Catholic League: McCain Embraces Bigot [John Hagee]

Catholic Online ^ | 2/29/2008 | Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

[Alex Murphy]

NEW YORK, N.Y. (Catholic League) - Yesterday, Senator John McCain said he was “very honored by Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement.”

The Republican presidential hopeful also called Hagee “the staunchest leader of our Christian evangelical movement,” citing the minister’s pro-Israel stance.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed this today:

“There are plenty of staunch evangelical leaders who are pro-Israel, but are not anti-Catholic. John Hagee is not one of them. Indeed, for the past few decades, he has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church.

For example, he likes calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’ To hear the bigot in his own words, click here. http://youtube.com/watch?v=uViQ0hVV57Q

Note: he isn’t talking about the Buddhists.

“In Hagee’s latest book, Jerusalem Countdown, he calls Hitler a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing. ‘The sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself,’ he writes.

“For the record, Hitler persecuted the Catholic Church and was automatically excommunicated in 1931—two years before he assumed power—when he acted as best man at Joseph Goebbel’s Protestant wedding. Hitler even bragged about his separation from the Church.

As for doing nothing about the Holocaust, Sir Martin Gilbert reminds us that Goebbels denounced Pope Pius XII for his 1942 Christmas message criticizing the Nazis (the New York Times lauded the pope for doing so in an editorial for two years in a row).

Much to Hagee’s chagrin, Gilbert also says that Pius XII saved three quarters of the Jews in Rome, and that more Jews were saved proportionately in Catholic countries than Protestant countries. Indeed, Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide credited the Catholic Church with saving 860,000 Jews. No religion can match that.

[annalex]

OK. What esteemed Dr. Eckleburg posts is often and repetitively slander that was refuted as often as she posted it. Can we put it to rest like that?

[Religion Moderator]

Yes.

[Alex Murphy]

Anti-Catholic bigotry is indeed the subject of the thread. Therefore discussing the phenomenon of bigotry should be OK, no?

I did a whole thread on the question of "Anti-Catholic bigotry" last year. I would suggest that as a good place to start, for any who wish to pick up on that topic:

Anti-Catholicism: A Phony Issue [Religion Forum Piñata]

On that thread, I had concluded

As I understand it, the author's point is that a statistical minority of Catholics are social conservatives, therefore it's technically incorrect to claim that any bigotry is anti-Catholic and not anti-conservative Catholic. Likewise, the author would say it's technically incorrect to claim that conservative Catholicism represents all of Catholicism, or even a simple majority (remember the 80s bumper sticker "The Moral Majority is Neither"?)

Of course, this argument is utterly and laughably ironic, because it means this political[ly] liberal author is actually arguing in favor of committing bigotry against a statistical minority.

In your reply, you quoted the last line and responded "Looks like you buried the article you yourself posted quite effectively."

[conservonator]

IOW some posters post slander, repeatedly, knowingly and eagerly, not because they are slanderous them selves, but because they are invincibly ignorant. Pray for them.

[annalex]

Yes, I remember that one.

Here's my favorite:

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.

Anti-Catholicism, Hypocrisy and Double Standards

[annalex]

post slander, repeatedly, knowingly and eagerly, not because they are slanderous them selves, but because they are invincibly ignorant.

Ah, this is the true meaning of Mk 5:36 (tossed around here earlier, see #155 and previous), -- be not afraid and pray for the dead, bodily as well as spiritually.

However, one who has been corrected each time cannot plead ignorance, can she?

[conservonator]

However, one who has been corrected each time cannot plead ignorance, can she?

Normal, innocent ignorance no: all who claim Christ are drawn to truth. However, the mentally incompetent or demoniacally influenced are neither normal nor innocent and will persist in their slander for as long as their illness or master bid them too.

We must pray for them and be kind, as Paul instructs; the coals heaped on their head arn't for pain but purification.

[Alex Murphy]

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.

