Just what is the Roman Catholic church, a religion, a nation, a private club, an evil empire..?

Great Debates
21

But that’s the nature of political correctness. People assume that any criticism is a further manifestation of an age-old form of prejudice rather than fair play betweern competing political entities.

There’s only so much you can criticize blacks or Jews for as a group, but the RCC is a powerful organization with a hierarchical leadership and a very specific public policy agenda.

So when someone is being “anti-Catholic” is that like being anti-Republican or more like being anti-semitic? I think the distinction is being blurred.

22

I’m led to believe that faith is not so simple as believing all or believing none, accepting all or accepting none. What if you respect the Church’s authority on all subjects but one area you are uncertain about? What if you’re largely in agreement, but have reservations about specific pointers? It’s not* trivial *to reconcile personal, community, and authority differences. It’s not trivial to adapt your own ideas as to what’s what to a general opinion. It’s not trivial to leave a Church and a community to which you’ve belonged and in a lot of respects internalised. Or, at least, it needn’t be.

UDS, as I understand excommunication, it is itself supposed to be simply a message, a reaction, with the “penalty” as such being automatically applied as a result of certain behaviours. However, again as I understand it, excommunication as a practice occurs because sometimes a believer is considered to require that message; it’s a little reality based nudge to draw their attention to spiritual problems. In that sense, however, in practical terms it does have effects in and of itself. The message itself, rigorously applied, sends its own message and has it’s own effects.

23

Yes, it’s intended as a corrective, to call the believer’s attention to the gravity of their behaviour and to provoke them to reconsider it. It is automatically applied for a (small) number canonical offences, and optionally (though rarely) applied for a number of others. But the effect it has, or may have, is a subjective effect in the believer - as in, it may make lead them to change their behaviour. It doesn’t alter in any way the moral quality of the acts that have had them excommunicated, and it doesn’t jeopardise their salvation.

24

It can be a lot of things, depending who you are talking to.
If you live in some regions of the South or are in a place where you frequently hear broadcasts from the Moody Bible Institute, then the criticism is going to come across in a way similar to anti-semitism. Other groups are going to leave the typical Catholic with other views.

I still question your original claim:

I doubt that “Catholics” (as some monolithic Borg-like organism) act in any particular way. Certainly, Donohue and his Catholic League tend to treat any criticism as mindless, hate-drivien attacks, but Donohue is the leader of a tiny (if vocal) group of which the vast majority of Catholics have no knowledge, much less interest.

Other Catholics will respond to other criticisms in particular, but widely differing, ways.

If you are going to ask why some group of Catholics have responded to a specific criticism, then you need to identify the group, the criticism, and the group’s response, otherwise you are, yourself, inadvertantly tending to lump Catholics together in a way that is reminiscent of the way that some folks speak of “the Jews.”

25

I’m a little out of my league here, so pardon me if I don’t know the right terms to use. There are certain fundamental, core beliefs that the RCC requires communincants to adhere to. Then there are a whole host (pun intended) of other beliefs that Catholics can disagree about. Faith, from an RCC standpoint, requires that you accept the Church authority on the former. You can stray, but if you do, you must repent. When I said it was trivial to repent, I was assuming you wanted to repent. If you don’t want to repent, then you have a deep, significant disagreement with the Church, and there is no reason for you to think you should still be a member.

If you want to be a member of the Church, you have to submit your will to that of the Church for those fundamental matters. Everyone has to do that. You don’t need to understand why it’s important, you just have to accept that it is. That’s what faith is.

All Catholics are sinners. But if you are unwilling to repent for sinning, you can’t expect to remain in the Church.

26

It’s not so straightforward.

What makes a Christian a Catholic is the fact that his is in communion with other Catholics. Communion is a relationship which involves shared belief, but more than just shared belief – it also involves shared celebration of the sacraments, particularly the eucharist, shared worship, a commitment to a shared pursuit of the gospel, etc.

Given the various dimensions of this relationship, it’s not a simple binary that you are either in this relationship with other Catholics, or not. There can be various defects or weaknesses in the relationship, but it requires something fairly major to sever it entirely.

