Coulter's Anti-Catholic Slur

[martino]

I caught this slur upon reading the column, too. Lately it seems like Coulter is crossing the line from being amusingly hyperbolic to being just plain offensive. Her Edwards comment didn’t score points with me, either.

i could have done without the Edwards comment myself!

 

[jkatpc]

The sad thing is several of us wasted so much time speaking about Ann Coulter, as if in the scheme of things she means anything.

As much as any of us mean anything. From a Catholic perspective, she is an invaluable child of God.

By the way, what have you read from Ann? If you read Godless, there isn’t any way you could say she opposed God-based religions. Please read the source before making assertions.

 

[Thomas_B]

I don’t care for Ann Coulter’s commentary at all. Whatever message or views she may be attempting to convey is overshadowed by the mean-spirited, sarcastic, angry and insult-laden speech she chooses to use. Whether or not she is formally Christian is academic, she sure doesn’t act like one.

As for her analogy to past Church practices was intended as a swipe at the Catholic Church, who knows. But the comparison wasn’t necessary to make her point - it’s just another example of Coulter using unnecessarily provactive speech to grab get attention, good or bad, and it worked.

 

[martino]

I don’t care for Ann Coulter’s commentary at all. Whatever message or views she may be attempting to convey is overshadowed by the mean-spirited, sarcastic, angry and insult-laden speech she chooses to use. Whether or not she is formally Christian is academic, she sure doesn’t act like one.

As for her analogy to past Church practices was intended as a swipe at the Catholic Church, who knows. But the comparison wasn’t necessary to make her point - it’s just another example of Coulter using unnecessarily provactive speech to grab get attention, good or bad, and it worked.

I can’t believe how many people here are not able to understand the meaning of her column.

You got her on one thing, she is sarcastic and apparently it’s her sarcasm that many people don’t get. She is not at all mean spirited, quite the contrary really…she is light hearted! She does a great job of balancing the seriousness of the issue at hand with light hearted fun poking.

She pokes fun at people to keep the column light…it’s not mean or vicious the way so many describe her.

 

[Dwyer]

I don’t know what everyone finds so great about Ann Coulter. She is a bad writer (and I mean stylistically). This column is another example of her poor writing ability. It is full of bad jokes, mean-spirited personal attacks (although I could care less about Al Gore), and, as were all discussing, a tasteless analogy involving the Catholic Church. I have read a few of her columns. They are all written in a similar manner, relying more on casting aspersions rather than using logic and reason to promote her arguments.

A columnist like Ann Coulter cannot be allowed to make false, generalized statements about other people’s faiths. Ann Coulter is a syndicated columnist, is highly educated, and a professional writer. Columnists have the pinnacle position in the newspaper world. A writer of this importance has a duty and responsibility to tell her readers a truth. To not tell the truth is to tell a lie. I wouldn’t casually sluff this off and say “oh, she really didn’t mean it.” As a professional writer, Ann Coulter chose her words and had them printed, for millions of people to read.

It was not necessary for her to mention the Catholic Church in her column. She could have simply said “the democrats’ pollution policy resembles the corrupt practices of some religions in the past.” By not identifying the specific church and refering to “religions,” she would have offended a lot less people, and there would have been less need for Catholics to complain. She didn’t need to mention the Catholic Church to make her point.

Finally, I think your **all sorely mistaken ** in claiming that the sale of indulgences during the Renaissance was intrinsically a wrong or a corrupt church practice.

If you read my first post in this thread, you’ll see that the sale of indulgences was in complete agreement with European legal practices of the time. Catholic Answer guest Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio did a great Catholic Answers program on Indulgences a few years back and mentioned this. Go to the Catholic Answers’ Radio Archive and listen to it. Your all seriously misinformed.

You need to put the “selling” of Papal Indulgences in its historical European context.

During the Dark Ages, if someone committed a crime against another person, the custom was to pay an amount of money to the wrong party or their family as restitution. This was called the " Weregeld" or “man money.” It is the basis of our tort law system in the English speaking world, and that’s why people sue doctors for malpractice, or when they get beat up by cops, or when they get food poisoning at a restaurant. If the money wasn’t paid, a bloodfeud would develop, and one group of kinsmen would fight another group of kinsmen.

