Since the thought of writing the Constitution of the European Union, there has been a discussion of the values to be included in the future treaty. In a task created in a peculiar body for this alleged Convention, it is recorded that the future European Union will defend human rights, animal rights, defend humanity from all kinds of discrimination, condemn xenophobia, racism, homophobia, and advance equality and anti-Catholicism. How else to realize the prejudice of EU decision-makers, even in specified a substance as the reflection in the preamble of this document, that the full past of Europe, its full heritage has its only origin in Catholic religion.
One can get the impression that anti-Catholicism has become the only full legitimate form of discrimination in Europe. Europe is already free of anti-Semites, although here and there they are inactive being sought by force. Europe is free of national prejudices, but erstwhile it comes to spiritual prejudice, it is not necessarily the case. Anti-Catholicism has become the dominant trend in public debate in Europe, anti-Catholicism saints triumphs in the form of imposing forced acceptance by church shelters of giving children into the hands of 2 masters or 2 ladies who claim to be able to supply the kid with a "normal" family. The Catholic, who speaks publically of his faith, ceases to be an EU Commissioner, speaks of prof. Buttiglione. Examples of anti-Catholic assaults and discrimination against believers of this religion can be mentioned for a long time, but that is not the point.
It is better to ask why this tolerant organization, which the Union considers to be, allows all this? For what?
Does the Union want to build a “new, wonderful world” at the same time bury its foundations? Not so long ago we were witnesses of how the Holy Father Benedict XVI criticized Europe for wanting to build a future without God and the Church and the values which flow from them. Does this task have any chance of success? The answer to these questions helps to read the book Prof. Thomas E. Woods, “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization”.
As prof. Woods proves, the Europe we live in present is definitely the merit of the Church. In order not to be blunt, it is worth giving a fewer of the respective 100 arguments that are in this book. Let us begin by saying that the proposed Constitutional Treaty, which wants to make a superstate from Europe, is based on global law, which was created by... Church.
As Prof. Woods writes "The thought of global law, which emerged in a vague form as a consequence of the philosophical discussion brought about by the discovery of America, was 1 of the most crucial achievements [Church – author]“. And it was created by Catholic thinkers. And the lawsuits? The mocked and accused of the worst crimes of the Inquisition, which someway her accusers do not want to notice, introduced the anticipation of defending the accused. In this light, the figure of the celebrated Giordan Bruno, who became a symbol of free thought against the Church, looks completely different. Even to learn the actual communicative of this philosopher, it is worth reaching for this book.
Similarly, it is with defending citizens against tyrants and poverty. It was the Church that laid the foundation for the establishment of hospitals, and the Catholic Church founded secular universities today. The collective of cognition and culture was invented and funded by the Church. Today, in these universities, in the large majority of the state, you don't even let students with a cross on their chest...
citing the alleged advances of sciences, the advancement of civilization, or the social or cultural 1 which is in force in modern Europe, opposes this accomplishment with the mediate Ages, which, according to many, was an age of stagnation, backwardness, the word - a dark period in Europe's history.
However, for a reader who even subconsciously feels that there is something incorrect in these accusations of the mediate Ages, reading this book can be shocked. For here the Church and its thinkers have created specified teachings as geology, seismology (recognized as a Jesuit domain), musicology, or many, many another teachings. Benedictine served the improvement of increasing plants and crops, monks taught peasants the art of irrigation, making the crops more abundant. The Cistercians in turn created a strategy to usage water energy. The vast majority of solutions improved in later centuries by laymen and states have their sources in the Church.
Prof. Woods writes that "the amazing number of Catholic priests who have contributed importantly to the improvement of discipline is much more interesting." Franciscan Roger Bacon He was an excellent opticist and mathematician, St. Albert was a naturalist, father Francesco Grimaldi He recorded himself in past by discovering the diffraction of light and calling this phenomenon diffraction, which allowed a fewer 100 years later to make these observations to Isaac Newton. But possibly the top of inventors was Jesuit Rudjer Osep Boskovic, recognized as 1 of the leading intellectuals of all time. The Jesuit had large achievements in both astronomy, atomic theory(!), optics, or mathematics. Father Boscovic's eyewitness credit is that he saved St Peter's Basilica in Rome from being destroyed. The fact that present millions of tourists can visit it all year in the form in which it was built is thanks to him.
