Ask A Catholic

My god this is great:

Sergius III was a pope of the Roman Catholic Church 29 January 904 and 14 April 911. Because Sergius III was possibly the only pope known to have ordered the murder of another pope and the only pope to have fathered an illegitimate son who later became pope (John XI), his pontificate has been described as "dismal and disgraceful."[1]
Sergius was the son of Benedictus and came from a noble Roman family. His tenure was part of a period of feudal violence and disorder in central Italy, when the Papacy was a pawn of warring aristocratic factions, often led by prominent women.

The pontificate of Sergius III, according to Liutprand of Cremona, was remarkable for the rise of what papal historians saw as a "pornocracy", or "rule of the harlots", a reversal of the natural order as they saw it, according to Liber pontificalis and a later chronicler who was also biased against Sergius III. This "pornocracy" was an age with women in power: Theodora, whom Liutprand characterized as a "shameless whore... [who] exercised power on the Roman citizenry like a man" and her daughter Marozia, the mother of Pope John XI (931–935) and reputed to be the mistress of Sergius III, largely upon a remark by Liutprand

i think the crusades are already pretty 'late' to be talking about the dark ages

xtianisation of rome, battle of milvian bridge: 312
fall of rome: 476, traditionally
arrival of islam: 600s
great schism: 1054
first crusade: 1096

anything that happened between like 500 and 1000 is this weird blur

basically anything between the fall of rome and giotto i find pretty fascinating, on both sides of the schism. the byzantines/ottomans were pretty raw too!

you know what could use a sick multi-part HBO/BBC/canal+ miniseries is the history of venice

does "Pippin" count as a story about the early/mid Dark Ages?

in From Dawn to Decadence Jacques Barzun tried to rewrite our understanding of the Dark Ages – says the nomenclature is based on clichés. A fabulous book, by the way, if sketchy in places.

also, some of the pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon kings seem pretty neat -- esp. Alfred the Great. Venerable Bede is also a favorite. as long as there's no King Arthur/Camelot shit tied in, i think that some sort of miniseries about British kings of that era could be well done.

yeah for real. there needs to be more movies about this era, or hbo series or something

saw this movie, it kicks ASS:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1181791/

Seconding Alfred on the Barzun recommendation -- read most of it one long agonizing day stuck waiting in jury duty and it was one hell of the way to pass the time.

i really wanted to like Black Death - bean, warner, plague, how can u go wrong - but it failed to grip me tbh

one of the great things about the inferno is the volume of popes down there

this might be my favorite thing from the period

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars#Conversion_of_the_royalty_and_aristocracy_to_Judaism_and_relations_with_world_Jewry

http://www.khazaria.com/kuzari/excerpts.html

basic story is that a powerful king asks the philosophers, rabbis, priests and imams to pitch him on upgrading their shamanic tradition and he goes with turning his whole kingdom jewish

i really wanted to like Black Death - bean, warner, plague, how can u go wrong - but it failed to grip me tbh

man I loved it - the pacing, and the village, the righteousness of the speeches, the whole predictable-but-killer moral-equivalency stuff - adore that flick

note that hunting around for 'khazars' and judaism online can get you into some creepy nazi shit :/

xp did you guys like valhalla rising? i was really into it but haven't finished it

I really, really love the story of the Khazars, it's something else. Michael Chabon did a pretty good serialized story with that as the setting.

That kazars thing is REAL?? I thought it was made up as part of that stupid book with a women's version and a men's version?!?

+h, sorry.

just read Pope Joan which was a riff off the 'female pope' fable that was mentioned in the Marozia wiki entry: it was a decent read, though nothing mindblowing...

basically i am looking to watch fantasy TV series but set in irl

basically I want a Marozia biopic in the style of Caligula, and written by Gore Vidal, of course.

high hopes for this jeremy irons thing about the borgias, though obviously thats later than im talking

I think there is a character in Pope Joan called Marozia who is a courtesan for elite clients...

...but there's nothing as crazy as the pornocracy in that book!

i want a huge biopic on this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_the_apostate

Gore Vidal's novel is terrific, as is the Gibbon chapter devoted to him.

dear aero,
Could electroconvulsive therapy possibly help people get over religious upbringing, even if it's only temporary relief? And if so, can I buy a taser, write it off as a medical expense, and set up a mobile ECT/deprogramming practice?
thanks,

WmC, I can't speak to religious upbringing outside of the Catholic tradition. I would say just as a guy who's had a lot of therapy is that "getting over" is a concept best worth tabling. The way forward in my experience is seldom over or around but through. #wouldhavemadeagreatnewageguru

hmph, still wanna tase me some xtians

dear catholics

am I cool to love this awesome book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melmoth_the_Wanderer and still kiw you guys

sincerely

if it helps I am a notable Gerard Manley Hopkins stan

this isn't really a catholic question, but since we're here . . .

four days can be a long time, i guess, but i've never grasped the transition from jc's heralded and popular entry into jerusalem on palm sunday followed by jeering crowds calling for his death on good friday. is this a compression of a longer stretch of time that i missed? were friday's crowds hired goons rounded up by the pharisees?

on palm sunday night they went home tired and a bit sunburned and they laid down with their ugly spouses in front of their ugly children and looked at their loser lives and then they looked at jc and they said "I can't process it".

