Browsing: Religion

A Brief History In early 2015, a new book made the fantastic claim that Henry VIII nearly divorced his sixth and final wife to take on a seventh one!  In Henry VIII’s Last Love by David Baldwin, it is asserted that Henry was planning to divorce Catherine Parr to marry another widow, Catherine Willoughby. Digging Deeper Contrary to what one may assume, however, the title of this article does not refer to Catherine Willoughby but to Queen Catherine Parr herself. “What?!” you might ask yourself in confusion, “how could this wife be forgotten, especially since she is always portrayed in…

A Brief History On February 25, 1336, the 4,000 defenders of the medieval Lithuanian fortress of Pilénai thought they had no other choice but to make the horrible decision to kill themselves and their families after torching and destroying everything they had of value to deny their Teutonic besiegers the spoils of victory and the opportunity to kill or enslave them. Digging Deeper The number of women and children sacrificed is unknown, but even just the number of defenders, recorded at 4,000, is more than enough to rank as history’s largest mass suicide, eclipsing the 900+ dead at Masada in 37-31 B.C. and the 900+…

A Brief History On February 11, 2013, the sitting Pope of the Catholic Church, Benedict XVI, announced his resignation from the papacy.  As no pope had voluntarily resigned in about 500 years, this news shocked the entire world, not just the Catholic world. Digging Deeper Born Joseph Ratzinger in Bavaria, he first became a priest, then an archbishop, then a cardinal before ascending to the papacy in 2005 when he succeeded Pope John Paul II.  At one point fairly liberal, Benedict became much more conservative starting in 1968.  At his resignation at age 86, he claimed old age and infirmity (“lack of strength of mind and body”). As…

A Brief History This past week has been a doozy for controversial remarks by high-profile world leaders! Digging Deeper First, on Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Pope Francis said, “One time, I heard a father say, ‘At times I have to hit my children a bit, but never in the face so as not to humiliate them.’ That’s great. He had a sense of dignity. He should punish, do the right thing, and then move on.”  This comment has been taken as an endorsement by the Head of the Catholic Church of parental spanking within reason.  Most Americans seem to agree with his…

A Brief History In having his marriage Anne of Cleves annulled and immediately marrying Catherine Howard, Henry VIII committed his biggest marital blunder following his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.  By leaving Anne of Cleves, he left perhaps his most suitable wife after Catherine for the least suitable one of them all! Digging Deeper Nowadays Catherine Howard would be considered little more than a school girl, but she did not even have that going for her as reading and writing provided her great difficulty, her education having been sorely neglected.  In fact, despite being the granddaughter of a duke, not only was so little attention…