We Shouldn’t Fear Our History

George Orwell famously said, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” This quote has perhaps never been more relevant than it is now, as the teaching of history has become a major political issue in America. Questions of what should and should not be taught in history classrooms resound across the political arena, yet there is one realm of history that is ignored in this ongoing debate: Catholic history.

As Catholics, there is much in our history that modern society decries as evil. Therefore, many Catholics shrink from the Church’s past, fearing the labels they will be given as a result. However, these labels come from flawed morals and a false understanding of history, preventing many well-intentioned Catholics from being rightfully appreciative of the Church’s rich tradition.

Among events in the Church’s history which many Catholics would rather not consider out of fear of being harshly labeled, there are four major types: those events which are condemned as immoral, which were in fact moral; those events which are accurately denounced; those events which are condemned for the wrong reasons; and those events which are ignored, but ought to be celebrated.

In the first category is perhaps the most obvious example of false Catholic history: the First Crusade. Generations upon generations of Catholics have been raised to believe that the First Crusade is a stain upon our Church’s past, described by modern society as the action of evil, barbaric Catholics determined to bring an act of violent imperialism upon a benign Islamic world. While an entire book would be needed to explain why this narrative could not be further from the truth (indeed, a number have been written doing just that), one need only recognize that the First Crusade was born out of centuries of aggression by the Seljuk Turks to see that there is more to this epoch of history than meets the eye.

The narrative that the Church suppressed science is another instance of the horrific traducement of the Church. Specifically, modern critics hone in on the Galileo incident as an instance of the Church being anti-science, ignoring the fact that the Church took the side of the predominant scientific establishment of the time, which opposed Galileo’s theories wholeheartedly. Again, to fully understand how this narrative could not be further from the truth, one would need to read one of the many books on the subject.

In the second category are such evils as the systematic sale of indulgences, the fornication of Pope Alexander VI (indeed, the very fact of Alexander VI’s papacy), and the child sex abuse crisis, the latter of which has brought severe obloquy upon Catholics in recent years. These blots upon the Church’s ledger have been frequently condemned in modern society, but unlike the condemnation of the First Crusade, these criticisms are valid and important to hear, lest we become dishonest panegyrists of an institution that is divinely ordained but remains human and thus imperfect.

In the third category is the Spanish Inquisition. Interestingly enough, many readers likely expected this event to fall into either the first or the second category, but in fact, while certain actions during the Spanish Inquisition deserve opprobrium, the reasons given for their censure, and their association with the Church, are historically inaccurate. Again, entire books have been written explaining why the Spanish Inquisition was not the demonic orgy of brutality and violence as which it has been characterized (indeed, the BBC, not exactly a bastion of pro-Catholic sentiment, released a documentary in 1994 entitled “The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition), but one can get the point from the following quote by G.K. Chesterton, who describes the Inquisition as having initially been a noble crusade against heresy and concludes, “The Crusaders doubtless abused their victory, but there was a victory to abuse.”

In the final category, one can place the countless achievements of the Church’s past which society ignores, including, but not limited to, the spread of its religion to all corners of the globe; the foundation of the university system; the beginning of liberal tradition (the good kind of liberalism, not the perverted, inimical kind); the sponsorship or inspiration of much of the greatest art, music, and literature ever produced; the development of modern science; and more. Of course, modern secular society prefers to either downplay or completely ignore these contributions (for instance, the European Union omits mention of Christianity entirely in its constitution), as many people are seemingly uncomfortable with the debt they owe to an institution of which they are not members. Furthermore, it is not only secularists and modern liberals who detest the mere mention of the Church’s contributions, but even many Protestants shirk from admitting that “papists” played such an important role in the development of Western civilization.

Not only is it crucial that we, as Catholics, properly understand our own history, but it is just as important to proclaim openly and loudly both the glories and the faults of our past. The reason is that, in an age of insidious but virulent anti-Catholicism, a true understanding of the Church’s history will prevent the average American from being deceived by the perfidious manipulations of those who would see the Church fall. Furthermore, as Christ tells us in the Gospels, we are sent to “go and make disciples of all nations,” yet who would want to join a Church with an evil past? We must show the world that we feel appreciation for all aspects of our past in order to craft an even greater future.