You realise that a whole new debate is being opened up by mentioning FFT's 'attack' on the catholic church. Forgive my asking, but why does everyone think that Glabados Church is based off the Catholic church? To be perfectly honest, the Glabados Church reminds me of the pharisees of Jesus's time.

At least the Catholic Church didn't/doesn't have dirty little secrets that were later disproven by other sects, unlike the ancient jewish pharisees. The Catholic Church allowed freedom of thought until the Inquisition was begun. Once freedom of thought was hampered, and the indulgence system was out of control, a zealous reformer known as Martin Luther tried to better it. Inadvertantly the Catholic Church lost many of it's followers to these new creeds. The creeds appealed to intellectuals seeking freedom of thought, and also religious types who wanted priests who wouldn't screw everything that moves. Of course all these new sects sank into the same sins of the old church, but lasting reforms were made.

In contrast the pharisees of Jesus's time, imposed strict morals on all followers. Most of these morals were developed by the jews themselves. Around this time a man began to question where all these rules (208 to be exact) had come from? There had only been 10 commandants, so what was with all these other laws? The man went so far as to simplify the 10 commandmants into 2 great commandmants. The man was eventually attacked and captured by a mob of temple guards (temple guards=shrine knights?) and then executed.

I don't know, but it seems to me that the second story is alot closer to FFT's Lion War (minus the execution part). Of course I can't say that, because that would make me an evil greasy fascist catholic who hates jews. But ignoring that fact... anyone who thinks that the Catholic Church killed hundreds of thousands in the name of truth really needs to look at european history. The Catholic Church in all of it's 2000 year history never sanctioned the deaths of more than a couple hundred. Sure there are fanatics who will kill in the name of christ. But aren't all religions guilty of possessing fanatical types.

During the wars of reformation, especially the 30 Years War, all sides commited atrocities, while the pope was a pawn of Habsburg domination. True the pope was being used, but it's not like the Habsburgs were collecting stones. I think people compare the Glabados Church to the Catholic Church mainly because of the over glorified Spanish Inquisition, but similar institutions were apparent in all protestant states of of the time. The only difference was that the Spanish Inquisition was a multi national organization with allegiance to no one but the pope, while the protestant organizations pledged loyalty to their individual sovereigns.

Well I'm sorry for boring you with that brief history lesson, but I think it's neccassary that the 'truth' be known.

-TheGreyOne

Hello,

I'm a fairly new reader to your website, and alas, I also am sadly behind in the gaming world. However, I have just finished reading your article, "Church and states of grace," and found some points of contention that, against my better judgment and morals, I'll bore you with now if you have the patience. :) First, I think it should be a given fact that history, all history, is biased, upon who's doing the speaking. For example, being a southern American, I tend to disregard the impact of race and slavery upon the causes of the Civil War, and maintain staunchly that the war was indeed caused by a power struggle between the states as individuals and the states as a union.

Now then, that having been said, there were a few facts that should be clarified here. The statement, "The Catholic Church allowed freedom of thought until the Inquisition was begun," is somewhat misleading, the first concept that comes to most probably being that the statement says the Catholic Church allowed free speech until the inquisition. Of course, thought and speech are profoundly different, but they also share profound similarities. But I'm wandering off topic. Sorry. At any rate, since it has been impossible, up to the present day, for ANY institution, regardless of what type and what powers and influences it possesses, to regulate thought, of any kind or fashion (note I do not include propaganda in this, since it does not directly affect thought, but rather influences it by the impression of the same idea over and over again), the statement is highly misleading into portraying the Catholic Church as a liberal institution that encouraged new thoughts and ideas. It, quite normally, and considering the times and standard of educations, did quite the opposite. Do I have to point out Galileo?

The claim that the Pope during the time of the Reformation was also nothing more then a puppet of Hapsburg hegemony is also somewhat incorrect. Indeed, at many times in the Reformation, the Pope criticized the Hapsburg monarch of the time, Charles 1st (I think it was the 1st, always get messed up with those numbers at the end), for his policy of gaining allies in Germany by giving Reformist Dukes, bribes, for lack of a better term, to side with him in the incipient unpleasantness, and some of the more wily Popes also played off of Spanish and French antagonisms to gain more power for himself around this same time period.

