Posted on 07/23/2007 3:36:15 PM PDT by annalex
Sunday, July 22, 2007
As a young Catholic I was unaware of the amount of irrational hatred that was directed toward the Catholic Church and Catholics themselves. Growing up in Los Angeles I was not subject to the Fundamentalist “tracts” being placed on my family car while we were at Mass as I would have been had I lived in the “Bible Belt”. My exposure to people of other faiths was frequent and always positive. The majority of my friends growing were Jewish as were the girls whom I had the honor of dating. My babysitter growing up was Mormon, as was my Paternal Grandfather. My Paternal Grandmother is a Methodist and my Father was an atheist for most of his life. My Maternal Grandfather was a Presbyterian from a family that produced many deacons. However, my Maternal Grandmother was an Irish Catholic and thus my Mother was a Catholic and therefore we were raised Catholic. None of this was seen as a conflict. None of the above people in my family ever acted as though anything was “wrong” with my siblings and I being raised Catholic.
In my college years I essentially fell away from the faith. I still called myself a “Catholic” but had no particular belief in any of the dogmas that makes one a Catholic. I just knew that I was of Irish ancestry and thus was “Catholic”. My beliefs were for the most part agnostic. I thought that true believers were absurd (I included both theist and atheist true believers as absurd).
While in college I heard all about how the Catholic Church was responsible for the Dark Ages, the destruction of the Native Peoples of the Americas, the Holocaust, the Inquisition, pimples on teenagers, Milli-Vanilli and just about everything else that negatively effected anyone anywhere at anytime everywhere. I learned how peaceful and wonderful Muslim societies were and how Christians lived very well under Islamic rule. And how the Crusades were an evil move by a corrupt Pope to throw off that wonderful balance and have a huge land grab for greedy Churchman and Nobles. I heard how nothing good happened in the Christian world and no good men were produced in the Christian world until Marin Luther and later "the Enlightenment". I look back now and marvel at how I remained a Catholic even if it was in name only. All my history professors with their fancy PhDs thought Catholicism was a force for evil in the Western World who was I to disagree? Of course I just went along and got good grades and degrees not really challenging the idiocy that I was being taught.
There I was just a young guy going through life not contemplating the great issues of life and certainly not contemplating being a Catholic when I had the misfortune to meet a Rabbi that was a friend of my wife’s family. During our discussion, the rabbi told me about things that Christians “buy into” like the Trinity and the fact that Jesus was God. I was told that I could never understand Jews and their suffering at the hands of Catholics. I was told that I “would never know what it is to be a Jew or how it feels to have your children forced to sing Christmas carols (oh the horror! the horror!)”. I would never know what it is like to look at someone like me and see the Inquisition and the Crusades. Now, anyone who is not a self absorbed bigot would know that talking to a person who is half Irish and Catholic knows a little something of prejudice and persecution. My ancestors could not own land in their own country. They had to pay taxes to a foreign English master and support his foreign Church that was a parasite on their own land. They had real persecution. If they could have gotten off with simply singing Church of Ireland songs rather than pay taxes to and be persecuted by the British, I'm sure they would have gladly accepted. But why look past ones on victim-hood in order to see truth, when victim-hood is so much more of a commodity in our modern society.
At that point I made a commitment to understand my faith. I would never let someone attack the beliefs of my ancestors as this rabbi did without making a strong defense. My ancestors were willing to be persecuted (the real kind of persecution not the Christmas Carol kind) rather than abandon their faith. The least I could do is understand what they found so important as to endure what they did. Thus starting my journey toward becoming a passionate believer. The irony of a anti-Catholic bigoted rabbi bringing me closer to the truth of Christ is absolutely wonderful.
I started reading books by the usual authors that are sold at Borders and Barnes & Noble like George Weigel. While informative they were, upon reflection, very superficial. However, I happened upon a book called “Catholicism verses Fundamentalism” by Karl Keating. I thought it was simply going to be an analysis of Catholic beliefs versus Fundamentalist beliefs. What I had purchased was a wonderful combination of satire and apologetics. It has become the definitive apologetics book produced in the last 30 years. The title of the book itself mocks Jimmy Swaggarts silly book “Catholicism and Christianity”. Throughout the book I was baptized by fire into the world of anti-Catholicism. I learned about such Fundamentalist writers and “thinkers” as Lorraine Boettner, Alexander Hislop, Jimmy Swaggart, Jack Chick and others. Keating dismantled their arguments so thoroughly that one wonders how these people are not all routinely dismissed even by honest Fundamentalists. Sadly, low rent bigots like Hislop, Boettner and Dave Hunt are still widely read in Fundamentalist circles. Swaggart has fallen out of favor as we all know. Keating opened up a new door to me. I now was ready for the next step and started buying every book by Chesterton and Belloc I could find as they are the greatest apologists for the Catholic faith in the last 100 years.
