RADICAL THINKER GIORDANO BRUNO (1548-1600)

In the words of historian, John Kessler, "He was a sensitive, imaginative poet, fired with the enthusiasm of a larger vision of a larger universe ... and he fell into the error of heretical belief.

For this poet's vision he was kept in a dark dungeon for eight years and then taken out to a blazing market place and roasted to death by fire." Is Giordano Bruno still a problem for many today?

Julia Jones wrote: "How would Bruno, who denounced virginity, chastity and the Church's attitude towards abstinence as life-denying, react to Clinton's indiscretions; what would he say to Jerry Falwell and the religious right? How would Bruno, who claimed there was life on the invisible worlds throughout an infinite universe, react to SETI and the current belief in UFO's? How would Bruno, who condemned Columbus and the explorers for "disturbing the spirits of native peoples" react to colonial wars, to Vietnam, and Iraq?

What would Bruno, who spoke out against the popular view of women as passive and base, have to say about a woman's right to abortion and the use of contraception? How would he react to the violence of our Columbines? What would he say? How much would he have to say about nuclear weapons!"

February 17, 2006 is the 406th anniversary of one of the most infamous intellectual and spiritual crimes of all time: the public burning at the stake, in Rome, of the great radical thinker and theologian Giordano Bruno. Atheist, infidel and heretic Giordano Bruno was executed under orders from Pope Clement VIII. Bruno had repeatedly refused to repent for his heretical questioning of Church doctrine that the Earth is the center of the universe, and even for his questioning of the very existence of God. His claims of an infinite universe with inhabited planets were revolutionary and considered a real threat to the Church doctrine.

From: http://www.thereisnogod.info/English/Giordano.php

Today we are still celebrating the existence of a redundant papacy and the catholic church, that kingdom of whores which continues to rally against abortion, science and human nature. The same papacy which tortured Galileo, victimized Copernicus, denouced Darwin, and murdered untold numbers of rational, thinking humans in a bloody reign over a period of almost a thousand years known as the Dark Ages is now mired in controversies involving little boys, and fighting against every rational bastion of science.

The catholic church, far from being an organization of forward looking, sensitive spiritual-minded people has continued to show its backward reactionary nature. It still refuses to sanction contraception. It steadfastly opposes stem cell research and science, it doesn't budge in the face of mounting criticism to allow its clergy to marry rather than shield the perpetrators of horrendous crimes against the young. Why on earth do we actually respect the pope as a human, much less a spiritual leader when he is the offspring of a lineage of corrupt, cruel, brutal and violent dictators who have stood against all things that deviate from their narrow world view?

Why should anyone consider as "holy" the spiritual descendant of such violent bigots as Pope Pius IV (1499-1565) who sanctioned crimes like this:

Seventy of the heretics were seized and conducted in chains to Montalto. They were put to the torture by the orders of the inquisitor Pauza, to induce them not only to renounce their faith but also to accuse themselves and their brethren of having committed odious crimes in their religious assemblies. To wring a confession of this from him, Stefano was tortured until his bowels gushed out. Another prisoner, named Verminel, having, in the extremity of pain, promised to go to mass, the inquisitor flattered himself that, by increasing the violence of the torture, he could extort a confession of the charge which he was so anxious to fasten on the Protestants. The manner in which persons of the tender sex were treated by this brutal inquisitor, is too disgusting to be related here. Suffice it to say, that he put sixty females to the torture, the greater part of whom died in prison in consequence of their wounds remaining undressed.

Or what about Thomas Aquinas, one of the foremost Catholic thinkers? He had these gems to share.

If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy.
-- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.
-- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell.
-- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

Some others...

Kill them all; for God knoweth them that are His. (Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens.)
-- Arnaud-Amaury, when asked by the Crusaders what to do with the citizens of Beziers who were a mixture of Catholics and Cathars, the Abbot takes the concept of the afterlife to its logical conclusion, in Henry C. Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, also in Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History, critical editing by Cliff Walker

Pope Gregory VII (1020?-1085)
Roman Catholic Pope, one of Roman Catholicism's best-loved Popes

Cursed be the man who holds back his sword from shedding blood.
-- Pope Gregory VII, inspiring the Crusaders, in Malachi Martin, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church (1981), p. 134

Pope Gregory XVI (1765-1846)
Roman Catholic Pope, intransigent opponent of liberalism in all its forms, devoted remorselessly to the repression of rebellion

From the most foul well of indifferentism flows that absurd and erroneous opinion, or rather delirium, of liberty of conscience.
-- Gregory XVI, Encyclical, "Mirari Vos" (1832), quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

and finally a cheery little one from our favourite inquisitor:

Bernard Gui
Christian inquisitor

[The layman must not argue with the unbeliever, but] thrust his sword into the man's belly as far as it will go.
-- Bernard Gui, quoted in Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History