Part of the exchange between Joanna Brooks and Warren Cole Smith that I wrote about yesterday caught my attention. When asked if he considers Catholics dangerous, Smith states, “The historic view of Christianity is that the essential views of the Christian faith—the views affirmed in the Nicene Creed—both Catholics and Christians affirm those essentials.”
That’s an evasion. In the “historic view,” Catholics have scared the living piss out of American protestants. At the signing of the Constitution, about half the states had some articles preventing Catholics from holding office. A few restricted Catholic civil rights. There was even an anti-Catholic article in one of the early drafts of the Declaration of Independence.
That last one takes some explanation. After the French and Indian War (that’s the Seven Year War to everyone outside the US) the British found themselves in control of Canada. In a surprisingly liberal move, Parliament allowed the predominantly Catholic population of Canada to retain their faith. They were also allowed to maintain certain French laws and customs.
This did not sit well with Americans. There was suspicion that the British were attempting to raise a “Popish army” to keep order in the colonies.
In the rough draft of the “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms,” Thomas Jefferson warned that the British have created “a tyranny dangerous to the very existence of all these colonies.” In a late draft of the Declaration of Independence, he (or perhaps Adams) included a more coded reference:
He [King George] has combined with others [Parliament] to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their [Parliament's] Acts of pretended [illegitimate] Legislation … For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies.
This passage was struck from the final Declaration, but it points to the fact that in the “historic view,” American Christianity has been narrowly Protestant. This idea of America’s “Judeo-Christian heritage” or the great three faiths – Protestant, Catholic, Jew – is a fairly recent development.
Well until the Protestants needed Catholics to support overturning Roe v. Wade there was no reason to acknowlege them heathens!
There’s no question that evangelicals have long considered Catholics as “unsaved” even that the church is the Whore of Babylon. I think you can also easily make the argument that the catholic church has not been a progressive force in history. Indeed, forward movement seemed to require rejection of the church and its dogma, e.g., the reformation which became a major progressive force in history. Perhaps it is the inherent retrograde attitude that accompanies orthodoxy. I’ve also always thought that, though the violence was appalling, the radical reaction of the Russian communists to the Orthodox Church made sense if you considered what a corrupt and corrosive force religion had been in Russia under the Czars.
The Catholic Church, as an institution, does a lot of good but, imho, on the whole it does more harm, like any religion, I guess. However, when I consider all the pedophile scandals in the RCC, I wonder what other institution could survive such facts — or should. It seems to me that it is past time to demand that the RCC be outlawed, disbanded and its assets sold with the proceeds going to right some of the wrongs of the church — not only to the people abused under their auspices but to those deprived/denied their reproductive rights due to church doctrine. Wouldn’t it be great to see reparations paid to those duped and injured by religion.
both Catholics and Christians
There it is.