Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 358 The Price of Arrogance

Guo Kang believes that for the church, there is a key issue: Are the various teachings and rules in the church a goal or a means.

In the past, when faced with this problem, the Catholic Church had very clear thinking, knowing that these specific measures were all for a higher purpose.However, in the end, they seemed to have a collective problem.

If it was just factionalism, it would be easy to explain, but the performance of the church in East Asia for hundreds of years has always been in a state of mental failure.

If the clergy is due to their arrogance towards different civilizations, then there is no way to explain their performance elsewhere.In South America back then, the church was not like this.

The Spanish priests have been committed to opposing the persecution of Native Americans all year round, calling for the prohibition of massacres and torture, and even opposed the forced conversion of natives.Under the impetus of the Dominican monks, in 1537, the Pope issued an encyclical, officially affirming Indians as "rational people", announcing that they have freedom and property rights, and the right to convert to the church, and they should be preached to them in a peaceful manner.

On this basis, the priests continued their activities in the secular regime, trying to prevent the colonists from exploiting and enslaving the local people.Under their impetus, in 1550, Charles V ordered to stop the further Spanish military expansion in the Americas, and at the same time organized priests and scholars to debate the legitimacy of the conquest.The debate was held at the University of Valladolid, hence the name.

The Valladolid debate was the first discussion in European history on the rights and treatment of indigenous people, and it was also a rare theoretical discussion at the national level.

Some priests believe that although the Indians have some barbaric customs, it is because their society is at a different stage of civilization. These people are still free people in the natural order, and their legal status should not be lower than that of European colonists. conquest and harsh control.Supported by monarchists, these theories have gained many adherents.

But at that time, a group of emerging humanists opposed this.They believe that Indians have a large number of crimes against nature, which is unacceptable and should be stopped by any possible means, including war.At the same time, the behavior of these people also proves that they cannot manage themselves, so colonists are needed to rule.The view of this school was supported by the colonists, and it opposed the former.

In the end, neither of the two sides convinced anyone, but the tendency of the church was very obvious and had an impact on society. Beginning in 1556, the king issued an imperial edict to strictly control the publication of works on America and forbid domestic discussions on the justice of conquest.The notes of some priests were specially ordered to be sealed up, and they were also prohibited from compiling new books, causing ideological turmoil in society.

In addition, the king even thought of a way to issue a new decree, announcing that the word "conquer" was no longer allowed to be used in the future, and that both parties had to use "reconciliation" instead.It's just that this behavior of changing sensitive words still failed to control the raging public opinion in the society.

Finally, in 1573, the king simply issued an order prohibiting further conquests.Although this kind of order can't control the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, it has already shown how outrageous things are.In fact, even the vicious leader of the conquerors in the Americas had people who corresponded with the scholars who supported the colonization in the rear, hoping to obtain their theoretical support and strengthen their confidence.

The incident of killing people and stealing money can actually trigger moral condemnation, and even make the colonists themselves confused, and start to reflect on whether there is something wrong, which needs to be sorted out through debate.This may seem unbelievable to some later colonial countries.

The Jesuits, which rose later, were more radical than them in this respect.Finding that lobbying the upper echelons would not help solve the problem, some priests even ran into the woods and started fighting with the natives and the colonists.In the end, some colonies simply declared all Jesuits persona non grata, lest they cause trouble all day long.

However, in East Asia, this has never happened.For hundreds of years, the church has been in a state of being unable to find any cases of him participating in the anti-colonial movement.

Even if you have to say that the Qing Dynasty is a pagan country and you don’t deserve to help, it’s okay, then you can also participate in the anti-Qing Dynasty——in the end, you can’t find anything about it.

Moreover, this situation does not only occur in the Central Plains, but also in other East Asian countries, and it is even more straightforward.When France and Vietnam were in full-scale war, Vietnamese Catholics unequivocally sided with France.The Catholics in the south responded directly to the French army, "many of them took advantage of the situation to scare the civilian population, or formed groups as foreign defenders and scouts"; in the north, French missionaries and military officers also supported local Catholics to rebel.

After all this tossing, it is tantamount to telling all East Asians that those who believe in foreign religions are on the side of foreigners, and they cannot be trusted.This style will undoubtedly lead to rejection.

But it was a series of unimaginable behaviors that really came to the fore.For example, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the people of Seris never understood what the foreign-educated Yuyingtang was doing.This place adopts a large number of babies, but the infant mortality rate is alarmingly high.People speculate about this frequently, but there is no doubt that everyone thinks this is too evil to be done by a serious religion.Therefore, it also became the fuse of the later retaliatory vendetta.

And what are these priests doing?

According to the doctrine, if a person is guided to worship the Heavenly Father, then the missionary priests can also get the approval of the Heavenly Father.When a new soul joins the church through the baptism ceremony, the priest who baptizes will also receive a merit.

However, missionary work is a hard and dangerous job; some believers do allow newborn children to be baptized directly, but these people have a clear affiliation and have been divided up by various dioceses long ago.

In this case, how can we perform quickly and easily?Some priests came up with a way to adopt them.

Adopted babies have no clear religious affiliation or express rejection.But the soul of a baby is also a soul, and bringing them into the church is also a merit of the same weight.

Therefore, if you keep adopting babies and then quickly baptize them, you can quickly accumulate merits in a simple and trouble-free manner.

However, there are too many adopted babies and the living conditions are very harsh.Coupled with the fact that the priests only want to gain the merit of becoming a teacher, they often don't take care of them seriously, resulting in a very high death rate.

In later generations, some people say that the priests are doing good deeds with all their heart, and some people say that they are deliberately killing people, but they are not accurate-this is the priests who are stuck with bugs and take advantage of the opportunity to reap the merits of the heavenly father...

Of course, this kind of behavior, in the eyes of those around who don't believe in religion and don't know these principles, is both evil and ignorant, and it is obviously no different from a cult.

But in this environment, the priests are still not aware of it.He is unwilling to improve the way, and looks down on the locals, too lazy to appease them.Even when public opinion is already boiling, they still rely on their status as foreigners and don't take local people's ideas seriously.

To put it bluntly, if he is so arrogant, ignorant and greedy, the heavenly father and brother may not even want to spare him.

(End of this chapter)