Catholic Hate website

[imenja]

Another DU member provided a link to this site as evidence that Catholics rather than Protestants lead and dominate the Christian Right. At least one other member made the same points, and actually went so far as to argue that Catholics chose Falwell to lead the Moral Majority--which he insists is a Catholic organization and not founded by Protestants at all, as is the entirety of the Christian Right. Evidently what we see weekly on the evening news, Fundamentalist Protestants who dominate the airways, are only doing the bidding of the Pope.

http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/paige3051.html
http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/amdem207208.html
The entirely of their comments are placed on Catholics. They provide no discussion of Protestant fundamentalists and present the Christian Right as entirely Catholic in origin and membership.
http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/abortlist.html

They insist, "It asserts "The New Right, which is dominated by Catholics such as Richard Viguerie and which answers to the Vatican, drew the fundamentalists in under the guise of religion - but for explicitly political purposes." The Christian Right is thus a papist conspiracy. The Vatican has deceived Protestants into joining. (Does anyone know if Vigurie is actually Catholic? This site claims he is, but it also is another example of blaming Catholics for the Christian Right, "A Catholic Agenda with a Protestant Face." http://endtimeissues.com/articles/2/One-Nation-Under-God/ It also lists Paul Weirich as a Roman Catholic, when Wikipedia says he is an ordained deacon in the Greek Melkite Church as do a number of other websites.


Have others here run into this same argument? Why is it that the moronic left has decided to rewrite the history of the Christian Right to absolve Protestants of responsibility and place the blame entirely on Catholics and the Vatican in particular?

Is this not hate speech? How can so-called liberals promote ideas so factually inaccurate? I find this perversion of the historical record entirely offensive. Can someone tell me how these people differ in any way from the Know Nothings or the New Klan?

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Insanity and paranoia.

Anyone who actually BELIEVES this probably believes in a vast Masonic conspiracy, too. The idea that the Vatican is the secret power behind the often anti-Catholic "religious right" is so absurd as to be almost humourous; the fundamentalist right-wingers are cynically exploiting commonality on the single issue of abortion to attract the Catholic vote, but this is a move of political expediency, not any broad shared agenda or beliefs. And the Church makes a good target for this sort of paranoia, because it is at once one of the world's oldest, largest and most influential institutions; the uneducated and ignorant are likely to believe this sort of drivel, especially given the anti-Catholic prejudice that has existed in the United States since colonial times (which is still very much there; now it's mostly sub rosa rather than overt).

Oh, and the Melkite Church IS Catholic, just not Roman...it's one of the Eastern Rite churches.

[imenja]

2. Unfortunately,

Some on DU share these views. That's how I happened to look up the sites. After encountering the argument a couple of times, I realized it had to be on the web. Demopedia even has an article attributing the foundation of the Moral Majority to Catholics, though a cursory search I did in more conventional sources (published books and encyclopedias) noted it as Protestant in it's formation. That certainly is what those of us who were alive when the movement first emerged understood.

I know the Melkites are Catholics, but to attribute one of their members as part of a papist conspiracy isn't sound. Though if a person can argue with a straight face that it was Catholics who gave Jerry Falwell power, anything is possible. Naturally the Pope chooses a Southern Baptist as his spiritual leader.

I'm not surprised that such ideas exist. What concerns me is that anti-Catholic nativism is no longer part of the reactionary right but part of the arsenal of the moronic left.

Oh, and of course the Bushes are behind the appointment of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope. I'm just waiting for Gannon and PNAC to be added to the conspiracy. My views of the intelligence and sanity of far too many on the left has been badly shaken a result of reading some of these political websites and discussion boards. Six months ago, I would have laughed at any conservative who claimed ideas such as those I see on a daily basis were maintained by liberals/ leftists. I'm not laughing any more.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Well, historical and cultural igorance...

are hardly the sole preserve of the Right. And most people seem to have a very hard time making distinctions; critical thinking is a faculty that's in short supply on either end of the political spectrum.

Some on the left identify the Church as "right-wing" thanks to the rise of the reactionary Religious Right; the Church's positions on such issues as homosexuality, abortion and female ordination earn it the label of "right-wing", as far as they're concerned. Never mind the Church's positions on OTHER issues, such as social justice and poverty, the death penalty, and the just war doctrine, which place it firmly in the opposite camp.

