White Smoke! We Have a New Pope!

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Spanish spoken in Argentina sounds like Italian, particularly in the way they accent the penultimate syllables.

You're doing Gracie Allen schtick?

0 Replies

@Ragman,

Francis the talking pope

0 Replies

I don't get it. This new Pope is one who commiserates with the poor; however, through diligence to his profession he has moved from a simple apartment in Buenos Aires to a Palace in the Vatican. This sounds more like a Catholic version of Horatio Alger? If he had been born in the U.S., would he have been a Reagan Democrat?

0 Replies

@Foofie,

Regarding the Mortara case:

The case is tragic to be sure, but to my dis-believing eyes the parents are just as guilty as the Papal state.
The child was taken because the parents weren't also baptised.
Who here wouldn't let some water drip on their head to keep their child?

3 Replies

@MattDavis,

Quote:

The child was taken because the parents weren't also baptised.
Who here wouldn't let some water drip on their head to keep their child?

You mean renounced their faiths for themselves and their other children something that a lot of people in history was willing to be burned to death before doing?

Not to mention that for example that the Spanish Inquisition victims was full of former Jews who had converted to Christianity in order to be able to stay in Spain and was then charge with still being secret Jews and ended up being torture to death .

By the 1850s they would not had likely torture you to death but I do not think it would be enjoyable to had been found out not to have converted in good faith.

It is a little more then having water being drop on your head.

0 Replies

@MattDavis,

MattDavis wrote:

Regarding the Mortara case:

The case is tragic to be sure, but to my dis-believing eyes the parents are just as guilty as the Papal state.
The child was taken because the parents weren't also baptised.
Who here wouldn't let some water drip on their head to keep their child?

When did this situation occur?
Regardless, two wrongs do not make a right. And, if one believes that parents have hegemony over their children, barring child abuse, then one could make the argument that the parents were being abusive to the child by not becoming Catholic. And, one wonders why many non-Catholics still believe that the Catholic Church would turn a country into a country with Catholicism as the official religion, if it was possible (read sarcastic).

And, in my own opinion, the situation could be looked upon as "over-zealousness" on the part of both the parents and the Church. If that would be one's perspective, who should know better not to be "over-zealous," two people (parents) or a world-wide organization?

Since we are talking about the Roman Catholic Church, one could view the baptism ritual as not just a little water, but as the initiation into a life of being subservient to the last vestiges of the Roman Empire. That word "Roman" really sticks in some people's throat. Not just Jews who might look upon the Romans as one of their historical nemesis.

1 Reply

@MattDavis,

MattDavis wrote:

Regarding the Mortara case:

The case is tragic to be sure, but to my dis-believing eyes the parents are just as guilty as the Papal state.
The child was taken because the parents weren't also baptised.
Who here wouldn't let some water drip on their head to keep their child?

That's pretty naive, MD. It's not just a matter of having some water dripped on their heads. It was against the law for a Catholic to be raised by non-Catholic parents. Your suggestion that the parents reject their faith and "go along to get along" and their refusal to do so makes them equally guilty as the church is disturbing.

2 Replies

@Foofie,

Quote:

Regardless, two wrongs do not make a right. And, if one believes that parents have hegemony over their children, barring child abuse, then one could make the argument that the parents were being abusive to the child by not becoming Catholic.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