^^^

Lol and OTM

lotm

Opinion's about Andres Serrano's work notwithstanding, is there something funny about the destruction of Piss Christ by a sect whose whole graven images policy is a little bit off in the first place?

I'm watching a marathon of Jesus/Church-themed stuff on the History Channel, and it's really incredible to me how the Da Vinci Code so thoroughly altered the tone of broader public discussion about the church to a de facto stance of 'what are they hiding??'

Has anybody else noticed this?? NB never read da vinci code

there was some other stuff that happened in the last decade besides the da vinci code that might make some people think the church is hiding things

hahahah fair enough

And it's maybe worth noting that I'm watching the History Channel which mainly seems to focus on giving face time to JFK truthers.

"Pope Pious sent a stone to Washington to be used in the Washington Monument--on its arrival in the District of Columbia, an anti-Catholic mob defaced the stone and hurled it into the Potomac River."

O_O

Opinion's about Andres Serrano's work notwithstanding, is there something funny about the destruction of Piss Christ by a sect whose whole graven images policy is a little bit off in the first place?

To be honest I think Piss Christ is a symbol of the Church's failure to engage the late 20th century adequately, because I consider it a pious work: the point of Piss Christ is not "lol Jesus in piss." It's actually imo a realization of one of the paradoxes at the core of the teachings, one of the most profound mysteries: God not "in human form" but in this body, the exact same one you walk & talk & breathe & piss & shit & spit & ejaculate with every day, the one that feels pain and feels pleasure and feels relief when it rests and strain when it's burdened. Because no amount of "no, he took on human form" is really the same as confronting the waste products of the body. Christ does not shit in the gospels. He eats once or twice, but the gospels sort of leave it to the reader to grasp the totality of what's being claimed by their authors: not "God in a man's body." Not "God having condescended to occupy a human frame." God and man.

Piss Christ is a Catholic work; a sad enduring irony of the age is that the very people who ought to be celebrating it hate it because their Augustinian heritage commands them thus.

john have you ever seen sister wendy talk about piss christ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9pAKdkJh-Y

(she reads it differently than you do, but even so)

I'm watching a marathon of Jesus/Church-themed stuff on the History Channel, and it's really incredible to me how the Da Vinci Code so thoroughly altered the tone of broader public discussion about the church to a de facto stance of 'what are they hiding??'

this kinda doesn't matter - the Church plays the long game & has endured much more organized efforts than a bunch of pop-lit readers goin OMIGOD CONSPIRACY!, these people will be distracted by Sarah Palin soon enough

xp @max no I hadn't heard that until now - she is incredible, it is hard for me to listen to her because I'm estranged from the Church and she makes me remember what I loved about it - her take isn't mine in re: Piss Christ, but it's a good one I think, and her bit on the body, her counter-Augustine riff, is unbelievable - Franciscan to my way of thinking

John, the post up here with your take on Piss Christ should seriously be framed and go on a wall, thanks for sharing that beautiful insight.

On Monday, the Vatican will release a document on the reform of the international financial system which will be to the left of every politician in the United States. It will be closer to views of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement than anyone in the U.S. Congress. It will call for the redistribution of wealth and the regulation of the world economy by international agencies....

In his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), Pope Benedict calls for a radical rethinking of economics so that it is guided not simply by profits but by “an ethics which is people-centered.”

Profit is not an end in itself but a means toward the common good. “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal,” he writes, “if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”

...While Benedict acknowledges the role of the market, he emphasizes that “the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy.” He unflinchingly supports the “redistribution of wealth” when he talks about the role of government. “Grave imbalances are produced,” he writes, “when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.”

http://www.ourdailythread.org//content/vatican-issue-radical-document-economy-thomas-j-reese-sj

wau

nice. I was actually thinking recently that the left need to get more of the religious on their side this time around. probably can't win without 'em

haha sister mary k-lo @ nro/the corner will have to twist herself into a pretzel trying to square this w/republican ideology

Yeah, can't wait for that.