Posted on 04/27/2010 9:22:37 AM PDT by mlizzy
Perhaps the term "bigot" is overused these days, particularly by the libertine left when referring to those of us who oppose the homosexual lobby, which in turn promotes the homosexual lifestyle and same-sex "marriage" and denigrates the traditional family unit. (The homosexual lobby often supports the abortion industry as well.)
Yet bigotry does exist — and we orthodox Christians bear the brunt of it. Consider: Abortion and homosexual activists frequently exhibit bigotry toward us. Vicious secular humanists such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins frequently exhibit bigotry toward us. And then there's the bigotry exhibited by some Protestants toward Catholics such as yours truly. (Yes, I will concede that there are some Catholics who exhibit bigotry toward Protestants — i.e. by claiming Protestants have no chance of being saved and by not treating them as our brothers and sisters in Christ — but, thankfully, such Catholics are relatively few in number.)
I recently received an e-mail from a fellow I'll call Jim, who was responding to my April 24 column "Homosexuality and the Church Crisis." Based on Jim's initial e-mail to me, printed below, I assumed he was an anti-Catholic gay activist bigot.
'I did not read your article. I did find the title very offensive. That church is NOT only not my church, it is also not the church of most people living in the USA. The only things I know about your church is: 1. They didn't stop murdering Protestants for heresy until a few hundred years ago. 2. They shifted to buggering to [sic] children is [sic] the present day. I do not want to know anymore. I don't [sic] to read anymore. I am tired of bitching, analyzing, and whining in the newspapers. If you want to write about this crap please confine it to the Catholic press and stop bothering the rest us.'I responded:
'I assume you're referring to this column of mine. No one's forcing you to read anything. I don't know you and I didn't e-mail you. If some leftist blog/Web site you happen to read links to and/or comments on my column, well, that's certainly not my doing. My suggestion is quite simple: If my column offends you, don't even read the title. I don't let anti-Catholic bigots dictate the subjects about which I write.'Well, I soon found out that Jim isn't in fact an anti-Catholic gay activist bigot; he's an anti-Catholic Protestant bigot. To wit: In a subsequent e-mail (partially edited, except to show that Jim's e-mail correspondence is sloppily composed), he said:
'It is a fact that the Catholic Church persecuted and, yes, murdered Protestants in the past for high crime of heresy. Now, that was a long time ago, and I and most others don't blame the Catholics of today for the crimes of the past. But, given the history, some of us just do not like the Catholic Church very much. Calling us 'anti-Catholic Bigots' does not help either side. (btw.. Matt, do you call modern Jews, 'anti-Nazi bigots?') It is also a fact the 'us bigots' don't particular like it when the press, any press, refers to Catholic Church as THE church. Gee, does that mean that nice little Baptist church my family has attended for the past 3 generations is not a real church? Well, I guess only on god can answer that one, but according to Matt, it is obviously not THE church.(I shared Jim's initial e-mail with a Catholic friend of mine who also responded to him — hence Jim is, at certain points, directing his comments toward my friend as well as me.)'And Matt, after you sent me the link, I did go back and read your article. Statistics and formulas. Very and impressive and probably all very true. But, this heretic's view is much more simple:
'I have know since the scandals of the early 1980's that the Catholic Church protects the pedophiles in its high and holy priestly ranks. Actually any one read newspapers in the 1980s knew that then. Are there pedophile Catholic priest? Heretics think the answer is yes. Are the pedophile Baptist Ministers? Heretics, including many Baptists, think the answer is yes.
'The ONLY difference that this heretic can see is: The Catholic Church protects the pedophile priests from criminal prosecution! (And has many times moved them new parishes were they can prey on even more children.)
'Gee, let's think about this for minute. It's... say 1985 and there is a man that really likes to have sex with young children. He was gone so far as considering entering profession that will put him in contact with young children. What are his alternatives? School teacher? If busted, he will go prison? Protestant Minister? If busted, he will go to prison? Catholic Priest? If busted, he will be protected from and criminal prosecution and be will be moved to new parish with lots of new children to molest?
'Finally, true confessions: I am a born and raised protestant who is such an anti-Catholic BIGOT that I married a nice Catholic girl about 35 year ago. We are still married (although, I admit the marriage is NOT recognized by your high and holy church. I did not convert) and my wife stayed with the church until about 5 years ago when she realized that her monthly tithe (10% of our income — earned primarily by the bigot) was going primarily to pay for the criminal defense of pedophiles and left THE church. I was pleased and proud.
'Thanks to the internet genealogy craze I have an Aunt who was actually able to verify that the family legend is true. I do have a great, great..... grandfather who was beheaded by THE church for the crime of heresy in the 1600's. He was, in fact guilty of two crimes. He was a Quaker and he had stayed on the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean much too long. After the beheading, his family (my ancestors) migrated to place with a history that Matt may be familiar with. Today we call it Pennsylvania. Actually, I think they called it that back then but that's another story. (NOTE: His last name was Dye, I have never actually counted how may 'great''s go before grandfather, and she has details, I never bothered to get them from her. I must admit, I was surprised that we were once Quakers, all that I had know about were Baptists and an occasional Lutheran)
'I DID get linked to Matt's article though one of those far left wing web sites. It's called Free Republic. You may want to check it out.'
I'd say Jim and his ilk have been spending too much time indulging in anti-Catholic propaganda.
What a shame.
