The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Christianity vs. Jean Calas

Christianity vs. Jean Calas
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Wednesday, March 18 2009, 20:44:00 (CET)
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It was in 1761, in the French town of Toulouse that this celebrated case took place. What made it unique from countless others like it was the involvement of Voltaire who took it upon himself to rescue the family and eventually force the courts to overturn the verdict against the family patriarch...but not before the father, Jean, had been horribly tortured and put to death by the Church. I say “by the Church”, because I don’t play their game of absolving themselves of murder by handing people they have tortured into confession over for execution and judicial murder by the State, thereby washing their hands...like their Roman ancestor Pilate.

The Calas family were Protestant, in a land heavily Catholic where persecution and murder of Protestants had been common practice for years. Years before, in one 24 hour period on the Eve of St Bartholemew's Day 10,000 Protestants were murdered by their neighbors, family and friends and the Pope had the bells ringing in gratitude to god.

The Calas family consisted of father, mother, three sons and two daughters. They had in their service a Catholic governess for over 30 years even though she had converted one son (Louis) to Catholicism. The oldest son, Marc Antoine, had studied Law and was prepared to begin practice when he learned that his chosen profession was closed to all but Catholics. Rather than waste his years of study he tried to hide his faith and get a certificate proving he was Catholic. His lie was discovered and he faced the choice of abandoning his faith or letting years of study go to waste. He took to brooding and eventually hanged himself one night when the family was gathered for dinner.

From Durant’s “Age of Voltaire”, pp 728-730

“At this point the father made a tragic error. He knew that the law then in force required that a suicide be drawn naked through the streets, be pelted by the populace with mud and stones, and then be hanged; and all his property be forfeited to the state. The father begged, and persuaded, his family to report the case as a natural death.”

The family was arrested; wife, father, two daughters and Pierre, the son who’d remained Protestant. They were held separately for the night.

“On the next day each of them was questioned. All abandoned the claim of natural death, and testified to a suicide. The commandant of police refused to believe them, and charged them with having killed Marc Antoine to prevent his becoming a convert...A frenzy of revenge closed the minds of the people.”

Marc Antoine became a martyr to the people; supposedly murdered by his own family to prevent his conversion to the “true” faith of Jesus Christ.

“Assuming that the youth was not a suicide they buried the corpse with great pomp in the Church of St. Stephen. A part of the clergy protested in vain against this anticipation of a verdict of murder.”

At the trial...

“Several persons appeared. A barber testified that he had heard a cry from the Calas house on the fatal evening: ‘ Ah, mon Dieu, they are strangling me!’ Others claimed to have heard such cries. On November 10, 1761, the municipal court pronounced Jean Calas, his wife, and Pierre guilty, and sentenced them to be hanged; it condemned Lavaysse ( visiting friend, mine) to the galleys, and Jean Vigniere to five year’s imprisonment. The Catholic governess had sworn to the innocence of her Protestant employers.”

The case was appealed and dragged on for three months while the family sat in prison. All the evidence was hearsay.

“The final decision condemned only the father. No one explained how a man 64 years old, unaided, could have overcome and strangled his mature son. The court hoped that Calas, under torture, would confess. He was subjected to the ‘question ordinaire’; his arms and legs were stretched until they were pulled from their sockets. He was repeatedly exhorted to confess; he repeatedly affirmed that Marc Antoine had committed suicide. After a half hour’s rest he was put to the ‘question extraordinaire’; fifteen pints of water were poured down his throat (Christians never change); he still protested his innocence; fifteen further pints were forced into him, swelling his body to twice its normal size; he still maintained his innocence. He was allowed to expel the water. Then he was taken to a public square before the cathedral; he was laid upon a cross; an executioner, with eleven blows of an iron bar, broke each of his limbs in two places; and the old man, calling upon Jesus Christ, proclaimed his innocence. After two hours of agony he was strangled. The corpse was bound to a stake and burned (March 10, 1762)”

Hearing of this, Voltaire became the champion of the Calas family, taking them under his own roof and providing all their expenses. He also began his famous crusade against Christian intolerance which gained enough support across Europe that the verdict was eventually overturned.

There are many observations one could make about this case. Chief among them is that it was not unique or isolated. This was common practice in Christian Europe and it was cases such as this plus the religious wars that must have convinced the Founding Fathers that the United States would NOT be a Christian country, but a country which allowed religious freedom and toleration...at least by law.

It’s also good to point out that the charge that a father would strangle his own son to prevent him from converting is exactly what the Catholic Church, indeed all churches, was guilty of. All of them were capable of killing their own flesh and blood and did on numerous occasions...that’s why no one found the charge preposterous...least of all the government and Church. Since both entities regularly killed “their own” they believed all people capable of such monstrous cruelty.

One other point; When, in all Islam, have such things occurred?



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