Enough- One Final Time-All Honor To
The Waldensian Heretics! (Or For Sticklers Followers Of Peter Waldo)- A Smidgen
Of Justice Finally!
Peter Waldo
Light glows in the darkness
Sam Lowell comment:
Sometimes you have to take things
into your own hands, take a stand against the yahoos and yokels who have
nothing better to do that sit at their computer keyboards and spew forth, yes
that is exactly the right word, spew forth whatever angers they have been
harboring on innocent cyberspace. Or rather this innocent blogosphere. Well
maybe not innocent but nothing said here calls for some endless diatribe with those self-same what are they called, oh yeah,
trolls. Trolls who in another time, say about fifty years ago late at night
with a head full of speed or some other drug of choice to while away the hours
before dawn I would have been happy to engage in conversation about such worthy
topics as how many angles a can fit on the head of a needle. But not now, not
when I have more pressing concerns like the struggle against war, the struggle
against the death penalty, the struggle against the one percent, the struggle
against every kind of social injustice except these days mercifully those who
would deny the right of gay marriage, That one can now at least be put to
rest.
Let me explain and you will see how
right I am to make this the last post on this subject this side of paradise.
Recently, although the way this issue has been hammered into my brain it seems
like an eternity, I made a comment, a short comment, in this space about how
the Roman Catholic church’s Pope Francis had made a pilgrimage to Turin, I
believe, in order to offer, or maybe beg, forgiveness of the ancient Waldensese
religious community there. This small sect and its confederates around the
world had been persecuted by a number of
his predecessors beginning in the 13th century when one radicalized
ex-merchant named Peter of Waldo began to act, well, Christian. Doing such
outlandish things as giving alms to the poor, living a simple life, and
challenging some of the odd-ball customs and traditions of the church like that
saying the Mass in Latin which the poor illiterates of the time were clueless
to understand, going through the bread and wine communion ceremony (body and
blood of Jesus called transubstantiation if I recall) at every Mass and, get
this if you want to know why he got in hot water then, today too probably,
doing away with the priesthood as special body of interpreters and of indulgences
too. Yes, the Church authorities would want to hang that Brother, hang him high,
then.
Stuff in short though that
represented some sort of “premature” Protestant break-out and would, or should
not, ruffle feather one these days. And the Twitter Pope decided that as a
good-will gesture to make amends for the rough handling of dissenters during
the Counter-Reformation where they tried to kill every Waldo-ite (don’t even
think about calling me on what this sect is called I have seen a number of
names so take that dispute off the table please) in the realm he would ask
forgiveness.
I got into trouble though with one
lapsed and one non-lapsed Catholic (they not knowing that in ancient times I
was a Catholic Worker-influenced boy, influenced by my Grandmother Riley who
was a distant follower of Dorothy Day and that movement and so knew a thing or
two about the Catholic mission in the world, or the theory behind it anyway).
The former taking umbrage (saying I had "smacked down" the Pope) that I thought that Pope Francis was a few hundred
years too late, especially since I did not hear anything about reparations or
the like, you know, some dough from the Vatican vaults. The latter well let me
put it in the words of my reply- “The commenter a “non-lapsed Catholic” from
what I could gather blasted me (at least he did not use the “smack down” term,
mercifully) for putting today’s standard of religious tolerance back to that time,
a time when the Church was in danger from every corner. You could not have a
group, even an isolated group not bothering anybody whom Rome saw as a threat
doing whatever they pleased.” So you could see what I was up against.
So to finally put this whole thing
to merciful rest, put it back in the pages of history where it belongs now duly
corrected I did not as the lapsed Catholic said try to “smack down” the Pope by
asking a perfectly legitimate question about why the wheels of the church
bureaucracy grind exceeding slow with this business of admitting errors or at
least why it did not just leave “freethinkers” alone who posed no threat to
Holy Rome. I do not accept that Peter of Waldo and his followers were some
early form Bolsheviks ready to lay the church low and sack the Holy See in the interest
of international communism. I do not accept that Peter of Waldo was anything but a righteous
Catholic and that the later papal bull (that’s is what it is called okay) against his
future followers was over the top. And I heartily do not accept as a subsequent
third commenter insinuated that I am a mere apologist for the actions of a
“fellow-traveler” when I casually stated at the end of my reply that I was on
old Peter’s side in his dispute with Rome. I still am. Enough said.
In the interest of full disclosure, my
full disclosure anyway since I am not authorized to post what others have said
in this space below is the original posting and the subsequent reply:
Here is the original post and you
decide whether I was being blasphemous, sacrilegious, or a heathen:
You have probably heard the news
lately that the Roman Catholic Church’s Pope Francis has asked the Waldenese
community of hearty and alive irreverent Protestants to accept the church’s
forgiveness for attempting to exterminate their forbears in the late 15th
century by order of the then pope, get this, Pope Innocent VIII (eight, right).