The Church transcends politics, but this is an era in which religion is increasingly politicised, and the backlash against the so-called Religious Right by some on the left leads to a sort of militant secularism that tars all Christians with the same brush.

[imenja]

4. not only is religion politicized, but politics has been reduced

to GOP talking points on "moral values" issues. Most Americans on the left have swallowed uncritically the idea that sex defines politics. It's a political development that well serves corporate capitalism. When those on the left don't challenge capitalist exploitation and prefer to devote themselves exclusively to cultural issues, the wealthy win. I've tried to point this out repeatedly, but it falls on deaf ears. In my view, we live in a right-wing nation where two reactionary camps battle over little.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. You've noticed that, too, eh?

The old "bread and circuses" thing still works, only these days it's "cheap consumer goods and reality television".

America has grown soft and decadent; our political process has been reduced to a parody of choice, where one may decide which wing of the Corporate Party one wants in power...the only real differences being, as you say, positions on cultural issues and the fact that the "left" deigns to throw a few scraps from the table to the proles. Actually, the labels of "right" and "left" seem laughable in the context of American politics; measured against the REST of the world, the American "left" is still right of centre (and we can thank fifty years of anti-Communist, anti-socialist hysteria and the myth of the "rugged individualist" for that).

[imenja]

6. I need your wise counsel

I have gotten myself embroiled in this thread. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3532664

I don't seem to be able to extricate myself. When confronted with narrow minded attacks against Catholics and me in particular, I become furious. I become especially angry over two general trends: 1) their insistence on reading my comments as a defense of Church teachings on homosexuality 2) the nativist kinds of comments I referred to above. Any advice?

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Check your inbox. (n/t)

[Lefty48197]

9. Very important point you made Spidey

"Never mind the Church's positions on OTHER issues, such as social justice and poverty, the death penalty, and the just war doctrine, which place it firmly in the opposite camp."

All of those items you mentioned: social justice, poverty, the death penalty, war... These are the causes that our church has adopted in the last century, especially in the western hemisphere. It's too bad that the rest of the USA looks upon abortion, female ordination, and the church's position on homosexuality as their defining message. I would like to see the Priests, Bishops, and Cardinals from the USA to speak out forcefully, and to speak often in support of the former objectives. It's as if some in our church don't even care about the "liberal" objectives.

[imenja]

10. because those are safe issues, they don't challenge American power

if the political debate focuses on cultural issues rather than economic injustice, the corporate paymasters who control our government win out. What bothers me most is that so many liberals have bought into the GOP definition of politics as limited to so-called moral values issues.

[etherealtruth]

8. Here's a "response" site

A spring University of Akron poll of 4,000
adults showed Americans without religious affiliation are 17 percent of self-identified Democrats, rivaling the party's traditional blocs of white Catholics (18 percent) and black Protestants (16 percent). Secularists favored Sen. John Kerry over President Bush by 57.4 percent to 27.2 percent, with the rest backing others or undecided. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.

http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/demrocrat.htm

How I see it, Catholics remain a HUGE part of the Democratic party, still the largest part of the party but inarguably "slipping".
Why are these people trying to push more Catholics out of the party instead of drawing the Catholics that have left back into the fold?

Bad news to those bigots trying to alienate Catholics----Democrats can't win without them!!

[DemBones DemBones]

11. What an excellent discussion! Thanks so much, imenja,

and Spider Jerusalem, for something rarely seen at DU these days: intelligent dialogue. I never looked at this thread until tonight because I just didn't want to read more about anti-Catholicism (and I'm still not ready to click those links.)

The amount of anti-Catholicism in the US today, and particularly the amount on the left, has been a surprise to me since I first got an internet connection a dozen years ago. It has amazed me how often, and in what odd places, anti-Catholicism rears its ugly head. I've seen it on lists where I'd never have expected such a topic to be raised at all, where it was not only disgusting and inappropriate but totally unrelated to the list's topic. It's made me realize just how thin the veneer of civilization is in this country; a very sad realization to come to after living through decades of improvements in civil rights.