Camilo2002
Aristocracy
- Joined
- May 28, 2008
- Messages
- 134
- City
- Toronto
- Country
- Canada
Spain seeks sainthood for Isabella
By Isambard Wilkinson in Madrid
(Filed: 23/04/2003)
Spain's Roman Catholic bishops are to petition the Pope to canonise Queen Isabella of Castile, one of history's most vilified monarchs.
Senior churchmen led by Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco, the Archbishop of Madrid, yesterday revived a campaign asking that Queen Isabella be beatified, the first step towards being made a saint.
They hope for her to be beatified next year to mark the 500th anniversary of her death.
During her tempestuous 15th century reign, Isabella conquered much of Latin America for the Vatican, ended the 700-year presence of Moors and Jews on the Iberian Peninsula and assured the hegemony of Castile and the Catholic Church in Spain.
"We have investigated every aspect of this controversial and fascinating woman and it appears to be the time to abandon intransigence and see her in the context of her time and environment," said Jose Delicado, the Archbishop of Vallodolid, at the launch of the campaign, which was attended by Latin American ambassadors to Madrid.
Earlier attempts to launch Isabella - or La Catolica as she became known - on the road to sainthood ended in ignominy.
Waves of protest accompanied a 1999 initiative, with her detractors accusing her of exiling Jews and Muslims from Spain, instigating genocide in Latin America and setting up the Inquisition, which tortured and burnt hundreds of her countrymen at the stake.
The dictator Gen Franco instigated a campaign for Isabella's canonisation in 1952, believing that she embodied the ideals of "national Catholicism" along with its connotations of religious and racial purity.
But her popularity with Franco tarnished her image and the Vatican put to one side the 217 volumes and 800,000 documents sent to them by the then archbishop of Vallodolid.
Article From: news.telegraph.co.uk
Because if the church was sanctioning and encouraging the torture of people by royal fiat, that is something to be regretted. The present Pope is resisting being held to account for the sexual molestation by priests under his aegis. After all Ratzinger was Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. Not as sexy as it's former title The Inquisition, which Isabella enthusiastically encouraged as did her offspring Phillip, His Most Catholic Majesty.She behaved as she behaved because the Church she trusted said it was the right way of behaving. She was a saint so.
As a Catholic, the problem for me is that the Church seems now to have changed its way of seeing things: so now why should one person work hard trying to do what the Church tell him to do if in few centuries they will change their mind??
Can't we stop discussing this? The first time I've heard of this story has been here. Q. Isabel I has been the best queen the spaniards have ever had. But clearly she is not a saint because she didn't do any miracle.
And she wasn't more "genocidal" than the rest of the monarchs of the rest of Europe, this reeks of double standard in my opinion
Well, you are right that there were many monarchs no better than she, but sainthood was the discussion and they are not being discussed for sainthood. Those of us who think she is poor material for a saint, have said so. By the way, she destroyed and drove out many industrious, educated people from Spain, hardly a testimony for a "Good Queen".
Q. Isabel I has been the best queen the spaniards have ever had. But clearly she is not a saint because she didn't do any miracle.
And she wasn't more "genocidal" than the rest of the monarchs of the rest of Europe, this reeks of double standard in my opinion
I quite agree. It's like I said, her country and her faith were the most important things to her. And yes, many monarchs also were genocidal.