Anti-Catholicism (An Op-Ed the NY Times refused to publish)

Archdiocese of NY ^ | October 29, 2009 | Archbishop Timothy Dolan

[NYer]

October 29, 2009

The following article was submitted in a slightly shorter form to the New York Times as an op-ed article. The Times declined to publish it. I thought you might be interested in reading it.

 
FOUL BALL!
By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of New York
 
October is the month we relish the highpoint of our national pastime, especially when one of our own New York teams is in the World Series!
 
Sadly, America has another national pastime, this one not pleasant at all: anti-catholicism. 
          
It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”
          
If you want recent evidence of this unfairness against the Catholic Church, look no further than a few of these following examples of occurrences over the last couple weeks:
 

• On October 14, in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Paul Vitello exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. According to the article, there were forty cases of such abuse in this tiny community last year alone. Yet the Times did not demand what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize “religious sensitivities,” and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases “internally.” Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so . . . but I can criticize this kind of “selective outrage.”

Of course, this selective outrage probably should not surprise us at all, as we have seen many other examples of the phenomenon in recent years when it comes to the issue of sexual abuse. To cite but two: In 2004, Professor Carol Shakeshaft documented the wide-spread problem of sexual abuse of minors in our nation’s public schools (the study can be found here). In 2007, the Associated Press issued a series of investigative reports that also showed the numerous examples of sexual abuse by educators against public school students. Both the Shakeshaft study and the AP reports were essentially ignored, as papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs.  

• On October 16, Laurie Goodstein of the Times offered a front page, above-the-fold story on the sad episode of a Franciscan priest who had fathered a child. Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son, this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation–genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention.

• Five days later, October 21, the Times gave its major headline to the decision by the Vatican to welcome Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. Fair enough. Unfair, though, was the article’s observation that the Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans. Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, “We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.” Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism.

• Finally, the most combustible example of all came Sunday with an intemperate and scurrilous piece by Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages of the Times. In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.

True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today.

I do not mean to suggest that anti-catholicism is confined to the pages New York Times. Unfortunately, abundant examples can be found in many different venues. I will not even begin to try and list the many cases of anti-catholicism in the so-called entertainment media, as they are so prevalent they sometimes seem almost routine and obligatory. Elsewhere, last week, Representative Patrick Kennedy made some incredibly inaccurate and uncalled-for remarks concerning the Catholic bishops, as mentioned in this blog on Monday.   Also, the New York State Legislature has levied a special payroll tax to help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fund its deficit. This legislation calls for the public schools to be reimbursed the cost of the tax; Catholic schools, and other private schools, will not receive the reimbursement, costing each of the schools thousands – in some cases tens of thousands – of dollars, money that the parents and schools can hardly afford. (Nor can the archdiocese, which already underwrites the schools by $30 million annually.) Is it not an issue of basic fairness for ALL school-children and their parents to be treated equally? 
 
The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody. The suspicion and bias against the Church is a national pastime that should be “rained out” for good.
 
I guess my own background in American history should caution me not to hold my breath.

Then again, yesterday was the Feast of Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes.

[RFEngineer]

“If they tried to nail that satanic garbage on my front door they’d get a load of buckshot between the eyes.”

I guess that one went over your head.

Ok, since the hysterical wing of the RCC is on this thread, buckshot, eh? Your team used to be satisfied with simply burning Protestants at the stake. The RCC doesn’t change it’s ways quickly, you might have to check the “Dealing with Heretics” manual to see if shotguns are permitted.

[annalex]

I am free

When you actually throw the bums out and keep it that way for more than a couple electoral cycles, I'll listen to how the Republic is supposed to stand without religion. So far, your score is zero.

You are not free. When the government forces you to pay for other people's abortions, just to pick one example, you perhaps do not mind, but free you are not.

[annalex]

Hard work is sometimes referred to as a “Protestant work ethic”

In Protestant countries. In Japan, it is probably known as Shintoist work ethics. The Soviet Union had this distinction: Hero of Socialist Labor, and it was given to people who indeed worked very hard. But what does it have to do with Catholicism's fundemental conservatism and Protestantism's definitional liberalism?

[RFEngineer]

“In Protestant countries. In Japan, it is probably known as Shintoist work ethics. The Soviet Union had this distinction: Hero of Socialist Labor, and it was given to people who indeed worked very hard. But what does it have to do with Catholicism’s fundemental conservatism and Protestantism’s definitional liberalism?”

I was illustrating absurd, stupid, tribalist, religious sweeping statements. Nice of you to chime in with your contribution.

[Mr Rogers]

Are you a fundamentalist plant?

Do you have any idea how much you hurt the cause and case of Catholics with your comments?

Admit it - you are a NY Times reporter who joined FR to make Catholics look bad!

[RFEngineer]

“Do you have any idea how much you hurt the cause and case of Catholics with your comments?”

He apparently truly believes it, and you, if you are Catholic, are so far the only one that has a problem with it.

[allmendream]

I see, you couldn't actually answer any of my objections, so you had to invent an argument I didn't make.

Who said we could stand without religion?

You are suggesting we cannot survive without religion ENFORCED.

Compulsory submission to religious authority is the most false and servile sort of conversion, and a debasement of faith.

