History Repeats Itself — Pope George W. Bush?

See if you recognize recent events in the U.S. in this passage talking about the history of the Catholic Church…

The Church turned to its own canon law to authenticate an agency which could enforce adherence to Church authority. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX established the Inquisition as a separate tribunal, independent of bishops and prelates. Its administrators, the inquisitors, were to be answerable only to the Pope. Its inquisitional law replaced the common law tradition of “innocent until proven guilty”with “guilty until proven innocent.” Despite an ostensible trial, inquisitional procedure left no possibility for the suspected to prove his or her innocence; the process resulted in the condemnation of anyone even suspected of heresy. The accused was denied the right of counsel. No particulars were given as to the time or place fo the suspected heresies, or to what kind of heresies were suspected. A suspected friendship with a convicted heretic was also a crime, yet no information was given as to which heretic the accused as to have “adored.” The names of the accusing witnesses were kept secret. One’s only recourse was an appeal to the Pope in Rome which was so futile as to be facical. The friar Bernard Delicieux declared:

…that if St. Peter and St. Paul were accused of ‘adoring’ heretics and were prosecuted after the fashion of the Inquisition, there would be no defense for them.

The inquisitor presided over inquisitional procedure as both prosecutor and judge. While he was technically to arrive at his decision after consulting with an assembly of experts of his choosing, this check to his power was soon abandoned. An inquisitor was selected primarily on the basis of of his zeal to prosecute heretics. He and his assistants, messengers and spies were allowed to carry arms. And in 1245, the Pope granted him the right to absolve these assistants for any acts of violence. This act rendered the Inquisition, which was already free from any secular jurisdiction, unaccountable to even ecclesiastical tribunals. [The Dark Side of Christian History, “Chapter 6: Controlling The Human Spirit”]

Take a moment to let that sink in and think about how many times in history that sort of thing seems to have repeated itself. Witch trials, Nazi Germany, McCarthyism, Kenneth Star ;)… Unchecked power using hate of some group or other to persecute and it’s all unquestioning, all unapologetic, all without regret. It’s all to get more power through fear.

Now think about what has happened in this country in the last five years. People both from this country and not have been taken from their homes, from airports, from their travels and spirited away in secret places, in American prisons, in Gitmo, who knows how many are innocent or how many are guilty. How do you prove you’re innocent when you are presumed guilty from the beginning? How do you prove you’re innocent when your only sin is that you look like you might be dangerous? How do you prove you’re innocent when you’ve been handed over to the Americans by foreign bounty hunters who insist you’re a terrorist? What do you say to prove you aren’t guilty when the American Inquisition doesn’t care really. It’s not about whether you’re innocent; it’s about gaining more power through fear and not even the fear of the arrested. It’s about gaining power through the fear of Americans like you and me, my dear Readers.

Tags: The Dark Side of Christian History, history repeats, George W. Bush, America