There isn’t a categorical statement of the propositions of faith that, if rejected, will completely destroy communion. The closest that there is to this is probably the Nicene Creed, which I think emerged from a statement of the faith-propositions which candidates for baptism were required by the early church to affirm. Reject that, and it’s pretty well impossible to be a Catholic. On the other hand, you can accept the Nicene Creed in a sense, or with an understanding, which differs from the sense or understanding which other Catholics may have. And, more to the point, there are many Christians who accept the entirety of the Nicene Creed, and yet are not Catholics, because for other reasons they are not in communion (and, mostly, don’t want to be).

So, while faith is an important element of communion, communion can’t be reduced simply to shared faith.

As to repentance, all Christians believe that everyone is called to repentance. But repentance, too, is not a simple binary, such that you either repent immediately and completely or not at all. Repentance is a change of heart leading to a change of life; it’s a process. If the Catholic church consisted only of people who had wholly and perfectly repented, it would be a much smaller church.

Ceasing to be a Catholic is somewhat like ceasing to be an American. You can be a bad citizen of the US, you can be angry at the US, or at America, you can take on Frenchified airs, profess revolutionary socialism, or learn how to make a good cup of tea. You can renounce your nationality. You can do things that arouse the ire and suspicion of other Americans. But none of this will necessarily mean that you stop being American.

Really, the only certain way to not be a Catholic is to want to not be a Catholic; to sever intentionally the relationship of communion that binds you to other Catholics.

27

I did say “often”, not “always”.

Jews “often” regard criticism of the Israeli government as anti-semitism. My local newspaper recently published a letter-to-the-editor making just that accusation in response to criticism of the Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla. Are we going to get out a scale to determine how often “often” needs to be? Often enough for me to have noticed it, that’s how often.

It is the Catholic League, after all.

28

Do you have a link to back that up? I’ve never heard that assertion before.

29

This is another common misunderstanding that needs clarifying. The Vatican City State, the entity which issues citizenships, has existed only since 1929 and has international relationships with practically nobody except Italy. The Holy See, the entity which enjoys international recognition as a sovereign, exchanges ambassadors, etc, has existed for a long time; it’s one of the longest continually-operating players on the diplomatic stage. At various times it has controlled varying amounts of territory (and at times none at all) but its international signifance doesn’t really depend on the territory, if any, which it controls. It’s probably best not to think of it as a sovereign state, but as a sovereign international organisation, similar to the UN, the Red Cross, the Knights of Malta, etc.

30

On November 22, 1963, the news of JFK’s shooting & his death came to my high school slowly. Finally, the principal came on the intercom & officially told us all. Then he said that school was out & we could all go home.

Quite a few students cheered.

As I’ve said, I’m not a Believer in any of that God stuff. And there is no excuse for covering up child abuse. But some of the critics–even here–are just repeating the anti-Catholic sentiment they sucked up with their mothers’ milk.

31

Were you living in Houston then? I wonder how much of that reaction was anti-Catholic and how much anti-Yankee. JFK wasn’t too popular in the South, I think, for being as near to a Boston Brahmin as an Irishman could be, and for making tentative moves towards civil-rights legislation. And his death meant LBJ was president, first Texan ever.

32

Actually, it is the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, but that is just a title selected by an advocacy group.

The League, (admitting that they inflate their numbers), claim 350,000 members, which means that their inflated figures give them about 1/2% of the Catholics in the U.S.

I note, also, that your construction was “Catholics. . . often act” which strongly indicates that you believe that all Catholics act in a particular way a lot of the time.
I am simply noting that while you can certainly find Catholics who behave in that way, your claim remains misleading. After all, the tiny, vocal Catholic League spends an inordinate amount of effort publicizing their views–views that are not representative of the general body of American Catholics. You can probably find similar sentiments voiced by the League, the Knights of Columbus, and the Blue Army. On the other hand, you will also discover that the same individuals tend to join the League and the Knights and the Army, so that even adding all those numbers, you will actually find you have counted a small number of people two or three times.

On the other hand, it is also true that the view stated is accurate regarding certain critics in certain situations, while it is clearly not true among other critics in other situations.

  • ::: shrug :::*
33

I was raised Catholic and can vouch for psik’s claims. Psychological terrorism is still terrorism.

