Posted on 02/22/2007 9:46:01 AM PST by Alex Murphy
My catechism teacher, Sister Mary Lou Petrillo, was a smart and scrappy nun who drilled into us the basics of Catholicism without demeaning other Christian churches or religions.
Too bad Sister Mary Lou isn't available to teach a few intensive lessons on tolerance to the campaign people of presidential candidate John Edwards.
Within the last few weeks, two bloggers for the former North Carolina senator resigned after being hit with criticism from conservative Catholic organizations angered by past anti-Catholic remarks the bloggers posted on the Web, according to CNN.
Melissa McEwan and Amanda Marcotte quit after groups like the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights protested the online messages, some of which used profanity and vulgarity to skewer the Catholic Church.
In a mock question-and-answer session, the postings asked, among other things, what would have happened if the Virgin Mary had taken an emergency contraceptive, and responded, "You'd have to justify their misogyny with another ancient mythology." Another message said the pope has to tell women that have stillborn babies that their babies will be "cast into Satan's maw."
Yet another barb called Christian supporters of President Bush his "wingnut Christofascist base." Edwards responded that he was offended by their remarks, but refused to fire them.
As a practicing Catholic, I say good riddance to McEwan and Marcotte, especially if the Democrats are serious about their new openness to religious folks. But what I don't understand is this: Why would anyone be surprised by their comments?
As many Catholics can attest to, anti-Catholicism is still thriving in America. Slurs such as "popery," "Romanism" and "priestcraft" may no longer be common, but some mentalities have not changed from the days of the Know-Nothings of the mid-1800s. The political group, officially called the American Party, targeted Catholics and immigrants, preferably Catholic immigrants.
That's why I've met apparently sincere people who distinguish between Catholics and "bible-believing" Christians, as though anyone loyal to the pope must believe the Scriptures are a lie. It's why a minister asked me once why Catholics practice idolatry with their statues of the Virgin Mary. He seemed to think it was a perfectly normal question.
I've noted one thing may be different these days from the anti-Catholicism of the 1800s. Sometimes, we Catholics get it from both sides. We get slapped by the fringe religious groups that swear the pope is the Antichrist, and we get kicked by the self-proclaimed intellectuals convinced that Catholicism is a backward religion with preposterous doctrines that no one could possibly believe unless the pope threatened eternal damnation.
The fringe groups are easy to dismiss, but the stereotypes about Catholicism are especially hard to take coming from people who should be smarter, like those working for presidential candidates.
As for McEwan and Marcotte, I'm not sure what they plan to do now that they're not working for presidential candidate Edwards. But whatever it is, I hope they don't run into my feisty former catechism teacher.
Or maybe, I hope they do.
"I am quite literally worried about a ban on all proselytization that will come about as a result of an multi-religious alliance against Fundamentalist Protestant missionaries."
What are you smoking? It apparently has some narcotic effect.
I wrote a very detailed post on another thread here last night explaining that I am not a Protestant and giving some of the reasons why. I don't like being proselytized more than anybody else (especially when you're supposed to have a sudden moment of spirit position with electricity running up and down your back and then get condemned because it didn't happen!). However, as unpleasant as proselyitzation is, it is not fatal. I am simply blown away by the hostility any sort of proselytization causes so many people.
I've been proselytized by Fundamentalist and Pentecostal Protestants of various kinds. No one put a gun to my head. I lived through it. I've even had the ever-lovin' menel worried out of me by the JP's, but I've never melted because one handed me a copy of Awake or Watchtower. A reading of the "new testament" clearly shows a rabidly proselytary earch church, yet all the ancient churches who boast so loudly of their "unchanging" nature have evolved into ingrown ethnic clubs who wouldn't want a redneck to join because then they'd no longer feel "superior" to him. I thought Calvinists were anti-missionary; at least they don't run around squawking about how bigoted, stupid, or "fascist" Arminians are!
Pardon my language, but sh*t!
Okay. So people don't like being proselytized by someone whose only spiel consists of "ye better git saved!!!" and quotes from the Bible, including from the Hebrew Bible taken completely out of context. And many Protestants seem to have the bizarre idea that they're the only people on earth who have figured out that everyone sins. But of all the evils and threats that plague the world, the fury poured out on Fundamentalist Protestant missionaries is simply out of all proportion to the "threat" they represent. And while we're at it, how can people allegedly so "stupid" that they can't pass gas without instructions be so fiendishly clever that a single tract or "ye better git saved!!!" is all that is needed to project an almost trancelike state onto the "victim," pulling him out of much more ancient and superior religions? Come on, people! Protestant missionaries are dumber than rocks but if we don't silence them they'll convert the entire human race???
Maybe they're not so dumb after all!!!
And I am deadly serious about the danger of the outlawing of missionary activity. Most religions don't engage in it, so it would be very easy to bring everyone together based on nothing but a distaste for the backwoods yahoos and their notion that there is such a thing as an objective religious Truth that binds all people?
