Would a world with no Protestantism and instead a mass Catholic Reformation be less racist?

Less racism with no Protestantism?

  • Yes

    Votes: 47 34.8%
  • No

    Votes: 88 65.2%

  • Total voters
    135
Meh, it's no worse than the modern world systems we have.
True.

The OP was seeing a universal "tolerant" (in terms of the period) Catholic church as being a good thing for anti-racism. It might help a little but fundamentally it won't change much. Fewer deaths on the trans-Atlantic voyages from indentured workers (instead of slaves) but probably not alot less. Outside of Spanish America indigenous workers were not a huge part of the workforce in any event.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Neither slavery or genocide were unknown to Catholic colonies. OK, the worst racists were indeed Protestants, but I don't see a correlation strong enough to support the claim that they would have been less racist if they weren't.

Theoretically, both Catholicism and protestantism say that all Christians should be the same.
 
Last edited:

JJohnson

Banned
Yeah... hm. Well, a new schism in Christendom established the idea of cuius regio eius religio.



Hey now, it acknowledged something needed to be done after only losing Scandinavia, half of the British Isles, and northern Germany. That's why there was the Council of Trent, the Jesuits, and the Counter-Reformation.
It is true, they did acknowledge something needed to be done, but all they ended up doing was reconfirming that they're right, and the Protestants are wrong, and excommunicating them. If they'd listened to the Hussites and other pre-Reformation reformers and did things like allow priests to marry women, condemn indulgences, reform the monasteries/nunneries, etc etc, perhaps that would have helped.
 
It is true, they did acknowledge something needed to be done, but all they ended up doing was reconfirming that they're right, and the Protestants are wrong, and excommunicating them. If they'd listened to the Hussites and other pre-Reformation reformers and did things like allow priests to marry women, condemn indulgences, reform the monasteries/nunneries, etc etc, perhaps that would have helped.

Except they did reform. They keep on reforming and trying to reform.

They condemned the abuses of indulgences, but could not afford to condemn the idea behind it which is the whole point of sacraments and the Church, of works and faith being in tandem. The abuses were caused by people gaming the system, as it were.

Allowing priests to marry, well, they did. They restricted it precisely because it led to priestly dynasties. And the dueling clerical dynasties are already bad enough when they were illegal, as you can see with the Papal States of the Renaissance, where again, the people were gaming the system.

As for reforming the monasteries, yeah, well. The battle for the reform of religious orders has gone on since Saint Benedict, on to Saint Francis, and then to Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The secular princes do enough with dissolving the richest of them.
 
Well, I could use some help in this as I need to butterfly away Protestantism without heavily affecting the development of the enlightenment and industrialization. Like I am aware that you don't need to be Protestant for industrialization(Belgium), but I think...you might need the enlightenment for industrialization.
I think (at least with the English Protestant immigrants to NA) that they considered their colonies as "their" place, where they could FINALLY practice as they choose (especially after being prosecuted by the Crown, having relatives imprisoned by Cromwell, etc.). They couldn't even tolerate "other" protestants (consider Anne Hutchinson, etc.). I don't believe that protestants were significantly different than other Europeans of the day. EVERYONE was racist in their own way, back then (Asians, Africans, Arabs, Amerinds, etc.).
 

Yun-shuno

Banned
Even if the Catholic church became colour blind with respect to slavery and legal rights (Jesuits and Del Casas) I don't think they would ever be colour blind with respect to opportunities. So no black cardinals and no support of anti-discrimination laws.

The first black cardinal wasn't created until the 1960's and there still isn't any place for women.

So a more tolerant Catholic church would still permit penal servitude and I suspect the inherent racist bias of most colonial systems would end up with more black slaves than white
You do understand church doctrine regarding priesthood and men's responsibilities in that regard don't you?

"Oh there are no women how terrible!" Come on man it's a church not a social club!
 

