Posted on 05/28/2010 7:41:33 AM PDT by GonzoII
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) The 1921 murder of the Rev. James E. Coyle on the front porch of his rectory was no ordinary slaying. Involved were the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan, a future Supreme Court justice and a preacher’s daughter who secretly married a Puerto Rican.
In her book “Rising Road: A True Tale of Love, Race and Religion in America,” Ohio State University law professor Sharon Davies digs deep into the Coyle’s murder—and the dark chapter of anti-Catholicism in American history.
“There are so many things about this story that are really compelling,” said Davies, who stumbled across the case while doing research for a law journal article. “When I found it, I was absolutely captivated by it. This story needed to be told. We can’t afford to forget this.”
The murder trial was historic partly because future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black defended the accused killer, Edwin R. Stephenson, a Methodist minister and member of the Ku Klux Klan.
(Excerpt) Read more at religionnews.com ...
“My point is that the original KKK was never anti-Catholic or anti-Jewish and had Catholics and Jews as members (Dr. Baruch was Jewish). “
Well, the original Klan was more of a guerilla movement against Reconstruction and its aftermath. There were Catholics and Jews in the Confederate Army - and even blacks.
Zionist Conspirator:
You are correct on that point that much of the artistocratic South of the pre-Civil War period was not anti Catholic. In fact, New Orleans and Louisiana were perhaps culturally and demographically the most Catholic in the U.S.
Catholic Schools back then were regarded as the best in the South and the Church had already founded many great Hospitals to take care of anyone. The feudal society and Tradition of Family, local rule and the South’s devotion to God and country was the main reason that Pope Pius was the only European to recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation, despite that fact that the Church had going back to the 15th century long ago started to reject slavery.
I think you mean "Know Nothings."
The Know Nothings could just as easily be classified as a left wing, quasi-masonic anti-clerical secret society as "right wing."
From having relatives living in Northern Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee...I can say strictly on the basis of personal experience...
The exceptions to the rule: Louisiana, the gulf coast regions of Mississippi and Alabama, Charleston, Savannah, and about the southern 1/3 of Texas. (If you want to call the Hampton Roads southern, you can add them in as well)
“That’s simple. He wasn’t Jewish. He was the “kinsman-redeemer” of Israel (the White Race). The “Jews” aren’t Biblical Israel, but just sort of pop up out of nowhere two thousand years ago to kill chr*st. Then they went off and founded the American Civil Liberties Union. [/sarcasm] “
Either people who believed that never read the Bible, or they were too inbred to understand it.
All religions have a temptation to henotheism. Chr*stianity, with its belief that "G-d became man," is especially vulnerable. In theory, while Israel was "superseded" (G-d forbid!) by the chr*stian church, in practice what has often happened is that Israel was "superseded" by new chosen nations: Ethiopia, with its Solomonic dynasty; Armenia, the "first chr*stian nation;" Spain, which James and Paul visited; Holy Mother Ireland; Holy Russia; Holy Poland; chr*stian America; etc." In each case the nation becomes the "new Israel" and J*sus becomes a fellow countryman.
There's really no difference between the Klan's white J*sus and the revolutionary "Black J*sus" of many Black churches, though it isn't politically correct to point this out.
I don't know why white "identity" chr*stians are considered so much more dangerous and so much more evil than Black idiots who think Blacks are the "true Israel." Same thing.
Sorry. You’re right. Its Know Nothings. But maybe they were “no nothings” too :)
There’s really no difference between the Klan’s white J*sus and the revolutionary “Black J*sus” of many Black churches, though it isn’t politically correct to point this out.
Makes sense to me.
marking
markomalley:
Well as someone born and raised in Louisiana, you are correct and the gulf regions of Alabama and Miss. the coast of Georgia were the exceptions, which too my other point, was where much of the rich Southern Society resided and to a point, those folks, who tended to be high-Church Anglicans were not as anti Catholic as the Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterians, who were the predominant religous affiliations of rural Southerners back then, and to some degree, today, although free wheeling pentecostalism has also gained market share among the Protestants.
So one needs to define the context of anti-Catholicism in the South. It has always been there, in the areas not mentioned in your post, but among the wealthy landowners and aristocrats of the South, who tended to be High Church Episcopalians, those folks were not as anti-Catholic like the other Prosteant groups mentioned above.
Catholic Schools back then were regarded as the best in the South and the Church had already founded many great Hospitals to take care of anyone. The feudal society and Tradition of Family, local rule and the South’s devotion to God and country was the main reason that Pope Pius was the only European to recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation, despite that fact that the Church had going back to the 15th century long ago started to reject slavery.
All this should be well known, but it is not. Most people assume that the antibellum South and its slaveowners were identical to the Baptist preachers and trailer-park dwelling welfare cases of today (it's amazing how many people seem to blame poor Southerners for everything and let rich Southerners off the hook).
