bernard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sophie Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > You'll have to provide other evidence of
> this
> > "deeply held view," Bernard, because the
> teachings
> > of Joachim de Fiore were soon repudiated by
> the
> > church, by the Lateran Council and following,
> and
> > demolished by Thomas Aquinas.
>
> Be that as it may. What I know is the millenarian
> vision of Fiore was revived and was the driving
> force behind the evangelizing efforts of the
> Franciscans in the New World. The idea was that
> (1)the Indians were the Lost Tribes of Israel (2)
> that. if they were converted, they together with
> the Franciscans could set up the “New Jerusalem”
> and (3) bring about the Second coming. This is
> clearly set out in John l. Phelan. 1972. The
> Millenarian Kingdom of the Fransicans in the New
> World and also in a book I translated G. Baudot.
> 1995. Utopia and History in Mexico. Trans. B.R.
> Ortiz de Montellano and T. Ortiz de Montellano.
> Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
> A quote from the latter:
...
> . . .
> There is no doubt that the men chosen by los
> Angeles and Valencia to make up the first group of
> missionaries to face the unknown in Mexico had
> been selected because of their belief in the views
> of their guardians and because they shared the
> same hopes about the ultimate significance of
> their enterprise. Two of the first chosen, Fray
> Toribio de Benavente and Fray Martín de la Coruña,
> who later participated in the ethnographic
> inquiries about the native civilizations, were
> clearly oriented in those directions. It also
> appears that subsequent missionaries chosen were
> also believers in Guadalupism and were fervent
> followers of San Gabriel, and this was done long
> enough to maintain and make the particular ethos
> of the Mexican mission irreversible.
>
This is one of the best reasons for the very
> special tenor of the evangelization of the Mexican
> territories by the Franciscans between 1524 and
> 1564. We know today, as the result of several
> revisionist studies in the last few years, that
> the Franciscans of Mexico planned their actions in
> the New World according to a Joachinist inspired
> millenarian program. The very characteristics of
> that New World which was surprising, as much for
> its unexpected geographical location as for its
> strange peoples, were of such a providential
> nature that they inspired a belief that the
> Joachinist prophecies had begun to be realized, in
> 1524, with the arrival in Mexico of the twelve
> reformed Franciscans. The Franciscans of New Spain
> themselves tell of this in their texts. Between
> 1585 and 1596, Mendieta, a late disciple of San
> Gabriel and an attentive follower of Motolinía in
> analyzing the goals sought in the first years of
> the odyssey of the conversion of the Mesoamerican
> peoples, gave the clearest written version of this
> program of action. Reading the available
> correspondence of Mendieta, and his Historia
> eclesiastica indiana, as well as Motolinia's
> Historia, one learns of the broad design conceived
> and put into action to achieve the dreams of
> Joachinism during the period in which the
> Franciscans had a monopoly on the future of
> Mexico. Thus we find that the Franciscans were
> pleasantly surprised at the malleability of their
> native catechumens, and by the promise such an
> attitude implied, "... the mass of Indians were
> prepared to be the purest Christians and the best
> behaved in the whole world..."
> . . .
Thank you for this, which I have quoted only in brief to save space. Not to discredit your scholarship in the least, but you have provided an extensive exegesis of a single data point: that the Franciscans, a monastic order, not the church as a whole, revived a discredited theology to advance their ambitions during a forty-year period of opportunism in Mexico from 1524 to 1564.
The claim Joanne made is as follows:
"Officially, the position of the church for a long time has been that Christ will not come again until everyone believes. That is the basis for the evangelism, the desire to convert."
No one would argue that the church considers itself to have an apostolic mission and has had since Jesus instructed his apostles to spread the word. What I am disputing, specifically, is that it is the official position of the church that Christ will not come again until everyone believes. If you have evidence of that, I would be interested in seeing it and I will gladly acknowledge that I was ignorant of the official position.
Sophie
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2004 12:03AM by Sophie.
