Site Contents © 2020 Monsterwax
|
|
WWW.Chickcomics.com More from Madrid The following remarks were between a phone caller and radio guest Patrick Madrid, the long time Catholic apologist and Jack Chick critic. Chick was mentioned several times in the discussion, but the thrust of the remarks were aimed at Madrid. He was the guest on an Evangelical Protestant call-in show called "Pass the Salt" (hosted by "Coach" Dave Daubenmire). The show aired Saturday, September 1st 2001 on AM 880 - WRFD Columbus, OH (and on the Internet at www.wrfd.com). Coach: Tom, you're on the air with Coach Dave Daubenmire and Patrick Madrid. Tom: Good show Coach, Welcome Pat. Before I ask you a question about your book, I thought for future discussion, you may want to talk about the Barma Research Group survey that is posted on the Free Republic website. It surveyed 6,000 adults and said that 25% of Catholics had made a personal commitment to Christ and know that they will go to heaven when they die solely because they had confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their Savior. That means 75% of Catholics don't. It also says just 20% of Catholics believe that Satan is real. And only 9% of Catholics believe salvation is a gift of God through the atoning death of Jesus. If you want to discuss that later on, I'd love to hear your comments about it. But I want to address specifically what you wrote in your book, Pat, because I've read a number of them (like Surprised by Truth 2 and Pope Fiction). While you're a pretty vociferous critic of Protestants like Jack Chick and call him a bigot and have some pretty mean-spirited words to say about him, if anyone represents Jack Chick on the Catholic side, it's you my friend. In your book Pope Fiction, you have an entire chapter denying the Inquisition, or downplaying it, and justifying it. You claim only 2,000 people died as opposed to the millions that history records. You have a line in there that really put the hair on the back of my neck up on end, where you say, and I quote, that "the religious Inquisition was commanded by the Lord to be carried out on an on-going as needed basis to purge the evil from our midst." And then you go on to specify that that's referring to heresies. You're not content to deny that the Inquisitions killed and persecuted millions of people who disagreed with the Catholic Church on ideological and theological grounds, but you go on to justify FUTURE inquisitions and say, 'Hey, the Lord's commanded us to do this again and again and again, however long it takes, because if they don't believe what the Pope believes, then they are evil and they deserve to be burned at the stake, or have their property stolen from them as they did in the past, or whatever else.' This is just absolutely horrendous! Coach: Are you a Catholic? Tom: No... Pat: ...I've been called a lot of things in my life, but you're the first to compare me to Jack Chick. You win the prize. Tom: Well I've never heard Jack Chick justify persecution of other religions as you have. Pat: Well let me just give you some quick responses to that. First of all, the passage that everyone needs to read in scripture is Deuteronomy 17, verse 2, where God himself commands Moses to carry out an Inquisition. And although the term Inquisition is not used there, he talks about an investigation to find out what in fact happened. We see it again in Numbers 25, verses 1 through 8. These are examples that I point out in Pope Fiction where God required the Israelites to conduct an investigation to find out if people were secretly practicing heresy. You don't have to take my word for it, it's in scripture. When you read that in Pope Fiction, I'm simply showing something that took place in scripture. Those passages formed the foundation for what took place, for example the Spanish Inquisition, the problem with false converts, people who were secretly practicing Islam or some other religion {Ed. note: "other religion" avoids saying Jews, another target of the Spanish Inquisition.}, but outwardly posing to be Catholic, that posed a security risk for the State. I discussed that in great detail. You're final point that I'll make, and I wish I had an hour to talk about this, that your assertion that the Catholic Church killed millions of people during the Inquisition is simply false. Tom: That's your perspective? Pat: No, that's not my perspective, that's historical fact. Tell me right now what credible historical source can tell us, can show us, that the Catholic Church murdered millions of people in the Protestant Inquisition. Can you do that? Tom: That's standard history. Pat: If it's standard, can you name one of them?... You should be able to name a standard text that makes this claim. I would love to hear it. Tom: History of Western Civilization, standard edition. {The theme music is turned up as they cut to a break and change the topic.} So there you have it. Pat publically claims on-the-air that the Inquisition is an on going duty of the Catholic Church. He states that the foundation for killing those who don't believe Catholic dogma can be found in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 17, verse 2) and that disbelievers like Muslims and Jews were rightfully killed in the Spanish Inquisition because they formed a "security risk". (Similar logic was used to imprison Japanese Americans during WW2.) Pat still disputes historical claims that millions were executed and/or dispossessed of their property during the centuries of Inquisitional "justice". In fact he writes that only 2,000 were executed by the Church in his latest book Pope Fiction. Read some non-Catholic history books or sites on the web to see how outragious this claim is. (Or scan a short summery from an Inquisition overview.) The victims of the Spanish Inquisitions alone are recorded at 39,912 (most of them Jews-- see their site). Be sure to combine the total killed during the centuries of persicution throughout all Europe to appreciate the magnitude of Church sanctioned murder. Keep in mind that Madrid's radical views do not represent the Catholic mainstream. Officially, the Vatican doesn't agree with Pat's pro-Inquisition stance. The Pope himself apologized for the killings while visiting Israel, so we can assume he was implying that future Inquisitions are also wrong. (Although he did not specify that clearly enough to silence Pat.) As far as Chick is concerned, the above exchange shows that some in the Catholic community (hopefully, very few) feel religious persecution is their divine duty. That Madrid would label Chick a bigot (who never justified persecution) while Madrid defends the Inquisition is hilarious... if you enjoy morbid humor, that is. So what else can one say except-- Haw-haw-haw!
|
Content copyright 2020 ChickComics.com | |