The Papacy applied this concept to Indulgences. A sin is a crime against God. So the Papacy asked people to pay for Indulgences as restitution to God so they could avoid the spiritual punishment awaiting them in Purgatory. It sounds terrible to Modern ears, Church + Selling + Money, but the concept was in sinc with the legal customs and practices in Medieval Europe.

Of course, nobody ever points this out. Not in public school textbooks, or college courses, or the History channel, or PBS.
Now, there were abuses of the Indulgences. The Indulgence couldn’t be sold to get a deceased person out of Purgatory, but it was. This is what Luther was complaining about.

And this is the entire point. It is not that the selling of Indulgences was corrupt in itself, but the abuse of selling them, i.e., selling them for deceased persons. Once your dead, you couldn’t get an indulgence.

This is the common misperception among most people about Indulgences: that the sale of an indulgence in itself was corrupt. This is simply not the case.

Is it possible that your all wrong about this? History is told by those in control of the society. In America, the Protestants (until recently) controlled the society. That is why the Mormons had to get rid of polygamy, because it didn’t comport to Protestant morality.

Do you think the truth of Indulgences would be explained in 19th century Protestantized public school? Ask yourself why is medieval history completely skipped in public schools? And why does the study of history in public schools begin with Luther’s Reformation. And we all know the history we were taught in classrooms was full of historical inaccuracies.

These are the real questions you should be asking. Think critically. It sounds like you all were brainwashed by the American public school system or your state college History 101 class. You need to get the **Catholic truth **from Catholic Answers, and not let Ann Coulter or anyone else do your thinking for you.

 

[martino]

Ann Coulter is a syndicated columnist, is highly educated, and a professional writer. Columnists have the pinnacle position in the newspaper world. A writer of this importance has a duty and responsibility to tell her readers a truth. To not tell the truth is to tell a lie.

What relevant truth did she not tell? If you think it was necessary for her to include a history of indulgences as practiced by the Catholic Church during the middle ages to make her point then you missed the point all together.

It was not necessary for her to mention the Catholic Church in her column. She could have simply said “the democrats’ pollution policy resembles the corrupt practices of some religions in the past.”

Ok lets see if your idea is better than hers. Your statement makes it seem as though the corrupt practices of “some religions” had something to do with pollution! Then you force your audience to guess “which religions” and “what corrupt practices” and “when did this happen”. No I don’t think this would work at all. Maybe she isn’t as bad a writer as you thought.

By not identifying which Church or which corrupt practices she is refering to makes it a meaningless, hollow statement. Utterly useless as an analogy!

You need to put the “selling” of Papal Indulgences in its historical European context.

Can you name one legitimate theologian or apologist who would say that there were no corrupt practices within the Catholic Church in regards to selling indulgences? Would you say that yourself? Unless you want to make that claim then you cannot argue with her point in the column. You can only debate whether or not it was a good idea to use that as an analogy, but you cannot debate the facts behind her statement.

You may not like her, you may think she is a bad writer but you cannot say she was factually wrong!

 

[child_of_God85]

I don’t like Anne Coulter, even before reading this. I’ve disliked her ever sinse she slammed the 9/11 widows, saying they were happy that their husbands died because they got money from it. She reminds me of a conservative Rosie O’Donnell. She’s loud and rude.
I don’t think she was trying to make any point exept to unsult the catholic church.
She gives conservatives a bad name.

 

[martino]

I don’t like Anne Coulter, even before reading this. I’ve disliked her ever sinse she slammed the 9/11 widows, saying they were happy that their husbands died because they got money from it. She reminds me of a conservative Rosie O’Donnell. She’s loud and rude.
I don’t think she was trying to make any point exept to unsult the catholic church.
She gives conservatives a bad name.

I do not believe you even read the article…there is no way you could have a 2nd grade education and have read the article fully and come away with the opinion that you just stated…no way!!!

Even the 9/11 widows comment makes total sense in the context of how she said it…you either didnt understand her point or didnt read it in context…again.

