I'm interested in why you draw a parallel, here, but I don't quite see your point. If it is only that the church committed atrocities at home as well as abroad, of course the facts tell us as much. I suspect you mean more...
JLS , if you don't see what I mean - no probs, another example. In 2003, Colin Powell had made a report on the UN session, drawing Saddam as an embodiment of evil. The report included the evidences of Saddam having WMD, and links to Al Kaeda, and it all sounded very convincing - not for me only, I guess. So, many people said YES to the invasion in a sovereign state, although they knew exactly what the war would bring to its civilians. But, they saw the invasion as a better solution for the world, and that this way would be better for Iraqis themselves in the long run.
Now - after a couple of years only - we know that the evidences the Powell presented were a fake, and that the real goals of Bush were all other than the things proclaimed. Well, it is not relevant here. What I want to say - the society had in this case said YES to the agression, because people BELIEVED in Bush's good intentions.
In the case of the Hexenhammer - people needed literally centuries to understand, that there were no witches around. You may want to read Luther - demons, witches and devil were for the people of the XVI C the same real as the internet for us. To demonise ONLY the church for it is wrong - the church were the people, and these people were the part of their contemporary society, having the same superstitions as the rest.
Yes, the term "genocide" was coined in the years following WWII. That doesn't mean it can't refer to acts committed prior to its inception. Are you claiming that nothing prior to the 1940's can be considered genocide simply because the word hadn't been invented yet? Are you also claiming that there were no trees prior to the inception of the word "tree"? The word "genocide" refers to a specific act, regardless of where or when is was committed.
Also, genocide can be committed for any number of reasons. Hatred is not a necessary condition for it. It can, and has been, done for economic reasons among others.
JLS, I would rather not reduce the matter to a simple misunderstanding. If you say genocide is any mass murder of civilians, so be it. I did always understand this term as the mass murder made on the basis of the racial or ethnic hatred - the way nazis did it, or Saddam did in Kurdistan - without any other visible reasons. Aimless, without any exclusion . So, I don't think Cortez had any reasons to hate the ethnical groups he had never heard of. I don't pretend to know everything about the history of colonisation, but I think his reasons were rather economical - more about gold of Aztecs, or like. Mass murder stays mass murder - that's true. But in this case you would need another term for wiping out the nations on the racial/ethnic basis - or you can describe any act of war as genocide then. I am not that picky on this term, though - maybe you are right on it.
In any case, my point in mentioning Hitler was not to make an analogy between the genocide in the Americas and the Holocaust, but to show just how atrocious the pope's comments were. How do you feel about Hitler saying that his victims were asking for it and do you see that the pope's comments were similar?
Well, I could not get to the whole speech of pope through the links in the post of CT64 ( sorry ! ).
All these links led me to the wikipedia page on pope, or Chavez etc. So, I can only judge on the quotations CT had posted.
Maybe I am wrong about the true context of the pope's words - but if you want to know what I think of the things posted -
While visiting
Brazil in May 2007, "the pope sparked controversy by saying that native populations had been 'silently longing' for the Christian faith brought to
South America by colonizers."
[84] The Pope continued, stating that "the proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-
Columbus cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture."
[84] President Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela demanded an apology, and an indigenous organization in
Ecuador issued a response which stated that "representatives of the Catholic Church of those times, with honorable exceptions, were accomplices, deceivers and beneficiaries of one of the most horrific
genocides of all humanity."
[84] Later, the pope, speaking Italian, said at a weekly audience that it was "not possible to forget the suffering and the injustices inflicted by colonizers against the indigenous population, whose fundamental human rights were often trampled."
[85]
I surely don't understand how Aztecs could be silently longing for the religion they had never heard of. If pope had meant they were longing to be massacred by Cortez - well, then his words were cynical.
But, concerning that catholic church had officially condemned the inquisition ( to my knowledge ) - I don't think it was the real context. The pope had likely meant that the catholicism - an official religion of South America today - is, or was better than the mayan/incan cult demanding human sacrifices as an inalienable part of the ritual service - if THIS was the context, then I agree with it by all means.
In any case, my point in mentioning Hitler was not to make an analogy between the genocide in the Americas and the Holocaust, but to show just how atrocious the pope's comments were. How do you feel about Hitler saying that his victims were asking for it and do you see that the pope's comments were similar
So, to your parallel to Hitler - I know what you mean by that, and maybe - you are right - pope should have used another expression. The certain similarity is indeed obvious. Still -
- Hitler was personally responsible for the holocaust.
- Hitler was the head of NSDAP, and there were no "good" nazis, because the holocaust was an inalieble part of their doctrine.
- Hitler did exactly knew what he meant with his words, and his action had proved it.
Now:
- The pope is not personally responsible for the actions of Cortez, or inquisition, or even of those of catholic church of the XVI C. As mentioned, I believe it was officially condemned. I don't belong to catholic church myself - you may want to correct me on this point, if you know that the church did not make it.
- Neither inquisition, nor even catholic church do in no way represent all Christianity.
- Once again - I am not sure about the true context of those word's of pope here, but if the posted quotation is the MOST CRIMINAL passage of the whole speech - I find the reaction of Hugo Chavez inadequate . I don't see any attempt to demonize the prechristian cultures in the words of pope anyway.
So - no, sorry, I don't see it is quite the same.
