In 1675 the lower classes in Brittany revolted at the imposition of a new tax. These disturbances
were put down with unexampled severity. Observe the language in which Madame de Sevigne, a
witness of these horrors, relates them to her daughter:
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Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America: Book III Chapter 1 - 0 views
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Your letter from Aix, my daughter, is droll enough. At least, read your letters over again before sending them, allow yourself to be surprised by the pretty things that you have put into them and console yourself by this pleasure for the trouble you have had in writing so many. Then you have kissed all of Provence, have you? There would be no satisfaction in kissing all Brittany, unless one liked to smell of wine. . . . Do you wish to hear the news from Rennes? A tax of a hundred thousand crowns has been imposed upon the citizens; and if this sum is not produced within four-and-twenty hours, it is to be doubled, and collected by the soldiers. They have cleared the houses and sent away the occupants of one of the great streets and forbidden anybody to receive them on pain of death; so that the poor wretches (old men, women near their confinement, and children included) may be seen wandering around and crying on their departure from this city, without knowing where to go, and without food or a place to lie in. Day before yesterday a fiddler was broken on the wheel for getting up a dance and stealing some stamped paper. He was quartered after death, and his limbs exposed at the four corners of the city. Sixty citizens have been thrown into prison, and the business of punishing them is to begin tomorrow. This province sets a fine example to the others teaching them above all that of respecting the governors and their wives, and of never throwing stones into their garden.1 Yesterday, a delightful day, Madame de Tarente visited these wilds; there is no question about preparing a chamber or a collation; she comes by the gate, and returns the same way. . . .
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You talk very pleasantly about our miseries, but we are no longer so jaded with capital punishments; only one a week now, just to keep up appearances. It is true that hanging now seems to me quite a cooling entertainment. I have got a wholly new idea of justice since I have been in this region. Your galley-slaves seem to me a society of good people who have retired from the world in order to lead a quiet life.
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HOW CUSTOMS ARE SOFTENED AS SOCIAL CONDITIONS BECOME MORE EQUAL We perceive that for several centuries social conditions have tended to equality, and we discover that at the same time the customs of society have been softened. Are these two things merely contemporaneous or does any secret link exist between them so that the one cannot advance without the other? Several causes may concur to render the customs of a people less rude but of all these causes the most powerful appears to me to be the equality of conditions. Equality of conditions and greater mildness in customs are, then, in my eyes, not only contemporaneous occurrences, but correlative facts.
America Magazine Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, S.J., R.I.P. - 0 views
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John Paul II and the then Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith Cardinal Ratzinger condemned the nascent liberation theology in Latin America and took strong steps to shut it down. While their motives are understandable, since they feared Marxism in its European version, and could not understand or accept a Christian version of it, this was a major misstep that ended up causing great harm to the Church. Whether they meant to or not, Wojtyla and Ratzinger were making a political choice. In preventing liberation theology, as preached by these martyrs, from reaching its full stage of development, they were keeping the Church aligned with the old power structures of Latin America. They might just as well have sent a telegram. These religious men and women, who in the name of the Gospels, stood with the poor, would not be defended by their Church. They were expendable, and they were murdered.
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The Republican candidate for President, Mitt Romney, got a large part of the initial investment to start Bain Capital from wealthy El Salvadorian clans that, beside funding Bain, also funded the right wing El Salvadoran death squads. It is unknown if any Bain profits went back to El Salvador through the hands of these investors to fund more murders of the poor, of priests and of nuns, but it is a question that needs to be answered. Certainly Bain paid these El Salvadoran “investors” many times over what they invested.
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this was a major misstep that ended up causing great harm to the Church. Whether they meant to or not, Wojtyla and Ratzinger were making a political choice. In preventing liberation theology, as preached by these martyrs, from reaching its full stage of development, they were keeping the Church aligned with the old power structures of Latin America. They might just as well have sent a telegram. These religious men and women, who in the name of the Gospels, stood with the poor, would not be defended by their Church. They were expendable, and they were murdered.
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