Starhawk is calling on the Pope to apologize to witches.
An apology is a way to take responsibility, to signal a change, and to assure the world that it won't happen again.
And if apologies are being given out, Witches would like one. It's more than time that the Catholic and Protestant Churches both apologized for centuries of persecution of Witches, Pagans and those they deemed 'heretics' for believing something different than standard dogma. How about an apology for the Papal Bull of Pope Innocent the Eighth, in 1484, that made Witchcraft an heresy and unleashed the Inquisition against traditional healers, midwives, and any woman unpopular with her neighbors for being too uppity? It's high past time to apologize for the Malleus Maleficarum, a vicious document written by two Dominican priests in 1486 that created a whole mythology of Satan worship, attributed it mostly to women, and unleashed a wave of accusations, torture, and judicial murder that have haunted us ever since. An apology won't do much good, now, to those accused, tormented, and destroyed because someone coveted their property or needed a local scapegoat, nor to their children left motherless or fatherless centuries ago. But it might clear some air.
I agree with her, but I hope she's not holding her breath. This pope seems to have gone out of his way to continue to hurl insults at modern Pagans. And others have asked, before.
4 comments:
An apology would be a good start. Then there's the whole question of reparations for 1700+ years and counting of persecution against all Pagans.
Go Starhawk!!
However, letting a little reality in...this is not the pope to make any reasonable actions toward anyone.
With his Prada shoes and his scary myths about condoms causing HIV, he is a throwback to the days of Malleus Maleficarum.
Perhaps he is channeling?
Eh. They believe that your wrong about everything. I think it's best for the gradual marginalization of Christianity in the West to continue. The more extreme they look, the less seriously people take them.
and what does it change? does her or anybody really need it? I dont, for once. Things past should be left as such 'cause you cant change them - obviously - but by stirring them you can open old wounds and cause new ones. Maybe more focus on today and future? Let bygones be bygones - and a new beginning be really so.
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