Tag Archives: history

Fetch the Comfy Chair!

"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise…surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. Our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Our *four*…no… *Amongst* our weapons…. Amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise…. I’ll come in again." – Monty Python

The Inquisition (what a show)
The Inquisition (here we go)
We know you’re wishin’ that we’d go away.
But the Inquisition’s here and it’s here to-
"Hey Toquemada, walk this way."
"I just got back from the Auto-de-fe."
"Auto-de-fe? What’s an Auto-de-fe?"
"It’s what you oughtn’t to do but you do anyway."

On a more serious note:

This study should be interesting. Hopefully it’s balanced and fair (no Fox News pun intended).

Vatican to release study on Inquisition

The Vatican will soon publish a study on the Inquisition, containing the proceedings of an international conference held in Rome in 1998.

Bombs and Bishops

The following article is interesting mainly for the comments found below it.

American
bishops and Ronald Reagan

Catholic bishops share in the charism of infallibility when they speak on faith
and morals, in conjunction with the Holy Father. That is part of the magisterium,
the teaching authority by which we know the pure truth of the Gospel. That magisterium
cannot be broken because it comes from God himself (Mt 16:18).

When they stray from faith and morals, bishops are no more likely to be free from error than any other well-informed people. On many important subjects in the 1970s and ’80s, American bishops brought their prestige to bear against many policies Ronald Reagan favored.

Strange Bedfellows

Here’s another article about the uneasy alliance between Evangelicals and Catholics
that’s recently been forged in politics.

How
the Evangelicals and Catholics Joined Forces

In 1960, the last time a Roman Catholic ran for president on the Democratic ticket,
evangelical Protestant leaders warned their flocks that electing John F. Kennedy
would be like handing the Oval Office to the Antichrist.

Subversives

“Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
– Albert Einstein

China
silences Tiananmen critics

Police are quickly clamping down on attempts to mark the crackdown

A leading Chinese doctor who criticised the Communist Party’s 1989 Tiananmen Square
crackdown has disappeared on the eve of its 15th anniversary.

Why do we (as a nation) keep ignoring China’s horrendous human rights record and
continue to trade so heavily with them?

If communism is so right and the Chinese government is so great, they shouldn’t
need to make people disappear to stop “dangerous” opinions. Mao forbid
people be free to think for themselves and protest openly.

Scrollin’, Scrollin’, Scrollin’

Marty Minto‘s really
been plugging this exhibit. It seemed interesting, but I hesitated to blog it due
to some implicit Evangelical Protestant bias. However, Pittsburgh Catholic seems
to think it’s a good thing, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Dead Sea
Scrolls ‘fragments’ on exhibit

Tour includes other ancient biblical texts drawn from private collections

A remarkable array of ancient and antique biblical texts, including four fragments
of the Dead Sea Scrolls, will be on exhibit at the Monroeville ExpoMart from Friday
through June 20.

Fragments
of Dead Sea Scrolls on view at ExpoMart

Documents written 5,000 years ago sit a mere arms-length away. Peruse a copy of
temple-era biblical scrolls or skim through a page of the Guttenburg Bible.

Dead
Sea Scrolls exhibit emphasizes Bible history

Early colonial printers in Philadelphia played a key role in Bible history in this
country when they produced the first Bible in English in America in 1782, followed
eight years later by the first Catholic Bible. The city�s printers also produced
the first Hebrew Bible.

On a related note:

Local
museum boasts rare finds

Buried in the basement of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Highland Park is a
small archaeological treasure: The James L. Kelso Bible Lands Museum.