Will this do?
Posted on 01/24/2007 8:42:52 PM PST by xzins
Malcolm Moore
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Five hundred years after he was killed in battle, the remains of Cesare Borgia, the notorious inspiration for Machiavelli's The Prince, are to be moved into a Spanish church. Banned from holy ground by bishops horrified by his sins, the remains of the ruthless military leader lie, at present, under a pavement in Viana in northern Spain.
Borgia was the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, and was made a cardinal by his father at the age of 17. He was an accomplished murderer by 25 and had conquered a good part of Italy by 27.
He died in Viana in 1507 at the age of 31, after attempting to storm the town's castle and overthrow the Count of Lerin.
He was originally buried beneath the altar of the Church of Santa Maria in the town, in a marble tomb on which was written: "Here lies in little earth one who was feared by all, who held peace and war in his hand."
However, his body was dug up in 1527 when the Bishop of Calahorra visited the town and expressed his outrage that such a sinner was buried in church ground. The tomb was demolished and Cesare Borgia was re-buried in unconsecrated ground, where his body would be "trampled on by men and beasts," according to the bishop.
His remains stayed there until 1945 and locals used to scrupulously avoid the cobbled street March 11, when his ghost was said to be abroad and hungry for vengeance.
After workmen inadvertently dug him up, he was moved in a silver casket to the town hall, where local politicians pleaded with the Catholic Church to let him be buried properly.
The town of Viana looks fondly upon Borgia because of his link with the King of Navarre, whose sister he married. After fleeing the wrath of Pope Julius II, Borgia ended up in charge of his brother-in-law's armies and laid siege to Viana.
A bust of him has been erected in the town, with the inscription: "Captain of the Navarre Army."
But the local bishop rejected the requests for a proper burial and his body was placed under a marble plaque outside the church grounds.
However, Fernando Sebastian Aguilar, the Archbishop of Pamplona, has caved in after more than 50 years of petitions and Borgia will finally be moved back inside the church on March 11, the day before the 500th anniversary of his death. "We have nothing against the transfer of his remains. Whatever he may have done in life, he deserves to be forgiven now," said the local church.
Borgia took control of the papal armies in 1497 following the murder of his brother, and chalked up a series of astonishing military successes. He was greatly admired by Niccolo Machiavelli, who was at his court in 1502 for several months. Machiavelli drew on Borgia's exploits for The Prince - a treatise on the art of acquiring and maintaining political power - and advised politicians to imitate him.
The way in which Borgia pacified the Romagna is described in chapter seven. Borgia's assassination of his rivals in Sinigaglia on New Year's Eve, 1503, is also mentioned.
To be fair, Exsurge Domine started the "fracture." Initially, Luther (perhaps naively) thought he could reform the hierarchy, and appealed to the Pope against what his agents were doing in his name.
It is not as though, if I lived in the Reformation era, I could walk up to the Bishop, complain about the abuses running rampant in the Catholic hierarchy, and still be a communicant. After Trent, and especially Vatican 2, the Catholic church has reformed herself admirably (with the exception of an occasional misstep here and there).
As any credible historian knows, Luther was forced out when he should have been listened to.
Cardinal Albert of Hohenzollern, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, with the consent of Pope Leo X, was using part of the indulgence income to pay his bribery debts,[26] and did not reply to Luther’s letter; instead, he had the theses checked for heresy and forwarded to Rome.[27]Leo responded over the next three years, “with great care as is proper”,[28] by deploying a series of papal theologians and envoys against Luther. Perhaps he hoped the matter would die down of its own accord, because in 1518 he dismissed Luther as "a drunken German" who "when sober will change his mind".[29]
Like those who preceded him, Leo was a crook, too.
There would have been no reforming of the RC's manners if Luther had not revolted. His revolution would not have been possible if the corruption was not evident and sickening to the princes and other aristocracy who sided with him.
It's highly likely that the presence of competition in the marketplace of Christian ideas continues to keep various Christian bodies, to include the RC, in line.
See #22
see #22
"Oh! When I saw the headline, I thought it was another article about Robert Novak's conversion."
LOL! Me, too!
What a crock. Typical of an American Christian, you take the exceptional position of America, one of the few places where adherents of many religions rub elbows, as typical of the whole world.
