I haven’t seen anyone here claim that all Britons are anti-Catholic or that Britain is totally anti-Catholic or that “Britain” equals “Europe”. Try not to read extra things into people’s comments but respond to what they actually say.
Do you have a particular reason for your apparent hostility toward one of our members?
(1) The British learn history differently from that embraced by the Vatican and the church. They admire Elizabeth I, recall the defeat of the Spanish Armada sent to destroy Protestant England, recall the conspiracy to demolish the Parliament building, etc. Many of them also don't regard Henry VIII as the founder of British Protestantism. They see him as a Catholic who, for personal and political reasons, became schismatic, but he never adopted Protestant theology apart from rebellion against the Papacy.
(2) The sex scandals have been used very successfully to undermine Catholic influence. Much of the bitterness is directed against the hierarchy which, many feel, protected the predators so as to protect the church.
(3) Secularism, of course, has become rampant. Among Protestants there has been an upsurge in evangelicalism. Evangelicals are less likely to relate well to Catholicism than Anglicans. They share certain social policies with Catholicism (e. g., against abortion), but they take sharp issue on theological matters. Many secularists and evangelicals regard Catholicism as a relic of medievalism with its various 'superstitions' and such.
(4) It always is alienating to some women to witness an all-male hierarchy on parade.
(5) The Pope, in carefully chosen words, insists that Catholicism is the one and only true faith, that ecumenism means 'returning' to the Mother Church. This alienates many who are not anti-Catholic, who crave better relations, but who are offended by claims that Catholicism alone teaches the full truth. Benedict XVI had stated that Protestant churches are properly only 'ecclesial entities' and that Protestant clergy cannot validly administer communion.
(6) Some sophisticated critics of Catholicism feel that the Vatican has exploited Cardinal Newman, that Newman was in fact a conciliatory moderate who would have taken issue with the conservative trend within the Vatican today.
There are others, but perhaps this is a start. I could be wrong, of course, but that's how I interpret Britain's anti-Catholicism so far. Actually, I was surprised to see so little of it. The welcome given the Pope was quite warm considering that Catholics are perhaps less than 10% of the population, and a high percentage of those are of Irish background or from overseas areas once part of the empire.I don’t know about Schwarzeneggar. I DO know that Giuliani has been tarred and feathered with the brush of media falsehood.
Nope. script77 is probably a most excellent person, but judging the actual majority of this nation to be anti-catholic. As I have mentioned to muslim or black freinds who have cited the same thing but oh youre all anti-black or anti-muslim (In the media there are frequent the English are anti-semetic, anti-gay, anti-this and anti-that) if we were all so anti whatever, How come so many of those we are supposedly “anti” are living and prospering within our boarders. What, no lynchings, concentration camps or deportations ?
Ah yes, end times. I have before me a book, “Simplissimus” by Grimmelshausen, written in the 17th century that discusses the signs then seen that the age would be the last; since I was 15 I have heard and seen all manner of people assuring, or trying to assure, anybody who would listen, that the end of the world is at hand. So far, their predictions have not come true. Nobody knows the day, and the signs seen now are no worse then they have been in earlier eras.
I never even knew it was possible to become de-baptized.
It’s not.I never even knew it was possible to become de-baptized.
Somewhere on this board there’s a thread about it. But you’re right (technically.)I never even knew it was possible to become de-baptized.
Your post brings back memories of recent homilies given by our pastor and his favorite coined phrase, “cultural Catholics.” By this he means those Catholics who attend Mass on Sundays and frequent Communion (but hardly ever Confession
) and fail to live their daily lives in accordance with the faith they profess. I don’t much care for the term “religious” - to me that speaks of pride, but we should, rather, regard ourselves as a people always abiding in God. I like your word “devotion” because that speaks to the interior of the person which is hidden from sight.Now this could be a big problem for Catholics! We MUST subscribe to our entire faith, or else rightly be called “Cafeteria Catholics.” And how does one separate the ideology of politics from faith? I presume that’s what you’re speaking of when you mention controlling the government.
Like it, or not, the Britains, and all the other Europeans, cannot so simply disconnect from a millenia and a half of cognitive identity. Roots are not so easily killed. Look at Russia. Who could have thought that Christianity would have ever re-emerged there, after systematic efforts were employed to crush it. So, the new atheism, and the new secularism, and the new humanism, rampant, and ebullient in their delusions, must face a very OLD TRUTH: Jesus Christ, and his true believers, are not so easily dispatched.
If Baptism is fake why would they want to be de-baptized? Why would they want to undo something that never happened in the first place?I never even knew it was possible to become de-baptized.