An Atheist Who Fought Anti-Catholic Bigotry

Defending History. Professor Rodney Stark who defended history against – quote - “centuries of anti-Catholic lies,” died on July 21 at the age of 88. Stark was a long-time professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington, and later Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baptist Baylor University. He became famous for his book “Bearing False Witness. Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History.” Stark said about this oeuvre, “'I wrote this book to defend history.”

Fighter Against Lies. Stark who wasn’t a Catholic, was perhaps the most effective living apologist for the Church of Rome in the history of the West. He grew up in Lutheranism and – quote - "like all Lutherans" was "enlightened on the perversion of Catholics" every Sunday at services. He spent most of his life as an atheist and returned to Christianity only after he had turned 60.

The Lies. Among the Anti-Catholic lies Kraft debunked were an alleged Catholic Anti-Semitism motivated by the accusation of deicide; an alleged existence of 'enlightened' gospels covered up by an obtuse clergy; an alleged extermination of pagans following the Christian 'conquest' of Rome; allegedly 'dark’ Middle Ages finally interrupted by an Enlightenment; the Crusades as the first bloody act of European colonialism; alleged crimes of the Spanish Inquisition, the alleged witch-hunt; the Galileo case as an alleged proof of the Church's phobia towards science; an alleged justification of slavery; an alleged support for dictatorships; an alleged superiority of the Protestant Reformation.

More Lies. Stark criticises in the book what he calls “illustrious bigots” who “eagerly embraced” anti-Catholic lies. He quotes, for example, the legend that Christopher Columbus discovered America to prove by navigation that the Earth was round and not flat, as Spanish cardinals opposed to his enterprise allegedly believed. This lie was invented out of thin air in 1828 by Washington Irving. In Austria and Germany, it was still taught in schools in 2009.

Stark showed that the “dark” Middle Ages never existed. On the contrary, the most important key to the rise of Western civilisation was the dedication of so many brilliant Medieval minds to the pursuit of knowledge. Nevertheless, the "illustrious bigots" continue to enjoy astonishing credibility, especially in the oligarchs’ media, even when their dishonest theses had been refuted. This is the case of John Cornwell, the infamous author of Hitler's Pope, a milestone of anti-Pope XII propaganda, discredited abundantly, and still quoted by media activists.