It is not all fun helping to run a blog. I assume some of you think that being a blogger merely is writing any fool thing you please and then posting it. Well, actually that is about 90% of it. However the other 10% involves such tasks as deleting what I like to call tin foil hat comments. Here is one we received yesterday:
Why don’t you Dumbed Down Vatican IIers WAKE UP and smell the coffee ?
Don’t you KNOW that the Vatican was taken over by Commie/Marxists in 1958 through Nuclear Threat. Have you Never Searched “FBI Siri” ?? We ARE in the Very Last days and YOU are all wallowing in the Whore ..while the True Bride is in Eclipse as Our Lady of La Sallete TOLD us it would be. John Paul II is THE Antichrist and Benny 16 is the False Prophet whose name adds up to….666 in Greek ! Go To http://www.vaticancatholic.com and Learn the truth before it’s toooo late. Rev. 18:4 Jesus it TELLING YOU to Get OUT of her ! Why are you disobeying Jesus’s Command ?? PS: ALL the Commies had JEWISH names…Marx was Mordecai LEVY . YOU HAVE BEEN HAD. Wake UP !!!
Now why did I consider this to be a tin foil hat comment? Let us count the ways:
1. Insulting.
2. Anti-semitic.
3. John Paul II called the anti-Christ and Pope Benedict proclaimed his false prophet.
4. The Church called the Whore.
5. Sedevacantist.
6. Filled with paranoia.
7. FREQUENT USE OF CAPS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!
8. Historically illiterate
It is a hard task taking out the blog trash each day, but someone has to do it.
Boy, talk about conspiracy theories…this guy covers about 7 in one comment.
I’m amazed that there weren’t digital froth specks on the posting..
I actually feel sorry for the people who leave comments like that. It’s sad.
That comment is sedevacantist, yet borrows a style from the Lorraine Boetner fan club. Unbelievable.
The most useful function of this blog is helping to determine what is legitimate and illegitimate conservative opinion and theories.
*quibble* Unjustified paranoia, and unusual historical illiteracy.
Possibly justified paranoia and widely believed things that didn’t happen that way get responded to, as is most effective. ^.^
I know that bad grammar and disorganized thought are not unique to “tin foilers”, but even so, once you see the capital D’s in “dumbed down”, you can guess that it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
As a very humble Catholic blessed by the missionaries of Our Lady of LaSalette, and thus by Our Lady Herself, I do know something of the appearance of Our Lady, and Her words then can be summed up in something she said 2,000 years ago when She indicated Jesus and said “Do whatever He tells you.”
And beyond that, I can spell “LaSalette” correctly. So there. And as Bertie Wooster might have said, “I meant for that ‘so there’ to sting.”
Mack,
Well, tinkerty tonk.
Mandy P,
I agree with you. It’s sad. These people are in thrall to the father of lies in some way.
So… which would you rather receive? This version of paranoia or the “It’s okay, Jesus wouldn’t mind cause he’s so nice and all inclusive” version?
Neither actually. The Jesus of the Gospels as taught by the Church for 2000 years is sufficient.
Oh yeah, the post VII Church was infested with Communists – and that’s why they elected John Paul II as Pope. ‘Cause JPII was famous for his communist leanings.
And Reagan was a secret Trotsky fan and Thatcher wore a Che T-shirt in No. 10 Downing Street when she thought nobody was looking.
Gee, the view from Planet X in the Outer Galaxy really is interesting, but it’s time to return to earth now.
I want to make fun of such people, but I just have this image of them in cabins in Montana, writing manifestos while tuning up the bombs …. Forget the tinfoil hat; it’s time for serious tranquilizers and rooms without sharp objects.
Gee, you mean exactly the same way that some folks think anyone who believes in an “invisible sky-daddy” should be treated?
Equating beliefs one doesn’t share with a need to be imprisoned and drugged scares me more than any conspiracy theory.
So if someone says (God forfend) “I want the President dead and on a meathook”, we should just shrug our shoulders and say, “Thank God for the First Amendment,” rather than waste any of our resources looking for a potential assassin? I mean, are you willing to affirm such a statement just to get a cheap shot in?
Now you’re just being ridiculous–more ridiculous, really.
Want to talk about cheap shots and “affirming” foolishness to get them in, look in a mirror.
First you equate conspiracy theories with the Unabomber, then you try to claim that any objection to jailing and drugging people you think have odd beliefs to ignoring death threats.
Additionally, you drag in the law of the land, which I sure didn’t mention.
Talkers don’t act. Actors (not thespians) don’t talk.
” . . . jailing people . . . you think have odd beliefs . . .” That was the Inquisition.
Franklin said something about giving away essential liberty in exchange for safety and losing both.
Yes, I can see you’re great at missing points. I should have said the first time around straight out that your initial accusation—”Equating beliefs one doesn’t share with a need to be imprisoned and drugged”—was a ridiculous exaggeration, instead of trying to indirectly point it out with a comparison. I also shouldn’t have attempted humor (“Thank God for the First Amendment”), since you’re bound and determined to take offense at everything I write. Thank goodness you’re so charitable as to presume sanity of conspiracy theorists; could you also do me the great good favor of assuming I don’t want everybody locked up who doesn’t agree with me?
I want to make fun of such people, but I just have this image of them in cabins in Montana, writing manifestos while tuning up the bombs …. Forget the tinfoil hat; it’s time for serious tranquilizers and rooms without sharp objects.
