Plymouth, Massachusetts, is thought to be the site of America’s first Thanksgiving meal.
Plymouth, where the Mayflower Pilgrims landed and founded the first colony in 1620 also became the first town to hold “Pope Night,” (Nov.5) three years later. It was far from a celebration of the Bishop of Rome, it was to mock the Pope and Catholics. Pope Night was a vehicle for expressing anti-Catholic sentiment even more than Guy Fawkes Day, which was its inspiration. Guy Fawkes Day was commemorated every 5th of November in England, recalling the supposed failed attempt of Catholic plotters, including Guy Fawkes, to blow up the House of Lords in London.
By the 1770s, just before the American Revolution, Pope Night had taken on so many traditions that it was difficult for participants, especially in Boston, to give it up. Eventually, this tradition changed into a more benign celebration on Oct. 31st that we now know as Halloween.
Did members of a government faction set up the plot themselves? So they could crack down on Catholics?
The Gunpowder Plot (Nov. 5, 1605) was supposedly a conspiracy by a number of Catholics. The best known of these was Guy Fawkes, but Robert Catesby was allegedly the mastermind, second only to the Jesuit superior named Henry Garnet. The gunpowder laid in a cellar under Parliament for about 6 months, before it was even discovered.
The real history of the plot may never be known. But the evidence lies heavily that Lord Cecil and his minions were the real plotters.
It was an elaborate misadventure. The conspirators were supposed to have rented a house and from within this house they dug a tunnel to Parliament. But before completing the tunnel and just reaching the foundations of Parliament-- they stopped. They discovered a cellar under parliament. Thus instead of tunneling, they snuck huge barrels of gunpowder into the cellar, where the barrels remained waiting for 6 months, until Parliament's first day of opening.
The government claimed to have discovered the plot 10 days before Parliament was to meet.
Lord Monteagle, a Catholic, got an anonymous letter delivered by an unknown man. The letter, couched in incoherent language, warned him that it would be wise to be absent for the opening ceremony of Parliament.
Monteagle took the letter at once to Lord Cecil, the king being out of town on a hunt, and Cecil figured out its meaning and gave it to the king five days later.
The myth persists of Catholics approving slavery, because there were individual Catholics who supported slavery or owned slaves or some nations, even Catholic Portugal promoted it.
If you ever see the movie "The Mission" the controversy of ownership of the land of the Mission was whether it was Spanish or Portuguese rule. Although it isn't the main part of the story, it involved slavery, which was illegal under Spanish law but not under Portuguese. Slavery was similar to today's issue of abortion, some Catholic countries outlaw abortion, while some so called Catholic countries allow it. Both slavery and abortion are human rights issues.
Scholars, with an axe to grind, use bad Catholics or wayward Catholic countries as “proof” that the Church accepted slavery, without drawing the necessary distinction that what individual Catholics, or "Catholic" countries may do, does not necessarily reflect the official teaching of the Catholic Church.
After the death of Emperor Carus (282 - 283 AD), who was struck by lightning on a campaign in Persia, Diocletian became the new Roman emperor from 284 AD to 305 AD. Like many Emperors before him, he left Christians alone in the beginning of his rule. He mainly wanted Rome to return to stability. For over a hundred years there had been a constant stream of emperors, usually tragically overthrown. This led to economic hardships and weakened borders with barbarians and Persians constantly hammering at the outlining territories. He reformed the taxation and economy, as well as restructured the Empire. Although not fully successful, his reforms slowed down the decline of the Empire. He feared the civil wars of the past returning. His insight was that the succession of power was unstable, The senate’s power had been diminished and the Emperor’s power increased. He was the sole ruler of Rome. But he wanted help ruling. He arranged for the Empire to be divided into the Western Empire and the Eastern Empire. Diocletian would still be the ultimate ruler, but he appointed men to rule different districts. Diocletian ruled the Eastern Empire, and set up co-emperors, called “Augustus,” one of the West– Maximian and one of the East himself. Maximian was a good friend of Diocletian in the army, a man he could trust. Both were soldiers. Maximian was more a man of action, and military commander, while Diocletian was more political. It seems that Diocletian wanted an able man to be his head of the army.