Much of what we today think of as "Southern" actually originally began in the North and New England--Calvinistic, revivalistic chr*stianity, temperance, anti-Catholicism, Know Nothingism, anti-Masonry; bizarre religious enthusiasms, . . . actually, many Confederates and their apologists today liked to blame "Northern radicalism" on Puritanism. I have read the ridiculous claim that Ted Kennedy was merely the logical ideological descendant of Jonathan Edwards.
Read any honest history book and you will see that it was always the North where convents were being burned, where Know Nothings and Prohibitionists had the greatest political power, where "revivals" and new religious sects where people contorted and bent and twisted were being founded. The "burned over district" was in New York State.
All of these things that were once so common in the North were basically overwhelmed by foreign immigration. The old time Yankees literally no longer exist, having been displaced by Irish Catholics. And so these old Northern attitudes found their last bastion in the no-longer-aristocratic South. In fact, I like to call the Upper South, where I live, Southern New England.
I don't want to travel under a false flag. I am an admirer of New England Puritanism, temperance, anti-Masonry, and much of the old moralistic impulse. I am also (confession time here) known as one of the foremost "anti-Catholic bigots" on this forum, though my primary argument with Catholics is against their turning the Bible into a book of "myths" written by ignorant primitives who didn't know how the world actually works.
I really don't have time to argue with you as I need to get busy with a few chores, but I must protest your misunderstanding of my post.
The places you mention are the the Upper, not the Deep South. Also, I was referring primarily to the antibellum period when the Deep South had a very feudal, European society. Anti-Catholicism was more prevalent in the Yeoman Upper South (which voted for Hoover in '28) and where old Northern attitudes found their last refuge after being routed out of the North.
Finally, I am myself prejudiced against anyone and any institution that doubts the factual veracity of the words of G-d (and yes, the words of G-d, not "the word of G-d in the words of men" as your synergistic, "incarnational" theories hold).
True enough.
I think that you can't underestimate the French and Spanish influence throughout the Gulf Coast regions, as well.
To add more confusion is the fact that 79% of the population of PR is identified as "white" per the US Census. The reason for this is that the US Census does not have a multiracial category, and those on PR who are 70% white/30% black check "white" as their racial category. It also goes back to the fact that, when PR became a US territory, PRs were encouraged to choose "white" due to concerns about Jim Crow/Eugenics amongst mainland politicians.
In truth, now backed up by genetic studies, the majority of Puerto Ricans are of mixed European and African ancestry, with some Taino admixture amongst the jibaros in the mountains. Amongst themselves, PRs use terms such as "trigueno" (high yellow) or "jabao" ("off-white") rather than the simple white/black categories we have on the US. If we went by face value, about 35-40% of the population of PR could at least pass for white/European, as the majority of the folks you'll meet in PR have noticeable African features.
Please refer to CTrent1564’s post #49 and my post #52. I won’t argue with you about the relative position of the landed gentry. In the antebellum years, their positions were far more important than in the reconstruction era and beyond. One other thing to consider: from the position of one of those eveeeeil Kat-licks, it wouldn’t really matter whether the person under the hood was a landowner or a sharecropper, now would it?
There were notable exceptions as both CTrent1564 and I have stated; but outside of those predominant areas, if you were publicly Catholic, you would always endure at least strange looks. And I don’t care if you’re talking Hattiesburg or Oxford, Dothan or Decatur, Valdosta or Rome. Maybe not from the gentry...but that really doesn’t matter now, does it?
No, you have it all wrong! The original Jews of the bible moved to Europe and became the ancestors of the white race, with the exception of those who killed Christ, who magically transformed themselves into Kazars* and then back into Jews.
*For those of you who follow such things, the Kazars are but one of many people who were absorbed into the tribe (see also the Canaanites), but their genetic/cultural contribution was relatively small and by no means the dominant strain.
At this point I should also mention that anti-semitism, while found throughout various faiths (even in places without a Jewish population, like Japan) was used as a tool by Catholic and Protestant clergy. Even my older Catholic relatives will admit this.
As far as the "invisible empire" Klan of the 1920s was concerned, they had a much bigger beef with Catholics (especially non-English speaking immigrants) than with Jews, per their own propaganda. If one looks at the writings of Alma White (the "godmother" of the Klan in New Jersey and founder of the Pillar of Fire which still exists, but has renounced racism/anti-semitism), you will see that their concerns about Jews were rather schizophrenic, endorsing Zionism and respecting them as "people of the book," while condemning them as agents of bolshevism and perversion.
The ironic thing is that at the time when the Klan was obsessed with Catholic immigration and "race mixing," Irish Catholics themselves (and the political machines they supported) were the major participants in anti-black violence and lynchings in the north and Midwest (see the East St. Louis riot, the lynchings in Omaha and St. Paul, etc.).