 

[martino]

I do not believe you even read the article…there is no way you could have a 2nd grade education and have read the article fully and come away with the opinion that you just stated…no way!!!

Even the 9/11 widows comment makes total sense in the context of how she said it…you either didnt understand her point or didnt read it in context…again.

I wish to have this comment stricken from the record. I have nothing but respect for child of God and i apologize for being rude.

 

[Tom317]

I wish to have this comment stricken from the record. I have nothing but respect for child of God and i apologize for being rude.

Respectfully, why do you care so much about defending her? How can Ann mean “that” much to you?

 

[martino]

Respectfully, why do you care so much about defending her? How can Ann mean “that” much to you?

Because i think she is right. I think she is the only person out there that can do what she does. The point she made in that article has not been made by anyone else. its not that others are making it better than she is or without offending anyone…she is the only one making that point. We cannot debate the global warming issue without making the point she made in that article.

 

[Tom317]

Because i think she is right. I think she is the only person out there that can do what she does. The point she made in that article has not been made by anyone else. its not that others are making it better than she is or without offending anyone…she is the only one making that point. We cannot debate the global warming issue without making the point she made in that article.

That is silly (no insult intended). One most certainly does not have to lean on Catholic indulgences to make a point. If that is the best argument she has, then her argument is not very sound. Her arguments, as with all sound arguments, should be based in the fact that global warming has all sorts of biased so-called science behind it.

Anyway, I am just amazed that you are defending her with such intensity, she is one person with an opinion.

 

[martino]

That is silly (no insult intended). One most certainly does not have to lean on Catholic indulgences to make a point. If that is the best argument she has, then her argument is not very sound. Her arguments, as with all sound arguments, should be based in the fact that global warming has all sorts of biased so-called science behind it.

Anyway, I am just amazed that you are defending her with such intensity, she is one person with an opinion.

Of course she didnt have to make reference to indulgences but in this case is was the perfect analogy. If her intention is to point out the corrupt practice of paying for “carbon offsets” that serve to clear the liberal of all guilt associated with their own flagrant energy consumption, and in this case over consumption, then it would have been neglectful for her not to reference the Church. We are to learn from our mistakes and its important to point out the mistakes of the past when we see the same mistakes making a come-back. That is why Vietnam is always brought up in a discussion about Iraq. That is why slavery is always brought up in a debate on abortion.

There is no better way to bring to light exactly what the liberals are up to without making this very appropriate connection.The past sheds light on the present and even the future.

She made a great point. I think it’s unreasonable to demonize her for it just because we are sensitive about the past failings of our religion.

 

[Dwyer]

Click on “This Rock,” at top of this page and type in the word “Indulgence,” you will see articles written by James Akin, the Chief Apologist of Catholic Answers.

The Catholic Church never sold Indulgences.

You will read that the Catholic Church never sold Indulgences; they were granted by the Church when a person gave alms to a charitable project of the Catholic Church.

This goes 100% against all the lies I was taught in “social studies” in 6th Grade in the American Socialist Public School System, and in the year long “European History” course I took in 11th Grade. “Selling” Indulgences is all a big fat lie pumped into our brains by the Secular Humanist Liberals and Protestant Establishment and everyone out there, including myself, ate it up. The joke’s on us Catholics.

You’re not going to convince me that Ann Coulter, professional writer, did any serious research about Catholicism in preparation for her essay.

There are many Catholic websites out there that tell the truth about Catholicism. We all know that the commercial press in the United States tells us things about the Catholic Church that just aren’t true (e.g. Headline in Detroit Free Press: Pope Changes Rosary [luminous mysteries were issued]; Catholics worship relics [a CNN Anchor said this on TV during the coverage surrounding the late J.P. II’s death]; Catholic Church says only Catholics go to Heaven).

When in doubt, check it out. If she had even done basic research on these websites, she would have found that Indulgences developed in the period of the Early Church; it did not take “hundreds of years.” Moreover, Indulgences are still very much part of Catholic doctrine today. Yet Ann Coulter calls it a “corrupt practice of Papal Indulgences.”

