Anti-Catholicism

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Anti-Catholicism is a bias against Roman Catholicism. It is not to be confused with mere disagreement with the Church's theology or criticisms of its policies, although such disagreement and criticism may at times mask an underlying anti-Catholic disposition. Anti-Catholicism may also take the form of spreading malicious falsehoods. The term also applies to the religious persecution of Catholics.

History

The Catholic Church's history is rife with conflict, both within the church (and its various factions), as well as with other churches and secular governments. This conflict has given rise to anti-Catholic sentiments which may have originated in valid disputes but have, in many cases, evolved into a determined opposition to the Catholic Church.

The Church struggled to maintain its role in the face of rising secular power in Europe. It also struggled to assert its spiritual authority over dissident clergy and laity of the Protestant Reformation. As a result of these struggles, there arose a hostile attitude towards the power of local bishops and priests who were the local representatives of the Church's power. This hostility is referred to as "anti-clericalism". Opposition to Catholic Church in general is often referred to as "anti-Papism".

England and Protestantism

Protestantism was firmly established in England with the accession of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1570, Pope Pius V sought to depose her with the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis, which declared Elizabeth a heretic and purported to release her Catholic subjects from allegiance to her. This added a political dimension to a previously religious conflict, and rendered Elizabeth's subjects who persisted in allegiance to the Catholic Church politically suspect.

The failed invasion of England by the Spanish Armada has been cited as an attempt by Philip II of Spain to put into effect the Pope's decree, and to enforce a claim to the throne of England he held as a result of being the widower of Mary I of England. Later episodes that deepened anti-Catholicism in England include the Gunpowder Plot, in which Guy Fawkes and other Catholic conspirators attempted to blow up the English Parliament while it was in session. Later, the "Popish Plot" involving Titus Oates was used by anti-Catholics to make Catholicism seem a renewed political menace by means of a fictitious assassination scheme.

In the context of long-standing attitudes among many British people toward Catholicism, the beliefs that underlie this sort of anti-Catholicism were summarized by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England:

As to papists, what has been said of the Protestant dissenters would hold equally strong for a general toleration of them; provided their separation was founded only upon difference of opinion in religion, and their principles did not also extend to a subversion of the civil government. If once they could be brought to renounce the supremacy of the pope, they might quietly enjoy their seven sacraments, their purgatory, and auricular confession; their worship of relics and images; nay even their transubstantiation. But while they acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they cannot complain if the laws of that kingdom will not treat them upon the footing of good subjects.

— Bl. Comm. IV, c.4 ss. iii.2, p. *54

The gravamen of this charge, then, is that Catholics constitute an imperium in imperio, a sort of a fifth column of persons who owe a greater allegiance to the Pope than they do to the civil government, a charge very similar to that repeatedly leveled at Jews. Accordingly, a large body of British laws, collectively known as the penal laws, imposed various civil disabilities and legal penalties on recusant Catholics. These laws were gradually repealed over the course of the nineteenth century with laws such as the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829; however, the law of succession to the British throne continues to bar Catholics, and anyone married to a "papist", from the line of succession. British royalty are still considered to have a religious role as head of the Church of England.

United States

These views were exported to the United States. John Jay in 1788 promoted the New York legislature to require officeholders to renounce foreign authorities "in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil."[1]. More significant anti-Catholicism has historically been conspicuous among the beliefs of various nativist organisations from the Know-Nothing Party in the 1850s to the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. The case of the murder of Father James Coyle had more to do with racial issues, but is a prime example of anti-Catholic violence in the US.

In 1846 the U.S. went to war with Catholic Mexico, but this did not produce anti-Catholicism. Hinkley explains this by the force of American nationalism, the general tolerance of religion, and the fact that most anti-Catholics were also anti-war. In more recent years, suspicion of the political aims and agenda of the Catholic Church have been revived several times. In 1949, Paul Blanshard's book American Freedom and Catholic Power portrayed the Catholic Church as an anti-democratic force hostile to freedom of speech and religion, eager to impose itself on the United States by boycott and subterfuge. These accusations continue to garner support because of the Catholic hierarchy's alliance with the right to life groups and threats to withhold Eucharist from Catholics who vote in favor of actions deemed opposed to Church teaching, such as abortion, assisted suicide or same-sex marriage.

It bears mention that this is not precisely excommunication. Few formal excommunications of political figures have occurred in modern times[2]. The confirmed cases of excommunicated Catholic politicians were primarily Communists or military dictators. Added to that according to Catholic teaching those in a state of mortal sin should not receive the Eucharist, which Catholicism considers a biblical rule that is not specific to any occupation.

