Are American values at their root against Catholicism?

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Sure, it’s always trendy to bash “America”.
Doesn’t make it the least bit helpful or correct.
I’m sure many nonprofits and Universities and other organizations that are beneficial to society are in existence because of the financial support of “American Capitalists”, whether Christian or not.
 
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Christphr said:
What are your thoughts?
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Yes, historically, there has been some conflict between the US and the CC, especially on the idea of separation of church and state, which prompted a response from the Vatican with a heresy termed “Americanism”. The bishops accepted the statements graciously and not much controversy came out of it.

But all in all, the conflict hasn’t been more significant than the historical conflicts with any other Western country, and it is relatively minor compared to some of the disputes that arose in the Middle Ages between the Pope and the monarchs. There isn’t a historical example of a country that hasn’t had run-ins with the CC. Even traditionally Catholic nations like France and Spain went through periods of extreme tension with the Church.
 
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Catholicism and American values have always been compatible except for the past 12 or so years.

America is the shinning city on the hill.
 
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HolySpirit said:
Catholicism and American values have always been compatible except for the past 12 or so years.
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Really? Only the past 12 years, you say?

So all that business with American slave labor for roughly the first 100 years was aligned with Catholic values?
 
Like the Catholic Church. America is not perfect, but no one else is close to being better.
 
bobperk said:
To echo and build upon 0Scarlett’s reply, the American tradition does indeed espouse a type of individual liberty that can morph into greed, cutthroat behavior, extreme stubbornness, and ultra-competitiveness at the cost of civility.

Additionally, we practice capitalism in a manner where the end (profit) justifies any means possible, therefore the use of extreme violence, unethical practices, sexual immorality, base behavior and excess consumerism for advertising and entertaining is used without any regard to morality or the other effects on society. The freedom for one to make a profit through any means possible is often protected over the freedom from being exposed to such practices.
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None of this negativity is true.

Capitalism is the voluntary sharing of the means of production.

Any corporation or company that fails to satisfy their customers will go out of business because of shortage of revenue coming in. Companies have to compete for the favor of their customers’ money. It is hard work.

Anyone can save some of their earnings and invest those savings in literally thousands of different ways.

Learning about investing is simple and cheap … using your local public library resources.

Or, you can choose any of many formal educational institutions.

You can buy magazine subscriptions or join associations … I recommend AAII … American Association of Individual Investors.

http://www.aaii.com

Many library reference rooms subscribe to Value Line.

http://valueline.com
 
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Basically everything that stemmed from the so called Age of Enlightenment (which culminated in the American and French revolutions) is at its core anti catholic.
 
You think slavery is uniquely AMERICAN? Lol
 
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Think of how a Communist would use people. Look at China. Not so bad here with all our liberty/personal rights, eh?
 
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bobperk said:
To echo and build upon 0Scarlett’s reply, the American tradition does indeed espouse a type of individual liberty that can morph into greed, cutthroat behavior, extreme stubbornness, and ultra-competitiveness at the cost of civility.
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Some of this is purely in the eye of the beholder.

On this forum, I speak like I do in real life. Plainly, clearly and often without niceties. That is how people in my area speak. This is how they write. This is how we live and no one sees anything wrong with that.

Except for when my company began hiring people from the south. One of the men commented, “I don’t understand how you all seem to want to have lunch together when you hate each other so much.”

We were baffled. After another 2 or 3 southern colleagues spoke up on his behalf we talked it over for a long time. Our blunt, direct, no holds barred way of communication was lightyears away from how they spoke to each other in the south. They would say all that about us.

But I do not see New Englanders as uncivilized because we are blunt, do not mess around and aren’t kissing each others butts to our faces (while gossiping and kiniving behind closed doors).

And that’s just in America. Other countries have words for not competing that we don’t even have in English like janteloven in Norwegian which at it’s heart is an incredibly disturbing set of “laws” that start out like a good list for humility and end in what to me seems like near psychopathing thinking.
 
Americanism is a heresy.

However, some american values are Christian and are related to morals, especially the Decalogue.
 
It does bear pointing out that American Liberalism (with a capital L) was more moderate compared to continental European Liberalism and was more tolerant of religion, granting the Church its freedom for the most part. As a result, the Catholic Church was able to thrive here. However, the whole point of public authority is to serve the common good, and the common good includes the good of the whole man which must be informed by the true religion. Since the US government ultimately acknowledges no higher law than itself, it cannot fully promote the common good and will almost inevitably overstep its bounds. See CCC 2244.
 
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I just wanted to add a note about “Americanism” which often gets thrown around uncritically as a blanket indictment of the USA. Americanism was more about advocating the introduction of certain American civil liberties and democratic governance into the Church’s governance and discipline (as well as extolling natural virtues over things like consecrated religious life). In other words, it was about advocating that the Church be governed like the USA was. But this did not mean US civil liberties and government were condemned by Leo XIII in his encyclical on the topic or had to be avoided–they were considered acceptable or at least tolerable for those circumstances at the time and ultimately beneficial to the Church here as I note above. The problem with Americanism lay in trying to therefore make the US system the ideal for absolutely all societies and all circumstances (those existing and in the abstract), including the society of the Church.
 
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I didn’t say it was uniquely American. That’s entirely irrelevant to the point.

Another poster claimed only the last 12 years or so of American history did its values conflict with Catholicism.

I’m pointing out that for over a century, a large part of the American way of life was built in the backs of slaves.

A set of values which admits to the embrace of slavery does not seem particularly congruent with the condemnation of slavery by the CC at the time.

This is not even touching of course, the huge national membership the KKK enjoyed - a profoundly anti-Catholic group - for several decades.

Nor the rampant discrimination against Irish immigrants, who were seen as subhuman by many of the Protestant majority.

Then there were the huge pro-Marxist/ pro communist movements in the early twentieth century that corresponded to the rise of social Darwinism and Eugenics.

I understand that the US is pretty hedonistic these days and has a degraded morality. But I don’t see a time period in her history where a large proportion of the population hasn’t embraced some extremely disordered morals and ethics.
 
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Some might be. The church isn’t a democracy, so while you can get rid of a bad representative you can’t get rid of a bad priest. Nor should you be able to-this is religion, not government. I love America deeply, I think it’s the greatest country in the world for the record. I’m very proud to be American.
 
Two excellent books, both titled “Anti-Catholicism In America” are good.
 
HolySpirit said:
Like the Catholic Church. America is not perfect, but no one else is close to being better.
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The question was “Do American values square with Catholicism?”

Historically, the US has practiced some profoundly evil things, like institutionalized slavery, widespread racism against blacks, Chinese, the Irish, and a strong anti-Catholic bias that caused a clear Constitutional violation when Kennedy was subject to a test of faith. That was as late as the 1960’s.

Now, I’m not and never have been Catholic. But I’d imagine there are some countries that have aligned more closely to Catholic values than this one.

Whether that makes them “better” is subjective.
 
Name a country that is better. America makes the world safe for freedom and Democracy. And making the world safe for freedom and Democracy are really the end of the debate.
 
HolySpirit said:
Name a country that is better. America makes the world safe for freedom and Democracy. And making the world safe for freedom and Democracy are really the end of the debate.
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Why? That’s a diversion. All I care about in this thread is the topic - whether American values jive with Catholicism.
 
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