However, reasonable people could read between the lines to extrapolate that she is referring to the abuses that occurred near the time of Martin Luther’s Reformation.

So, it simply is not historically accurate to say that Papal Indulgences are sold, or that Indulgences are a corrupt Papal practice. No indulgences were ever sold. It’s all a Protestant myth (used also by secular humanists) about the Catholic Church. However, there were abuses of Indulgences.

No, I don’t want Ann Coulter to write a history of Indulgences.

You’re right. One can certainly make this analogy given the popular understanding of the general population of Indulgences; But should a professional writer do so? The analogy is historically (as I have shown) inaccurate and really, in the 21st century, needs to be put to rest.

A professional writer is given a great privilege under the 1st Amendment to be able to print their ideas. A professional writer in a pluralistic Constitutional Democracy should never cater to the prejudices of her general audience. A professional writer should tell the truth and never offend fellow citizens if it is not necessary to do so. This avoids rousing hurt feelings and promotes solidarity among all American citizens, especially in a time of war.

A professional journalist’s duty is to inform the public on issues affecting our democracy, so the citizens can make informed choices and decisions regarding these issues so we can live in a better democracy.

I guess my point is that we live in a pluralistic Constitutional Democracy. All citizens contribute to the general welfare of the United States through working, paying taxes, raising families, serving in the military, starting businesses. Catholics have contributed a lot to the United States. Yet, we see how the American media attacks the Catholic Church in its newspapers, television shows, and movies. We see how a Catholic priest is chewed out on a so called “conservative” news channel by one of its leading news personalities without so much as issuing an apology.

I guarantee Ann Coulter will never make similar statements about Muslims, Jews, Mormons, or Buddhists.

My point is that, no, Martino, she **never had to **reference the Catholic Church to begin with. It was not necessary, as you are arguing, in order to make her point.

If she had said something like “the democratic pollution solution is similar to the corrupt practices of some religions,” she could have been referencing any number of religious abuses which have occurred in various denominations. She could have been talking about Jim Bakker, who urged his viewers to send in as much cash as possible, so they would be blessed more; or Benny Hine, the TV faith healer, who asks for money prior to performing his healing ceremony.

Being subtle. That’s acceptable. That’s called being diplomatic in a pluralistic Constitutional Democracy. That is the American ideal. I don’t think Catholic soldiers who are fighting and dying daily in Iraq for Ann Coulter’s liberty to write her columns need to be reading this type of rubbish and misinformation about the Catholic Church in American newspapers.

.

 

[jman507]

I guarantee Ann Coulter will never make similar statements about Muslims, Jews, Mormons, or Buddhists.

I think I can also guarantee Coulter will never make a similar statement about Muslims, Jews, Mormons or Buddhists, because it would seem silly to think they any of those traditions had a past of indulgences in the Middle Ages. I thought it would be good to throw that in since the thread has taken a very pedantic turn.

Coulter made a sloppy analogy. Granted I can see where she was going with it, but it is sloppy. Although, I guess Carbon Off-sets cannot directly contribute to decreasing carbon dioxide, but does have to go to a project that will theoretically contribute to decreasing carbon dioxide. That seems to be a bit like a person cannot pay for an indulgence, but a payment to a theoretically charitable program. It seems like the reply as to why the apology was sloppy was as long, if not longer than Coulter’s column. Although maybe I should do word count – even better a character count – before writing that.

When you write that Coulter should not be permitted to write something like that. Perhaps one blessing that occurred from her writing that, is that it gives an opportunity to correct people’s idea of what happened. I think you gave an awfully well done apology as to why it was a bad analogy, and hopefully it was able to clear up some misconceptions of a few other people. I want to thank you for your work, for that reason. Please keep up the good work, when the opportunity calls.

 

[martino]

Click on “This Rock,” at top of this page and type in the word “Indulgence,” you will see articles written by James Akin, the Chief Apologist of Catholic Answers.

Well if nothing else you have motivated me to do more research on the subject.

**

The Catholic Church never sold Indulgences

**

You will read that the Catholic Church never sold Indulgences; they were granted by the Church when a person gave alms to a charitable project of the Catholic Church.

