Overthrowing leftist governments in South America during cold war
The Latin American clergy were divided between those who opposed the US-linked dictators, like Oscar Romero and the Liberation Theologians, and those who supported the US-linked dictators, like the Catholic University of Chile.
the current Pope is so openly linked with the first group that he is regularly getting accused of being a "Peronist" "dictator" by people in the church.
Partitioning and colonizing China
There were five powers involved in partitioning spheres of influence in China. 2 Protestant, 1 Orthodox, 1 Shinto, 1 Catholic. Oh and the Ottoman Sultan, as the Islamic Caliph, also issued an order against Hui soldiers fighting for the Boxers. All of them are equally guilty. You could argue that the Boxer Rebellion provocations started with a German Catholic, but the German government and public, who were largely not Catholic nor even friendly to Catholics, were the ones who used the missionaries as a pretext. If all the religions are involved, rationally speaking the use of any specific religion as a pretext means nothing and can easily be substituted with something else by the 19th century powers who were driven by economic imperialism.
outside Europe pre-19th century.
I'm assuming that this refers to colonialism (I assume it is not the crusades, which was tit-for-tat for similar anti-Christian actions by Caliph Al Hakim in Jerusalem. We can't fault the Westerners for engaging in petty revenges especially when they were not the most powerful civilization yet).
Well, like the Latin American situation, it was divided between the people like Bartolome de las casas who supported the rights of natives and Sepulveda who didn't.
Ultimately, even though de Las Casas won, most Spaniards refused to obey on the issue anyway.
When it comes to respect for other cultures, again also divided. Look at the Chinese Rites Controversy, one celebrating Chinese culture and one opposing
The Jesuit China Missions was largely responsible for the cultural Chinoiserie craze in Europe, and the craze started shifting towards contempt with the (non-Catholic) MacCartney Embassy and other British activities.
You argue that although not all Catholics are bad, the organisation is bad as a whole. Well, based on current activities and history, they don't even function as a single organisation. Back to the original point of the discussion, it is a terrible mistake for China to make sweeping assumptions about Western countries based on religion. I certainly don't think there is any impassable barrier between Catholic countries and Russia, or even Catholic countries and China. That would bring us close to reverting to the kind of all or nothing, no compromise, only export of revolution ideas of the '60s, that really did not help China's foreign policy.
The Church was more powerful than the monarchy in France
monarchies of Spain and Portugal had liberal constitutions, were Masonic
I think we should be careful not to exaggerate the power of political Catholics in 19th/early 20th century France. The Catholic faction had some influence under the July Monarchy and the Second Empire because both regimes tried to suck up alternately between the left and right to increase their grip on power. But they ended up in this unstable compromise because the Catholic faction was too weak to rebel outright and fight a long series of civil wars against the liberal governments and eventually win power like what happened in Spain and Portugal. Meanwhile the Catholic faction grumbled under Orleanist and Napoleonic rule so much that they even worked with Liberals in the Second Empire to force concessions from the government.
Anyway this derailment has gone on long enough, bye.
