Posted on 02/24/2011 3:15:40 PM PST by NYer
February 23rd, 2011
By Father Robert Barron
Anti-Catholicism has long been a feature of both the high and the low culture in America. From the 19th century to the middle of the 20th, it was out in the open: Many editorialists, cartoonists, politicians and other shapers of popular opinion in that era were crudely explicit in their opposition to the Catholic Church. But then, in the latter half of the 20th century, anti-Catholicism went relatively underground. It still existed, to be sure, but it was considered bad form to be too obvious about it. However, in the last 10 years or so, the old demon has resurfaced.
There are many reasons for this, including the animosity to religion in general prompted by 9/11 and the clerical sex-abuse scandal that has, legitimately enough, besmirched the reputation of the Catholic Church. I’m not interested here so much in exploring the precipitating causes of this negative attitude as I am in showing the crudity and unintelligence of its latest manifestations. Permit me to share two examples.
I’m reading James Miller’s “Examined Lives,” a biographical study of 12 great philosophers, from Socrates to Nietzsche. I found Miller’s treatment of St. Augustine to be extraordinary, not because it shed any particularly new light on the saint’s work, but because it was so unapologetically anti-Catholic. Miller comments approvingly on the young Augustine, the intellectual seeker who moved from Manichaeism to neo-Platonism in the open-minded quest for the always elusive truth. But on Miller’s reading, the seeker’s fall from grace was his embrace of the “closed system” of Christianity, which led Augustine to become a coldly oppressive sectarian. Here is how Miller brings his analysis of Augustine to a close: “He lay the conceptual grounds for creating perhaps the most powerful community of closed belief in world history – the Catholic Church that ruled over medieval Western Europe as an all-encompassing, if not quite totalitarian theocracy, unrivalled before or since by any other religious or secular one party state, be it Muslim or Communist.” The not so subtle implication (despite that little “not quite” in front of “totalitarian”) is that the Catholic Church has proven more oppressive than the Taliban and the states fronted by Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.
But Miller’s excursions into anti-Catholicism seem as nothing, compared to the exertions of Mark Warren, the executive editor of Esquire magazine. In a piece on his blog last week, Warren drew attention to a recent expose of the church of Scientology which appeared in the pages of the New Yorker magazine. He praised the author for revealing the ridiculous beliefs of Scientology, which are based upon the wild, science fiction-like musings of L. Ron Hubbard. But then Warren commented that these claims are no wilder, no more irrational, than those of any other of the “great” religions, including and especially Christianity. What follows is one of the most ludicrous “summaries” of Christian belief I’ve ever read. Here are some highlights: “I grew up believing that every breath I drew sent a god-made man named Jesus Christ writhing on the cross to which he had been nailed – an execution for which he had been sent to earth by his heavenly father.” And “yet I was born not innocent but complicit in this lynching, incomprehensibly having to apologize and atone for this barbarism for all my days and feel terrible about myself and all mankind.”
One notices here something that is also on display in the anti-Christian polemics of Bill Maher and Christopher Hitchens, namely, a presentation of Christianity that is informed by a painfully childish “theology,” something out of a half-understood grade school catechism. For example, Maher, Hitchens, Warren and many other critics speak of the Christian belief in a “sky god,” betraying no sensitivity to the dynamics of symbolic language in a religious context. The “heavenly” Father of whom biblically minded people speak is not a being who dwells in the clouds but rather a reality that radically transcends the categories of ordinary experience. And I can only smile at the sheer weirdness of Warren’s characterization of the purpose and meaning of Christ’s death on the cross. The correct doctrine is that God, in Christ, entered, out of love, into the depth of human misery, sin and failure in order to bring the divine light even to those darkest places.
What is most remarkable in all of this is not the unintelligence of the explicit claims being made but rather the blatancy of the contempt for the church. When this hoary old prejudice shows itself, Catholics have to stand up to it, lest it be allowed to evolve into something even more dangerous.
Ping!
... on display in the Sola Scriptura Caucus.
Months after Maher, Miller, Hitchens, and Warren leave this earth no one will even remember who they were. But they will still read Augustine.
As long as there are Rednecks, you Catholics will never be the last acceptable group to hate.
What could be more loving, wonderful, beautiful than the message of God to man through His Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners (in many parts and in many ways) spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom He hath made the worlds; Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High.” (Hebrews 1:1-3)
The prophet Isaiah was given a vision: in Isaiah 1:18a he wrote: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD;.....”
Then Isaiah 7:9 he wrote: “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel (God with us)” and again in Isaiah 9:6:”For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
In the four Gospels (good news) Matthew, Mark, Luke,and John we see Jesus presented as “King” then “Servant” then
“Man” and last as “God.” And He was all four!
Look at John 1:1-5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. He was life; and the life was the light of man. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
“He was in the world, and the world knew was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own knew Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:10-13)
One more verse here in John 1:14:”And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,)full of grace and truth.”
We all know John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should have everlasting life.”
But read on: “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:17)
While anti-Catholicism is still acceptable (look no further than the fr religion forum for examples of it), it is not the only acceptable prejudice. It’s still generally acceptable to be prejudiced against other Christians, conservatives, white people, men, rednecks, southerners, gun-owners, the rich, capitalists, Americans, etc.
Yeah. Right. Like the MSM just looooves Evangelical Christians. Puh-leaz!!
**The last acceptable prejudice (Fr. Robert Barron on anti-Catholicism)**
Indeed the last acceptable prejudice. And it would seem that many here on this site practice this prejudice at will.
The Lord will be the judge.
And God is a God of Mercy as well as a God of JUSTICE!!!
“As long as there are Rednecks, you Catholics will never be the last acceptable group to hate.”
Well, the rednecks around here hate Catholics so I don’t know which is on first or on second.
What’s this??? Another cheese and whine thread??? People shouldn’t be allowed to express publically that they don’t like your religion???
Uh, no it’s Bread & Wine and furthermore, it’s one thing for people to disagree with our religion. It’s entirely different to encounter bigots who spew lies, hate, & misrepresentations of the truth. I do believe THAT is what the article refers to.
the MSM hates us both but the Evangelicals hate the Catholics. Hence, we are the last acceptable prejudice. Wake up.
It would be different if that meant that the rejection was based upon a real understanding of Catholicism, but ore often that not the "dislike" is based upon nothing more than ignorant hatred.
"There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church." - Bishop Fulton Sheen
There is nothing wrong with anti-Catholicism so long as people don’t take it out on Cathoics.
I'd say your Bishop was seriously mistaken...It makes for good press tho...
I'd say that the "indwelling" voice that is telling you that it is OK to hate the Church isn't the Holy Spirit.
Assuming of course that you mean the Catholic religion when you write Church, you would be mistaken as well...
And it not just the indwelling voice, it the written words of God that confirm this...
There is only one Church. All others are at best petulant little break-away personality cliques.
"And it not just the indwelling voice, it [is]the written words of God that confirm this...
But interpreted for you by that same unholy indwelling voice.
The last acceptable prejudice
As long as there are Rednecks, you Catholics will never be the last acceptable group to hate.
Hear, hear! I resent the blatant untruth that Catholics are a safer or more frequent target than "rednecks." In fact, Catholics not infrequently engage in the same anti-"redneck" bigotry as the most effete elitist liberal.
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