Yet Another Interesting Bit
TopazOwl

Sun Mar 12 01:03:46 2000
"John Paul II, referring to the historical-theological evaluation of the work of the Inquisition, stated: “The Church’s Magisterium certainly may not intend to perform an act of natural ethics, which the request for pardon is, without first being exactly informed concerning the situation of that time. But, at the same time, neither may it rely on images of the past steered by public opinion, since these are frequently highly charged with passionate emotion which impedes serene and objective diagnosis… This is the reason why the first step consists in asking the historians, not to furnish a judgement of natural ethics, which would exceed the area of their competence, but to offer help toward a reconstruction, as precise as possible, of the events, of the customs, of the mentality of the time, in the light of historical context of the epoch.”(64)"*p*     Please take note from the above quotation that the Church will not be requesting pardon for imagined slights and not steered by public opinion. :-)*p*Leigh*p*PS - forgive my running commentary, but I just think these things are important to point out as I read the entire document.*br*