A measured look at a difficult situation

duplicateEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

Puhleeeze, Tempe, I haven't said anything to justify the effects of those restrictions, I'm just not yet taking your word for what happened. I've repeatedly said I might regard the restrictions as excessive but I haven't yet addressed that side of the story because of how it seems to me you keep denying that the Catholics did anything at all to provoke the restrictions, quite apart from their effect. Please get this much straight. Again I'm simply not buying your account of the story here, I still haven't been able to spend the time to study this as I would like to, and clearly what you are saying, again, simply denies the history of bloody Catholic actions against Protestants that provoked the restrictions, WHATEVER I MIGHT END UP THINKING OF THEM. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thanks for spelling all that out. I've saved it. There is too much to take in, you know, that will take time.But you want me to take a position on the laws against the Catholics when it hasn't really been acknowledged that they deserved severe treatment. SEVERE. I will eventually get to whether or not the severity that actually occurred was excessive. It may well have been, but I continue to believe that the actual evils perpetrated by the Catholics have not been appreciated.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This thread is premature for me. The other discussion was too. I need to stay off it until I have more information.

I'm not for vengeance and I don't accept the idea that the restrictions were vengeance, they were necessary prevention, very likely done to great excess and with unintended consequences, that's my best guess at the moment but all I have is YOUR sources and YOUR analysis. Got to stay off this thread until I have other sources of information.

