apparently converted Moors, who pretended to be Christian, but were actually spying and wanted to drive Europe under the yoke of the Crescent. These people were indeed sought out by all means. However, it is clear that the Inquisition also performed a counterintelligence function here. Its name also reflected this: Sanctum Officium Inquisitionis, or the Holy Office of Investigation. The Spanish Inquisition lasted for about a good three hundred (300) years. During this period, a total of approximately 4,000 people were executed, which means that an average of only 13 people are executed per year.

  The Inquisition unfortunately provided many opportunities for the leaders of the time or heated groups to destroy people or groups according to their own goals. (E.g., the Inquisition sentenced to death, obviously for political purposes, Saint Joan of Arc, later canonized.)

  So the Inquisition had many dark sides, but these were not the consequences of the institution itself, but of human frailty. And this is what we answered and proved to question 81, that the sanctity of the Church is not diminished if some of its members commit sin, because such scandals are unavoidable. If the inquisitors worked conscientiously, they could not be tripped up because they protected ordinary people from common law, religious criminals with their strictness. There were also saints among them.

  It is a painful fact that there were indeed witch trials. Witch trials were considered a separate category, and the regular Inquisition did not really deal with them, but only in certain countries. The most brutal witch hunts were associated with secular power. Some of these did not fight against fairy-tale witches, but against people who were misled by "magic, incantations, curses, spiritualist practices" etc. However, for a while, it was not free from the superstitious witch-view of the time, and the unjust sentences resulting from it. Witches were punished by burning at the stake under secular law in England and Germany too. The Protestant states of Europe, where there was no Inquisition, sent hundreds of witches to the stake each year.

  From Mackay's work titled "Curious Superstitions", we can learn that since the law issued by Queen Mary for the persecution of witches (of which the actual author, however, was not her, but the fanatical Calvinist Knox) until the accession of James I, 17,001 witches were burned in little Scotland. The same number in England from 1600 to 1680 is estimated at 40,000. During the few years of rule of the "Long Parliament," which stood out for its Protestant fanaticism and fanatical persecution of Catholics, the number of witches burned at the stake can be put at 3,000.

  In Catholic states, for example in Italy and Northern Spain, witch trials fell under the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts, so they were milder. In contrast, the Reformation expanded the witch trials. Luther and his associates urged princes and city authorities to exterminate witches. A favorite topic of Protestant preachers was that diseases and natural disasters were caused by witches. Elector Augustus of Saxony had witches burned even if they caused no harm at all. In contrast, in 1592, Catholic priest Cornel Loos spoke out against the witch trials. The Pope took a stand against the witch trials in 1757.

  Among the great saints and church teachers of all times, there were those who protested against the Inquisition and proclaimed "freedom of conscience" in the modern sense. However, the rulers and ecclesiastical leaders of the Middle Ages mostly took a stand for the strict defense of a unified worldview – and for the condemnation of heretics (those who falsify the Christian faith).

  In summary: from a historical perspective, the Inquisition's approach fits into the general conception of the given era, both as a self-defense of the state and as sometimes rampant extremist forces' bloody acts. From a Christian perspective, it is painful to see that the Church – as a human society – could take over a contemporary conception in this area, which is contrary to the view of the Gospel. – This is an invitation for today's Christian: on the one hand to be humble when judging others, how much they are exposed to the false value judgment of our time (on abortion, euthanasia, body-cult, money-addiction, TV-addiction, etc.), on the other hand, to be a witness, a prophet of pure Christian values against the often distorted view of the era.

  4. Discovery of America and the missions

  Even in the narrative of anti-church, modern liberal historiography, it is often mentioned: when the "new world" was discovered, Catholic missionaries arrived together with the brutal Spanish-Portuguese colonizers, and together, they forcibly converted the indigenous people to Catholicism. This depiction is false. It's true that even during the era of discovery and colonization (and throughout all history, up to the era of fascism or communism), there were priests and bishops who overly identified with the ruling groups of their times, adopted their perspectives, and thus were not true witnesses of the Gospel, rather they bore contrary witness. And there were priests, preachers (and popes), who - according to the general European perspective - were unable to recognize that non-European continents and peoples have their own cultures, and believed that Christianity had to be passed on in the garb of European culture even on these other continents. (The value of local cultures is still disregarded by the wealthy states of the world today, if their economic interests so demand.) But even in the era of the discovery of America or other continents, there were more Catholic preachers of prophetic behavior who had the courage to stand up for truth in the power of the Gospel, sometimes in favor of the indigenous people and later the oppressed (or who tried to translate Christianity into the languages of various cultures with respect).
  