0 Replies

@JPB,

No my suggestion would be to fake your belief, if belief is going to be imposed on you. Both parties are viewing baptism as more important than the life (or well-being) of a child.
I believe 1st Kings is canonical to both religions involved.
A part of the story involving the dispute over who is the parent of a child:
כב וַתֹּאמֶר הָאִשָּׁה הָאַחֶרֶת לֹא כִי, בְּנִי הַחַי וּבְנֵךְ הַמֵּת, וְזֹאת אֹמֶרֶת לֹא כִי, בְּנֵךְ הַמֵּת וּבְנִי הֶחָי; וַתְּדַבֵּרְנָה, לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ. 22 And the other woman said: 'Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son.' And this said: 'No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son.' Thus they spoke before the king.
כג וַיֹּאמֶר הַמֶּלֶךְ--זֹאת אֹמֶרֶת, זֶה-בְּנִי הַחַי וּבְנֵךְ הַמֵּת; וְזֹאת אֹמֶרֶת לֹא כִי, בְּנֵךְ הַמֵּת וּבְנִי הֶחָי. {פ} 23 Then said the king: 'The one saith: This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead; and the other saith: Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.'
כד וַיֹּאמֶר הַמֶּלֶךְ, קְחוּ לִי-חָרֶב; וַיָּבִאוּ הַחֶרֶב, לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ. 24 And the king said: 'Fetch me a sword.' And they brought a sword before the king.
כה וַיֹּאמֶר הַמֶּלֶךְ, גִּזְרוּ אֶת-הַיֶּלֶד הַחַי לִשְׁנָיִם; וּתְנוּ אֶת-הַחֲצִי לְאַחַת, וְאֶת-הַחֲצִי לְאֶחָת. 25 And the king said: 'Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.'
כו וַתֹּאמֶר הָאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר-בְּנָהּ הַחַי אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ, כִּי-נִכְמְרוּ רַחֲמֶיהָ עַל-בְּנָהּ, וַתֹּאמֶר בִּי אֲדֹנִי תְּנוּ-לָהּ אֶת-הַיָּלוּד הַחַי, וְהָמֵת אַל-תְּמִיתֻהוּ; וְזֹאת אֹמֶרֶת, גַּם-לִי גַם-לָךְ לֹא יִהְיֶה--גְּזֹרוּ. 26 Then spoke the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her heart yearned upon her son, and she said: 'Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it.' But the other said: 'It shall be neither mine nor thine; divide it.'
כז וַיַּעַן הַמֶּלֶךְ וַיֹּאמֶר, תְּנוּ-לָהּ אֶת-הַיָּלוּד הַחַי, וְהָמֵת, לֹא תְמִיתֻהוּ: הִיא, אִמּוֹ. {ס} 27 Then the king answered and said: 'Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.'

If you are willing to tear a child or a child's well-being in half, then I doubt your true concern for the child.
[I am not religious by the way, I simply have studied other religions]
I may certainly be in disagreement with some priests and rabbis, but I doubt many (of either) are in disagreement with this.

1 Reply

@MattDavis,

Quote:

No my suggestion would be to fake your belief, if belief is going to be imposed on you. Both parties are viewing baptism as more important than the life (or well-being) of a child.

Oh so a culture and a people who history going back many thousands of years should be given up due to the kidnapping of one of the family children?

An it is not that simple to fake a conversion as the thousands of Jews who ended up on the torture racks in the 15 century could had told you from being charge with faking a conversion and still being Jewish.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

No I did not suggest that someone give up their culture or their tradition.
1858 Bologna is hardly the same as the Spanish inquisition.
No one was ending up on "torture racks" in 1858 Bologna for being Jewish.
The parents could have gone through a baptism ceremony (become Catholic in the eyes of the Church), and then promptly ignored any further Catholic traditions. No one arrested Catholics in 1858 Bologna for not going to mass. No one arrested Catholics for apostasy. The parents could have effectively kept being Jewish.
In the eyes of the law (Papal State) baptism defined who was or was not Catholic.
Apparently in the eyes of the parents, baptism had the power to make them non-Jewish, which is of course strange. Why would they care if they don't believe baptism does anything?
The child (innocent victim) suffered as the result of two parties who would not compromise, when it would apparently cost either party very little to do so.
The parents could have submitted to a "bogus" bapstism.
The Papal state could have let a child stay with his parents, despite the baptism.
They each proved their point.

3 Replies

@MattDavis,

Jews, of course, had baptism as part of their tradition. After all, John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus, was a Jew...there were no Christians.