It's hard to research all this because Catholic propaganda is everywhere. They do their job effectively. Here's an example from the Washington Post that gives the Catholic propaganda about the Cromwell incident, obviously just some kind of unprovoked viciousness on Cromwell's part. Oh far be it from those nice Catholics to have committed the atrocities that Cromwell was sent to put down.It does trace the "Troubles" back a very long way, however, just heavily slanted.I'll let you know if I find anything I can regard as an objective account of the history.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The W Post treats the whole history as a matter of English aggression.It doesn't even mention the Irish Rebellion of 1641 which had a reputation of being a particularly bloody attack by Catholics against Protestants, which was the reason Cromwell invaded Ireland. HERE is an account of Cromwell's attack on Drogheda which seems more objective than most, concluding that it wasn't a great massacre as it had been reputed to be.This story in the Guardian about the recent release of 6depositions on the 1641 uprising is also interesting.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The links answer your questions. Cromwell was responding to the 1641 Irish Rebellion which was a bloody attack by Catholics on Protestants. Which is described at the Guardian link. The first link gives reasons to believe that his siege, while certainly severe, most likely did not kill as many people as Catholic propaganda has claimed. It gives a portrait of a man who had integrity and good reasons for his actions within the laws of the time, not perfect by a long shot but nowhere near the smear portrait passed down by Catholics. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Drogheda is always made the big issue, Tempe, not Wexford, and according to that writer there may have been as few as 700 killed in Drogheda. That there were more in Wexford is interesting, and I did read all that, but I was most interested in the fact that overall the article shows that the legend everybody believes is false however you cut it. I wasn't looking for proof that Cromwell's invasion wasn't bloody, I'd accepted that it was, but I also accepted that there was good reason for it in the bloody provocation by the Catholics, and I resent the way Cromwell's name has been smeared because I've read enough about the man to admire him as a man and as a Christian.As I said this thread is premature for me. And I've been unable to find much in the way of research I can trust. I don't trust Wikipedia on a subject like this. I certainly don't trust anyone who says this is primarily a political conflict when I know it's religious, even someone who lived there. The pastor I linked to also lived there, it's one opinion against another.The info put up earlier by Caffeine makes it clear that the Protestants did retaliate so that there were two sides engaged in the fighting but nevertheless there should be no doubt that the Catholic side always gets these things started. And if they'd determined earlier to live peaceably with the Protestants there might not be much of a a political side to the story anyway.Calling such conflicts political or ethnic as if they were two-sided is also the way Muslim attacks on "infidels" are rationalized in our PC age. It's Muslims who want to rule the world and initiate violence for the honor of Allah. The papacy also wants to rule the world. Protestants don't. I also don't think the average Catholic does either, and doesn't really have a clue about any of this, particularly American Catholics, but the priesthood can get Catholics to do violent things in other parts of the world. The Catholic responsibility for the massacre in Rwanda is ignored (in that case most of their victims were also Catholic, they made a racial thing out of it there for some reason), Catholic inspiration in the Balkans is ignored, Catholic inspiration in the Holocaust is ignored, and in lots of other circumstances as well, which I referred to in the very post you used to start this discussion.I get this information from people I trust but it would nice if it were also reported in the general media. But it isn't. The Protestant writings I trust are often old, can only cover the earlier phases of something like the conflicts in Ireland, and have a quaint feel that is also preachy. I trust them but they aren't going to go over here very well, and besides they don't always include enough information for what I'm looking for.I'm still looking for information.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I just figured out my own position in this which I haven't said clearly enough before.Here's the quote that "began the debate" again: The Irish conflicts have been taken back to much earlier points by now, which is fine, but going back to this original statement of mine it's clear that I let myself get pulled into a much broader historical context than my original statement warrants.Someone came along and showed that the Protestants did retaliate and were responsible for about half the number of deaths as the Catholics, so it wasn't as one-sided as I said, but my original point was that these conflicts are started by the Catholics and that hasn't been disproved. Catholics do persecute Protestants in Mexico for instance, there is reason to believe forms of the Inquisition are still pursued in some Catholic institutions in Catholic countries, it was a Catholic priest who instigated the murders in Rwanda and etc etc etc. My focus is on the aggression of Catholics against Protestants and others, basically continuing the RCC Inquisition wherever they can.What I said about the IRA initiating the violence, which got taken back many centuries in the Cathoiic-Protestant conflicts, was answered in terms of the hardships the Catholics endured under the English legal restrictions that were put in place because of the Catholic violence. I'm supposed to see this as equally violent and unjust.I don't.As I keep saying I might regard the restrictions as excessive but my main focus, which I want to keep on the table, is that it's the Catholics who initiate the violence and the Protestants who are its victims, who may or may not retaliate, and it was the Protestant English government that levied the measures against the Catholics, which measures are being equated with Catholic violence against the Protestants. I didn't see the fallacy in this until now.Again, even if I would judge the legal measures to be excessive I don't want to lose track of the fact that they are official legal punishment for crimes. There is a difference between crimes and punishment for crimes that I want to remain clear. It's not just a matter of which was most severe and hard on the people, the violence or the restrictive laws, it's a matter of crime and punishment. The two aren't the same thing no matter how severe the punishment.The Jesuits were thrown out of country after country for their criminal work of subversion and assassination against kings and governments, particularly but not always in Protestant countries. Shall I sympathize with the poor Jesuits?ABE: Likewise, the Irish Rebellion of 1641 was criminal, and Cromwell's action was justice. It doesn't matter which was the more violent, I'm trying to make the distinction between legal and illegal, crime and punishment. /ABESo it isn't just that I want the Catholic violence condemned, I want it recognized as criminal and the government response as an expression of legal justice. Then we could perhaps discuss the excessive hardships of that justice, though for me that would be a completely other subject and not relevant to my argument.That said I don't think there is much point in my continuing on this thread. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm sure there are complexities to the history of all this I'm not up on but I've tried to keep my focus only on the parts I've seen identified as Catholic versus Protestant, and try to keep the parallel with similar events in other parts of the world. Even the article I linked about Cromwell's mission to quell the Irish Rebellion says there were Protestants present at Drogheda when Cromwell arrived, and yet the Rebellion was about Catholics against Protestants. And certainly the laws that Tempe keeps posting target Catholics as the perpetrators of the violence the laws were meant to punish. His role was to quell the Irish Rebellion as military leader for the government, that's what makes his action legal and a matter of justice. He was in the role of authority. That has not been said in anything I've read about it, it's described as his going in to put down an illegal rebellion, in the role of authority. As for "murdering" the English king, I had to look it up and I suppose you mean Charles 1 who was executed by the government, not murdered. Cromwell signed the execution order, again the role of legal authority against someone regarded as a criminal. Apparently there are other opinions, but that is in fact what happened so it wasn't murder.Abe: There are always going to be contrary opinions. I find it interesting for instance, that Catholics who were executed for treason, I think for trying to assassinate English monarchs, such as Elizabeth for instance and James 1, though I'm really not sure what specific incidents were involved, which certainly seems right and just to me, were nevertheless treated as martyrs by the Pope when he visited England. "Martyrs" for trying to kill the queen or king? And you think the Popes don't regard themselves as above governments and nations, rightful ruler of the world etc? John Paul I think, sorry my knowledge of this is rather hazy but maybe I can find some info on it. In my opinion the Pope should have been tarred and feathered and run out of the country.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That is apparently your opinion, it is not history's opinion from all I know about it, not that I'm claiming to know a lot. As long as he is in the role of legitimate authority his actions were the legal enactment of justice. What then? Are you saying he came as the military avenger of the Protestants against murdering hordes and he won? That's very possibly a legitimate argument for him too. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

According to Wikipedia the Irish Rebellion was against the English authority that was there. As it says, they were living "under English rule." It is also presented as a war between Catholics and Protestants.Irish Rebellion of 1641 - Wikipedia Ctromwell would have been acting for the English administration that was alreaqdy there.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Obviously because they WERE in authority.

In the Revolutionary War the US declared its independence in writing but it didn't take any military action, that was initiated by the British, who I suppose could have claimed they were simply quelling an illegal rebellion. If they'd won that would have been how it was seen, but it was war and the US won. I suppose if the Irish Rebellion had succeeded and Cromwell was driven out of Ireland then you could say Ireland won the war and the English would have been ousted which was the uintent of the Rebellion in the first place. That doesn't change the fact that Cromwell's action was perfectly legal, and in fact he won and they didn't so there you have it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.