Papal Revisionism as History

As I frequently mention, I am a history buff. Now Papal history is not my forte, but I have often come across Papal history as part of Medieval history or Jewish history. And as Papal history is part of European history, one cannot know much European history without knowing at least some Papal history.

Much of what I read is pretty dry, intense historical works. Detailed discussions of Levantine archaeology, statistical genetic analyses of populations, nit-picking debates over the nature of the barbarian settlements on Roman territory (land appropriation vs. approriation of tax revenue), etc. But sometimes it is nice to have a good, superficial overview of a subject into which one can weave the more detailed material.

One source of superficial overviews I like very much is a series of books called the "Chronicles of..." Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Chronicle of the Roman Emperors, Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens... there are a whole bunch of them. They vary in quality and detail, but all seem basically factual. The Chronicle of the Old Testament Kings does a pretty good job of balancing archaeology and biblical analysis, skepticism and belief and helped me shape a few ideas of my own, based mainly on other works, regarding early Israeli history. So even though I am a skeptic, I found this work, which involves much biblical material, quite useful.

The Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens is a bit hard to read because of the material. Few actual names are known and so it is mostly archaeology and partially translated passages about killing and torture. But that is the nature of the material, so the book does about the best it can with the state of our understanding of the subject.

The one single book in this series where I find its worth very dubious is the Chronicle of the Popes by P.G. Maxwell-Stuart. Professor Maxwell-Stuart is at the University of St. Andrews, and specializes in the occult "sciences", as he lists it, particularly of early modern Europe, with specialism in magic and witchcraft. Interestingly, with a specialty like that, he seems almost completely an apologists for all things Papal, scarcely able to criticize some of the worst sins committed by the Catholic Church.

Now, I do NOT expect or want an anti-Papal bias when I am reading a superficial overview of the Papacy. But I do want SOME degree of skepticism and some degree of criticism when it comes to things like torture, murder and anti-Semitism. But this book is scarcely able to muster even the wimpiest of criticism of the institution of the Papacy.

Maxwell-Stuart is, of course, at a major disadvantage writing about the earliest Popes. He has little to deal with here but myth. Sometimes he presents miracles as fact, but when facts are so scarce, presenting the myth is all you can do. But they shouldn't be presented as dry facts.

The strong point of this book is how the later Popes come off as real people that we can identify with. Otherwise the book comes off like a student's notes on key points of each Pope with no critical sense.

Maxwell-Stuart is willing to criticize the Popes that the Papacy is most willing to criticize, such as the Borgias. Here he is on pretty safe ground since even the strongest believer in Papal infalibility has trouble getting behind the Borgias.

But there are some terrible blots on Papal history that are glossed over by Maxwell-Stuart with embarassing acceptance. The Inquisition is portrayed as far more benign that it was. Torture is excused as being rare (records show that although it was not frequently used, it was used and used with great curelty), and describes the "unpleasant reputation" of the Inquisition (some of us would say "atrotious reputation") as being partly due to "successful adverse propoganda." Anyone who knows the story of anti-Semitism in Europe knows that the Inquisition was one of the major arms of Jewish persecution for many centuries. The Spanish Inquisition was by far the worst, pursuing Jews and Jews converted to Catholicism but still not trusted to every corner of the Spanish Empire and, quite often, ruining them if not outright killing them. The Papal Inquisition sometimes sheltered Jews, but other times burned them alive. Protestants and some of the popular/poverty oriented movements within Protestantism were persecuted quite brutally by the Inquisition. Yet little of this sordid, disgusting, brutal history is even touched upon.

The sordid tale of treachery against John Hus, a Czech reformer who presaged Protestantism, is mentioned in one sentence, merely saying he was killed for heresy and his followers were difficult to suppress. The fact that this reformer was promised safe passage to a Conference then, upon his arrival, was murdered is completely ignored.

The embarassing history of Pope Pius XII and his complete lack of opposition to the Holocaust that killed nearly 11 million people during WW II is nearly completely excused. It is said that he helped the Jews and that controversy over the extent of his speaking out arose after the war. The fact that he pretty much said nothing despite requests from Rabbis in Palestine, the Assistant Chief of the U.S. delegation to the Vatican, the Ukrainian Metropolitan Andrej Septyckyj, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, and others, is ignored. In fact he REFUSED to condemn any German atrocities except for a brief and weak condemnation of the civilian death toll among Poles. In fact, privately he said he did not oppose every rule against the Jews, suggesting that he too may have harbored some anti-Semitism. Some background on this can be found here, but it CANNOT be found in this Chronicle of the Popes.

Now the history of Catholicism is rich in intellectual controversy, art, literature and help for the downtrodden. But it is also rich in the more embarassing and brutal side of human nature. No history of the Papacy can reasonably gloss over the Inquisition, the treachery against reformers like John Hus or the lack of response to atrocities like the Holocaust and be credible. This book fails to do much other than give a Disney version of the Papacy which does not really qualify as history.

Fortunately, most of the other books in the series are far better quality and well worth reading.

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