PAPAL PUDDING!

Bit of a fracas brewing on Dov Bear's site (http://dovbear.blogspot.com/) on the nature of the relationship between Jews and the Catholic Church.

Yes, I realize that merely averring that there is a relationship may be problematic - but even if one thinks of it as the relationship between, let us say, a mugger and a victim, it can still be called a relationship. They stand in relation to each other, they are in comparison to each other, they dialogue with or at each other.

[Please note that I did not use the analogy I initially felt like using - the relationship between an elderly pervert and a child. Too much could be read into that, and heaven forefend, I do not want to suggest that certain tendencies in the church are all there is to their organization! Heaven. Forefend.]


Anyhooo, to quote Dov (who is quoting from somewhere else), if I may:

"Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee will be named a papal Knight Commander for his outstanding contributions to promoting Catholic-Jewish reconciliation. The honor will make Rabbi Rosen the first Israeli and the only Orthodox rabbi to receive the award."

How. Very. Nice.


Rabbi Rosen might want to be more careful about whom he associates with. Next thing you know, he might be embraced by the fundies too.
Or something worse.

Perhaps a quick review is in order. Lets start with some highlights of Papal infallibility (or at least my personal favourites):

1. The Famous Corpse Synod: Stephen VII. (May/896-Aug/897) dug up the long dead corps of pope Formosus and put him on trial in March of 896.
The decaying corps, dressed in papal vestments, was condemned of crimes he had committed as ruling pope.
Then the dead man was defrocked, the three fingers on his right hand (the hand of benediction) were cut off, and he was dragged through the streets of Rome and thrown into the Tiber. Pope Stephen was later put in prison and strangled in his cell.

2. Sergius III (904-911) had Cardinal Christopher and Leo V to murdered so as to become pope. Ordered Formosus dug up again, and had him beheaded. Seduced a fifteen year old girl while living in the Lateran Palace.

3. Boniface (974) fled to Constantinople with the treasures of the Vatican.
I seem to remember reading that he had raped a girl... Can't find the reference.

4. Benedict (1044) sold the papal throne to Gregory VI (1046), for fifteen hundred pounds of silver. Eventually he was poisoned. Gregory was deposed by the council of Sutri in 1046 and executed.

5. Gregory IX (1241) sold absolution to the emperor for a hundred thousand ounces of gold. He also had the emperor's envoys strangled when they informed him of the conquest of Jerusalem.

6. Alexander (1261) bought his election to the papacy.

7. Clement (1268) had the son of the king of Sicily beheaded without trial and without stated reason.

8. Boniface VIII (1294-1303): "Dante called him The Black Beast and assigned him to the 8th circle of Hell with his head in a rock fissure. Had a married woman and her daughter as mistresses. Locked up pope Celestine V, who died of starvation and neglect."

9. Innocent IV (1362) had the emperor poisoned.

10. Pope Paul III (1549) poisoned his mother and his niece, so that he could inherit the family fortune.


The list of adulterous, rapacious, degenerate, or alcoholic popes and papal officials is too long to list. Reads like a trashy novel besides.

But it's all out there on the internet.


And then there's that unfortunate incident in southern France a while back....

In 1210 AD, Pope Innocent III proclaimed 'orders of fire and sword' against the heretics throughout Europe who were known as Cathars (or also Waldensians, or Albigensians), resulting in the slaughter of (probably) over one hundred thousand people - mostly in Southern France.

According to a Mediaeval Catholic source, "Caesarius of Heisterbach: Medieval Heresies," after the city of Beziers was conquered (over 20 thousand defenders having perished) several hundred captives were examined by the inquisition, many of them claiming to be good loyal Catholics.
At that point it was decided "Kill them all. God will know His own" (in Latin: Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoset.).

The campaign devastated Languedoc.

But enriched the French monarch and the church.

Even today there is a certain, shall we say, 'ambivalence' towards the benevolent authority of Rome in some circles in Occitania.


So yes, Rabbi Rosen, do please share the sheets with those people. Just watch out for bedbugs. Or lice, crabs, unnatural stains on the matress........