Anti-Catholicism is arguably the oldest bias in the history of the American people. Or so Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. — who had no dog in the fight — once told the dean of U.S. Catholic historians, Fr. John Tracy Ellis. Over the centuries, however, anti-Catholicism in America has taken on several forms.
In its classic New England iteration, anti-Catholicism was shaped by Protestant and, later, Enlightenment-rationalist assumptions. Both were neatly summarized in a letter from John Adams to his wife, Abigail, written during the First Continental Congress after Mr. Adams had undertaken an anthropological expedition through the streets of Philadelphia:
This afternoon, led by curiosity and good company, I strolled away to mother church, or rather grandmother church. I mean the Romish chapel. . . . [The] entertainment was to me most awful and affecting: the poor wretches fingering their beads, chanting Latin, not a word of which they understood; their pater nosters and ave Marias; their holy water; their crossing themselves perpetually; their bowing to the name of Jesus, whenever they hear it; their bowings, kneelings, and genuflections before the altar. The dress of the priest was rich white lace. His pulpit was velvet and gold. The altar piece was very rich, little images and crucifixes about; wax candles lighted up. . . .
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear, and imagination — everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
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Adams, it should be noted, contributed handsomely to the building of a Catholic church in Boston in the years after the Revolution; the passionate support for the cause of American independence displayed by such Federalist leaders as Charles Carroll of Carrolton had, evidently, caused the Sage of Quincy to reconsider. But in that 1774 letter to Abigail, he neatly summed up an indictment against Catholicism that would show remarkable staying power in the United States over the centuries: Catholicism is superstition; Catholics are ill-educated, priest-ridden boobies; the Church is a vast, money-making machine that sucks the lifeblood of the poor and ignorant; no educated person could possibly take the doctrines of the Church seriously.
In the early 19th century, the indictment against Catholicism was expanded to include the charge of sexual slavery in convents and Catholic schools. No one today would be surprised to be told that antebellum America’s bestselling book was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; it’s probably a safe bet that 99 percent of the country doesn’t know that Number Two on the pre–Civil War bestseller list was a potboiling fiction, Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal, which purported to be the memoirs of an escapee from this sexual Devil’s Island, one Maria Monk, but which was in fact written by two Protestant ministers. The Maria Monk trope — the Catholic Church as haven for sexual predators — was later revived in secular form in the cartoons of muckraker Thomas Nast, who regularly portrayed the miters of Catholic bishops as alligators’ jaws opening to attack children; it says something about the lack of imagination of today’s editorial cartoonists that this tawdry and tired image is regularly repeated on 21st-century editorial pages.
My problem with the Church is that it is too passive. I remember when I finally saw The Agony and the Ecstasy, about Michaelangelo painting the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel, how I just loved Rex Harrison as the Pope leading a military battle. The Church wants its individual communicants to live in accordance with a fairly rigorous array of accumulated churchy practices; they seem to never throw anything out. But the Catholic Church seldom draws its spiritual sword, and now seems afraid to do so. Weigel praises Archbishop Dolan for speaking against "gay marriage," but I haven't seen his face anywhere. I know that the Archdiocese of New York has a pretty strong public relations machine, and my estimation is that if Dolan is to draw the sword and exhaust himself in battle, this is the place to do it. Maybe he's back at his office relentlessly working the phones, but I believe he needs to get out and relentlessly make the natural law and the Biblical case for the meaning of marriage. I don't see it. I haven't seen it. All I've seen is the New York State government, and it's vile governor, leading a cause of abject debauchery against society and its moral foundations and traditions.
Since Ms. Dowd finds so much to dislike about the Catholic Church, one wonders why she continues to be Catholic. Perhaps Ms. Dowd, like so many other dissatisfied Catholics, prefers to blame her dissatisfaction with the Church on the Church rather than admit it is her personal failing as a Catholic, her lack of devotion to the doctrine and teachings of the Church, that is responsible for that dissatisfaction.
The problems I see with Catholicism are not with their "moral teachings" but with the centralized autocratic political structure of the church for which I am unable to find Scriptural authority. It is the same problem I have with Presbyterians, Baptists, and other sects that have established extra-biblical political heirarchies.
ByDongo-Not to turn the pages of NRO into an apologetic forum but a short answer is to your question is "You are Peter and on this Rock I will build My Church". Matt 16:18-19
For the long answer, read "By what Authority" by Mark Shea.