Zionist:
Well, you and I at least agree on these points with respect to History. As someone who was born raised and will die in Louisiana, and has travelled extensively in the South and lived for a short time in 2 other Southern States, the ole aristocratic South [High Church Episcopalians], who were the civic, political and cultrual elite of the antebellum South were not anti-Catholic in the hate sense. It was the more rural Protestant South and the more independent Congregationist type Protestants [in the Northeast as well as the Presbyterians, Methodist and Baptist that were then, and to some degree, now anti Catholic. I made the distinction and on that point, do agree with you. And you are also correct that in the Northeast, it was Congregationalist, Calvinist and puritan streams in it and was also very anti-Catholic, and immigration did change the demographics and thus defacto removed the religous anti-Catholicism in those regions as bascially, Protestantism in the Northeast, the congregationalist have collapsed into secular atheism or Unitariansim and thus the anti Catholicism in the Northeast is more of the secularist type directed at orthodox Catholic Bishops who are gradually starting to reappear in that part of the country, i.e. Dolan of NY, Tobin in Rhode Island, etc.
Now as for your comments about Catholics reducing the biblical text and writers to ignorant and myth, I think that is a mischaracterization and is not accurate.
I don't want to travel under a false flag. I am an admirer of New England Puritanism, temperance, anti-Masonry, and much of the old moralistic impulse. I am also (confession time here) known as one of the foremost "anti-Catholic bigots" on this forum, though my primary argument with Catholics is against their turning the Bible into a book of "myths" written by ignorant primitives who didn't know how the world actually works.
You know, I always enjoy reading your replies and our occasional exchanges, but you're very wrong in the first paragraph of yours cited above. Puritans (and Congregationalists, and those ever-so-genteel Anglican Cavaliers) literally drove the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Methodists and so many other denominations not afforded the luxury of being a State religion, drove them out, drove them up into the Shenandoah Valley and beyond into the backcountry, where these denominations could find some semblance of peace, some semblance of being able to worship God as they chose, in relative peace.
This was occurring well before the Republic was ever born. It continued to some extent afterwards, but the disestablishment of State religions removed the force of law from those who would drive them out. The revivalist zeal of that very manic-depressive genius, Jonathan Edwards, was symptomatic of the deeply held religious views of all the populace in the colonial era, regardless of geography. That such deeply held religious views remain in the south and not in the north as a whole, is indicative more of a falling away elsewhere and not some sort of derivative echo.
In a broad sense, the one region held true to the faith of it's forefathers, and the other did not. That's all you can conclude without attributing some false cause-and-effect that did not and does not exist.
As far as the all too easily flung and all too common charges of "bigotry" against anyone who stands up for literal meaning within the Old Testament, or in your case the Torah, well ... let's just say the Religion Forum occasionally veers into territory that feels very out of place on a conservative, Constitutionalist site such as Free Republic. There are some internalized and very deeply held hard left points of view on inadvertant display at times.
You leave out a very important point, which is the secularization of the once-Catholic population in the northeast itself, and the hostility or passivity of such ancestral Catholics in those regions. Catholics are a majority of the population in liberal Rhode Island, and a plurality in most of New England and the Mid-Atlantic, yet the Church no longer has the political power, or hold over the population, that it did from the 1920s-1960s (the peak of Catholic political/cultural influence in the northeast). Folks like Dolan can take strong public stances, but they do not have the power to deliver (or subtract) votes like they used to as the regions/populations they represent have become highly secularized.
Clemenza:
Yes, now that I think about it, you are correct. There has been a collapse in the Catholic cultural of the Northeast as many Catholics there have been seduced by secularism, so I do agree with you. Not being from up that way and having only travelled to New York City, I sort of forgot to analyze the ratio of practicing/Mass attending Catholics in that region versus the more cafeteria types.
Yet, I still hope that Bishops like Dolan, Tobin, etc can start to help turn the tide up there.
You mean the heresy of those good bible thumpin' Christians like Jefferson and Franklin? /s
Actually, the "old time religion" as we know it today is a product of the Second Great Awakening, which started at the Cane Ridge revival in Kentucky, and spread north, south and west. The issue in the north was overcompetition and sectarian strife (the "burned over districts") and, more importantly, the migration of the old Yankee protestant population west as the Catholics moved in (Prod Flight).
Religious devotion has waxed and waned throughout American history, but to say that the founders of our nation were holy rollers is a revisionist mistatement. They were men of varying opinions on religion, but as they were not part of the Second Great Awakening, it would be a mistake to draw a line from them to Billy Graham.
It is interesting to note, btw, that 1900 was the first year in which a majority of Americans were estimated to be affiliated with one church or another, largely due to Catholic immigration (Catholics being REQUIRED to register with a parish and attend mass). Before then, folks picked and choosed their churches (if they even attended) based upon the quality of clergy.
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