Yun-shuno

Banned
I think (at least with the English Protestant immigrants to NA) that they considered their colonies as "their" place, where they could FINALLY practice as they choose (especially after being prosecuted by the Crown, having relatives imprisoned by Cromwell, etc.). They couldn't even tolerate "other" protestants (consider Anne Hutchinson, etc.). I don't believe that protestants were significantly different than other Europeans of the day. EVERYONE was racist in their own way, back then (Asians, Africans, Arabs, Amerinds, etc.).
Race didn't exist as a concept in the 17th century colonies! Good Lord the revisionism in this thread is intense!
 
It's a bit of a diversion: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr3.html. Looks like race as a concept caught on pretty quickly. Granted, it wasn't until 1705 that the Virginia Assembly made it law that "Negroes,mulatto and indian slaves shall be held to be real estate." And once that's enshrined as law, not only does race exist as a concept, but as a fact. And racism follows, pretty much right after that law.
 
Last edited:
You do understand church doctrine regarding priesthood and men's responsibilities in that regard don't you?

"Oh there are no women how terrible!" Come on man it's a church not a social club!
It's not just the priesthood. If you use Timothy 2:11 to justify no female priests you deny them all authority over men and the right to express an opinion

And this is the church that will reform itself to be less racist?
 

Yun-shuno

Banned
It's not just the priesthood. If you use Timothy 2:11 to justify no female priests you deny them all authority over men and the right to express an opinion

And this is the church that will reform itself to be less racist?
According to strict interpretation yes personally I am not Catholic and I am indifferent to the question posed in this thread but as it is and this is whether you want admit it or not-the Catholic Church is a cornerstone on which Western Civilization stands. I don't care if you think it's the biggest scam in the world or your of opinion the pope is antichrist-I won't tolerate it being badmouthed.
 
According to strict interpretation yes personally I am not Catholic and I am indifferent to the question posed in this thread but as it is and this is whether you want admit it or not-the Catholic Church is a cornerstone on which Western Civilization stands. I don't care if you think it's the biggest scam in the world or your of opinion the pope is antichrist-I won't tolerate it being badmouthed.
I have no idea why you think I have "bad mouthed" the Catholic Church or why you believe the Catholic Church is the cornerstone of Western civilisation.
Unless my opinion contravenes the rules of the board you do have to accept my right to express it
 

Yun-shuno

Banned
I have no idea why you think I have "bad mouthed" the Catholic Church or why you believe the Catholic Church is the cornerstone of Western civilisation.
Unless my opinion contravenes the rules of the board you do have to accept my right to express it
I'll concede your right to an opinion but I won't entertain or accept it.
 
It's not just the priesthood. If you use Timothy 2:11 to justify no female priests you deny them all authority over men and the right to express an opinion

And this is the church that will reform itself to be less racist?

Again, it's not as if we hold to all of Leviticus and Numbers. Not even the Jews do that.

The Church changes and remains changing. I have no doubt that the suggested ATL reformed Church would have a large infusion of different ideas that instead went into the Reformation, for better or worse.

As for it being less racist, well I already said it's unlikely considering people discriminate.
 
Quite.

Although Timothy is hardly fire and brimstone Old Testament stuff.

The Catholic Church could have been a moderating factor in the slave trade, particularly if it remained a universal church without the splintering of the reformation. However given the unwillingness to support intervention in the secular world in OTL when it came to issues such as slavery I'm not hopeful in an ATL.

After all the Popes themselves often owned Muslim slaves - going as far as to authorise "the purchase and possession of Muslim slaves in the Papal States in 1548, 'for the public good'"
 
Race didn't exist as a concept in the 17th century colonies! Good Lord the revisionism in this thread is intense!
Perhaps the word "racist" didn't exist, but I haven't seen many European ruling houses marrying into African or Indian dynasties.
 
No Protestantism seems too broad.

No Calvinism on the other hand, which was shared by the Afrikaners and the southern Americans, and preaches a God that specifically creates evil people solely to send them to hell would probably make a less racist and better overall world
 

Sabot Cat

Banned
Oversimplification. Racism is not a necessary outcome of slavery; see Rome, etc.

It's an oversimplification to say that I said it was an outcome of slavery, which it isn't, it is an outcome of the Atlantic Slave Trade, however.
 
Top