Posted on 11/12/2013 3:47:47 PM PST by NYer
Ping!
Could it have been that Catholicism is incorrect?
After the French revolution the Vatican wisely renounced all of the church's claims to confiscated lands in France.
Could it be you are ignorant?
Any day is a good day for historical revisionism!
Well, there was a long history of persecuting Protestant “heretics”. And also the fact that as late as the late 1800s the official position of the Pope was that republican government was against the will of God, and the only acceptable form of government was a Catholic monarchy.
The inquisition wouldn’t have anything to do with it would it?
Beside, Catholicism is not incorrect nor correct. It’s a faith. So, set your head straight, you having faith in something that others do not, does not equal wrong or right for either side.
Fear of divided loyalties was legitimate but not specific to Catholics. Franklin wanted Germans gone because so many had fought as mercenaries for the British. Today we Americans of German lineage are probably the single largest group in the country.
Today we Protestants mostly see Catholics as natural allies and assets in our fight to save America.
Anti-catholicism was justified in the past, back in the days when Popes issued papal bulls calling for the oppression of ‘heretics’ and compelling adherents of the Catholic faith to turn against any government or ruler that was not Roman Catholic. It gave ideological support to the concept of monarchical absolutism and theocratic despotism. I fully understand why the Whigs of old equated ‘Popery’ with slavery.
That said, that was the Catholic Church of old, back in the days when the Pope got far too involved in temporal affairs. It is different now, and the Catholic Church of today is for the most part a force for good with a moral influence and authority that acts as a check on the worst excesses of secular government, but it wasn’t always so.
Our founders were not fond of state religions. Catholicism is the original state religion.
Former FReeper Jodyel made a similar statement. Notice I typed former. Even Jim Rob got involved in that skirmish.
I’m happy to put that past behind us. There are some Catholics (and others) who want to pretend it never happened though, and portray all anti-Catholicism of the past as simple bigotry akin to racism.
Too bad they (Catholics) vote overwhelming Democrat.
The return of church land was not a big factor on the minds of Englishman. The biggest factor was the overturning of the English Constitution, unwritten but understood. The conflict between absolute monarchy and constitutional monarchy was thought parallel with The RC and Protestantism.
It is seen in the Anglosphere in coming to a head with our first revolution, Michael Barone’s term, the Glorious Revolution of 1689. James II was seen as embracing Catholic absolutism of the continent. This justified his overthrow to protect the English constitution, limiting the powers of the monarch through Parliament.
Going back to Henry VIII and his break with Rome, is the basis for the English and American anti-Catholicism. Remember that Queen Mary brought back Catholicism and ordered the execution of her father’s supporters of the break with Rome. As Henry had done with those who refused to break with Rome. It was also a world where Rome had political influence and was allied with Spain, France and the Holy Roman Empire.
In America, the English colonists saw the Spanish and French as enemies, both political and religious.
But one needs also to remember that in Maryland was a colony established for English Catholics. And it succeeded as a colony and also sought independence from England.
And in the late 1800s and early 20th Century, the immigrants from Catholic areas of Europe, also was seen as bringing socialism with it. Thus a new political issue was mixed into the old religious fears.
The key point is that many have striven to overcome these old hates as something that deserves to be in the past and NOT be used as reasons to keep them alive today.
The really interesting thing about America’s founding is that as much as Protestants feared being dominated by the Church of Rome, the ideas which Jefferson immortalized in the Virginia Declaration of Rights and Declaration of Independence are uniquely Catholic.
Jefferson captured three main ideas: that our rights are endowed by God and cannot be denied by the state; that rulers rule by consent of the governed; and that power within governments should be distributed among multiple branches at both the local and central levels where they can best be addressed and absolute power is never attained by a tyrant. He based these ideas on his reading of De Laicis: Treatise on Civil Government by Catholic Cardinal (and Saint) Robert Bellarmine. Bellarmine had written the treatise in response to the consolidation of power over the Church in England by Henry the VIII. — Jefferson had a copy of the book in his library and it had his handwritten notes in the margins throughout. — It is also interesting to note that the divine right of the kings was defended by Sir Robert Filmer in “Patriarcha or of the Natural Power of Kings.” Filmer wrote in direct response to Bellarmine to defend the King’s control of the Church in England. So the mostly Protestant Founders embraced Catholic doctrines in order to protect religious freedoms which many Protestants at the time feared were threatened by the Catholic Church. —Ain’t history fun?
Restrictions on Catholic immigration were lifted pretty quickly after the revolution. That’s good enough for me to consider it over.
Who’s Charles Carroll of Carrollton?
He is a signer of the DoI.
I think your comments are reasonable. I would say most modern-day anti-Protestantism and anti-Catholicism is just simple bigotry. There is justifiable rationale for either side to prefer their theology over the others but these “battles” get far too personal and irrational IMO
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