John Guillaumier’s letter ‘Hurt Feelings’ appeared on the same day this paper produced the Gospel message – if the world hates you (the Apostles) you know that it has hated me (Jesus) before you (John 15:18). Two days later the text read: They will expel you from the synagogues. Yes, the hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering worship to God. (John 16:2)
I hope and pray that hate and hubris are not the motive behind Mr Guillaumier’s derogatory letters and posturing over historically incorrect obsessions. The myths, fables and wrong ideas that paint the Catholic Church in the most negative light, which have been held so strongly and for so long, have been demolished.
A look at his letter reveals an accumulation of prejudice against the Church and an acerbic, polychromatic assessment of confused history. To give this gross prejudice a sound thrashing would require writing a whole book, but I can at least provide a terse comment on each of his imaginations.
The Jews: “The Roman Catholic Church has a long and honourable record of stout opposition to attacks upon Jews. And Pope Pius XII fully lived up to that tradition.”
Heretics: “Paganism survived relatively unmolested for centuries after the conversion of Constantine, only slowly sinking into obscurity, meanwhile managing to create niches for some of its traditions within Christianity.”
Witches: “When one examines the conventional outline of western history, one encounters some truly fabulous inventions, not invented by the Church but by secular intellectuals, who coined the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. These were great historical eras that never really happened.”
Inquisition: “Great historical myths die hard, even when there is no vested resistance to new evidence. But in this case, many recent writers continue to spread the traditional myths about this ‘holy terror’ even though they are fully aware of the new findings.”
The Crusades: “The crusades were not provoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot or converts. The crusaders were not barbarians who victimised the cultivated Muslims. The crusaders are not a blot on the history of the Catholic Church. No apologies are required.”
The above are all excerpts and conclusions of chapters from the book Bearing False Witness by Rodney Stark, who though not a Roman Catholic, did not write the book in defence of the Church, but in defence of history.
I plead to Mr Guillaumier not to persist in being a truth paradox any longer.