One of the points raised in the wake of last week’s Sapienza business that it was too ironic – insanely, laughably ironic – to hear a Pope or representatives thereof speak of “freedom of thought.”
After all…Bruni…Galileo…Wyclife…Index…
So what is the response?
I’ll tell you what I’m not terrifically interested in – the parsing of history to the end of isolating the “repressive” action in the past to the point at which we can say, well, technically speaking, looking at it all in context, officially, magisterially speaking…the Church really had nothing to do with it, you know.
Which is, too often, I’m afraid, the impression left by apologetics directed to these types of questions.
Yes, there are contextual questions to consider. In the Middle Ages, for example, the contemporary arrangement of a secular state with freedom of religion would have been impossible for most to imagine. Having varieties of Christianity, lined up next to each other down the road, would have been unthinkable. People thought differently about authority, and it is impossible and unfair to try to impose our own understanding on that mileu.
History is often misunderstood.
Yes, there is a distinction between what the Church teaches and how that is played out on the local level, in real time.
These are important and history should be clarified.  But sometimes our essential consideration of these factors lead to an impression that we are brushing that same history off.
But I think the insistence that religion, period, and especially Catholicism,  stands against human freedom, and historically always has, is a cry that is only going to get more fervent in the future.
So what is the answer you would give?