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You are right, but it doesn't change the fact that without Revolution and Reformation, the Catholic Church would simply be too powerful for any change to take p

by trasz 5y ago

You are right, but it doesn't change the fact that without Revolution and Reformation, the Catholic Church would simply be too powerful for any change to take place.

skissane 5y ago
I think even this response is ahistorical. If you study the actual history of the papacy in the Middle Ages – the Great Western Schism, the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Avignon Papacy, King Philip IV of France's murder of Pope Boniface VIII, the power claimed (and even exercised more than once) of the Holy Roman Emperors to forcibly remove Popes from office, the disturbing mess of the 10th century saeculum obscurum, in which the papacy was basically the plaything of a powerful Roman noble family, and interestingly two women (Theodora and her daughter Marozia) acted as the real power behind the papal throne – it turns out the Catholic Church went through repeated periods of great weakness, in which Pope after Pope found out that all these elaborate theological doctrines on papal power don't mean much when Kings and Emperors have armies much larger than yours, and if you upset the wrong people they'll have you murdered, and then they'll bribe and threaten the Cardinals to make sure they elect a successor more to their liking. At many points the mediaeval Catholic Church was actually weaker than it would be in the Reformation period. I'd argue that all the bickering over religious doctrines which the Reformation produced, had the unintended result of making the Catholic Church stronger – in those parts of Europe which remained majority Catholic – than it had been before.
- trasz 5y ago
  It’s still beside the point. Yes, there were times where the Church has been weaker. However, during that period its influence wasn’t so harmful, so it didn’t matter. Also, doctrines aren’t particularly important; it’s only a set of glorified fairy tales, irrelevant to all but some of its followers. What does matter was breaking its ideological monopoly, without which the humanism could never take off.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope "At this point, as again in the mid-11th century, we come across elections in which problems of harmonising historical criteria and those of theology and canon law make it impossible to decide clearly which side possessed the legitimacy whose factual existence guarantees the unbroken lawful succession of the successors of Saint Peter. The uncertainty that in some cases results has made it advisable to abandon the assignation of successive numbers in the list of the popes." That is allegedly the official position - one must have faith in an unbroken line of Popes back to St. Peter, but practically speaking even the official compilers of The List of Popes aren't sure which to include.

by trasz 5y ago

You are right, but it doesn't change the fact that without Revolution and Reformation, the Catholic Church would simply be too powerful for any change to take place.

skissane 5y ago

I think even this response is ahistorical. If you study the actual history of the papacy in the Middle Ages – the Great Western Schism, the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Avignon Papacy, King Philip IV of France's murder of Pope Boniface VIII, the power claimed (and even exercised more than once) of the Holy Roman Emperors to forcibly remove Popes from office, the disturbing mess of the 10th century saeculum obscurum, in which the papacy was basically the plaything of a powerful Roman noble family, and interestingly two women (Theodora and her daughter Marozia) acted as the real power behind the papal throne – it turns out the Catholic Church went through repeated periods of great weakness, in which Pope after Pope found out that all these elaborate theological doctrines on papal power don't mean much when Kings and Emperors have armies much larger than yours, and if you upset the wrong people they'll have you murdered, and then they'll bribe and threaten the Cardinals to make sure they elect a successor more to their liking. At many points the mediaeval Catholic Church was actually weaker than it would be in the Reformation period. I'd argue that all the bickering over religious doctrines which the Reformation produced, had the unintended result of making the Catholic Church stronger – in those parts of Europe which remained majority Catholic – than it had been before.

trasz 5y ago
It’s still beside the point. Yes, there were times where the Church has been weaker. However, during that period its influence wasn’t so harmful, so it didn’t matter. Also, doctrines aren’t particularly important; it’s only a set of glorified fairy tales, irrelevant to all but some of its followers. What does matter was breaking its ideological monopoly, without which the humanism could never take off.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope "At this point, as again in the mid-11th century, we come across elections in which problems of harmonising historical criteria and those of theology and canon law make it impossible to decide clearly which side possessed the legitimacy whose factual existence guarantees the unbroken lawful succession of the successors of Saint Peter. The uncertainty that in some cases results has made it advisable to abandon the assignation of successive numbers in the list of the popes." That is allegedly the official position - one must have faith in an unbroken line of Popes back to St. Peter, but practically speaking even the official compilers of The List of Popes aren't sure which to include.