Who Did the Pope Declare A Holy War Against?

[ihavenobias]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8TeN5kAPik&feature=channel_page

I considered posting this in the video section but it would probably end up locked in response to Catholic outrage.

[Joe the Liberal]

1. Lol religion is such a joke.............

Religion is supposed to promote peace and all things good but then you have people like the Pope declaring holy war? Such hypocrisy, it's just a form of control and that is all, nothing more than enslavement of the mind.

[laconicsax]

2. Since when is religion supposed to promote peace and all things good?

[Joe the Liberal]

3. Well............

never, but that's one of the illusions they have up to lure people in.

[ihavenobias]

6. Well, it's *supposed* to. n/t

[onager]

5. And the punch line was way back in the 14th century!

...as I frequently rant...

One pope sitting in Rome, the other one in Avignon, France. Both merrily excommunicating each other's followers and presumably damning those followers to the Big Eternal BBQ.

That should have exposed the whole thing as the empty scam it is. But of course, did not.

I found this interesting. Back in the good old days, the Pope frequently excommunicated entire cities. A frequent target of Papal tantrums was one of the most secular and wordly cities in Europe--Venice.

That city practically invented the secular state. Long before anyone else in Europe thought of it, the Venetian Republic completely banned the clergy from politics. And when the Pope appointed high-ranking clergy, the Venetian Senate reserved the right to approve the nomination. (Not too long ago, I read J.J. Norwich's A History of Venice.)

When a city was excommunicated, the Pope ordered the priests to lock the churches and leave the city. That meant no big festivals, since the church controlled those.

But a funny thing happened--after a while, this trick became completely useless. People adjusted to the situation and had their festivals anyway.

IIRC (being too lazy to look it up), the last time a Pope excommunicated Venice was in the 16th century. That last excommunication turned out to be a huge embarassment to the Pope--because nobody in Venice paid a bit of attention to it. And after that, the Pope didn't try it again with any other cities.

[moggie]

7. I presume the Rome and Avignon guys never met

I mean, when a Pope and an Antipope collide, they'd presumably mutually annihilate, emitting a burst of energetic cardinals and bishops. Or would that only happen if they have Mass?

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. You should be excommunicated just for those puns

groan!

[trotsky]

4. Cenk really does summarize it well.

They can't have anyone stepping on their turf (the selling of crazy) so they have to crack down on these things.