Each Augustus (eastern and western emperors) had a subordinate, called a Caesar, to share in the rule, and theoretically to succeed the Augustus, if he should die, or resign. The rule of four was called a “tetrarchy''. Two generals, Galerius and Constantius, became Caesars– Galerius under Diocletian in the east, and Constantius (father of Constantine – liberator of Christianity) under Maximian in the west.
Here is an excellent discussion on history and theology from a Protestant convert Dr. David Anders with one of the few orthodox Jesuits, Fr. Mitch Pacwa.
Actor Shia LaBeouf converted to Catholicism. I hope he is sincere.
In a sit down interview with “Bishop Barron Presents” (below). Bishop Barron talks to the actor about his upcoming acting role in “Padre Pio,” which put him on the path to conversion.
I feel I need to say that I have a problem with Bishop Barron's practical Universalist views. Many consider him orthodox, but he is very wrong on his ideas about salvation.
We live in troubled times. We don't have a good pope.
Pope Francis frankly is doing a very bad job as pope. He has entertained pro-abortion politicians, like Nancy Pelosi, with no correction...etc... the list is long. He has recently changed the teaching on the death penalty in the Catechism. But a catechism is not an official use of Papal Infallibility. Catechisms are summaries of the Faith that also contain theological opinions of their times, and can be inaccurate.
As pointed out in the introduction of the classic catechism of the council of Trent:
Catechism of the Council of Trent- Fifteenth printing, TAN Books, Introduction XXXVI: “Official documents have
occasionally been issued by Popes to explain certain points of Catholic
teaching to individuals, or to local Christian communities; whereas the
Roman Catechism comprises practically the whole body of Christian
doctrine, and is addressed to the whole Church. Its teaching is not infallible; but it holds a place between approved catechisms and what is de fide.”
Catechism can be corrected.
Sometimes the corrections are to clarify in support Sacred Tradition, but in the case of Pope Francis, he is seems to obfuscate the issues. In any case, he has changed the new Catechism to make the death penalty "inadmissible" . This has opened a can of worms.
Is he saying that the Old Testament's use of the death penalty was immoral? I don't think so. But we have yet to have a full clarification of what he exactly means, and its connotations to the history of the issue.
The Catechism is not some kind of Super Dogma. It is to be taken as a whole, as a sure norm, but there may be some room for improvement.
In his book Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Ratzinger ( later Pope Benedict XVI) wrote on the authority of the Catechism :
"This brings us to the question already mentioned before, regarding the
authority of the Catechism. In order to find the answer, let us first
consider a bit more closely its juridical character. We could express
it in this way: analogously to the new Code of Canon Law, the Catechism
is de facto a collegial work; canonically, it falls under the special
jurisdiction of the Pope, inasmuch as it was authorized for the whole
Christian world by the Holy Father in virtue of the supreme teaching
authority invested in him. . . .
This does not mean that the catechism is a sort of super-dogma,
as its opponents would like to insinuate in order to cast suspicion on
its as a danger to the liberty of theology. What significance the
Catechism really holds for the common exercise of teaching in the
Church may be learned by reading the Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum,
with which the Pope promulgated it on October 11, 1992--exactly thirty
years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council: "I acknowledge
it [the Catechism] as a valid and legitimate tool in the service of
ecclesiastical communion, as a sure norm for instruction in the faith."
The individual doctrine which the
Catechism presents receive no other weight than that which they already
possess. The weight of the Catechism itself lies in the whole. Since it transmits what the Church teaches, whoever rejects it as a whole separates himself beyond question from the faith and teaching of the Church" [pp. 25-27].
So, the Catechism contains teachings of the Church without elevating
them to a doctrinal status nor above what they already have. So, other authoritative sources are needed to establish the
doctrinal weight of any particular teaching in the Catechism.
This brings us to Fr. Schmitz' new project. I think this podcast can do a lot of good. I don't mean to denigrate in my above comments the new Catechism, but we must put it in its truthful place. While important and extremely useful, it is not infallible nor Holy Scripture.
Fr. Mike Schmitz is famous for his "Bible in a Year" podcast. It was number one podcast in the world last year.
I'm looking forward to is a new podcast called "Catechism in a Year." It will start in January 2023.