The Holy Spirit has a funny way of working. I became friends with a wonderful guy who happens to be a Fundamentalist Christian. As we would talk he would mention some of the things that Keating talked about in his book. I was informed that Peter never went to Rome and that the Church was founded by Constantine the Great, and that Easter is really “Ishtar” and other scholarly insights that occupy the minds of Fundamentalist writers. I was told all about Catholicism and how it is really just paganism re-written. To his and most Fundamentalists credit, they literally do not know they are repeating lies. These books are sold at Protestant Book Stores and Churches. Also, he informed me of these things out of love as he believed my soul was in peril. So he could not process the refutations that I would make to him and just go on to the next attack. Most Catholics know about this tactic that Fundamentalists use. They will tell us what we believe and how stupid we are for believing it. 99% of the time they are wrong. The problem is that they have been told by Dave Hunt (his bio is from "rapture ready") or James White that the Calumnies that they are stating are Gospel truth.
After a while I began to pick up more and more apologetics material to refute my friends claims. I also decided that I would no longer play defense with him. I would attack his belief in sola scriptura (scripture alone) and sola fide (faith alone). When I would press him and ask about where those teachings are found in the Bible he would have no answer. This lead to his anger that I was asking too much to show me where the Bible taught either one of those Protestant Traditions (Traditions of men, not of God I might add). I would also repeat what he would say to me but re-phrase it to see if he really was willing to stand by it. For instance, he once told me that he was passionately anti-Catholic. I responded “Really? So if I were Jewish would it be okay for you to tell me that you are passionately anti-Jew?” He was taken aback and responded “Of course not!” I then responded “I guess some hatred is acceptable while others is not”. His response….silence. And then move on to the next attack. That is generally the tactic of the anti-Catholic. Never acknowledge that they are wrong, just move on to the next attack until they find something that the Catholic cannot answer. Usually it ends with some obscure Pope from the 7th century that no one knows about.
Anti-Catholicism rots the mind. It blinds people and they become obsessed with the destruction of something that they cannot destroy. People have been trying for 2000 years. Churchmen like Roger Mahoney have done their best. But the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it. So this leads to desperation. Which then leads to all kinds of ridiculous theories and outright lies about what Catholics believe and do. It does not stop with Fundamentalist Christians though. Before we think “well that’s just those weird bible-thumpers” let’s examine some things that people just “know”.
People "just know" that the Catholic Church did nothing in the Americas but persecute the indigenous people and massacre them. We "just know" that Priests never stood up to the Spaniards. Of course this is untrue. It is true that there were Catholic Priests who conducted themselves terribly during colonial times. However, it was Catholic Priests who sought to make life better for the indigenous people. Jesuits armed Indians against the Spanish in Paraguay, Francisco de Vittoria pleaded with the Spanish King in defense of the Indians. Most people in the Americas have never heard of Bartoleme de las Casas. Las Casas, a Spanish Dominican Priest has been called the Father of anti-imperialism and anti-racism. There is also Antonio Montesino who was the first person, in 1511, to denounce publicly in America the enslavement and oppression of the Indians as sinful and disgraceful to the Spanish nation. There of course were villains in the Spanish system but so were there in the American and English systems that were dominated by Protestants. We don’t hear about the brutality of Protestant lands in the US. We hear about those backward Spanish Catholics (who built the first Universities in the Americas) but not about the theocratic police state established in Geneva by John Calvin or the massacres carried out by Anabaptists in Munster.