Listen to the rhetoric or read the literature of the "respectable" religions. There is not the slightest hint that any of them believe anything other than the most extreme relativism ("everyone is beautiful except for those benighted swamp dwellers who don't believe that everyone is beautiful"). Well I'm sorry, but "everybody" has to mean everybody or else it's nothing but hot air. In effect, since all the other religions refuse to admit Fundamentalist Protestants (even anti-missionary Calvinists, so far as I know) to the "everyone is beautiful" club, then they're all a bunch of flaming hypcrites.
And while we're on the subject of leaving Fundamentalist Protestants out of the loop, how come all the anti-proselytizers have no objection to Fundamentalist Protestant children (future chr*stians, should they manage to "git saved!!!") being proselytized by evolutionists in public school classrooms. In fact, they think it's unreasonable for Fundamentalist Protestants to complain when their religious beliefs are contradicted by the Federal and State governments. So not only are Fundamentalist Protestants excluded from the "everyone is beautiful" club, they are also the one people who are supposed to keep their mouths shut when they are proselytized!!! I'm sorry, but that makes me absolutely furious.
At any rate, there are already rumors of a "United Religions Initiative" or something at the UN that will outlaw proselytization and recognize only non-proselytary religions as legitimate. Now I don't object to the outlawing of false religions if it's done in the name of the "true religion;" but I do object to it when hypocritically done in the name of "the legitimacy of all faith traditions."
And again, I note that ancient and highly ritualized religions seem to be squishy soft (or at least silent) on the historicity of the Biblical events. This has led me to wonder for some time if they don't regard the Bible as merely the text of a ritual pantomime, devoid of any and all facticity (indeed, some members of ancient religions seem to regard facticity itself as a modern creation unknown to the ancient religious authorities).
Well, maybe you at least will understand where I'm coming from. No one else seems to.
Will my invocation of "yuh better git saved!!!" now open me up to charges of anti-Protestant bigotry? Somehow I doubt it. American Protestants learned a long time ago that they don't get to play the "bigotry" card.
"I am quite literally worried about a ban on all proselytization that will come about as a result of an multi-religious alliance against Fundamentalist Protestant missionaries."
What are you smoking? It apparently has some narcotic effect.
Why, of course, I'm simply being paranoid. No one has ever said that "we can no longer afford religious fundamentalism" or that all "real" religions should join forces against "cults" who proselytize. At least you can't regard Primitive Baptists as a cult then, can you (unless you really define a "cult" as any religion that interprets the Bible literally).
The fact that every other religion in the world is waging a scorched earth campaign against Protestant missionaries doesn't mean bo-diddley-squat, does it? Thought it seems to me I recall Russia a few years ago naming only four officially recognized state religions (and neither Catholicism nor Protestantism made the list) and Catholics not liking that very much. Guess they can dish it out but they can't take it.
Of course, that'll never happen here.
And we'll never live in a country where people are so afraid of being politically correct that they dare not speak (or even think) "incorrectly," will we?
It's all a product of my fevered imagination!
There isn't a Catholic church, or even a Catholic mission (and perhaps no Roman Catholics at all) in the county in which I was born and reside.
Now who is insulated?
Here is your original comment:
Most American Fundamentalist Protestants don't think about Catholicism that much (the only Catholics they see are on TV anyway)
YOU stipulated that MOST American Fundamentalist Protestants only see Catholics on TV, the situation which you describe does not hold true for most.
My apologies for attributing my own local situation with that of everyone else.
I do know for a fact that most of the Fundamentalist Protestants around here (and I assume in the whole country) don't spend a lot of time fixated on the Catholic Church (unlike British Fundamentalist Protestants like Ian Paisley, who never seems to have a thought that doesn't involve Catholicism). However, during my six years in the Church I noticed that most Catholic publications and organizations seemed convinced that Fundamentalists were absolutely fixated on converting Catholics. So I'm not the only one attributing a personal experience to others, am I?
I prefer "Have yew accepted Jaysusuh Chrahst intew yore lahfe as yew're personal Lord and Savior?"
Look -- I don't have such a big problem with those people. I have, like you, wondered why people act as if these missionaries are committing attempted murder by handing them a tract and asking the above question. The biggest problem with them is that once they get started it can be very difficult to get them to shut up.
But we all get tarred with the same brush.
My church, the Roman Catholic Church is anything but squishy in our beliefs, and our core beliefs have changed very little, as I'm sure you know. We have different problems. Some people don't like what we stand for. Some people condemn us all for the actions of a few. Some people don't like our traditional practices. Some flat out don't like some of the ethnic groups of which we are comprised.
We've always been targets, and we're targeted time and time again right here on this forum with always the same kind of insults, the same tired old libels and attacks that have been promulgated upon us for centuries. As a Jew you should certainly understand what that's like. The minute you've finished addressing a particular libel someone else comes along and introduces it again as if you never refuted it and here we go again. So maybe it's not protestant bashing on our part, maybe we get tired of going over the same ground. We could close all our threads, but I think we like the discussion but get sick of the attacks.