  Let's see a few facts related to the discovery of America and its mission:
  

  Spain and Portugal were so-called "Catholic countries". At the time of the discovery of America, their kings did indeed receive a commission from the pope to bring Catholic priests with their ships. Priests went to America with Columbus, and later with the violent conquerors, to preach the Gospel. Although there were those who cooperated with the conquerors, the first defenders of the Indians - who opposed the inhuman behavior of the conquistadors - were Catholic preachers. The missionaries, fighting against the colonizers who drove the Indians into slavery, repeatedly traveled to the Pope and achieved that Pope Paul III had already issued a decree in 1537 forbidding the enslavement of Indians, declaring that they must be regarded as God's children just like whites. The extent to which the South American Indians appreciated the missionaries is perhaps best evidenced by how many of them converted to Christianity and saw their protectors in the missionary priests against their oppressive masters.
  

  One striking example of historical falsifications, namely that Las Casas, the South American bishop, was the "cause" of bringing black slaves to America. What's the truth? Bishop Las Casas of Mexico (d. 1566) was one of the greatest defenders of the Indians. He saw that the landlords arriving from Spain had turned the Indians into serfs or slaves and used them to work on their conquered lands. This situation threatened the Indians' existence with extinction. Therefore, Las Casas traveled to Spain to advocate for them to the king. He undertook the journey seven times until he finally succeeded in obtaining the royal decision: the Indians cannot be made into slaves. The prohibition of Indian slave labor may be related to the landlords' search for African slaves. But it is a false accusation to blame Las Casas for this, or to suggest that he didn't protest enough against the importation of blacks.

  Outstanding, historical examples of the work done by Catholic missions for the Native Americans are the so-called South American "reductions". These were an invention of the Jesuit missionaries: they managed to secure royal permission (in 1609) to establish independent Christian-spirited settlements for the Native Americans - with their own jurisdiction and government - in order to protect them from the subjugation of the Spanish colonial lords. Such reductions, or settlements, were established in Brazil, Paraguay, present-day Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia. Hundreds of thousands of Native Americans were able to live in peace in these settlements for about 150 years. - The reductions were the first truly democratic, communistic communities in history, based on Christianity, in the spirit of Thomas More's Utopia, written a short time before. They worked incredibly successfully due to pioneering agricultural and social measures, which surpassed all previous social reforms and cooperative production ideas. The South American Spanish and Portuguese landowners increasingly jealously observed that the reductions attracted the Native Americans. With the support of their increasingly secularized states, which were turning against the Jesuits, they succeeded in achieving the destruction of the reductions.

  About the North American Catholic missionary martyrs: Based on the common representation about missionaries (sometimes even based on ideas from Native American novels), one might get the impression that along with the conquerors, they too were the destroyers of the high-level Native American morality and culture. - If, for example, we hear about the Canadian martyrs, who were killed by Native Americans (1646-49), following entrenched stereotypes, one might think that the Native Americans, struggling against their subjugation, also killed the priests cooperating with the conquerors.

  The Canadian Jesuit missionaries approached the Huron tribes with persistent love, and then converted many of them. Along with Christian values, they also brought many social and economic innovations to them. Their deaths were caused by the attacks of the Hurons' ancient enemies, the pagan Iroquois tribes that followed the law of blood revenge, who first tortured and killed the Hurons' "new sorcerers", the missionaries.

  One of these martyrs (Isaac Jogues, d. 1644) was once mutilated by the Iroquois. On this occasion, his superiors sent him to Europe to recover. When he regained his strength, he asked to be sent back among his Hurons. The Iroquois killed him during a repeated attack.

