All I know of them is what their detractors have said.
I think this is the important point. As if all that were known about catholics was what their detractors had to say. And I have a lot to say. But it wouldn’t be a whole picture.

I would add that most religious practitioners are utterly, utterly ignorant of the history of their professed spiritual path, if not of history in general. This applies as much to the broad umbrella of paths that make up Neo-Paganism as much as it does for the Christian faith community.
While I admire some of what Starhawk has done over the years, in this petty and pointless contest she risks eliciting wholly undeserved sympathy for the most disrespectful and divisive pope to arise in many years.

Oh, give me a break.
Neopagan witches have no historical connection to the so-called “witches” accused and convicted during Catholic prosecution of such practices, and thus the Catholic church owes no apology to Neopagans.
It was Neopagans who appropriated the term “witch” to identify with, a term that has a history of negative associations in both Christian and pagan cultures, and they applied “witchcraft” to a body of practices that have very little to do with the conventional meaning of the word “witchcraft.”
This was nothing more than a sad, self-righteous attempt to gain respect and legitimacy by the mainstream.

The only problem I have with Starhawk’s article is the part where she talks about centuries of persecution. This furthers the myth that Wicca and some mystical organized Pagan religion has survived through the centuries.
Last I checked all of this has been proven false.
I hate to inform Starhawk, but Wicca is at most sixty years old. This insanity of witch cults in ancient Europe needs to stop.
Also I must for the sake of fairness must say that many of the problems in modern Paganism (fluffy-bunnies, those uneducated Pagans among us) stem largely in part from authors such as Starhawk.

How about modern harassment and discrimination to witches?? does that count Tom?
How about a Knight of the Holy See being the Secretary of the Veteran’s Affairs, and for YEARS he sits on the applications of 501C3 tax exempt Pagan churches to get the pentacle added to the list of approved symbols for deceased vets? Does that ring a bell?
This Knight of the Holy See and ex-ambassador to the Vatican had to be hauled off to court and found guilty before our war heroes got their headstones. We had soldiers waiting for proper burial. Do you call that nothing? I sure don’t.
Do your research before you slam something you obviously know nothing about Tom.

I don’t feel “entitled” as a modern day pagan to nurse a grudge about the “burning times,” nor do I feel it is useful. My issue with the Holy See and Catholicism in general these days is that any such apologies for past mistakes are insincere in light of their current attitudes and practices. What good does it do to apologize for the Inquisition, or treatment of aboriginal peoples, or sexual predators?
The spirit of authoritarianism, secrecy and self-rigteousness that informed all of these past decisions is alive and well – far stronger I would say then when they began issuing these many belated apologies. This pope clearly believes his church was at its best in the centuries prior to the Enlightenment, even the reformation. If he could snap his fingers and eliminate the barriers of secular civil authority, education and mass communication, we would have the Inquisition and the witch hunts again,and we would have them by the close of business tomorrow.
So I’m not offended that the church didn’t write out a formal and hollow apology to me as a pagan. I’m offended that they get to continue acting as an unregistered and untaxed lobbying arm of the far right to attempt to impose their dogma on the rest of us.

I agree with Patrick. As a Wiccan, my religious “heritage” can only be traced back to 1950 at best. Wicca is at best tenuously related to old witchcraft. Therefore, I do not believe anyone before the 1950s to have the ability to be my spiritual brethren.
I agree with Tom. Adding to his point, I feel these people that say “never again the burning times” have nothing better to do than have a persecution complex. Live in the past, live for the future – it’s your present choice. Aggie’s comment combined with the fact much of these widely-publicized Pagan discrimination issues with jobs often are more a result of a person failing at their job than actual religious discrimination illustrates this point keenly.
Oh, and on the headstone tangent for a moment, PVHC sat for DECADES never getting anything practical done. It was doing things the mundane way (suing someone) that got that fixed in YEARS.
Garan du has a point. Those of us who keep wanting to talk about history ought to actually research history once in a while rather than spew something they saw on Wikipedia, heard from a friend or read in a book whose sources have been deemed non-credible by the academic community.
While none of this negates the situation Kenneth describes, I think we have better more-urgent issues in the Pagan community than worry about some meaningless and ultimately pointless apology. As far as I’m concerned, that apology has already been given with the Papal apology for the inquisition.

