9 - The Church's system of law, called Canon Law, is the basis of much of the law in the world's Western culture.
8 - Catholics not only read The Bible, but put The Bible together.
7 - Pope John Paul II snuck out of the Vatican more than 100 times to go skiing in the Italian Alps without anyone noticing.
6 - If your last name is "Zolp" then you get a full scholarship to Loyola Chicago, that is, if you can verify that is really your name with your birth certificate and baptismal certificate. Only 4 people have received the scholarship so far.
5 - The Vatican is the smallest country in the world and has a total land area of 0.44 square kilometers.
4 - The Vatican's largest export is postage stamps.
3 - Excommunication does not mean someone is "kicked out of the Church" or "sent to hell".
2 - The Catholic Church is not anti-science. In fact, many of the major scientific discoveries have been made by Catholics (some who were priests). The Vatican even has an observatory.
1 - The Catholic Church is the mother of the modern university.
Re: #9 on Canon Law:
ReplyDeleteThis is only partially true. While Canon Law is one strand of the modern Western legal tradition, it is certainly neither the only one nor the largest. Other influences are Germanic tribal law (the basis of significant swathes of English common law), the King's Writs (the basis of other significant swathes of English common law), and ancient Roman Law, as preserved in the Code of Justinian and his Digest. These compilations of Roman Imperial law, promulgated in the 6th century in the East, was never implemented in the West until its rediscovery in 12th-century Bologna, where it formed one half (the Corpus Iuris Civilis, or Body of Civil Law) of the law taught at the world's first law school, the University of Bologna. The other half was, of course, the Corpus Iuris Canonici, that is, Canon Law. But Canon Law was only one of these several components that make up modern law.
#9 is not true.
ReplyDeleteMuch western law is based upon the faulty philosophy of John Locke and others. (Sorry, don't have my Canon Law course notes handy to provide more specific info.)
Canon Law has its basis in some Roman Law, but draws from several other sources, including but not limited to Scripture, Moral Theology, and some other things.
Having studied some law in college and then learning about Canon Law in my grad program, well....Canon Law is a far superior system to Western law. Canon Law applies only to the person/situation. Our Western types of legal system is based upon precedent and therefore always in a state of flux.
I like the fact that St. Louis Cathedral (Basilica) is in this post. That's also a wonderful Catholic fact!
ReplyDeleteI love your lists!
ReplyDeleteA small correction however... #10 should be "saints" not "Saints" (small 's').
I could have been more precise with #9. The structure of Canon Law is the most influential part (the way it is codified)....not the content.
ReplyDelete#2, There's a good book called, "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization"
ReplyDeleteThanks for an upbeat look at Catholicism and the Catholic Church.
ReplyDeleteAddition to #5: The Vatican is also the first and only carbon-neutral state, thanks to Pope Benedict XVI.
ReplyDelete