OT - Church Harlotry - was Re: SC - Orange Omelette - original recipe

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"ana l. valdes" wrote:
> 
> But I say again the Church at Apicius time was not "our Church".
> And the rules of morality and church behaviour were not etablished until
> very late. The celibacy of priests was not required, the matrimony was
> not etablished as a sacrament (it took a Holy Croisade against the
> Cathars to get it as a rule, since the Cathars did not believed in the
> matrimony and their faith was wide spread in the South of France), and
> many other things were not part of the canonical law.
> Ana

Yes. To put it bluntly, it's easy enough to make sweeping statements
which are misleading. For example, temple harlots were tolerated in
pre-Christian Rome, but their presence was unofficial. That doesn't mean
there is, or ever was, an Organized Pagan Licentiousness Agenda.
Similarly, there was recently some neighborhood unrest in Crown Heights,
Brooklyn, in which some members of the Hassidic community there
expressed extreme displeasure over police handling of an incident. That
doesn't mean I'll tell my son, "Keep away from Jews. They like to beat
people up and the Torah advocates it!" 

While I'm sure "the Church" (now, by the way, a fairly meaningless term
from our perspective in this discussion since various schisms and the
Reformation have completely redefined the Catholic Church since the
Middle Ages) did turn a blind eye to the presence of prostitution in
their midst, either knowingly or unknowingly, I'm not aware of any
Church-sanctioned houses of prostitution, and currently have no reason
to believe the Bordello of St. Francis was a big cash cow for the Church
(because we also know how money-hungry "the Church" was).

I'm equally sure that plenty of things have been done by members and
officials of the Catholic Church that were either not specifically
sanctioned or were specifically condemned by the Pope, or would have
been if the Pope had known about them, but these are not acts for which
the Catholic Church is responsible, any more than the cops that were
roughed up in retaliation for the shooting of a large demented man
rushing them with a hammer are the responsibility of the American
Rabbinical Council or the Nation of Israel.

What I was getting at when I asked for documentation of the practice
referred to was a request for evidence that A) it truly happened as
described, and B) that it was an officially sanctioned policy of the
Catholic Church, and not merely the act of someone who happened to be,
nominally, a Catholic. I'm prepared to accept this, I just haven't seen
any evidence of it. And as for those rumors I heard as a child about the
secret underground passageways between the rectory and the convent, they
remain rumors, as far as I know ;  ) . 

Adamantius   
> 
> LrdRas at aol.com skrev:
> >
> > In a message dated 9/18/99 11:23:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time, troy at asan.com
> > writes:
> >
> > << Documentatoin, please?"
> >
> >  Adamantius >>
> >
> > The Medieval Underworld has a complete chapter dealing with prostitution,
> > stew houses and the Churches evolvement including the construction and
> > management of said houses.
> >
> > Ras
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- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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