  5. The Church as a Hindrance to Science and Progress

  A good video to see: The Catholic Church - Builder of Civilization

  A recurring slogan of the Enlightenment, then communism, and generally primitive anti-religious propaganda is: "The Church was a hindrance to science and progress!" As examples of anti-science, they usually cite the case of Galileo's condemnation or the burning of Giordano Bruno (interestingly, they always repeat these cases!), but they do not mention that for centuries, the Church was the bastion and source of education and culture. Many of humanity's greatest scientists and pioneers of human development were clerical people, and even today, many scientists and progressive thinkers declare themselves deeply religious.

  They also do not mention - which is essential for a fair judgement - that throughout history, almost every state, society, or religion has severely rejected or banned new scientific hypotheses or systems that seemed to contradict their own - until then functioning - worldview. (Thus, Calvin sentenced scientists who thought differently to death, as did monolithic powers or religions until recent times. - Thus, the Lutheran Kepler was dismissed from his chair by the evangelical leadership of the University of Tübingen for preaching the Copernican worldview, for which Galileo also clashed with some leaders of the Catholic Church. It is notable, however, that Kepler then became a mathematics teacher at the Catholic University of Graz.)

  The cases of Galileo or Giordano Bruno and other Inquisition proceedings can only be judged by taking into account the perspective of the time (as we have discussed in relation to the Inquisition). However, from the perspective of our time, it is understandable that the Catholic Church, and Pope John Paul II, felt it important to ask God for forgiveness in front of the world for all cases where the Church handed someone over to the secular power's punitive judgement because of their worldview or scientific conviction.

  Galileo's case requires more careful examination, but one thing must be noted. Legends circulate about Galileo's torture and courage. The truth is that he was neither tortured nor was he brave. The trial primarily raised a canon law issue, not a scientific one. Galileo illicitly obtained ecclesiastical approval for his book and mocked the Pope in several pamphlets. Despite this, the Pope cared for Galileo's well-being. The case eventually became of a scientific nature, and the ecclesiastical judges deceived themselves. However, there is an excuse here, because although Galileo's main claim, that the earth rotates, proved fundamentally true, his proofs did not hold up. (E.g., he cited the tides as proof, which are known to be caused by the moon's orbit around the Earth, not the Earth's rotation.) However, this does not affect the question of the infallibility of the Church, because the Church did not assert Galileo's condemnation with the claim of infallibility. So there was indeed a mistake on the part of the Church, but it is a manifestation of a double standard to reproach the mistake of an institution that has been functioning for almost 400 years. Galileo reconciled with the Church in his old age and died a free man. His daughters became nuns. It is not true that the Church condemned Galileo's discovery. The Church only opposed the fact that Galileo proclaimed his discoveries in a reckless and unnecessary tone that apparently contradicted the Scriptures.

  Galileo's arguments about the movement of the Earth were indeed not convincing, and the real discoverer of the Earth's rotation was not him, but Copernicus, the Polish canon. The idea that Galileo was "burned" or that he was kept in a cruel prison in Rome is as much a historical fabrication as the idea that he stamped his foot in front of his ecclesiastical judges and said, "And yet the Earth moves!" These are all anti-church inventions, freethinking tales. Galileo lived and died a deeply believing Catholic, and his best friends were priests and Jesuits. However, he was undoubtedly mistaken in placing his astronomical opinions in opposition to the Scriptures. There was no need for this because the Earth's rotation around the Sun only seemingly contradicts the Scriptures. Copernicus did not do this and that's why the Church never took action against him. The Church wanted to defend not an outdated physical view but the authority of the Scripture against Galileo.

  Galileo's conviction undoubtedly indicates the narrow-mindedness of some churchmen of his time. But the framing of this story also shows the falsity of anti-religious propaganda: The event lives in public consciousness as Galileo being imprisoned for his progressive doctrines due to the unscientific nature of the contemporary church. Although the matter is much more complicated, and although the case cannot be approved of, it can be approached in the spirit of what was said about the Inquisition. In fact, in Galileo's time, the Sun-centered worldview was not only new but scientifically unproven. Many great scientists of his time denied it, like Tycho Brahe. The committees that interrogated Galileo asked him not to proclaim this system as a fact until it is scientifically proven (because until then, it seems more correct to profess the Earth-centered worldview suggested by the Bible and most scientists of the time). When Galileo broke this promise and wrote about the system developed by Copernicus as a fact again, he was brought before an ecclesiastical court. Although many ecclesiastical scientists sided with him, those who voted against him were in the majority. He was sentenced to prison in name, but in reality, he had to live in "house arrest" where he could continue his work. Galileo remained a believer throughout his life, and his nun-daughter was his main comfort at the end of his life.