In some cases anti-Catholicism is not only profitable it can allow for common bullies to slander and desecrate the memory of men finer than themselves without repercussions. Take the case of Daniel Goldhagen. He has made a career out of slandering the Catholic Church. Commenting on Mr. Goldhagens slanderous book A Moral Reckoning, Rabbi David Dalin, described Goldhagens work as "failing to meet even the minimum standards of scholarship.” He went on to say “That the book has found its readership out in the fever swamps of anti-Catholicism isn't surprising. But that a mainstream publisher like Knopf would print the thing is an intellectual and publishing scandal." This statement is absolutely correct. Let us be honest though, Goldhagen simply represents the double-standard that exists in our society. He is a left wing Jew who attacks the only group that it is acceptable to attack in modern American society, the evil Catholics. If a right wing Catholic were to make his living by attacking Judaism and slandering a prominent rabbi while blaming Judaism for the Marxist massacres under the NKVD he would be an out of work “conspiracy kook” and a anti-Semite. He would certainly not be published in the New Republic. Goldhagen has made the absurd statement that Christianity is anti-Semitic at its core. Imagine if one were to say that Judaism is anti-Gentile to its core. They would be isolated as an anti-Semite. The message is clear. A Jewish bigot like Goldhagen gets published by Knopf and the New Republic while his mirror image would be isolated and vilified.
I would like to wrap up with some other observations. All Catholics are told endless stories about Catholics persecuting people. Generally it starts with a Catholic King who orders the persecution of a group and despite the Bishops or Pope condemning it, "the Catholics" are to blame. An example of his would be during the Crusades when Crusaders massacred Jews along the Rhine. That was “the Catholics” despite the local Bishops hiding and protecting Jews. When a Protestant barbarian like Oliver Cromwell slaughters Catholics at Drogheda and sells the women and children into sex slavery or sacks Wexford that’s not “the Protestants”. That’s just Cromwell.
Much is made about Hitler being a baptized Catholic by ignoramuses like Dave Hunt. Other bigots like Goldhagen argue that Nazism was an extension of Catholic bigotry through the ages. Yet these people do not mention that Karl Marx was a Jew and that the ranks of the NKVD, some of the greatest murderers of all time, were filled with Jews. By using Goldhagens logic should we not attack Judaism and Jews? If we Catholics are and our faith are responsible for a former Catholic who later went so far as to persecute the Church, should not Jews be held responsible for Karl Marx and Genrikh Yagoda and the fact that some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish. The answer is of course not. Your Jewish neighbor has likely not heard of the NKVD, Yagoda let alone support what he and they did.
As I wrap up my thoughts on this I should say thank you to all of the people that I mention above. Especially the Rabbi who started my journey. Had he not been a self absorbed bigot, he would not have angered me and I would not have explored my own faith. I would have continued in my ignorance and would not have understood the faith that built Western Civilization and sustained my ancestors. I would not have understood the faith that Christ taught to the Apostles, that was passed on to their successors, our Bishops. I would not truly know the joy of being a Catholic. His ignorant statements brought about my reversion back to the true faith and my wife’s conversion to it. For that, I will literally be eternally indebted to him.
Woah! I did not intend it so. I opened with an admittedly snide comment about what seems to me to be overeagerness to conclude that we are dopes. When I consider all the mockery and contempt aimed at us on these threads, I hope the snideness is pardonable.
But then I said
But the point is good.
and then I tried to develop and express what Kant would call the apparent "antinomies":
How could Saul be "dead" and his summoning by the witch of Endor be a bad thing while Jesus says "... all live to Him."Maybe I should have said,"We can't think Jesus was WRONG, can we?" to make that clearer. On the one hand we have the clear prohibition against necromancy. On the other hand we have what looks like it might be Jesus saying that people who have died aren't dead. How, seriously, how shall we approach this if we shed our assumptions for a while and look at it de novo?
I was trying to show respect for your observation and point, not at all to mock it.
Of course not.
That must be because you've never had a good dry sherry. I once had a 115 year old Amontillado. Now THAT was awful -- but who cares?
Definitely the Holy Spirit WOULD make it possible if the sheep are truly following the Good Shepherd. Following heresies and churches made by men does not seem to me to be prerequisites for knowing His voice.
Again; I would reiterate that there is no Scriptural backing for the concept of multiple Churches that each follow their own doctrines.
Ammo to the people!
Thank you. Thank you berry mudge.
I was trying to show respect for your observation and point, not at all to mock it.
I respectfully submit that your reaction fortifies the main contention of this thread -- as it might be put in the least confrontative way, that discussion on FR between members of different Xtian bodies has decayed horribly.