The most recent Gallup states that 30% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Catholic faith with 57% having a favorable view. This is a higher unfavorability rate than in 2000, but considerably better than in 2002. Those who are not Christian or irreligious had a majority with an unfavorable view, but in part this represented a negative view toward al Christianity. The Catholic Church's doctrines, the priest sex abuse scandal, and "idolizing saints" were top issues for those who disapproved. On the other hand greed, Catholicism's view on homosexuality, and the celibate priesthood were low on the list of grievances for those who held an unfavorable view of Catholicism.[3]

Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt's ambivalence toward American Catholics caused a public fight in 1949 with Francis Cardinal Spellman, the Catholic Archbishop of New York, when in her columns she attacked proposals for federal aid for nonreligious activity (such as bus transportation) for Catholic school students. Spellman pointed out the Supreme Court had recently upheld such provisions, and accused her of anti-Catholicism. Most Democrats rallied behind Roosevelt so Spellman came to Eleanor's Hyde Park home to bury the hatchet. However she never could shake her belief that the Catholic schools were less than 100% democratic and did not deserve federal aid. She seems to have paid attention to the anti-Catholic polemics of people like Paul Blanshard. Privately she said that if Catholics got school aid, "Once that is done they control the schools, or at least a great part of them."

Mrs. Roosevelt was never as popular among Catholics as her husband. While he kept the country neutral in the Spanish Civil War, she openly favored the republican Loyalists (who were anticlerical) against General Franco's Nationalists (whom many American Catholics favored). After 1945 she opposed normalizing relations with Franco's Spain. She told Spellman bluntly that "I cannot, however, say that in European countries the control by the Roman Catholic Church of great areas of land has always led to happiness for the people of those countries." Catholics resented her quiet support of Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement, and her prewar sponsorship of the American Youth Congress in which the Communists had been heavily represented, but Catholic youth groups were not represented. (Lash, Eleanor: The Years Alone pp 156-65.)

Central and South America

Mexico's Cristero War of 1926-1929 stemmed from Plutarco Elías Calles's denial of priests rights and martyred many Saints of the Cristero War. Events relating to this were famously portrayed in the novel The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.

The Duvalier dynasty of Haitian dictators wanted to weaken or control the Catholic Church by bringing Voudoun "openly into the political process", according to Michel S. LaGuerre in Voodoo and Politics in Haiti.

Russian Orthodoxy

In the former Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was persecuted just for its religious role in the community, but at other times the Russian Orthodox Church was manipulated to combat Catholics on the grounds that this was a more "Russian" body.

Contemporary anti-Catholicism

Philip Jenkins, an Episcopalian historian, in The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 0195154800) maintains that some people who otherwise avoid offending members of racial, ethnic or gender groups drop their guard regarding religion. Earlier in the twentieth century, Harvard professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. characterized prejudice against the Catholic Church as "the deepest bias in the history of the American people" and Yale professor Peter Viereck once commented that "Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals."

Does "Christian" include Catholics?

American fundamentalist Bob Jones, Sr. held that a biblically informed understanding of the Roman Catholic Church leads one to the conclusion that it is an anti-Christian cult and the Pope is the Antichrist or False Prophet.

Pedophilia and the Priesthood

Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, equates Catholic priests to pederasty and sodomy in often graphic ways.

Sexual and reproductive rights

LGBT rights activists have had a stormy relationship to the Catholic Church. In 1989 members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power threw used condoms at a Church altar and desecrated the Eucharist during Mass. Robert Hilfrety's related video on this is called Stop the Church.

Common themes in popular media

From many and varied anti-Catholic texts and other media ranging from works of classical literature to sensational memoirs to comic books to television shows, several themes stand out.

Pagan origins and Satanic associations

Original cover of Hislop's Anti-Catholic *The Two Babylons*

Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons asserts that the Church originated from a Babylonian mystery religion and characterizes its practices as pagan.

Charles Chiniquy's 50 Years In The Church of Rome and The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional also criticize Catholicism as pagan.

In a chapter of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov called The Grand Inquisitor, the Church is alleged to have become a servant of Satan. (Interestingly the book is said to be well-liked by Pope Benedict XVI, perhaps because he sees it only as a criticism of the Inquisition.) In Notes from Underground the main character fantasizes about making the world a better place by eliminating or overthrowing the Pope. Even characters who defend Catholics believe in Jesuit conspiracies.