  As for the supposed "unscientific nature" of the contemporary church as a whole, the entire system proposed by Galileo was developed by a believing churchman: Canon Copernicus; and, as mentioned, many priest-scientists were in Galileo's circle of friends who tried to support him, but unfortunately, the part of the committee asking for a verdict proved stronger.

  The burning of Giordano Bruno is also unacceptable to modern thinking. But the anti-religious propaganda also falsifies in connection with him. After all, he was not burned for his scientific views, but for his religious heresy (his pantheist views, the denial of the Holy Trinity, and the incarnation of Christ, etc.).

  So, the Church only ever erred through people, never in its laws or behavior, and this question is essentially an expansion of the previous one. The human element in the Church can indeed sometimes be seriously sinful. However, the sanctity and authenticity of the Church are ensured by the divine element.

  6. The Jewish Question

  One of the most inhumane events of our time was the attempt to exterminate the Jewish people by the Nazi regime. During his service, the Pope has repeatedly asked the Jewish community for forgiveness for all that members of the Catholic Church have contributed to anti-Semitic views throughout history, or for the fact that there were those who, in the most recent era, did not do enough to save the Jews.

  The Pope's apology refers to 2000 years of relations between Judaism and Christianity. There were eras when relations between Jews and Christians were peaceful; in other eras, accusations of "Christ-killers" or other prejudices and discriminations really did appear. Tensions with Judaism, however, were often not primarily religious. Resentment can easily arise against a talented, wealthy group - often with great financial or political power and in an alliance of interests - and sometimes not without reason. This does not justify any inhumanity, but it does explain many events on this topic. Today's Christianity rightly asks for forgiveness for all that Christians - or people under the banner of Christianity - have committed against Judaism.

  In addition to all this, Catholics can be pleased to know that a new dialogue is being formed between believing Jews and Christians. As for the Nazi persecution of Jews: undoubtedly, no one in the entire world has done as much to save the Jews as the Catholics, and some Christian churches. The episcopal conferences of European countries protested against the deportation of Jews and called on their followers to protest. Vatican and church buildings across Europe provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of Jews, who owed their survival to these institutions. Hitler interned more than 10,000 Christians, including bishops, priests, monks, and lay people, because they raised their voices against the massacres on the basis of their Christian conviction, and also opposed it in deed. 4,000 priests and 400 nuns died in Hitler's camps. Prominent representatives of Judaism have expressed their gratitude to the Catholic Church and its leaders from the beginning.

  According to the renowned Jewish expert, Rabbi Pinchas Lapide, "the Catholic Church saved 150,000-400,000 Jews from certain death". Albert Einstein, who himself had to flee from fascism due to his Jewish origins, said in 1946: "I had no special interest in the Catholic Church, but now I feel a great attraction and admiration for it. Because the Church alone had the courage to stand up against Hitler and stand up for truth and freedom."

  It is characteristic of the falseness of anti-church propaganda that we hear this question again and again in the media: should Pope Pius XII not have raised his voice more against the persecution of Jews? Although in the meantime, the Vatican has opened its archives, and research has revealed how many heroic and life-saving steps the Pope took against Nazism and to save the Jews, some media, without considering the facts, again and again accuse the Pope and the Church, sometimes not even mentioning what the Church did for the Jews.

  For example, the Vatican nuncios (the Pope's "ambassadors") gave "letters of protection" to the Jews; monasteries and church institutions (hospitals, sometimes even seminaries) in Rome and in the countries of Europe, in accordance with the Pope's intention (risking their existence), took in and often hid Jews with fake papers, etc. The attitude of Catholics is illustrated by the fact that - as historical examination of this era has shown - in those settlements of Germany where the proportion of Catholics exceeded 60%, the Nazi party did not achieve 30% in the polls.
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  Vanderhoven7

  I believe there was a Watchtower quotation a while back that said that a person does not have to voice disagreement with official doctrine to be an apostate. Has anyone seen that quotation?