In all of the Christian world outside the immigrant lands of America, Canada, and Australia, there is no real "competition in the marketplace". Catholics live in one area, Protestants in another, Orthodox in a 3rd, and neither the three shall meet.
So if this competition does not exist in most of the world, how could it accomplish what you claim?
Dear xzins,
The charism of infallibility is about our trust in the Holy Spirit, not in any particular individual who ascends to the Chair of St. Peter.
sitetest
A rather subtle whack with an axe.... nicely wielded.
There's not much competition in the Middle East among Christian groups.
However, where else is there zero competition?
I've got an excellent feel for Europe. Plenty of competition showing their wares throughout the continent, some places less than others.
Africa, Asia, and S. America are the centers of great Christian expansion, and that expansion is broad rather than narrowly concentrated in one denomination.
I think perhaps I'm the one with the clear view.
So you consider appointing your 17 year old illegitimate son to be a cardinal is a sign of openness to divine guidance?
I've read that, when Alexander VI died, the rector of St. Peter's refused to let Masses be sung there for the repose of his soul. "It is blasphemous to pray for the souls of the damned," he said.
As far as his personal morality was concerned, Alexander VI was the worst Pope in history.
I think that the Reformation was just the last in a long line of Christian sects that left Roman domination.
It's stunning how much good has come from this last great upheaval. The greatest good being the translation of Scripture into native tongues. Thus Scripture became available to all, not just an elite religious caste.
Dear xzins,
No. The appointment of cardinals is not an infallible action. There is no promise of infallibility, no promise of protection against bad decisions by the Holy Spirit.
That's why it's better to elect a good man as pope than a scoundrel, in that most of what the pope does isn't implicated in the doctrine of infallibility. We do believe that the pope has available to him the counsel of the Holy Spirit in all that he does, but he doesn't have the protection of the Holy Spirit against sin and error in the wide range of actions he must take on a daily basis that have nothing to do with the exercise of the charism of infallibility.
Thus, it's far preferable to elect a good man as pope, as he will be more open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in all matters, while the bad man will likely spurn that guidance.
But in matters that touch on infallibility, we trust in the Holy Spirit, not the man.
sitetest
At the Diet of Worms, Luther was given the opportunity to explain how his heresies could be compatible with scripture. To make his case, Luther dismissed as non-scriptural not only the seven books of the deuterocanonicals and select passages of Daniel, but also James, Revelations, 1-2-3 Peter, 1-2 John, and Hebrews.
Even though most Protestants would agree with certain of Luther's theses, I'm sure they would concur that his denunciation of such a sizeable portion of even the modern Protestant canon would amount to heresy. And as reprehensible as the allegations (and I do not mean to assert that they are only mere allegations) against Holzberg are, his response was entirely proper, and, in fact, should be seen as giving incredible respect to Luther in a sense: Imagine writing a letter to your Congressman, and having the letter sent to the President, who dispatches the US Supreme Court to address the Constitutional issues you raise!
As for the rough response Luther got, consider the timeframe. The Catholic Church was engaged in a terrible war with Islam to save civilization. Luther was essentially attacking the defense budget with wild slander. (His visit to Rome seems to be a work of fiction, since he described the geography incorrectly.) Armed revolution was breaking out. He was identified as a threat to the regime, and he truly was.
So was the response of the Catholic church unreasonable? Ask yourself this: what Protestants fought against the Muslims? Which German princes defended Vienna? I would submit that it is highly questionable whether The ecclesiastical anarchy of Protestantism could have saved Europe.
That was going on long before the Reformation.
And practically all people who were educated in the West read Latin anyway.
What really made Scripture accessible to everyone was the same thing that made books accessible to everyone: the invention of printing.
A complete Bible, back in the days when books were hand-copied, cost the equivalent of a nice automobile today. Unless religion was a person's line of work (in which case his Bible was bought by his employer), or he was very wealthy, owning a Bible was not really practical.
If you were to actually read the sentence I wrote, you'd see that the word "infallible" isn't in it anyplace.
I simply asked if this character looked like one who had any "openness to divine guidance."
If this one has no business speaking on behalf of the Holy Spirit, why should I think others have been any better?
That's the point.
Absolutely. Bullseye.
Nothing but good can come from the scriptures in the hands of everyone. God's Word will not return unto Him void.
Will this do?
That's Awesome! Thanks.
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