Heaven forbid someone respond to such a thing with any level of thought.
Clearly, anyone who objects to “them dumdums scary! Lock up and drug!” on any level is horribly on edge to take offense.
“Heaven forbid someone respond to such a thing with any level of thought.
“Clearly, anyone who objects to ‘them dumdums scary! Lock up and drug!’ on any level is horribly on edge to take offense.”
Oh, dearie me, I have to leave this comment thread now — too many jokes, must walk away from the straight lines ….
I weep for the loss.
Bah, Shaw, you should know better than that.
Fox!
Trying to draw lessons from history. Not to condemn any one or any institution.
My point is that the heretic was arrested and questioned (torture was ‘juris prudence’, e.g. Roman law, since ancient times) for what he believed not anything he did.
You and Prof. Madden need to read (I have a 40 year old volume since college) H.C. Lea’s scholarly books on the Inquisition in the Middle Ages. Lea’s history is dispassionate and even-handed, despite his known anti-Catholic bigotry.
Here are notes I wrote from Lea and various sources.
Only a Christian could be a heretic. Inquisition had jurisdiction only over Christians not Muslims or Jews.
The “crime” was what you believed or thought, did not need an action.
N.B. Aren’t today’s hate crime laws similar to the Inquisition? In medieval inquisitions, actions were not at issue. The accused heretic’s suspected divergent beliefs and thoughts were offenses. Specific acts were not needed for condemnation.
Inquisitors’ instructions an example re: an (Dominican o0r Franciscan)Inquisitor dispatched to England to deal with the Templars: “You are to promise them favor and pardon if they confess the truth, but if not, you are to acquaint them that they will be condemned to death.”
Torquemada’s stated motives were “maintenance of the truth of religion”, ”zeal for the salvation of souls”, extirpation of heresy, and preservation of Christian unity. He was considered the savior of his country and religion.
From Lea:
Never acquitted – at best not proven
Church taken over by lawyers
People disarmed – no Second Amendment
Popular support – conservatism of peasants supported church efforts to enforce Christian unity/orthodoxy.
Ruling class support
Confiscations – unraveling of sales and loans – retarded commercial development, liberty in France, Spain
Rules of evidence
Abuses – feuds
Material gain – fisc accrued to accusers and nobility
Suspicion enough
Abandonment to civil authority – capital punishment
Others:
Marranos/Morriscos – covert apostates
Destroying the church – committing outrages against Christianity – attempted to judaize Spain
Penal standards of 15th century unchanged from Roman times.
Zeal for salvation of souls – they literally believed the Gospel: “better to enter the Kingdom without eyes, or hands, or feet, than to be cast into the eternal fires whole.”
Stop the spread of heresies from damning more souls.
Truth of religion
Preserve Christian unity – conservatism of populace and rulers – full support
Extirpation of heresy
The Inquisition needs to be reconstituted. Read the coment boxes.
Lea isn’t exactly agreed on as a dispassionate writer; worse yet, he’s been shown to be incorrect.
(part two)
Fox!
As I said above, “Trying to draw lessons from history. Not to condemn any one or any institution.”
Incorrect about “Confession” among monks . . . and Indulgences . . .
The Foreword to the Lea Inquisiton books, gave his blunders and stated that his Inquisituion work did not fall under that category. In fact, the books were assigned in a Medieval History class at a Catholic college, just three years after the Vat II, so I doubt that that had sunk in, yet.
You have way too much time on your hands!
Who doesn’t learn from history is doomed to repeat . . .
Here goes.
The Medieval Church also proclaimed Crusades (diverted knights from the Holy Land) against those who thought differently.
“Kill them all. God will recognize his own.”
Arnald-Amalric, Cistercian General, 1208. Papal Legate in Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in Langueduc. A famous military quote. It refers to the action wherein the city of Biziers refused to turn over its several hundred Cathars to the crusaders, but chose to resist. The entire city was destroyed. This was the priest’s response to the knights when they asked how they would know which individuals were Cathars.
De Montfort had led the Latin sack of Constantinople. He had several hundred prisoners blinded, noses and upper lips cut off, except one who led the others in line, hand on shoulder, as an example to the next siege location. Pope Innocent III declared this crusade promising crusader indulgences for forty days service (bachelor/knight service). This was much easier than going to Outremer/the Holy Land and cut into manpower there. Also, the Latin sack of Constantinople and those land distributions took knights away from the Holy Land.
The Cathars – denied among other evils material and sensual things – perfecti, achieved their goal; endura – accepted rite of suicide for those who cannot achieve perfecti status but wanted to renounce all earthly things. D’Ya think that may have influenced the Church’s rules on suicide?
Actually T. Shaw De Montfort had left for the Holy Land prior to the sacking of Constantinople which was condemned by Innocent III.
The monstrous words: “Slay all; God will know His own,” alleged to have been uttered at the capture of Béziers, by the papal legate, were never pronounced (Tamizey de Larroque, “Rev. des quest. hist.” 1866, I, 168-91).
Also mentioned bottom of page 18 and top of page 19.
Heh, found this story in an Italian paper, via a Russian livejournal post, trying to find the in depth debunking I did a couple of years ago.
Things never go away on the internet, doesn’t mean you can find ’em though. -.-