While people are in the business of tearing down monuments to slave traders and brutal colonisers, why not go further and turn people’s ires on Roman Catholic Church buildings and statues? After all, the Catholic Church has as blood-soaked a history as any other global imperial empire.
The crucifix, for example, was a potent symbol that rallied people to perpetrate hideous atrocities, perhaps at scales that likely dwarf the numbers of lives lost to Nazism and American and European slavery. But unlike, say, the swastika, the crucifix still hangs at the altars and facades of the Catholic Church’s towering edifices. And why not? The Roman Catholic Church is one of the winners of centuries of genocidal religious warfare and ethnic cleansing.
Why, for example, are Native Americans not offended by the crucifix when this was a symbol hoisted on poles and displayed in fluttering flags when Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro brought to bear the full force of the Inquisition upon the Inca people in the 16th Century in what is now modern-day Peru? Fast forward to more recent times and consider the case for the proposed canonization of Pope Pius XII who many criticise for being silent on Nazi atrocities as a wartime sovereign of the Vatican. In his article “The Holocaust and the Catholic Church” published on The Atlantic, acclaimed author James Carroll wrote;
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If Pius XII were to be named a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, more than the restoration of his reputation would result. His policy of silence about Nazi atrocities would be justified.
Perhaps it is because the Catholic Church is far more clever. Where it failed to decimate heretics and pagans, it, instead, converted people to believers. So successful were they and the broader Christendom at justifying themselves, in fact, that the most powerful military societies of today stretching over much of Eurasia and North America were founded upon Christian values. In this way, the Church had installed a vast global insurance against vilification by the people it had oppressed over two millennia.
It would, of course be impractical to take the Church to task on its history of oppression seeing that most of the people it had oppressed had not only moved on but embraced its dogma and built successful societies founded on its core principles. The point is, history moves only one way — forward. The past remains inaccessible to change beyond the imperfect record of it kept in human-created artifacts. Obliterating these artifacts may make the record inaccessible to future generations, but it will not change the outcomes of what happened in the past.
Those who seek satisfaction in destroying historical record that they deem “inappropriate” should step back and think about what they really aim to achieve. In changing people’s perceptions of the past, do they really think the future their current trajectory is taking them will change? Food for thought right there.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
I do not agree that any religion, no matter what it had done in the past, must be destroyed and its symbols removed. There are good and bad that religion, had done to peoples’ lives. We need their teachings and values, to guide us in our lives and , to know the truth of our beings…
There are still many unknown, that we don’t know…and religions have a part in explaining these factors. We may destroy all the statues, the churches, the temples, the mosques, the synagogues, and every place of worship…then, what do we accomplish ?
Most people need religious belief in their lives , to deal with life itself and to deal with the unknown !
I think this blog just wants to say, if it is really an actions against all PAST OPPRESSORS or OFFENDERS, those who are physically acting out (destroying structures, statues, symbols etc), should steo back and realize it also, most likely, includes there church/religion.
I don’t think this blog post meant to say destroy the religion too, but that the mindset or approach is flawed because it denies specific pasts, while acknowledges/rejects another.
Typos in my reply
1) step back not steo back
2) includes their, not there
Yes the point of this piece was to highlight that unintended consequences tend to ripple out from or previously unnoticed elephants in the room spotlighted off what at first may seem to be well-intentioned but naive initiatives to shade the past in a preferred colour.
what bussines is that of barry soetoro obamagate Crime of the century of black lives matter and anti fascist deep state globalist of soros/gates/helliary of the demoncrats? who used George Floyd the hidden agenda of destroying Potus Donald J Trump, America One Nation under GOD we Trust..
why is the roman catholic church using pagan symbols???
Good lord, you’d think that you would have stumbled onto some satire rag with this post.
Sadly, no, this isn’t MAD magazine or some British comedy tabloid, or even the walking parody that can’t be parodied without being a serious representation Eat Bulaga.
No, it’s mental midget benign0 and his gaggle of free thinking skeptron kekistani individualists flailing like their failed Supreme Leader Sargon of Akkad (Real Name Carl Benjamin) of the false religion of Esoteric Sargonism, while not realizing that, unlike True, doctrinally sound Catholicism free of the cuck sweat known as Vatican 2, there own religion of enlightened rationalism is nothing but pretender engine grease and vanity.
It always begs one to wonder how one could so consistently parrot crock pots load of bull while claiming to be some person who has “learned the truth”, but we are talking about a Generation X buffoon who is only representative of the fact that Strauss Howe Generational Theory is a pile of horse feces fit for a street in New Delhi.
Face it, if most of you fagaloons (ESPECIALLY DEAR LEADER benign0) weren’t the social outcasts we know you were in high school and college, you would gladly be living normal lives, subservient to the chi chi whims of the shrinking, dying secular heretical intelligentsia circles that come out of Ateneo and UP, as well as the faculties of Catholic Schools that all need exorcisms after the coming golden age is in full effect and the homosexual mafia is kicked out of the Vatican alongside Heretic in Chief Bergoglio.
Enjoy the interesting times you live in, because alongside your dying relevance is the fact that ALL of the detritus of the previous, degenerate paradigm must be cleared out,whether it be Yellow, Red, or Cum Stain brown (Which is what your mental fellation ideology worshipping Intelligence is. Shit.)