It is the birthday of Odet de Coligny (above), history’s most unpredictable cardinal. Born in 1517, he was made cardinal at 16, archbishop at 17, was never ordained priest, converted to Calvinism, tried to carry on being a cardinal, got excommunicated as a heretic by the Pope, married his mistress, accompanied her to a society event dressed in his cardinal’s robes, fought in a battle, fled to London for asylum, got Elizabeth I to give him money to help French Protestants, died when he was poisoned by his servant, and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, where he still remains.
The Scopes Monkey Trial, the showdown between evolution and Christian fundamentalism, opened today in 1925, in Dayton, Tennessee. John Scopes, a teacher, was prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution in a public school, which had been made illegal in Tennessee a few weeks earlier. It was the first trial to be broadcast live on radio, and enterprising traders sold toy monkeys and souvenir Bibles to the multitudes who came to watch. Joe Mendi, a showbiz chimpanzee who had been a vaudeville hit on Broadway, became the trial mascot, performing stunts at Dayton’s schools and stores.
‘The contest between evolution and Christianity is a duel to the death. It has been in the past a death struggle in the darkness. From this time on it will be a death grapple in the light. If evolution wins in Dayton, Christianity goes – not suddenly, of course, but gradually – for the two cannot stand together. They are as antagonistic as light and darkness, as good and evil.’ William Jennings Bryan, prosecution attorney in the Scopes trial
Today in 1998, the Catholic Diocese of Dallas agreed, on appeal, to pay $23.4 million to eight former altar boys, plus three other boys, who were sexually abused by Rudolph Kos, a former priest. One of Kos’s victims shot himself. At the original trial a year earlier, the jury awarded $119.6 million, and took the unusual step of rebuking the diocese in a statement read out in court. ‘Please admit your guilt and allow these young men to get on with their lives’, they said. But the diocese appealed, and the compensation paid to the abused victims was hugely reduced.
Today is the birthday of John Calvin, born in 1509 in Picardy, France. Why not celebrate by making a comprehensive list of all the sins and iniquities you have ever committed, plus some you haven’t, but inevitably will?
Image: Dguendel