[Titanites]

"I repeat, not everything which is said to our disadvantage is without foundation in fact; but it is not the true that tells against us in the controversy, but the false. The Tradition requires bold painting; its prominent outline, its glaring colouring, needs to be a falsehood. So was it at the time of the Reformation; the multitude would never have been converted by exact reasoning and by facts which could be proved; so its upholders were clever enough to call the Pope Antichrist, and they let the startling accusation sink into men's minds. Nothing else would have succeeded; and they pursue the same tactics now. No inferior charge, I say, would have gained for them the battle; else, why should they have had recourse to it? Few persons tell atrocious falsehoods for the sake of telling them. If truth had been sufficient to put down Catholicism, the Reformers would not have had recourse to fiction. Errors indeed creep in by chance, whatever be the point of inquiry or dispute; but I am not accusing Protestants merely of incidental or of attendant error, but I mean that falsehood is the very staple of the views which they have been taught to entertain of us."

John Henry Cardinal Newman

[Alex Murphy]

"Since Your Majesty and Your Lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer.

Unless I am convinced by Scripture and by plain reason, and not by Popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves, my conscience is captive to the word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe.

I cannot, and I will not recant. Here I stand. I can do no other.

God help me."
- Martin Luther, from the Eric Till film Luther

[Titanites]

Thanks. That proves my point; another lie.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

one who has been corrected each time cannot plead ignorance, can she?

I do not plead ignorance because I have not been corrected.

We disagree, Alex. To Rome, all disagreement is slander and thus it must be shouted down.

In fact, you even pointed out in post #207 that I correctly stated the RCC catechism's view of infant baptism.

But...

Wait for it...wait for it...

We disagree!!!

Infant baptism does not confer saving grace. Infant baptism does not regenerate the fallen sinner. Our sins were forgiven at Calvary, not in the confessional booth where "another Christ" presumes to do what Christ has already done. Not with the help of a "co-redeemer" or a "dispensatrix of all grace" because there is but "one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus."

Hebrews 10 and Ephesians 1, thank God.

"God cannot dwell in a profane place...When men introduce their inventions it immediately causes God to depart...

"Although the devil has long reigned in the papacy, yet he could not altogether extinguish God's grace; nay, a church is among them." -- John Calvin, Ezek.I:284 & Ezek. II:120

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Amen.

"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" -- Hebrews 9:14

[annalex]

Infant baptism does not confer saving grace

That is a "disagree" part. I got scripture, you got Calvin's space-between-the-ears speculation. I am not interested in your views on this: they are worthless and unscriptural.

The slander part is the "Hitler's Pope". On that you get corrected every time you post these lies (I am not ascribing motives here, the gentle reader can do the math in his head).

[narses]

“Hitler was never excommunicated.” says Dr. Eckleburg!

Perhaps those more articulate than I am can explain in simple words the good “DR”’s misunderstanding of the word “automatically”?

[netmilsmom]

I have found that in Lent, it is better not to argue with our “Brothers and Sisters in Christ” (as they call each other but never us). I have slipped a few times but I’ve also found that since they spout the same stuff all the time, the mod allows (well you know) and we get no where, lent is the perfect time to show a Christlike example and let them rant to their hearts content.

It’s better for all of us.

[narses]

“It is obvious that water is not salvific.”

Ya think? You may be shocked here xzins but no where does the Holy Catholic Church teach that water alone is anything but, well, water.

Further those who have not yet been baptized who suffer martyrdom are known to be “baptized by blood” and those who die without baptism but who desire it for the Love of God can be believed to have been “baptized by desire”.

[narses]

Awesome use of FACTS to answer the bigots and those who defend bigotry. Thanks be to God for His Truth on this Feast Day of St. John of God.

[narses]

“Apparently grave error can be a predestiny too.”

ROTFLMTO!

[xzins]

Narses, you are so close to what I believe that it’s obvious that I’ve made a Methodist out of you.

Welcome to our midst, Christian.

:>)