I really was trying to leave confrontation behind and to engage the question, as I said, de novo and thoughtfully -- and you thought I was being sarcastic.
Is there an interest in trying to improve the quality of the conversation? Is there a chance of succeeding in doing so? I really don't know.
But then I said
But the point is good. and then I tried to develop and express what Kant would call the apparent "antinomies":
How could Saul be "dead" and his summoning by the witch of Endor be a bad thing while Jesus says "... all live to Him."
Maybe I should have said,"We can't think Jesus was WRONG, can we?" to make that clearer. On the one hand we have the clear prohibition against necromancy. On the other hand we have what looks like it might be Jesus saying that people who have died aren't dead. How, seriously, how shall we approach this if we shed our assumptions for a while and look at it de novo?
I was trying to show respect for your observation and point, not at all to mock it.
Sorry, this is such a poor method of communication that things don't come across as they are intended. I'm sure that happens to me all the time.
I hear so often "was Jesus wrong" "is Jesus a liar" and that is nothing but pure demagoguery. It is just a very dirty thing to do in an honest debate/discussion.
So it sort of sounds like there is question in your mind about the witch summoning Saul? Are you thinking that was not a bad thing and that the law against it is in question or that now it is ok to do? The warning against all of those "witch craft" activities are very applicable today. There is a whole world of pagan and wiccan and new age spiritual activity going on. As Christians we have a narrow path of what is right regarding gaining information and help from super natural means. It's prayer and study of the word and counsel from the saints (that is living Christians). To go outside of those bounds is to not have faith in God providing all the supernatural help we need. It's analogous to not being content with your wife and thinking you need more and better and hotter sex with other women. God has given us all that we need in our wife.
Again; I would reiterate that there is no Scriptural backing for the concept of multiple Churches that each follow their own doctrines.
I agree 100 percent. When you say churches you obviously mean denominations. There is only one "church"/"body of Christ", and that is all believers no matter which denomination they happen to find themselves in.
If we were sitting together discussing this, it would be soooooooo much better. I blame this inefficient mode of como. I know that if I could not come off so offensively, I'd make a lot more progress.
I really was trying to leave confrontation behind and to engage the question, as I said, de novo and thoughtfully -- and you thought I was being sarcastic.
Is there an interest in trying to improve the quality of the conversation? Is there a chance of succeeding in doing so? I really don't know.
Yes there definitely is.
There is no mention of worshiping an image by Paul, merely using a cross to symbolize the sacrifice that Christ made. Mary was a human being. She is not merely a symbol, about which the Mariology doctrine is clear.
I suspect if Paul were to note the Catholic doctrine toward Mary used today, the church would get a very long letter indeed.
Now between me and God, it doesn’t really matter if YOU think it’s Worship of Mary, now does it?
We know what we believe. Who really cares what anyone thinks they believe in that they know about what we are doing?
That’s the whole thing, FRiend. You are really not important at all in my, or any other Catholic’s worship. It’s not about you. So if you want to believe something, continue to have disdain for Catholic worship and spread your “myths”, it truely makes no difference to me.
I’ll try to help anyone out, to clear the air, but when one continues to have a mind that is closed, no one can clear anything. Those who stamp their feet and say, “You are wrong because I define what you do.” are gonna be in for a big surprise when they get to heaven. There are Catholics there! b’gosh and b’gorrah!
So for those who would like to believe all the “myths”, have your superior party. I’ll stay in my own. Childlike, and not worrying about what you think.
Blueapple was my CB call sign. I use the apple graphic becasue there is no such thing as a blue apple. I do not have a statue of an apple which I worship and contribute coins to.
Did the box happen to say "Candles" on it? Or "donations"?
We’re cool. Have a drink — or not depending on your persuasion.
Back into the fray later tonight. My wife expects me to earn some money now. Sheesh! WHERE are her priorities?
***Contributing coins and bills to a box***
THE COINS ARE TO PAY FOR THE CANDLES! Really, William Terrell! If you’ve seen this, then you’ve been inside a Catholic Church. Why don’t you try to find out the truth instead of making things up!
“Better to be thought a fool by keeping silent, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
I recall St. Augustine had a very godly mother - St. Monica - who prayed for him when he went off to college and strayed. You got me interested in reading up on him. Thanks :)
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