Since we are at this large monument of Catholic faith, it is worth noting that millions of Europeans are visiting neighboring countries... mainly spiritual buildings, he watches images painted by Catholics and depicting or referring to Catholic religion. Only mediocre young people are forced into the secular European Parliament, the oasis and the symbol of financial waste and its “sightseeing”.
The art that emerged in Europe in the 20th century, i.e. the various "installations" and another pictorial forms of expression, lasts only due to the fact that they are based on the scandal and on the fact that these exhibitions and happenings are financed by the taxpayer's money. To visit the cathedrals, or even the Sistine Chapel, there is no request to call on people, and its curators present do not gotta execute additional scandals to attract people to it. For it is actual that actual art was created by the Church. Architecture and its styles, painting, symbolism are all the heritage of the Church... Let it be a consolation to all those who are worried about whether contemporary "culture" will dominate the actual culture that they can be calm. The culture of barbarians in the clash with Catholic besides did not last centuries ago, so all postmodernism besides has no chance.
Interestingly, the old churches are a fine example of Catholic charity. Today's secular state buildings are created from forced taxation, and on cultural buildings, which are created as if out of the goodness and sensitivity of people, until the names of donors swarm. Medieval donors did not search fame by donating funds for the construction of further grand and admired temples today, and there are no commemorative plaques that any 14th-century Earl funded the dome of the Church, or comfortable seats in the Philharmonic. Today, going to the theatre, it is swarming with signs that you sit on a place founded by Jan Kulczyk or another “philanthropist”.
Charity, which has its origin in Catholic religion, is closely linked to modesty, and seeks praise and designation is no longer the same. actual charity is not seeking either applause or fame, as the fathers of modern economics rightly noted.
But erstwhile I compose about fathers of modern economics, I don't mean Adam Smith or David Ricardo, but Catholic monks. The dominant paradigm in academic discourse is the message that capitalism has been "invented" by Protestants, and the father of economics was Adam Smith. Nothing more wrong. The secular thinkers of the 18th century and their successors developed only what had previously been noticed by thinkers associated with the Church.
This. Card. Thomas Cajetan de Vio created an economical explanation of expectations that was developed in the 20th century. And the Franciscan Pierre de Olivia He described centuries ago the subjective usefulness of goods, which, after centuries, found its finale in knowing why certain goods enjoyed and others did not enjoy the designation of consumers.
It is not appropriate to callback here the large function for modern economical thought played by Spanish thinkers from Salamanca. They started a thorough survey of the price system, earnings, monetary value theory. Adam Smith's works compared to the work of the monks don't look as awesome as they might seem.
“All areas specified as economical thought, global law, science, university life, charity, spiritual views, art, morality are the foundation of civilization, and in the West each 1 originates from the very heart of the Catholic Church”, writes prof. Woods and his book is the best proof of that. The evidence that, in a fight with the desire to build a future European Union without designation of this acquis, and even based on stubborn denial of this acquis, makes it simply pathetic. Europe is 1 large work of the Church whether it likes it or not, so that in the preamble no mention to Christian roots or heritage is needed. For we live in a civilization that was actually built by One, Holy, Universal and Apostolic Catholic Church.
Anti-Catholicism is the dominant view and value in modern Europe – it is true, but it is mostly up to us whether we will be dominated or not. Prof. Woods' book is an excellent tool to effectively throw out these omnipotent anti-Catholic phobias and ideas.
Paweł Toboła-Pertkiewicz
PS. Interestingly, writing this text, the WORD program emphasized to me the word “anti-Catholicism” as wrong, while the word “anti-Semitism” was no longer emphasized. Isn't that another manifestation of discrimination against Catholicism?
Thomas E. Woods, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Kraków 2006, AA Publishing House, p. 270, hardcover.