And they almost succeeded, with now a small remnant still living in small
enclaves in various spots around the world. By the way doing nobody harm just
like when they were started by a renegade merchant named, well, Waldo,
who thought that piety, poverty and doing good works were worthy
endeavors. Get this too though Waldo and his gang thought that everybody would
be just as well off if there was not a clergy separate from the congregation,
that everybody could be a priest (maybe women too?). And you wonder why
Rome had the stakes piled up high and the flames on big time. Well, I know
everybody studied this group in Western History class in passing, I know
I did, as precursors of the Protestant Reformation and martyrs to the cause of
enlightenment so I will just leave a link to Wikipedia on the subject
for you to look at-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldensians
Here is my problem though and
maybe not so much a reflection on the current pope as on the church bureaucracy
and inertia but isn’t several hundred years later for forgiveness and
reconciliation in the case of Galileo just a little too late to do those fallen
martyrs any good. What took so long? This may be a Tweeter Pope but you guys have
got to push harder to come into the 18th century, the age of
enlightenment. Okay.
And the subsequent reply:
Sometimes in the cyberspace, the
blogosphere, hell, maybe in life you can’t win. Recently, very recently, I
posted a short mention in this space honoring the old time formerly heretical
grouping persecuted, no more than persecuted, almost exterminated by the Roman
Catholic Church, the Waldensians (alternatively Waldenese which is the way they
were presented in Western Civ class
and which I like better since Waldensian makes me think they might be followers
of Henry David Thoreau, a different kind of Protestant later or even better so
nobody can mistake them, followers of the pious 12th century
ex-merchant Peter Waldo although that Waldo part has problems too). To make
some kind of historical amends (although as far as I know no dough from the
Vatican coffers) the Roman Catholic Church’s leader, Pope Francis, had asked, maybe
begged for all I know since he did it in foreign language (not English anyway) and
his gestures may be subject to some differences of interpretation, the small scattered
Waldensese community of formerly heretical “premature” Protestants for
forgiveness. Particularly for the egregious acts a 15th century former
pope’s bull (that is what they call the thing when the pope orders something
done, or not done, I am not making it up or trying to be sarcastic so do not
sent comments on this please), get this Innocent VIII by name, telling every
true believer in the apostolic works of the Church to smite them down like
vermin. And they did.
Here is where I got into trouble or
rather in two types of trouble from a couple of separate commenters who got hot
under the collar about how they interpreted what I said as a some kind of
“smack down” of the Roman Church and/or its leader (the word one commenter
actually used as in “smacked down Pope Francis”). This from a person who said
she was a “lapsed Catholic” whatever that is, and as if that was some kind of
talisman for what she accused me of doing.
The reason for that negative comment
was that I had mentioned that this Roman Catholic Church, or rather its
bureaucracy, is a little slow on the uptake when it comes to trying to right
various crimes in its long and sometimes seedy past although I notice they zip
right along with this making saints out of whole cloth business especially of
former popes. Take Galileo and his simple proposition that the earth was not
flat and that the earth went around the sun like we all learned in about second
grade. It took another bull ( I think) a few years back to get the Church to
recognize that maybe Galileo was right or at least they should have treated him
better.
Now comes the case of the Waldenese,
a small grouping not doing anything to hurt mighty Rome back in the days from
about the 12th to the 16th century when they had plenty
to say in Europe and elsewhere about who was to believe in what doctrine or
face what kind of hell on earth at the stake for their misbegotten ways. Maybe
Rome was a little off from its glory “caesaro-papist” days but they could put
serious hurt on dissenters, no question. Now a few centuries later all is
forgiven. At that rate serious current “errors” like the dive the Vatican took
on trying to save the Jews during World War II or more recently the sexual ravaging
of their innocent youth by very disturbed and nasty priests should be
“rectified” by some Pope Innocent LXIII sometime after 2400. So, no, I did not
“smack down” the current pope but just stated what was what.
The more serious comment, or at
least I took it more seriously, was one of cultural relativism I suppose. The
commenter a “non-lapsed Catholic” from what I could gather blasted me (at least
he did not use the ‘smack down” term, mercifully) for putting today’s standard
of religious tolerance back to that time, a time when the Church was in danger
from every corner. You could not have a group, even an isolated group not
bothering anybody whom Rome saw as a threat doing whatever they pleased. This
thought is what galled the commenter most when I wrote “Get this too though
Waldo and his gang thought that everybody would be just as well off if there
was not a clergy separate from the congregation, that everybody could be
a priest (maybe women too?). And you wonder why Rome had the stakes piled up
high and the flames on big time.” He went off about the need for a clergy to
mediate between God and the congregation, that the mediation should be by a man
since the original followers (of Jesus) were men, and indiscriminate giving of
alms and other such communal actions were, well, “communistic.” So you can see
where he was going.
Look I suggested that everybody who
was interested check with the very informative article in the on-line Wikipedia if you didn’t have time to go
to the library (or the expense of ordering a book on the subject from Amazon)
to brush up on exactly what these people were up to and why Rome’s nose got
bent out of shape about the matter. It is usually fruitless to argue religion
but a doctrine of giving alms to the poor, leading a simple life, having the religious
ceremony done in the vernacular, buying into the idea of the priesthood of all
believers, giving up of the ceremonial body and blood (bread and wine) idea
(called transubstantiation, I think) and forgetting about that Church raking in
the dough money-maker purgatory look very simple, look very pre-organized Church
to me. So cultural relativism or not that Catholic commenter seems to have
missed out on the Reformation, maybe more. I’ll stick with old Waldo on this
one.
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