What was the Catholic Church Thinking?

[Woody]

Hi Leo,

You seem like a decent person, and I wouldn't want my churche's dirty laundry run up the flag pole either. I Gotta link for you:

http://www.snapnetwork.org/survivors_wisdom/Survivors_wisdom_1.htm

Check out what the survivors have to say about it.

 

[Woody]

No offense ment to ya Leo, but here's an interesting piece of history:

Cadaver Synod

The Cadaver Synod or Cadaver Trial was held in January of 897 by Pope Stephen VII over the rotting remains of Pope Formosus, to condemn the deceased pontiff, nine months after his death (896), for crimes against the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope Stephen VII exhumed the body of his predecessor, dressed it in papal vestments, and seated it on a throne to undergo a trial, with Stephen presiding. The pretext of these proceedings was that, contrary to the laws of the church, Formosus had agreed to be the bishop of Rome while he was still the bishop of another diocese. His actual offense was that he had crowned as Emperor one of the illegitimate descendants of Charlemagne, after he had already crowned the candidate favored by Pope Stephen.

The corpse was granted the benefit of a defender, who nevertheless did not speak, as Pope Stephen shouted accusations and insults at the dead man. Formosus was declared guilty. His corpse was stripped, dressed in the clothes of a layman, and three fingers were cut from its right hand; the body was then buried, quickly exhumed, dragged through the streets of Rome and then thrown into the Tiber. The ordinations performed by Formosus were annulled.

Now why didn't the pope just resurrect Formosus for the trial? That shouldn't be hard for the pope to do, after all he can pray men's souls out of Hell. I guess he left Formusus dead 'cuz dead men don't complain?

How about ex-pope Formosus taking the 5th ammendment like OJ Simpson did (not incriminating oneself by speaking). I must say it was a brilliant strategy on the part of his defender -- and Formosus was definately the most reasonable Pope in the courtroom, no question about it.

His corpse was stripped, dressed in the clothes of a layman,

How humiliated the ex-pope Formosus must have felt when he was stripped and demoted!

three fingers were cut from its right hand

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! that must have hurt bad. Why didn't he take all 4 fingers, was the dead man giving him the single finger salute? I suppose this was just a bad habit of Pope Steven, taking fingers from people.

the body was then buried, quickly exhumed, dragged through the streets of Rome and then thrown into the Tiber.

Couldn't they make up their minds about where he belonged? I guess that's expecting a little too much!

This is a good idea for a comedy movie. Maybe someone can come up with a good skit.

 

[Silas]

Oh, they always tried dead people in those old days. The most famous English example was John Wyclif, heretical author of the Wyclif Bible, the earliest English translation (14th Century). He was actually dug up months after his death in order that he be tried by the inquisition and formally burnt at the stake.

I don't know how "early" you mean when you say the early church banned the ordinary people from reading the Bible, but in 400CE or thereabouts, Jerome was given the task of translating the Bible from the Septuagint (OT) and the various Greek manuscripts of the NT into Vulgar Latin - ie the Latin of the people and common discourse, not the High Latin of poetry, power and ritual. This was one of the arguments used in favour of translating the Bible out of Latin 1100 years later.

 

[Woody]

Othipal,

Bible/Catholic/Religous Scholarship in a secular school? Please . . .

Please what?

I'm a preppy from a secular school. I won the modern european history scholar award for the best grades in the class -- there was no money involved. By the way there were Jews, athiests, catholics, and protestants in the class too. Half of the class was a grade ahead of me. What does your response have to do with any of that?

Everything you quoted from the bible is commentary by people (not Yahweh, or Yeshua); on the bible; about the bible; then incorporated within the bible - and was then canonized by Catholic doctrines for the most part.

Apparantly you didn't read what I quoted from the bible because there are some major differences between it and catholic doctrine:

Only Jesus is a conduit between man and the creator (not the pope, not Mary); church priests are required to marry before they can be priests according to the bible; the church is built upon Jesus rather than Peter; praying should be done directly to the God in Heaven rather than Mary; and etc.

There is a good reason the catholic church leaders didn't want a bible in the hands of the laity -- they didn't want people to know what the bible said so they could layout their own religion, rules, and systems of coerced "faith" while keeping the masses in ignorance. Nobody could even understand what was being preached. My wife went to a catholic service with a catholic friend and she said not one thing the priest said made any sense, it was all a bunch of garbled mumbo jumbo.