Anti-Catholicism, Hypocrisy and Double Standards

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.

I did not write the article, but where do you suggest it indicates hatred of Jews or Judaism? In fact the author agrees with the premise that anti-Jewish passion is wrong:

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”.

yeah you have a lot of things

Sacraments, scripture and history is what we have that is pertinent to the question, "which is the Church Christ founded?"; those other things, real or imaginary, are not.

I have a change of the subject

No kidding. Of course you do. Quoting from the article:

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.

To answer your question, the fundamentalist Christians have a faulty concept of salvation as a one time event of spiritual rebirth following which salvation is secured. The Church does not teach that; in fact, we teach that this notion invites a serious sin of presumption. We teach that following the rebirth of baptism the Christian endures a life of struggle and sanctification, sustained by the Blessed Sacraments of the Catholic Church, and dies in hope of eternal life as an act of divine mercy.

I’m going to pop in here. The OP can back me up or shoot me down.

This article was not about hating Jewish people. It was about the Non-Catholics who would have no problem debating Catholic doctrine and practices but be horrified that anyone would do the same to Jewish doctrine and practices.

I have used this argument many a time on threads. I have asked someone who has come onto a thread only to spread “myths” about what Catholics do, would they do the same on one of Alouette or Sjackson’s threads. I’m on their ping lists and would be equally offended if that person were to go on there and be this crass.

When we are told by a Christian that we are practicing idolatry, it is kind of like (although not as horrible) a Palestinian stating that Jewish people are pigs and monkeys. They are saying we are pagans.

So please don’t take offense to the Jewish reference. Trust me, if someone were to do this kind of thing to any of my Jewish friends, I would be there with a smackdown personally. No one touches the chosen people in my book.

I know it is not about hating anyone. I’m just saying it leaves that sour taste in my mouth. If I can pinpoint why, I’ll post it.
As for me, I have walked in many shoes, so I try not to point fingers at religions, religious beleifs and believers.
I believe it takes the whole lot of it to make the world, even if at some point or another all are guilty of some kind of mistreatment towards “the others”.

I hope this won't sound nit-picky, but I want to point out that neither a question, a recommendation, or an assessment is a feeling as such.

I'd wager that you had a complex of feelings which led you to consider yourself (vicariously - if you're not Jewish) attacked. And then you felt (a little?) angry.

But that's all just me guessing. What I get from your post is that you think the post is anti-semitic and you think either the anti-semitism should be, as they say, "owned" or denied - and, if it's denied, then the post should be edited.

Since annalex didn't write the post (did he?) I think it would be wrong for him to edit it. If it IS in part indeed anti-semitic, maybe he could explain that those parts don't reflect his views.

And here you could help because you could point out what parts you think might be anti-semitic.

I think feelings can be based on faulty perceptions, so they don't always make good guides for decision making. It makes me feel bad to pass up a second helping of macaroni and cheese. Seriously, I get a tad depressed! But that's no reason NOT to pass it up. I probably ought to pass up the first helping as well, come to think of it. Now I'm really sad!

And sometimes, when my performance or my behavior is being justly criticized, I get to feeling hurt, afraid, ashamed, and then angry or defensive (or both). But the criticism might be not only just but good for me. It's not good mental hygiene to make the feeling go away, I think, but it's not good mental hygiene to believe the propositions those feelings prompt me to make.

That's how it looks to me.

So what do you THINK, rather than FEEL, should be reconsidered, and why do you think so, if you care to say ....

Are you Jewish?
Then perhaps it’s that the bigotry toward you comes sugar coated sometimes. It looks pretty on the outside but is poo when one gets right down to it. I think this makes one wonder about the motivations of a person who mentions some of the things here.

We just saw the movie “Hairspray”. One character’s mother is very Catholic, with a Miraculous Medal necklace and a rosary. She is stereotypical, bigoted, zealot who ties her daughter up with a jumprope when she does something wrong and throws Holy Water on her. I should have been very offended by her, but I realized that portraying a Catholic is easy with all of outward signs of being Catholic. More than any other religious zealot. For the few minutes this was on, I over looked it, because the rest of the movie is so bright and happy.

It might be hard, and I apologize if the article offended you, but please understand that I feel the author would be horrified if they were truly meant to be slams or if he knew you felt this way.

And that's YOUR party line. So now that we've all taken our ten steps away from each other and turned around and aimed, can we try to figure it out?

On some other thread the RM said it couldn't be a caucus thread because another "confession" was mentioned. The only thing other than Calflicks was some "non-denominational" house of worship.

So I asked myself is "non-denomonational" is a confession. And I suppose it is, as regards ecclesiology.

OOOH OoH! I just figured out ONE way to epress the difference: From YOUR POV, we Calflicks let the Church do the work that you would say belongs to the Bible, while from OUR POV, you guys let the Bible do the work that belongs to the Church.

SO you all say that if one hears of Christ and believes Him and in Him one is in good shape as regards after-life AND one can turn to the BIble for help understanding details and moral issues and like that. And those who do all that are in the Church, which has no defining perceptible characteristics, though we can pretty much guess that unless something happened in the Bunker Hitler ain't in it and, say, that girl who was killed in Columbine and the killer asked her if she believed in God, and she said, "Yes," and then he asked her,"Why?" and murdered her -- pretty safe bet she's in.

And we'd say pretty much the same thing about Hitler and the girl at Columbine ("baptism of blood" if she wasn't previously validly baptized) but we'd rely on the magisterium AND the Bible for the details and moral stuff.

Is that fair?

Wait! You mean it's wrong to tie somebody up and throw holy water on them?

Uh OH.

How about handcuffs? Are they okay?

I mean I have the rosary and the Miraculous Medal I wear all the time. But, but, I LIKE being tied up!

No. Wait. I've said too much.

heh heh heh

So you had to go a Byzantine song book to reference that one?

Song book? What the heck are you talking about, that's from a Divine Liturgy book, the sort we use every week.

Or are you just using the pattern described in the original article and changing the subject now that I've shown that asking the saints for their prayers is no different that asking any loved one for their prayers?

I would say Fundies -- as a matter of doctrine. I mean isn't it a critical aspect of TULIP and all that one knows one is saved?
We don't have anything like that. At best we "know" Jesus is the savior.

I agree. But our discussion has been about who has confidence in their doctrine. RC's have utmost confidence in their Church, but for what? It suddenly seems a bit ironic to me to have so much confidence in a Church but not in whether or not you are even a Christian/Saved.

The non RC has a simpler faith and confidence in what Jesus did for him/her personally.

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