Pride and Prejudice

The cry of “politicking” that greeted the spokesmen for the U.S. Catholic Hierarchy after their preelection meetings with the two presidential candidates is but one more indication of the two great flaws that still bedevil Catholics and Protestants. With undiminished potency, these flaws prevent the two ancient antagonists from truly loving each other and from forming a common front against a common danger: the threats to survival from a world frankly and increasingly inhospitable to both. They need to lay aside the pleasantries and varnished unity of ecumenism, and sit down together for serious reflection.

While Protestants may not be as homogeneous as Catholics, they are still surprisingly united on one point: prejudice against Catholics, Catholicism, and traditional Catholic values. Theirs is. a prejudice not of superiority but of fear. Catholics, on their side, share as a body one common attitude toward Protestants: pride. They think of. all Protestants as late-coming heretics on a downhill slide, whereas they themselves can point to an unbroken line going back to Peter the Fisherman and to Jesus.

MM

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Malachi B. Martin

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The cry of “politicking” that greeted the spokesmen for the U.S. Catholic Hierarchy after their preelection meetings with the two presidential candidates is but one more indication of the two great flaws that still bedevil Catholics and Protestants. With undiminished potency, these flaws prevent the two ancient antagonists from truly loving each other and from forming a common front against a common danger: the threats to survival from a world frankly and increasingly inhospitable to both. They need to lay aside the pleasantries and varnished unity of ecumenism, and sit down together for serious reflection.

While Protestants may not be as homogeneous as Catholics, they are still surprisingly united on one point: prejudice against Catholics, Catholicism, and traditional Catholic values. Theirs is. a prejudice not of superiority but of fear. Catholics, on their side, share as a body one common attitude toward Protestants: pride. They think of. all Protestants as late-coming heretics on a downhill slide, whereas they themselves can point to an unbroken line going back to Peter the Fisherman and to Jesus.