[emphasis; mine]
I must remove the "caucus" protection so the Protestants can speak for themselves. However, I will make it an "ecumenical" thread so that antagonism will not be allowed here.
Okay, thank you for your explanation and for making it an ecumenical thread to prevent antagonism.
Let’s not go there because that would surely lead to antagonism. Discuss the issues, not the posters.
Then remove post number four due to its antagonstic nature and broad generalization.
I agree
Again, I take issue by your use of the Kool Aid drinkers label. By implication, at the very least you’re calling those who vigorously defend the Church mind-numbed robots, and on the worse end of the spectrum, you’re calling the Catholic Church a cult.
Take all the strong disagreement with Catholic doctine and the corruption inside the Church, but don’t resort to such inflammatory language.
Plenty of anti-Protestanism, anti-Mormonism, anti-semitism, anti-Roman Catholicism, anti-Anglicanism on FreeRepublic.
All the evil in the world can be attributed to lukewarm Catholics --Pope St. Pius V.Don't know if Kool-Aid was around back then, but he phrased it quite well ... :):)
The Church no longer has carte blanche in its affairs when it comes to criminality. 21st Century society will not allow it. Any "persecution" of perversion and corruption has been brought by the Church upon itself. Were it not for folks OUTSIDE of the Church, as well as the courageous laypeople who were IGNORED by the high hats for DECADES, the Church would do NOTHING to address such perversion and corruption but instead continue to practice the DENIAL that was characteristic of the 1950s-2000s.
There are plenty of adherants to the various Christian denominations here who are of the belief that his or her denomination (and/or members of his or her denomination) are above reproach.
Examples:
Baptist/Evangelical love of Mike Huckabee
Mormon love of Mitt Romney
RC denial/revision of past events
(For the record, I am a generic Christian of no particular denomination.)
Anti-Judaism is to be expected in “open” religious debate just like anti-Christianity, but ping me to any anti-Semitic posts because that is hate mongering and not allowed at all on Free Republic.
My experience is that there is an equal amount of anti-Catholic/anti-Protestant invective thrown about by each side on FR and it is disappointing. I also note, though, that it’s the same handful of culprits involved most times from each side. I really don’t understand it as it accomplishes nothing other than somehow make the insulter feel better I guess. Although I disagree strongly with about 20% of Catholic theology, I have no problem focusing on the 80% we do agree about when engaging in religious discussions with Catholics. I am reformed in my theology and don’t have any problem in noting that about 75% of Calvin’s Institutes is straight Catholic dogma. Yet somehow whenever Calvin is mentioned the discussion inevitably sticks solely to election which takes up about 30 pages of the 1500 pages which constitute the Institutes. Go figure.
So you want to be accepted by everyone? Was Jesus?
It’s more than “a certain amount,” and sadly, I would not be surprised at all to find out a FReeper composed the original e-mail.
It’s very odd that there should be anti-Catholic bigotry on this forum, particularly when you consider that the man who so generously organized it and runs it is a devout Catholic.
As for me, I was a lifelong Protestant, but I always tried to see the good and true in both Catholicism and Protestantism. On Easter, after long study and prayer, I joined the Catholic Church. I am filled with joy, but it’s been tempered by the amazing hatred that’s been leveled at me by people I thought were my friends. So much for the concept of all of us comprising the Body of Christ! There is definitely anti-Catholic bigotry out there, and in many cases it has little to do with accusations of pedophilia—there’s just a belief that we are all idolatrous statue-worshipping pagans who would still like to burn all Protestants at the stake.
“Were it not for folks OUTSIDE of the Church, as well as the courageous laypeople who were IGNORED by the high hats for DECADES, the Church would do NOTHING to address such perversion and corruption but instead continue to practice the DENIAL that was characteristic of the 1950s-2000s.”
The horrendous scandal started to vastly improve in the late 70’s/early 80’s, long before any public pressure was brought to bear.
Freegards
Thin-skinned posters on “open” RF threads are the disruptors. They often take statements against their deeply held beliefs very personally. And whereas I can and do intervene to prevent posters from “making it personal” there is nothing I can do to keep a poster from “taking it personally.” And some posters are drawn like a moth to the flame.
A frequent example of thin-skin is the poster’s claim of bigotry and more specifically, anti- bigotry internalized (e.g. anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant, anti-Mormon) rather than conceptualized (e.g. anti-Catholicism, anti-Protestantism, anti-Mormonism.)
The title of this article expresses that very kind of internalizing.
It should also be noted that there is a form of "anti" religious material which is hate mongering because it is intended to engender hatred in the reader usually by fabricating outrageous claims. That type of material (e.g. Chick publications, the false Jesuit Oath, Christian Identity, Islamic Fundamentalism) is not allowed on Free Republic at all.
For example, highlighting historical atrocities does not constitute hate mongering - claiming atrocities without any historical basis would likely be considered hate mongering.
But hate mongering is a high bar and statements which condemn religious beliefs are not automatically hate mongering. It is not at all unusual when one belief spawns from another that both condemn the other in harsh terms, e.g. heretic, anathema, apostate, cult, sect, Satanic. Such terms are often part of the poster's deeply held beliefs and may be used in the poster's holy writings. And such terms do not automatically constitute hate mongering.
So hopefully this discussion will explore the differences between internalizing and conceptualizing - condemnations and hate mongering - and help posters look at themselves whether they should ignore “open” RF threads altogether and instead post to threads labeled “caucus” “ecumenical” “prayer” or “devotional.”
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