Even with acknowledging the sins of the past, there is a case to be made for the achievements of Christendom and for Western civilisation.20 Whatever its failings, which are obviously many, Christendom gave us schools, academies, universities, hospitals, the Enlightenment, the rise of science, and notions of universal human rights, things that are impossible without Christianity being hardwired into the moral and intellectual DNA of the West. Christianity is the reason why the gladiatorial games ended and slave-markets were shut down. The pope’s Christendom was preferable to Caesar’s paganism.
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