You do raise a good point. The only explaination I can offer is that Abp Dolan has his own style. I'm from the Midwest and can attest to Abp Dolan's quiet effectiveness in light of the Cdl Weakland scandals. Also, I think the current generation of "younger" bishops were trained to be PR savvy. By savvy, I mean low-key and one eye fixed on the big picture. It is almost impossible to find a bishop today with the temperment of the late Cdl O'Conner.
Your differences with Catholics are deeper than you think, and involve the source of religious authority. For Catholics, the Church's authority is not derived from the Bible, but from Jesus Christ Himself, Who appointed St. Peter the first Pope. The New Testament was written years later, after the Church's authority had already been established. For a Catholic, the Bible derives its authority from the Church, not vice-versa. This is the fundamental difference between Catholics and Protestants.
I had lunch yesterday with the local head of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization. I mentioned to him that I believed anti-Catholicism existed, even though it was not as obvious as other forms of bigotry. People were able to hide it a lot better. He seemed to agree with me. You are Exhibit 'A.' Thanks for confirming my beliefs.
Most scholars agree that the last gospel to be written was John. A fragment of the Gospel of John has been found that dates to around 125AD, which means that the other three gospels were written prior to that.
Unless all of the letters of Paul, Peter, and John are faked, then they were written in the mid to late first century.
There was no church authority during the first century.
Many protestants believe that when Jesus refered to the rock on which he will build his church, he was refering to the truth that Peter had just spoken, not to Peter himself.
While your statement that the NT texts were written in the mid to late first century is correct, there was no consensus about which writings were acceptable and reliable until c. 150. Thus the church did not create or establish the NT. But to say that there was no Church before the NT is incorrect. All Christian communities were founded and then came under the care of a bishop. There was no centralized authority, it is true, no pope or patriarch ruling the entire Church, that would not come for centuries, if at all. But there were autonomous local authorities whose authority to teach and defend Christian belief became the foundation of the Church. Thus the Magisterium predates the NT. Read Henry Chadwick on The Early Church.
Actually, the primacy of Peter is clear even in the texts of the Gospels and the Acts (e.g. his authority at the Council of Jerusalem), and there are also letters from the bishops of Rome to other bishops dating from the first century which show that he had general jurisdiction (see Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum). Then in the time of Augustine, the bishops of N Africa write to Innocent, bishop of Rome, after the Council of Carthage, the implication being that they need his assent in order for it to have the proper force. Etc.
Medieval Prof: It's not completely accurate to state that there was no consensus on which writtings were acceptable until c. 150.
By that time, most churches were using pretty much the same core documents. Some had a few more, some had a few less. The council of Nicene for the most part just gave the air of authority to what was happening already.
Most of the texts that were not included in the canon were still available in the Apocrypha.
The only texts that were actively discriminated against were those that had strong gnostic tendencies.
Gnosticism was a heresy for two reasons, it held that Christ was never fully human, they believed that the spirit being holy, could never coexist with flesh which was evil. They also believed in the existence of secret knowledge and believed that it was knowing this knowledge that made one saved, not faith in Christ alone.
No Church Authority during the first century? What do you think the Epistles were all about other than the authority of the Apostles and their Successors? If there was no Church Authority, on what basis could Paul And Peter and John denounce heresy? Your statement is astonishing.
Catholics do not (or at least should not) believe that the Bible is authoritative because of the Church. The Church served an important role in the formation of the New Testament by its authoritative recognition of what was inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is an important distinction.
As with Schlesinger Sr., I have no dog in this fight. I agree, though, with Jenna: if Dowd doesn't like her church,she can choose another church or none at all. What I find most disturbing is that she can use her soapbox in the NYT to denigrate the Catholilc Church in the way she has.
Recalls Fulton Sheen's comment, "Only a few people hate what the Catholic Church really is, millions hate what they think it is." But rather than a snark like Ms. Dowd who preaches to the converted cynical, I wonder how Mr. Weigel feels about Garry Wills ("Papal Sin," "What Jesus Meant") who has criticized Church hierarchy up to Pope Benedict yet respects the office as it stems from a "Petrine charism."
Conservatives like to get on this "equality" schtick. It doesn't wash.
Dowd may hate the Catholic Church, but she's not bigoted against it the way a non-Catholic might be. Similarly, African-Americans have a different license to use the N-word than Dowd. Similarly, Jews have the right to rail against Kiryas Joel in a way that might be considered antisemitic and threatening when articulated by a non-Jew.
An admission against one's own interest is considered differently in the law than an accusation leveled against another.
