Sacred Communism
HAVANA TIMES — The eccentric and brave French Cathars stood up to the Vatican’s corruption and hypocrisy for much longer than the establishment would have liked it to.
They gathered their strength in Languedoc, in Occitania, where the Catholic Church along with the French Crown, and in spite of their heroic resistance, exterminated them in the most brutal way with the Albigensian Crusade at the end of the 13th century as well as with the first appearance of the Inquisition.
A century later, the Inquisition was founded in Aragon, and when the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile came together two centuries later, it became infamously known as the Spanish Inquisition, under the strict rule of the Spanish Monarchs.
After over 5000 executions were carried out employing the most barbaric forms of torture and then exporting this to the Americas to punish rebel aboriginal Indians in Lima and Mexico, it can be said that it was the greatest scientific experiment ever on physical pain practices, psychological fear and the deterioration of the human soul.
The best thing about the Middle Ages was that it ended with the Renaissance.
Sometimes, in order to give some kind of idea as to why there are so few uprisings in leftist dictatorships, I refer to the parallels that exist between Church power in medieval times and political systems that are mistakingly called “socialist”.
Both of them stem from infusing constant self-censorship within the population, using terminology associated with and the liturgy of Good, which the Left also does, just like the medieval Church who used terror and studied, developed and implemented the most perverse forms of torture possible on rebel, dissident or poor misfits, who far from being seen as victims, also had to suffer shame and the stigma of being non-believers, encouraging evil and harboring the devil within their souls.
Just like in Siberian labor camps in the USSR, after having been held prisoner and forced to work in these camps, to practice cannibalism and suffering beatings for decades, prisoners had to admit that they had been selfish and wretched in the past for having gone against Socialism’s generosity and that they were finally ready to be “good” revolutionaries. Serving their sentence wasn’t enough; they had to convert as well.
Both in the savage Middle Ages of the Inquisition and in Communist authoritarian dictatorships, the system rules because of this liturgy of Good; on the one hand using a good-natured God and on the other, an ideology which carries solidarity and social justice in its DNA, therefore installing the evil and mean-spirited role dissidence, disobedience and dissatisfaction play into our brains and the collective consciousness.
The combination of this ideology of Good with constant methods of oppression have produced excellent results, calming any rebellious attempt, making the old non-believers just like the new, prefer a million times over to risk their lives escaping, whether it was from the USSR through frozen forests, from the GDR (German Democratic Republic) jumping over the sinister Wall or from Cuba with a rickety raft, which is sometimes full of holes, in a shark infested sea, before rising together and dreaming of change. It’s in very bad taste to fight against what’s Good.
They become powerful with words such as “proletariate” “peasants” “equality” “oppression” “freedom”. Whoever is ready to go up against these deserves to be burned at the same stake as the wrongly-accused medieval witches, offenders in the all-consuming God’s kingdom.
Siren songs on one side of the coin, and the face of reality on the other.
A cogent explanation. I have often commented on the seemingly cowardice of Cubans in Cuba when it comes to speaking up for themselves. The very same Cubans, upon arrival in Miami, demand their ‘rights’ without hesitation.
Yes Martin I have spent time in the Cathar country of South-West France including Bezier where the Catholic army massacred over 20,000 Cathars in one day (one should remember that at that time populations were much smaller). The last Cathar who had fled to Spain, was mercilessly hunted down and killed.
The history of the Catholic Church is one of pilllage, rape, torture, oppression and endeavor to control
the daily lives of the surviving members of the populations they had so savagely reduced. Spain was a major factor acting as an instrument for the Catholic Church.
Cuba suffered from all the factors listed above and relatively recently as late as 1896, Spain appointed the cruel despotic General Valeriano Weyler as Governor of Cuba. Weyler was the originator of concentration camps and it is estimated that of the 300,000 Cubans entering them, fully one third died. It is little surprise that the much revered revolutionary leaders in Cuba all had the driving urge to rid Cuba of Spanish Government. Cespedes, Agramonte, Gomez and Maceo all fought the Spanish.
Despite the barbarity of Weyler, Spain approved and even admired his actions which included entering Cuban towns, killing the children before the eyes of the parents, then raping the women prior to killing the men and eventually killing the women. Weylers actions were not only accepted but approved by the Spanish Government for in 1907 they appointed him Minister of War and in 1920 made him Duke of Rubi and Grandee of Spain by Royal Decree. He died in comfort in 1930.
There is much similarity between the history of the Catholic Church and the 20th and 21st century practices of the Communist system. Both being tyrannical with power concentrated in the few and the people regarded as a form of possession to be utilized by the leaders for the purposes of their pursuit of power.
There have however been in more recent times, some redeeming features in some but not all Popes. John Paul !! was a virulent opponent of communism supporting the oppressed workers of Poland against their communist masters and encouraging Lech Walesa as leader of ‘Solidarity’..
The current Pope Francis is obviously of a different persuasion illustrated by his actions in Cuba and moral support for the Castro brothers. It was the Jesuit Pope Francis who decided to personally visit Fidel Castro and to be pictured holding the hands of the ex-communicated Jesuit. It was Pope Francis who ‘dropped in’ to Jose Marti Airport in Havana in March 2016, to meet with Kirill the Patriarch of The Moscow and All the Russias Orthodox Church and Raul Castro, His actions speak louder than his words, for he is seen to be supporting oppression and those who deny others liberty and freedom.
Your article and the comparisons you make are fully justified by the respective histories of the Catholic Church and that of Communist dictatorship regimes. That is not a condemnation of all Catholics, whose faith has to be respected or indeed of all those registered as Communists – for they if born under the system in Cuba for example, know no other system and have been raised under its control. But for the respective leaders there can be no absolution.