Ok tell me what the difference is other than one way sounds a heck of a lot better than the other. It’s still a trade off between cash and indulgence.

When in doubt, check it out. If she had even done basic research on these websites, she would have found that Indulgences developed in the period of the Early Church; it did not take “hundreds of years.” Moreover, Indulgences are still very much part of Catholic doctrine today. Yet Ann Coulter calls it a “corrupt practice of Papal Indulgences.”

She refers to “corrupt practices such as papal indulgences” because she has no intention to discuss the “doctrine of indulgences”, only the “corrupt practices” of selling them. That is why she says it took “hundreds of years” before such practices began. It is irrelevant when the Church began teaching the existence of indulgences. She is not concerned with the doctrine.

However, reasonable people could read between the lines to extrapolate that she is referring to the abuses that occurred near the time of Martin Luther’s Reformation.

What abuses are you referring to? We all know what she was referring to but I have no idea what you could be referring to since the Church “never sold indulgences”.

Catholics have contributed a lot to the United States. Yet, we see how the American media attacks the Catholic Church in its newspapers, television shows, and movies. We see how a Catholic priest is chewed out on a so called “conservative” news channel by one of its leading news personalities without so much as issuing an apology.

Nobody has documented to bias of the mainstream media in this country more than Ann Coulter…nobody! She has written 4 bestselling books largely on this issue. I also challenge you to find a non Catholic who has defended the Catholic Church against the charges of the mainstream media more than Ann Coulter.

I guarantee Ann Coulter will never make similar statements about Muslims, Jews, Mormons, or Buddhists.

Umm…you wanna bet!? You are not familiar with her work are you? Im not saying to as an insult but it’s clear from that statement that you are not familiar with her work. And you may be the first person to ever accuse Ann Coulter of being politically correct!

My point is that, no, Martino, she **never had to **reference the Catholic Church to begin with. It was not necessary, as you are arguing, in order to make her point.

If she had said something like “the democratic pollution solution is similar to the corrupt practices of some religions,” she could have been referencing any number of religious abuses which have occurred in various denominations. She could have been talking about Jim Bakker, who urged his viewers to send in as much cash as possible, so they would be blessed more; or Benny Hine, the TV faith healer, who asks for money prior to performing his healing ceremony.

Being subtle. That’s acceptable.

Ok that may be acceptable to you but it is also a very weak argument. She made a powerful argument and what you are suggesting is very weak and probably wouldn’t hold up to much scrutiny anyway.

I will concede that if there were not widespread abuses involving indulgences for money then her argument is flawed and she would owe the Catholic Church an apology but if there were such abuses then you may owe her one.

 

[martino]

Click on “This Rock,” at top of this page and type in the word “Indulgence,” you will see articles written by James Akin, the Chief Apologist of Catholic Answers.

The Catholic Church never sold Indulgences.

You will read that the Catholic Church never sold Indulgences; they were granted by the Church when a person gave alms to a charitable project of the Catholic Church.

Ok I followed your directions to the T and it took me all of about 5 seconds to read this:

*Myth 6: A person can buy indulgences.

*"The Council of Trent instituted severe reforms in the practice of granting indulgences, and, because of prior abuses, “in 1567 Pope Pius V canceled all grants of indulgences involving any fees or other financial transactions" (Catholic Encyclopedia). This act proved the Church’s seriousness about removing abuses from indulgences.”

Maybe she did a little more research than you thought. The Council of Trent confirms that there were fees or other financial transactions associated with the granting of indulgences. Could these possibly be the “corrupt practices” she was talking about?

 

[Dwyer]

A financial transaction would be a transaction involving finances. There are a lot of **financial transactions **which have nothing to do with the selling of goods. Donating money to a charitable organization is a financial transaction.

I don’t see the specific word “sale” in your quote.

And your quote specifically says "granting of indulgences."