I realize that I'm probably boring all to tears at this point, so I'll try to wrap this up quickly. At any rate, the last major statement that irked me, was the claim that the Pope in all of its 2 millennia of existence has never ordered or encouraged an act or series of actions that caused the deaths of over a few hundred men, is blatantly false. Just look at the Crusades for one instance. The Papal office was the leading force for many of the wars to reclaim the Holy City, and those wars alone killed thousands upon thousands of men, and spread Christian brutality amongst formerly peaceful residents. This period of time was definitely one of the darker ages of morality and decency, and was started by the one who should have had his eyes fixed most on the heavens and not the temporal powers below. :)

Also, if you need further examples of Papal inspired wars, just look to the Spanish Armada. It occurred roughly around the time of the Thirty Years' War (unless my time line is all screwed up), and granted, was started by Philip and enacted by the same monarch, but ultimately, the Pope encouraged Philip a great deal, promising large sums of money (the exact number escapes me right now) if and when he landed a Spanish army on British soil. The Pope never followed through with this promise of course, partly because the Spaniards never landed. At any rate, the Popes have had more then their fair share of dabbling their hands in politics and power struggles, which leads to wars, which leads to one man sending thousands to their death to satisfy his thirst for power.

Though I must admit that the point about the Inquisition and similar actions in the Protestant camp were fairly correct, especially using England as an example. In the end, though I have only the loosest of ideas of the plot to Final Fantasy Tactics, from what I have heard, it portrays, rather well, the effects of any religion that becomes involved in temporal politics, for whatever reason, including the Catholics, who probably because of their longer period of existence are probably even more blood stained then most. May God have mercy on us if ANY religious group ever gains ascendancy over the government of us.

My apologies for taking up so much time, on such a dry and boring topic, but I was bored and saw the errors, so I thought I'd respond. And so there's my version of the "truth," hateful though it may be to many.

Sincerely,

Patrick

While you make a good point of redimentioning the myth of the Inquisition as killing lots of people, rather than just a few, I think that even the Pharisees comparison is somewhat wrong, because again, the Glabados comparison still does not measure up. After all, the Pharisees were not a church that controlled most of the known land at the time during which the events in the New Testament allegedly take place. The Pharisees did not even have control of all the Jewish sects; their religious authority was certainly not recognized by Samaritans, for example, who were Jewish. On the other hand, scholars were excomunicated by the Catholic Church long before the Inquisition, and it was for all practical purposes a death sentence.

There were scholars in the thirteenth century that wrote commentaries (the famous philosopher of Ancient Greece) Aristotle's texts which had previously been "lost", who are known to historians of philosophy as Latin Averroists. Apparently, they interpreted Aristotle's books in a way that did not sit well with religious authorities, which issued a comdemnation (in 1277) against these scholars, who used Aristotle's Metaphysics to prove, among other things, that the intellect of man (or soul) is one with the body, resulted in them losing their posts, and (you guessed it) being excomunicated as heretics, which basically in those days gave license to a believer to kill those who did not retract their writings. One of these philosophers was killed. Siger of Brabant, whose name laid in obscurity since his death, presumedly in 1277, until the middle of this century, chose to plead his case against the Pope, rather than retract, and was killed by his secretary, not before was put under house arrest in Rome. Of course, the name is not very familiar: his writings were rediscovered when interest in St. Thomas Aquinas, the only philosopher of the time whose mane was preserved through the centuries, lead some Thomists (scholars, usually Catholic [how's that for irony?], who study the wrting of of St. Thomas) to rediscover his teachings in the middle of this century. Moreso, some of Aristotle's texts were "lost" because translation of these works from the Greek was not encouraged by the Church, while translations of another great Greek philosopher, Plato (Aristotle's teacher) were allowed only in entirety, since they could be easily adapted to reinforce Christian tenets. As it turns out to someone who has read both, neither could have constituted much of a menace if Christianity was based on free thought. But the sad truth is that in order to be accepted by all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, Christianity saw fit to slowly but throughly censure most intellectual though which preceded it. So, yes, the Catholic Church has resorted to manipulating the masses and obfuscating intellectual progress even before the Inquisition.

Even so, I don't think that Final Fantasy Tactics is making a point about a particular type of church. It is pretty much a fantasy construct based on the observation that any type of dogmatic theory (i.e., a theory which implies that the premises should not be refuted) results in the creation of a system in which conformance to tradition takes precedence to truth, something that usually spells disaster for the masses. As such, it pretty much embodies any type of established religion, even cults.

On the other hand, by stressing that even the "forgotten" parts of history may someday be found, it also gives us hope that history can never be "lost", and that for all the scheming that a religious or political institution may do, there will always be people who seek the truth (as Ramsa does, as Olan's descendant (Alzalam?) does) and that have enough courage to stand by it. I think we should focus more on that part of the message, but somehow it's easier to see the bashing of religion than the appeal to free thought.

- Anonymous