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.
He didn't say NO. He simply ignored an opportunity. If Mary were who the church thinks she is, He would have confirmed it. He didn't.
>>He didn’t say NO. <<
Amen, amen, amen!
Then answer this....
A parent has two children.
One makes me a birthday card with circles and scratches
One spends the whole piggy bank on a card with a poem and great art work.
Which child whould that parent love more?
Which would the parent correct?
I don't hate Catholics, but I'm deeply contemptuous of the policy declaring men in the Catholic church and regard them as running a con job on innocent folks.
It turns out that you didn’t. I’ve been engaged in too many different but similar conversations to be able to keep them straight.
Many apologies. You did not say that. I retract that statement.
If you take a look back at what it was that he replied to—your post 679—you'll note that your last 3 words to him were, "I know you".
Oh sure, in your very next post, you attempted to clarify that statement. Your attempt failed because, for whatever reason, although you removed your own name from the To: field, you failed to enter his. Therefore, since the post wasn't addressed to him, it didn't show up on his Pings (aka My Comments) page, and that surely explains why he apparently didn't see it.
Regardless, I think his earlier gender gap comment described the situation perfectly. In certain cases, any attempt to bridge that gap is simply wasted effort.
My mistake.
However, with this....
>>Regardless, I think his earlier gender gap comment described the situation perfectly. In certain cases, any attempt to bridge that gap is simply wasted effort.<<
I restated it, taking all gender references out.
He still didn’t answer.
Likely because it had nothing to do with the gender of your cute little 'question' but, rather, that of your self. :)
Well, that’s really nice of you to state his intentions, but until he comes in and answers it, I’ll be waiting.
“I don’t hate Catholics, but I’m deeply contemptuous of the policy declaring men in the Catholic church and regard them as running a con job on innocent folks.”
W.T., I know you don’t hate Catholics. Do you think the Church hierarchy knows they worship Mary and tricks the laity into not knowing? Do Catholics choose to worship Mary?
Freegards
LOL. More evidence to support to the theory.
>>LOL. More evidence to support to the theory<<
I’m sorry, I’m not getting what you are saying at all.
Paul, in discussing faith before Jesus came, pointed to the faith of Abraham, and others, as an example of the faith that Jesus preached. Nowhere did he mention Mary.
If Mary is so important, why was she not mentioned in all of the New Testament beyond when she was alive, even beyond when Jesus gave her to John to take care of her?
But Mary's divinity wasn't recognized by Peter, Paul and the rest of the teachers and disciples? Until the Catholic ecumenical council realized the truth? You probably should examine this very closely.
You have no Biblical authority for deification of the lady - you have already capitalized an pronoun that refers to her ("Who she was"), mother of Jesus or not. I note she was the mother of Jesus, as God commanded, which she willingly submitted. But nowhere in scripture is there anything even resembling what the Catholic church teaches about her. Nothing, nada, zilch, zero.
The church has made all this up out of whole cloth.
Why would the church do that? I have one theory. To reach the women. To create a female principle to balance the male principle, because Jesus was male, and a female symbol focuses attracts and binds women, especially those not already attached to a man.
It is a marketing technique, but technique it is. And Catholic leadership is composed of brilliant men. I've read some apologies translated from the Latin on social issues. Tight and right.
In the spirit of believing that they're The Church charged with the salvation of all souls, compose exclusively the Body of Christ and have the divine authority to accomplish that mission, it is not a great mental leap to presume they would use any tactic to do their Biblical duty to their legacy from monarchical lineage from Jesus to Peter.
The problem as I see it is that this is not the way Jesus said to do it. And I believe paganistic goddess worship has consequences personal and social.
The scriptures, in Jesus' words, said that He is the truth and the life, and no one goes to the Father except by Him. Where is Mary shoehorned into to that? Show me. Point it out.
What church doctrine is or is not matters little when it follows scripture, written by those who were witnesses, close to the time it happened. It must not conflict with what is already written, or it is false doctrine. Paul was clear on this more than once.
You don't need to follow my logic. Read the scriptures. I think the church needs correcting, and that's the member's job.
Then the parents would be judged, I would think. What do you think?
Just Study Our Lady of Guadalupe and her appearnces in Mexico to Juan Diego..... in 1521. 3000 per day for 3 years converted to Catholicism.. the Cactus Tilma still hangs in the Church she asked to be built in her sons name.
Study Fatima... and her appearance to the the 3 Local Kids and how she warned of WWI and WW2 and Russia becoming an evil empire.
Study our Lady of La Salette and little Melanie in France..
Or studying the 4 Jesuits in Hiroshima Loyola House saying the Rosary to Mary and were spared being harmed while everything around them was decimated.
Look at Vailakannanni India during the Tsunami a few Christmas past a Crowd of over 1000 people were Packed in a church saying the Rosary the town was decimated but not a drop of water entered the Church..
There are numerous cases now happening in the world .. 0ne is Medjugorje... Bosnia Croatian area.. I plan to go there in two weeks..
The Rosary...
The Hail Mary we pray is from gospel of Luke..
The our Father is from Christ and the
Trinity is from the Hebrew version...where Plural is used... in speaking of God..
Catholocism was Founded by Christ anything else is man thinking he knows more than Christ... Christ expects us to bear the Cross of being Catholic something I proudly do!
WT,
I had said that I was ready to finish this exchange with you, but I feel compelled to come back and correct you about something.
I didn’t capitalize “Who” for Mary—it was for JESUS. I said “Who she was bearing”. The Who is Jesus. How can you miscontrue that? Why did you leave out that crucial word “bearing” and then put an erroneous twist on what I wrote?
Next-—”female principle” and “marketing technique”.
“Attracts women, especially those not associated with a man”.
For crying out loud—what a stretch.
You call it your “one theory”. I suggest you prove it. Theories can come right and left and out of nowhere and it doesn’t make them Truth.
It’s truth that we should wish to seek and serve.
You go on to say that “it doesn’t take a great mental leap to presume that they (the Church) would use any tactic”. A great mental leap—yes, I guess it doesn’t take a GREAT mental leap to “PRESUME”——but I do think that it would take logic and good/correct information based on provable facts. Other than doing it that way, I surely can see that it’s not a great mental leap.
Then you go on to write that the problem as I see it”—and that you “believe paganistic goddess worship has consequences personal and social....”.
These are your theories, mental leaps, presumptions and beliefs. I understand that.
I also think you have used hyperbole, exaggerration, incorrect information, presumption and theories to present your viewpoint and I’m not one bit swayed.
Whatever you want to say in reply I will most likely not read and will not make any further replies to you.
I wish you blessings.
ROE
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