How can you say your doctrine has changed very little? The Catholic Church is one of the most liberal religious bodies on the face of the earth. I don't see how you continue to delude yourselves.
And I will point out yet again (completely in vain, I'm sure) that with millions of members around the world, there are plenty of igorant, bigoted Catholics whose wits don't skip like roasting chestnuts, yet American Catholics celebrate the intellectuality of their Church and poke fun at "ignorant inbred rednecks."
Why should I not be prejudiced against the ethnic groups taht make up the Catholic Church when they are all ethnically prejudiced against me?
I note that "anti-Catholic slander" always takes the form of some zealous, fundamentalistic argument, like the Pope is the anti-christ or the Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon. Catholic anti-Protestantism, on the other hand, takes the form of smug, superior, hyper-intellectual snobbery. I'm sorry, but I'm more comfortable with fundamentalistic arguments. I'm sorry the Catholic Church is "too good" to engage in them.
I sincerely ask you to go to ths thread and read my autographical post #83 before you make any further comments to me, should you choose to do so.
Hi again. It would be nice if you could provide a source for your bewildering claim that the universal position of the Catholic Church is that the O.T. is adapted from ancient mythology.
In fact, some Catholics (perhaps most?) seem to be unable to tell the difference between sola scriptura and Biblical inerrancy, and invoke the "mistakes" and "errors" in the Bible in order to illustrate the need for the magisterium.
How can such a claim be made which utterly and totally ignores any remedial research of a) the Catechism, or b)papal encyclicals which clearly teach nothing of the sort? This is disinformation at its worst. I don't believe for a second that anyone who supposedly spent six years in the Church would utter such nonsense unless they were sleep-walking through their membership, or just plain lying about it.
But since most posters on this thread actually seem to regard the Fundamentalist's inability to understand as amusing (and goodness knows, Catholics are too good to actually lower themselves to the level of a Baptist and actually proselytize someone), there is little use in my continuing to say anything here.
I haven't seen any hint of amusement at Protestant (or Noachide)ignorance toward Catholics. If there's laughter in here, it's awfully quiet.
"The Importance of the Traditional Doctrine of Creation"
I think you have chosen a very weak area to de-emphasize the Catholic faith. I do not think evolution is high on the thinking, working or worrying list as far as Catholics go....MOF, Protestants or Jews either.
As St. Francis said, "Go out and preach the Gospel. Speak if you must."
Rarely are people converted or evangelized by words. It is the actions that turns ones soul.
With all the Words our Lord spoke, it was His Actions, including the Resurrection that converted souls.
Actually, I think that website is perfectly legitimate, based on the friends they keep.
Interesting; I'll have to go back and read it more carefully.
Of course not. They only defend those doctrines Fundamentalists fine hard to understand. Everything else (especially in the "old testament") is negotiable.
Uh-huh . . . have you read "Franky's" post #69?
Ah-ha . . . you believe in the supernatural resurrection of your "messiah" as recorded in the "new testament" but you regard the creation of the universe in six days as related in Genesis to be completely unimportant and negotiable.
More theological anti-Semitism.
We have eyewitnesses to the Resurrection. There were no eyewitnesses at Creation except the Trinity, Himself. Additionally, by literalist logic, a garden snake spoke perfect Hebrew to Adam and Eve and God scheduled Creation in His day-planner.
The Church does not consider Creation "unimportant", per se, but the Fundamentalist hang-up on "God and His Almighty 7-Day Work Week" detract from the substance of the story - which is, the world was created by God, for man, and man disobeyed God, thus bespoiling Eden and ushering death into the world. Whether or not God created the world over a long-weekend or over the span of tens of thousand of years is not of ultimate importance to salvation. If others want to debate it ad nauseum, fine. It makes no difference in the end.
I'm not sure what post 69 has to do with what I said. Do you have any sources for the statement that the Church universally believes that the O.T. spawned from Babylonian mythology?
Patently false. I would once again refer you to the Catechism. One of the most concrete non-negotiables is the substance of the fall of Adam and Eve, and the protoevangelium which followed.
###"...but you regard the creation of the universe in six days as related in Genesis to be completely unimportant and negotiable."###
Sorry, but where do you read that statement in my post? Your assuming something that is not true. If it were not for the Old Testament, the New Testament would be moot.
"A day is but a thousand years" to the Trinity and six days could be 2,190,000 days or just the 6 days you quote.
--2 Peter 3:8
As far as mentioning Catholics (they) defending Fundamentalists doctrines the average Catholic of the 30% attending Mass on Sunday would not know the first thing about those doctrines. As it is the attendees do not know that much about Catholicism.
After teaching CCD for many years, the average youngster completing CCD is taught that God created the universe and everything in it. It is not until they are older and get caught up in their liberal educations that they lose track of the Old Testaments and its truths.
The first question in the Baltimore Catechism is, "Who made me?" The answer is, "God made me." Right out of the Old Testament.
The second question is, "Why did God make you?" and the answer is "To love Him and serve Him."
I learned that 70 years ago.
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