Tom's Opinion

Sometime in the late eleventh century pope Gregory VII wrote 27 “dictates”, they’re known as Dictatus Papae (Dictates of the Pope). These were statements in which he outlined the position and powers of the papacy. If you know anything about the history of that that time you’ll know it was volatile when it came to religion.

There was no church and state, let alone any separation of the two; there was only church. Everything fell under the purview of the church. The only matter that needed settling was who controlled the church. It was only during the the high middle ages (1000-1300AD) that an idea of state separate from church began to form, though it would not come to anything for another few hundred years.

History lesson aside, I wanted to talk more about the papacy. Reading over the dictates I can’t help but think “What an arrogant man”. It really does sound as though it was written by a child who was angry and just trying to lash out at anyone as if the world had done him harm. It certainly does not sound as though it were written by a level headed individual who had the good of the world as his goal. One would hope that the man at the wheel of the largest organization in the world (then, just as now) would have been a little more open minded to the possibilities.

This of course refers to the traditionally understood “western world”.

This entry was posted Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 21:46 and is filed under Main. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.