For many years, in many countries it was considered that the Catholic Church is the evil and the fiend of hell on earth. All that was known about her was that she organized crusades, the Inquisition was born in her, and she was monstrously aggressive towards all dissenters and professing other religions, especially Jews and Cathars.
The fact that the Protestants in Northern Europe at the stake of the Inquisition or the Orthodox neophytes of the baptism of Rus burnt no less, and a greater number of both fellow tribesmen and foreigners, preferred not to know, and all executions were a priori attributed to Catholics. The fact that the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages had a huge impact on music, fine art, architecture, created international jurisprudence, the first universities appeared under it and it was she who largely created the European civilization that the whole world is striving for now, with the exception of apologists grozmyazhnosti, originality, bast shoes and burqas - prefer not to speculate. The fact that the Catholic Church is the first Christian church in general, and Orthodoxy, for example, was born only a thousand years later, is not thought of.
The obscurantism of many detractors of Catholicism does not allow them to apparently think about the fact that the Catholic Church is the "compiler" and "editor" of the New Testament, the testament of Christ, which is professed by absolutely all Christian denominations on earth. Prejudice and ignorance, many outdated cliches still accompany the "knowledge" of the Catholic Church.
Middle Ages
Of course, during its formation, the Catholic Church underwent various ups and downs, and its changes largely depended on who controlled it in a given historical period. So, the birth of the Inquisition was really facilitated by people with a displaced psyche: Pope Lucius III in 1184 and Pope Innocent III in 1198. Yes, because of their "research" and the like, humanity has lost Giordano Bruno, Galileo and many, many other talented, ingenious and simple people. But!
But, firstly, for the sake of justice, it must be said that not only in Catholic countries and on the Catholic throne did not quite adequate individuals come to power every time, organizing massacres and not appreciating human lives: they say, "women will give birth to new ones." And not only Catholic obscurantists wrote treatises on the type of "Hammer of the Witches." Similar literary masterpieces even now appear on the book shelves, and their authors are greeted by central Russian television channels.
And, secondly, somehow it is completely forgotten that it was during the Middle Ages that the Catholic Church gave mankind great musicians, artists, priest scientists. Founder of geology about. Nicholas Steno (Niels Stensen), founder of Egyptology Fr. Athanasius Kircher, a theorist who measured the acceleration of a freely falling body about. Giambattista Riccioli, the father of modern quantum theory was the Jesuit Rugger Boskovich. By the way, it was the Jesuits who once especially succeeded in the study of earthquakes, but still no, no, yes they will call seismology “Jesuit science”. And how many prominent mathematicians, astronomers, naturalists, researchers, and lawyers were among the Catholic priests and monks.
Thus, the numerous Order of Benedictines made a huge contribution to the culture and economy of the Middle Ages: they created libraries, scriptoriums, art workshops, and their successes and research in animal husbandry and breeding still have a huge impact on agricultural science.
Or, for example, the first drafter of international law was a Catholic priest of the 16th century, Professor Francisco de Vitoria. Faced with the cruel treatment of the Spaniards with the original inhabitants of the New World, de Vitoria and other Catholic philosophers and theologians began to reflect on human rights and on proper relations between countries and peoples. It was these Catholic thinkers who developed the idea of international law in its current sense. And, since all European monarchies were in one way or another subordinate to the Papal state, they were obliged to take into account the postulates approved by it for the Middle Ages.