Idolatry

On a Brazilian holiday for Our Lady of Aparecida, in an episode known as the "Kicking of the Saint", a bishop of the Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God repeatedly beat a statue of said patron saint. 884K QuickTime Movie

Conspiracy theories

A series of tracts by noted anti-Catholic and comic book evangelist Jack Chick accuses the papacy of supporting Communism, of using the Jesuits to incite revolutions, and of masterminding the Holocaust.

Avro Manhattan's books, The Vatican's Holocaust, The Vatican Billions and Vatican, Washington, Moscow Alliance advanced the view that the Church engineers wars for world domination.

Dan Brown's best-selling The Da Vinci Code depicts the Catholic Church as determined to hide the truth about Jesus Christ. An article in an April 2004 issue of National Catholic Register maintains that the "The Da Vinci Code claims that Catholicism is a big, bloody, woman-hating lie created out of pagan cloth by the manipulative Emperor of Rome".

Convent ritual practices

Rebecca Reed's Six Months in a Convent describes her alleged captivity by an Ursuline order near Boston in 1932. Her claims inspired an angry mob to burn down the convent, and her narrative, released three years later as the rioters were tried, famously sold 200,000 copies in one month. In another bestselling exposé, Awful Disclosures of the Hotel-Dieu Nunnery, Maria Monk claims that the convent served as a harem for Catholic priests, and that any resulting children were murdered after baptism.

Additional reading

Anbinder; Tyler Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850's 1992
Bennett; David H. The Party of Fear: From Nativist Movements to the New Right in American History University of North Carolina Press, 1988
Billingon, Ray. The Protestant Crisade, 1830-1860 (1938)
Blanshard; Paul.American Freedom and Catholic Power Beacon Press, 1949
Thomas M. Brown, "The Image of the Beast: Anti-Papal Rhetoric in Colonial America," in Richard O. Curry and Thomas M. Brown, eds., Conspiracy: The Fear of Subversion in American History (1972), 1-20.
Steve Bruce, No Pope of Rome: Anti-Catholicism in Modern Scotland (Edinburgh, 1985).
Robin Clifton, "Popular Fear of Catholics during the English Revolution," Past and Present, 52 ( 1971), 23-55.
Cogliano; Francis D. No King, No Popery: Anti-Catholicism in Revolutionary New England Greenwood Press, 1995
David Brion Davis, "Some Themes of Counter-subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic and Anti-Mormon Literature," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 47 (1960), 205-224.
Andrew M. Greeley, An Ugly Little Secret: Anti-Catholicism in North America 1977.
Henry, David. "Senator John F. Kennedy Encounters the Religious Question: I Am Not the Catholic Candidate for President." Contemporary American Public Discourse. Ed. H. R. Ryan. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 1992. 177-193.
Higham; John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 1955
Hinckley, Ted C. "American Anti-catholicism During the Mexican War" Pacific Historical Review 1962 31(2): 121-137. Issn: 0030-8684
Hostetler; Michael J. "Gov. Al Smith Confronts the Catholic Question: The Rhetorical Legacy of the 1928 Campaign" Communication Quarterly. Volume: 46. Issue: 1. 1998. Page Number: 12+.
Philip Jenkins, The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice (Oxford University Press, New ed. 2004). ISBN 0195176049
Jensen, Richard. The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888-1896 (1971)
Jensen, Richard. "'No Irish Need Apply': A Myth of Victimization," Journal of Social History 36.2 (2002) 405-429, with illustrations
Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism — The Attack on "Romanism" by "Bible Christians" (Ignatius Press, 1988). ISBN 0898701775
Kenny; Stephen. "Prejudice That Rarely Utters Its Name: A Historiographical and Historical Reflection upon North American Anti-Catholicism." American Review of Canadian Studies. Volume: 32. Issue: 4. 2002. pp : 639+.
McGreevy, John T. "Thinking on One's Own: Catholicism in the American Intellectual Imagination, 1928-1960." The Journal of American History, 84 (1997): 97-131.
J.R. Miller, "Anti-Catholic Thought in Victorian Canada" in Canadian Historical Review 65, no.4. (December 1985), p. 474+
Moore; Edmund A. A Catholic Runs for President 1956.
Moore; Leonard J. Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928 University of North Carolina Press, 1991
E. R. Norman, Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (1968).
D. G. Paz, "Popular Anti-Catholicism in England, 1850-1851," Albion 11 (1979), 331-359.
Thiemann, Ronald F. Religion in Public Life Georgetown University Press, 1996.
Carol Z. Wiener, "The Beleaguered Isle. A Study of Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Anti-Catholicism," Past and Present, 51 (1971), 27-62.
Wills, Garry. Under God 1990.
White, Theodore H. The Making of the President 1960 1961.

External links

Anti-Catholic websites

Catholic responses