And make no mistake, secular authority is backed by lethal force. Do you think mens deepest convictions should be subject to secular authority exercised by religious hierarchy at the point of a gun?

Really?

And you think that is small government conservatism?

Really?

[annalex]

You are suggesting we cannot survive without religion ENFORCED

Where did I say that?

What I did say, is that the republic cannot legitimately operate by allowing the democratic process to intrude into the moral law, and I gave specific example where such intrusion is happening.

[RFEngineer]

“’m Baptist. Vlad is a caricature, like Westboro Baptist Church - not a real church, and not Baptist, just hate.”

Well, I guess that makes it unanimous. All Catholics on this thread are anti-Protestant bigots. Ironic, eh?

Otherwise they would have spoken up about such a ridiculous sweeping statement. Still, it would have been nice to have at least one see reason.

Of course, you and I both know that this is not representative of Catholics in general, whom I have as friends, colleagues and neighbors, just the ones on this thread, apparently.

You know who you are.

[annalex]

It is a sweeping statement indeed, this is why no one should act offended. There are conservative Protestants and there are liberal Catholics. The question is, which religion is fundamentally liberal and which is fundamentally conservative, and, as I explained in #35 and prior couple of posts, Catholicism is conservative because it refers to the immutable 2,000 years old authority of the Church, and Protestantism is liberal because it starts with a literal premise of individual interrpetation of the Scripture. We conserve, you scatter.

[allmendream]

All that you said that would make any reasonable reader conclude that you are against elections, and think secular governance should subject itself to religious authority and that we should not be able to vote on such “moral” issues as how two people can get divorced.

All your quotes that made me surmise this follow......

There are many systems of government that maintain universal moral code and leaving moral disputes to the religious authority and the independent juduciary”

“the very idea that getting someone elected constitutes legitimate government is laughable”

the republic cannot legitimately operate by allowing the democratic process to intrude into the moral law

Abortion, euthanasia, medical experimentation on humans, gay “marriage”, no fault divorce are moral issues that modern democratic governments often decide wrongly.

One (a government) where moral issues are not put to the vote.

be free from the tyranny of the democratic process which imposes moral decisions on them contrary to the authority of their faith, that is, contrary to the true, religious authority.

[RFEngineer]

“Catholicism is conservative because it refers to the immutable 2,000 years old authority of the Church, and Protestantism is liberal because it starts with a literal premise of individual interrpetation of the Scripture. We conserve, you scatter.”

No my friend. The Protestant Reformation attempted to save what was Catholic and scattered. The Church you have now was not always as it is. Protestants made you fix what was broken in your Church, in the process, we found something good, too.

We should both be happy and thankful for the Protestant movement.

[annalex]

Elections for the purpose of economic policy or foreign policy are fine. Elections that violate fundamental ethical beliefs are not fine. Those are the kind that delegitimize governments. The current health care bill railroaded through congress, for example, will go a long way further delegitimizing this government.

Note also that we are not talking about esoteric religious disciplines such as fasting, dress codes, etc. We are talking matters of universal ethics, on which, by the way, there is agreement between all major religions.

[annalex]

If you see something salutary in the movement that scattered moral and religious authority, go ahead and celebrate that, but don’t call that thing conservative. It is not. You have not conserved a thing.

[RFEngineer]

“You have not conserved a thing.”

Catholicism of the Reformation era did nothing about the pox amongst them. It was the Protestants that acted and saved your church.

I know you resent Protestants, I get that. You shouldn’t though, if you love your church.

[Mr Rogers]

Catholicism is liberal.

It changes dogma via the Magisterium, and in the process wandered away from the Orthodox, and then forced the Reformation by a string of power hungry Popes who taxed the living daylights out of everything in true Obama fashion, while believing they were God’s representative on earth - in true Obama fashion.

See how easy it is?

Calling names is much easier than thinking. But neither you nor Vlad impress anyone by doing so.

[allmendream]

Either way you are somehow proposing a fourth branch of government with absolute authority over its own domain and apparently not at all subject to elections, which you say are ridiculous and tyrannical; a forth branch with explicit religious authority.

Well thank you for not wanting to enforce fasting and dress codes, but apparently you think how people can form and dissolve their unions should be subject to this authority.

This is not conservative. This is not limited government.

There is a legitimate purpose in the government preventing people from committing a crime as defined by its citizenry.

There is no legitimate purpose in the government preventing people from sinning according to religious authority.

That is a servile and debased faith that needs government force behind it. Have you seen Saudi Arabians when they escape their ‘kingdom’?

I suggest you read what our founding fathers said about religious authority.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“Are you a fundamentalist plant?”

No. Are you?

“Do you have any idea how much you hurt the cause and case of Catholics with your comments?”

Yes - not at all. Nothing I have ever said here at FreeRepublic could in any way harm the “cause or case of Catholics”. Our cause is truth. That’s all I post.

“Admit it - you are a NY Times reporter who joined FR to make Catholics look bad!”

Since nothing I say here makes Catholics look bad, your idea is bizarre to say the least.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“I’m Baptist. Vlad is a caricature, like Westboro Baptist Church - not a real church, and not Baptist, just hate.”

I don’t hate anybody - not even Westboro Baptist Church members who I ran across in person more than once. I pitied them for their bizarre views and twisted theology. Then again, I pity all Protestants to one extent or another.