The purpose of baptism for Jews is not entirely different from what Christians accept...but there are significant differences.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2456-baptism

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Yes. Thanks Frank.
I should have clarified. Rabbinical Jewish teachings as understood by popular convention in 19th century Bologna did not hold that baptism was a method of conversion into or out of the Jewish faith. Baptism was also not used conventionally in Rabbinical Judaism at that time for ritual cleansing.

0 Replies

@MattDavis,

Quote:

No I did not suggest that someone give up their culture or their tradition.
1858 Bologna is hardly the same as the Spanish inquisition.
No one was ending up on "torture racks" in 1858 Bologna for being Jewish.
The parents could have gone through a baptism ceremony (become Catholic in the eyes of the Church), and then promptly ignored any further Catholic traditions. No one arrested Catholics in 1858 Bologna for not going to mass. No one arrested Catholics for apostasy. The parents could have effectively kept being Jewish.

Well I am hardly an expert on the actions of the church in the 1850s other then they feel free to kidnapped a child from it parents.

I do not know what actions the church might had taken or not taken if the parents after being baptized went about their lives as Jews instead of Christians but re-seizing the one child and if the deal was that the whole family would need to be baptized perhaps seizing the other family children now baptized also seems a possibility.

The parents had zero reason to trust the church who ended up using their kidnapper son as a priest to attempted to converted other Jews for a lifetime afterward.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Sounds a bit like the KKK kidnapping a black child to convert it to being white. Being a Jew, as we all realize, is a hell of a lot more than adopting a religion. It is PRIMARILY about culture and ethnicity...to the point where Jews are defined by other Jews as a person born of a Jewish mother.

The Christians of the 1800 were being radical and arbitrary...as humans of all races, ethnicities, cultures, and religions often are.

1 Reply

@MattDavis,

MattDavis wrote:

...Apparently in the eyes of the parents, baptism had the power to make them non-Jewish, which is of course strange. Why would they care if they don't believe baptism does anything?

Not saying that this next thought had any relevance to the people involved back then; however, it always amuses me to think that Gentiles (aka, Christians) accept the fact that there are people from their own group that hate/despise Jews, with an utter contempt, but do not think any Jews have utter contempt for their beliefs (beyond the standard non-belief in the divinity of Jesus)?

2 Replies

@Foofie,

You may be right...although I personally have worked both in Real Estate and on Wall Street, both areas where there was a high population of Jews...and I certainly came to realize that the irrational dislike (I prefer that to hate) goes in both directions.

I'd like to think that the cooler, more reasonable heads were the majority.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Sounds a bit like the KKK kidnapping a black child to convert it to being white. Being a Jew, as we all realize, is a hell of a lot more than adopting a religion. It is PRIMARILY about culture and ethnicity...to the point where Jews are defined by other Jews as a person born of a Jewish mother.

The Christians of the 1800 were being radical and arbitrary...as humans of all races, ethnicities, cultures, and religions often are.

I tend to include all folks that skipped a grade in elementary school as Jewish, regardless of their faith. And the Jews that didn't skip a grade I tend to think of them as sort of Gentilish.

0 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

You may be right...although I personally have worked both in Real Estate and on Wall Street, both areas where there was a high population of Jews...and I certainly came to realize that the irrational dislike (I prefer that to hate) goes in both directions.

I'd like to think that the cooler, more reasonable heads were the majority.

I think in many situations today, in the U.S., hate is not the correct word also. Not even dislike; I prefer distaste. Sort of a benign discomfort? Or, like being a Northerner in the South?

1 Reply

@Foofie,

Quote:

I think in many situations today, in the U.S., hate is not the correct word also. Not even dislike; I prefer distaste. Sort of a benign discomfort? Or, like being a Northerner in the South?

Excellent example!!!

1 Reply

White Smoke! We Have a New Pope!

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know