Again, a fee is a term associated with a grants. When you pay for your Driver’s license, the license paper is a symbol that recognizes that you have been granted / permitted the right to use the roads of the state you live in. The right to drive is not being sold to you, i.e., since you paid $25.00, you don’t personally and exclusively own that right to drive on the roads of your state. It is something that the state grants to you; and the state has the power to regulate your driving and take away that right to drive, and your license if need be.

Even though you paid $25.00 for the Driver’s license, there is no sale. It is simply a license, a grant from the state that you’re paying for. The Church had the ultimate power over the Papal Indulgence, and it couldn’t be sold from one person to another.

Also, how do you sell something that is intangible ( i.e., relief from temporal punishment in Purgatory) to a person.

Indulgences were granted by the Church and are a lot like the Driver’s license. If you contributed to the church for a charitable purpose, you were granted the Indulgence.

A grant of a right and a sale of a good are two completely different things.

Where the propaganda comes in is that the two, though completely different, resemble each other because money is involved, and a sort of exchange occurrs. So all the historians who wanted to denigrate the Catholic Church simply called it a sale when in reality it wasn’t a sale. It was a grant.

I kind of mentioned the fact that there is a lot of misinformation out there about the Catholic Church in our newspapers, film industry, and on television. As I get older, I see more and more how the facts have been distorted by these organizations on a variety of subjects, including the Catholic Church.

We all know that a lot of things are not mentioned in the history classes we took, and that some of the things we were taught were not true. It is very easy to manipulate information on a massive scale, drown out and exclude the opposition, and have the facts read as whoever controls the process desires them to.

The Indulgence issue is another example of this.

Look how the U.S. State Department fudged the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction (W.O.M.D.) and Iraq. This topic of Indulgences are a lot like that. You can believe the official version of the story from the Bush Administration which claims they had good intelligence that Hussein had W.O.M.D.; or you can believe the testimony of people who worked for the State Department (S.D.) that said V.P. Cheney came over to the S.D. three times to intimidate intelligence officiers and Ambassador Joe Wilson who said the Nigerian Uranium mentioned in the State of the Union address was known by the speech writers who wrote it to be a bunch of malarky, and that the intelligence books were cooked.

Given the strong historic Anti-Catholicism in the United States, I wouldn’t think it beyond the people who control the textbooks and write them, who control the schools and universities, to exclude this type of information from books and schools. Remember, schools control the way people think. If you want people to think the Catholic Church is a terrible organization, why not eliminate the grant information and just say the Catholic Church sold indulgences to people.

Again, you have to think critically, for yourself. Don’t let others or Ann Coulter do your thinking for you. And don’t trust 100% what you read in a lousy newspaper. Oh, did you get Ann Coulter’s Torquemator dig (Torquemator headed the Inquisition in Spain in the 16th century).

However, I am not saying though that abuses surrounding Indulgences did not exist.

 

[psteichen]

You know how with so many liberals we find ourselves saying something along the lines of “Well she seems like a good person, but I sure don’t agree with her politics”.

Unfortunately for Ann I must say “Well I agree with her politics, but she sure doesn’t seem to be a good person”.

 

[jman507]

It doesn’t matter so much of the exact specifics of how closely Indulgences and Carbon Off-sets are for Coulter’s Theory of the Godless Liberal Church. What matters is that if there are things that appear to look and work the same. There is always something a bit wrong with the concept of the study of comparative religions, because what makes one religion can be nothing like what makes another religion. On the other hand one can still come up with rough imperfect similarities, in an attempt to compare and contrast, but one still needs to keep in mind that the point of view from a person in this religion may be nothing like the point of view of another from a different religion. Also one’s own religious ideas can bias his study.

As far as Coulter being mean, I’m sure she might defend herself by saying, “what is worse, that others are selling bad ideas or that I resort to being mean when I call them on it? When what I say blows up in the media, it tends to highlight the absurdity of their position.” Is that right? Well in the end from a certian perspective we all are bad Christian, since to be a Christian we have to realize that we are bad Christians. Granted we ought always try to grow to be better Christians. We all have our biases of whats more important. She herself might think her mean spiritedness is less important than the message she is trying to give. We all need to keep in mind that we have to have the humility to step back and think maybe we have flaws in our position.