34

I was born North of Boston–my father’s home. (With parents born in Ireland, I heard he’d been beat up as a “foreigner” as a kid.) He was called back to active duty when I was 6 weeks old & died in a plane crash when I was 4. So my mother brought me & my 2 younger sibs back to Texas. She’d converted to Catholicism. Although I’ve spent most of my life in Texas, I’m not a “native.” (Blame my mother & my midwestern grandmother for that–they corrected my English & my grandmother threatened to wash my mouth out with soap if I ever repeated the N-word I learned at school. I never did.)

We lived in an unincorporated area south of Houston but attended school in a district run by a sundown town. (I remember my grandmother complaining about the inbreds who feared integrating lunch counters: “Who do they think cooks their food?”) In elementary school, we & the Mexican kids were the only Catholics–until the Fontenots moved here from Louisiana. We actually had a Jewish family in high school, which I thought was very cool, but diversity was definitely lacking.

So, yes, the cheers at JFK’s death were also anti-Yankee & pro-Racist. But I knew from personal experience that anti-Catholicism was part of the package. Do you really consider it OK to cheer LBJ becoming president because the previous president had his brains blown out up on Dallas? (At least LBJ fooled those racist idiots when he rammed through Civil Rights legislation.)

The whole area has become much more diverse, thankfully. And, yes, I’ve spoken out for multi-culturalism in other threads–from being a member of a minority.

The old hatred is alive & well in the USA.

(None of this excuses any wrongs done by the Church. It’s just a history lesson.)

35

You know perfectly well that I wasn’t referring to all Catholics and I think you can cut me enough slack to realize that I meant to say, “often, Catholics…”.

(In cases like this I usually try to work in the word “supporters” becasue it’s not so much about identity as taking a side, but I opted for the simple phrase this time.)

It’s tough to measure scientifically how often this kind of thing happens, but you don’t have to be a member of a particular organization to play the victim and hurl a false accusation of prejudice. I’ve been hearing that kind of reaction for decades.

36

That’s true. But the use of the excommunication as designed to draw the Catholic in question’s attention to his spiritual issues suggests that, at least in some cases, that person might not be aware, or might not think his crime so bad, without the excommunication. While the message does not, by itself, affect his or her salvation, it does intend to spark some soul-searching, and in that regard I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to include an excommunication as something which may well cause a bout of uncertainty about religion and their role within it. Likewise, it’s a message to other Catholics, who are likely as of yet not aware of the sin.

37

Sure there is; there’s that you might well agree with the Church on every other issue, or that your entire family are Catholic, or that being a Catholic is an integral part of who you are. Not everybody is able to be so certain and strict about their faith. And even if you want to repent, it’s not so simple - you don’t need to be a Catholic to have experienced a desire to change from tempting behaviour in some form.

Faith is, i’m led to believe, not always so forthcoming. It’s very easy to describe the situation in clinical terms. If this, then that. But there’s a reason why a “crisis of faith” is a common expression.

38

I’m don’t think having this discussion in the abstract is very constructive. Can you give a specific example of what you are talking about? Also, I think we’ve both been laboring under a mistaken understanding of excommunication. After reading the blurb on wikipedia, it’s clear that you are not kicked out of the Church. You are encouraged to attend mass, but you are not supposed to take communion. So, it’s a club that you actually can’t be kicked out of. That’s a pretty damn inclusive club!!

Yes, it’s quite common. But a “crisis of faith” is not a reason for excommunication, which is what we’re talking about. Excommunication is when you are unrepentant wrt some key area of Church dogma-- not when you struggle to understand why God allowed your wife to be stricken with cancer.

39

That certainly can’t be the case in the many instances of ‘automatic’ excommunication, such as getting an abortion. The woman might be dissuaded from getting an abortion, if she knows about this punishent, byt if she knows and gets one any, she’s doing it despite the punishment. But there are probably far more woman who don’t know the penalty, get an abortion, and are entirely unaware they are technically excommunicated. And probably the RCC is as well.

40

I wasn’t alive yet when JFK was assassinated, and I’ve never lived in the South, but I can tell you that I’ve been told straight to my face and more than a few times that I was going to burn in hell because I’m Catholic. Atheists aren’t the only ones who get that kind of remark.

My favorite was when a college acquaintance told me that in her view, Catholics are “the scourge of the earth.” Good times.