Aggie, did you even read what I wrote? I don’t think you did, because my point was that modern day witches and the so-called “witches” during the “burning times” have no historical connection or even spiritual connection with each other, and therefore Starhawk shouldn’t be asking for an apology as if Neopagan witchcraft is a legacy of the “witchcraft” of Christian martyrs.
Modern pagan certainly don’t have it easy nowadays, that is true. There are still stigmas and some confusion, but nothing in the way of actual persecution, at least not in the U.S. You want to cry about religious persecution? Talk to a Jew or a Hellenic polytheist living in Greece.

An apology is due to witches and pagans, not for the past — the apology for the inquisition covered that — but for the present marginalization and demonization of indigenous spiritualities. And the apology is meaningless unless the conduct stops.

Starhawk did NOT “call upon the Pope .
The Washington Post structures it’s On Faith blog by asking the various folks there a question which they are to answer.
The question for 30 March was:
Pope’s Apologies Accepted?
Pope Benedict XVI has offered a number of apologies recently, for clergy sex abuse, for promoting a Holocaust denier, for statements about Islam. What does it mean that a Pope has started doing that? Should those apologies be accepted? Should more religious leaders do that?
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/2009/03/popes_apologies_accepted/all.html
9 different bloggers responded to that question w/ titles varying from “The Power of Apology” to “A Papal Cry of Pain”. “Time to Apologize to Witches” was right in there.
Part of the problem of the internet, is that it’s so easy to loose context.
Tho, I guess that’s a little like walking up to a group at a party. One doesn’t hear the previous conversation of the group…….so reacts only to what was being said when one joins the group.

Thanks, Gus, for extracting an important point from Gibson’s post.
One we,as Pagans, need to recognize.

You assert that the Pope has already apologized, but you fail to provide any specifics. If the Catholic Church has a lot of evil stuff to apologize for, they have no one but themselves to blame. I see no reason to let them off the hook until they have specifically and directly apologized to their first victims: Pagans. The Roman Empire had possibly as much of as 1/4 of the world’s population, and they were all given the choice: convert or die.
Has the Pope ever with his own mouth apologized to Pagans and Witches by name? No. He he specifically apologized for building churches on top of Pagan temples? No. Has he apologized for the burning of Pagan literature and sacred books? No.
And look at what he does apologize for: “for the use of violence committed in the name of truth”. Truth!! Pope John Paul II couldn’t even bring himself to “apologize” without simultaneously asserting that Christianity is the “truth”. Pathetic.

Thank you, Gus, for shedding some light on this knotty question. I have wondered how to reconcile the term “witch” being used in Africa without stopping to “consider the source.” But indeed, every faith tradition has its shadow side. I sometimes sit in Lakota ceremony with some Indian friends, and have been careful around them to not identify as a witch. I know that to Navajos, witches are also known as “skinwalkers” and have an evil reputation, but I suspect that the term witch was given by Christian missionaries and so might not be quite accurate. As for the criticism that I, as a pagan, have no “spiritual connection” with those who died during the witchhunts 500 years ago, I do in fact feel a strong spiritual connection to women and men who have been persecuted for millennia for holding to images of the Divine as Feminine. There may not have been a written tradition handed down, but knowledge and understanding can come through the body, through intuition, what someone used to call “grokking.” When I look at images of goddess from thousands of years ago, something deep inside me stirs and identifies. “Nature is our book,” a wise priestess told me once, and learning to trust in my own deep inner wisdom without benefit of a clergy acting as intermediary to the Divine has been the most satisfying spiritual experience I’ve had, so I’m sticking to it.
Gus, I’m trying to link to your blog on mine but the link fails. Is there a trick to this?

I am a pagan myself and I see it pointless of an apology from criminals. I know it would be insincere. I think the church has many thing to be ashamed of than just persecution of pagans (modern and past).