Replies

That may be. If it were a slur on Harley, than it was over-the-top. But I didn't read it that way - I read it as a recitation of the history of anti-catholic bigotry. In the Protestant world, we think nothing of it, because our anti-Catholic rhetoric ends at the church door, and is entirely theological. The Catholics remember how bad things were just 50 years ago. When John Kennedy ran for President, a lot of the voters were really concerned that his loyalties would lie with a foreign power, and not the United States. We don't know how much things have changed in the past 50 years - now, John Kerry's problem was that he was not enough of a traditionalist Catholic.

Anti-catholicism was a huge problem in the United States. Ever wonder why the Catholics created a whole parochial school system? One of the driving forces behind compulsary education laws was that the public schools would indoctrinate the Catholicism out of the kids, and turn them into good American Protestants, loyal to the President and not the Pope.

Anti-catholic bigotry was very real, and it's only been a generation since the dramatic shift in Evangelical attitudes towards Catholicism started.

For more information about this, read Mark Noll's Is the Reformation Over?. It's an examination of the interactions between the Evangelical community and the Catholic Church by one of the best evangelical academics out there.

"I do think that the comparison between Harley and the KKK (which was the poster's intent) was beyond the pale."

There has been no comparison made between HarleyD and the KKK. You specifically lectured me on not assigning intent to others, and now you have assigned it to me, P-Marlowe. The reference to the KKK was an attempt to explain to you that you do not understand anti-Catholicsm, which you do not.

I do not experience HarleyD as a hateful person, but for the life of me, I do not understand why he relentlessly misrepresents Catholicism, nor do I understand why this has been done by him daily for the past two months. It does appear there is an obsession with the Church, and it is an obsession that manifests as a relentless distortion of the Catholic faith. I do not remember the last time I logged onto Free Republic and did not see new posts by Harley against the Catholic Faith. If there's a legitimate interest, so be it, but what we are seeing is a persistent distortion that is refractory to discussion.

HarleyD, do you see that post 36 was a distortion of Catholic doctrine? Do you understand this? I am picking this out as an example. Can you recognize a difference between what the Catholic faith teaches, and what you have claimed it teaches?