Eradicating White Supremacy in the Church in America

[goodcatholic]

i’ve NEVER seen the slightest evidence of “white supremacy” in any catholic church i’ve ever attended

You don’t have a white supremacist ministry in your parish? oh I though everyone had one.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

Half the Catholic churches nowadays have a priest who has been imported from Africa, the Philippines, or “South of the Border” somewhere because the US isn’t producing enough priests on its own, and the vast majority of these priests from other places would not be considered “white Europeans” if you get my drift.

Lol so true. In the last 15 years, my home parish has had 3 Nigerian priests, 1 Colombian priest, and 1 Haitian deacon in residence.

 

[phil19034]

Children of immigrants tend to identify heavily with their parents’ native country/culture. He was born in Argentina, but his background was likely influenced greatly by Italian culture.

Influenced yes. But he is not an Italian citizen.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

It would be good for any one who is struggling with the pigment of their skin to wrestle it out with God for not knowing what He was doing when He made you red & yellow black or white.

I mean, white people run the highest risk of developing melanoma (I’ve had some disgusting sun poisoning in the past), so yeah, I do sometimes wonder what the heck God was thinking

 

[nearlycatholic]

dude seriously, I work in a hospital and see and hear a lot of stuff. If you’ve had sun poisoning make it a habit periodically of checking yourself over closely. You don’t want melanoma. Please make sure you note any changes in your skin. Moles or freckles anything changes size, shape, color, get to a dermatologist. Also massage your scalp when you wash your hair and pay attention to anything that feels different. God bless!

 

[BarreandBark]

Cardinal Sin…Uhm, no.

I wonder if Cardinal Tagle was a contender in the last concave

Whatavs, I <3 Papa Fracisco!

 

[Arkansan]

I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. The poster I was replying to claimed that “white supremacist” groups are common and go around inflicting violence on people. If that were true, one could identify these groups and the acts of violence they’ve committed recently.

 

[steido01]

The poster I was replying to claimed that “white supremacist” groups are common and go around inflicting violence on people.

I think I know the poster fairly well, and I don’t believe he ever said white supremacist groups are common and go around inflicting violence on people. I believe what he did say was that white nationalist/separatist thought is common, as is evidenced in this thread.

 

[steido01]

Most white Americans are too mixed to identify with any given European ethnicity.

“Too mixed,” huh? When an object is described as having “too ______” it means that it’s excessive, that it’s not desirable. Are you saying that “mixing” cultures, marriages, families, ethnicities is undesirable? Your preference would be for limited or no “mixing,” then?

 

[steido01]

Totally agree with you in the public sphere, but within the church, we have different standards and expectations. The church is not ruled by enlightenment ideals, but by God’s Word, which does not permit bigotry.

 

[exnihilo]

Also, I was born in the South, and statues of men who fought for the right to enslave their fellow human beings are not emblematic of my heritage.

No one was fighting for that right. Everyone agreed you could do that.

 

[steido01]

That’s silly. Abolitionist sentiments were present at the very writing of the Constitution (it’s how we arrived at the 3/5ths Compromise), and only intensified as the country grew. Even in the South. When the first major Republican national platform was written in 1860, it was clearly anti-slavery: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29620

 

[exnihilo]

No, the 3/5ths compromise was because Northern states with less slaves didn’t want the Southern state’s with more slaves to have as much power. The counting of persons determined congressional representation.

What I meant was the right already existed and wasn’t widely contested. To be sure some people were abolitionists. Both sides in the conflict enslaved men for their army.

 

[Booknut]

steido01:

Arkansan:

white people honoring their heritage

Please define.

Wishing to preserve their cultural and biological continuation, opposing the destruction of physical symbols of their heritage like statues, etc.

Arkansan: “White” people wishing to preserve their cultural and biological continuation (tribal fear of being outnumbered) is precisely what fueled slavery, lynchings, burning people alive, Jim Crow, sundown towns, abuse of Native Americans, and other forms of genocide.

This isn’t to say that “white” people shouldn’t have cultural pride. But seeing fellow human beings as “other” and as a threat to your survival only serves to dehumanize.

 

[Annie]

I must disagree. When someone says too and doesn’t qualify it, then it means for the context. So if I say, he is too boisterous, or he is speaking too loudly, then it’s considered bad. But it is simply that the qualifier is left out, and the listener gathers it from the context.

If a teacher tells parents that their daughter is talks too much, the teacher means talks too much for being in a classroom. A boy may be too rough for the playground, but the same roughness would be all right in a karate class.

Arkansan said “most white Americans are too mixed to identify with any given European ethnicity.” The only implication is stated. To gather an idea of what he thinks about that would require more information.

 

[Annie]

rkansan: “White” people wishing to preserve their cultural and biological continuation is precisely what fueled slavery, lynchings, burning people alive, Jim Crow, sundown towns, and other forms of genocide.

This isn’t to say that “white” people shouldn’t have cultural pride. But seeing fellow human beings as “other” and as a threat to your survival only serves to dehumanize.

I think your first paragraph is wrong. I think that all that bad stuff resulted from people wanting to preserve their status within the population. It is true that they considered their status to be a part of their heritage, but basically you are saying the same thing: people did bad things to maintain their ability to do bad things.

Maintenance just of heritage or culture does not require lynchings or other forms of violence; it was done for centuries by the Jews in the Diaspora without doing violence to other people for example.

However, the Hutus did the same and worse to the Tutsis in Ruwanda, so we are not talking about a “white” phenomenon but a human phenomenon.

As to your second paragraph, all groups of people see non-members as “other;” this is simple definition. And seeing another group as a threat to one’s own survival is a relative thing: certainly the Nazis posed a threat to the survival of the Jews as a people, right? And it was not because the Jews had dehumanized the Nazis but precisely the other way around.

We Americans tend to look at the world as if it were all a reflection of our stereotypes of Americans. Not all white people in the world consider themselves to be “white”," as if the color of their skin had anything to do with anything. It is or used to be much more important that they were French or Romanian. The same goes for Asians in Asia or Africans in Africa.

Some type of my-people supremacy is a human trait which differs from simply being of a certain culture.

 

[Elf01]

Arkansan said “most white Americans are too mixed to identify with any given European ethnicity.” The only implication is stated. To gather an idea of what he thinks about that would require more information.

He has expressed views in the past that impky that he would prefer no interracial marriage although the comment you referenced just seems descriptive.

 

[exnihilo]

Some type of my-people supremacy is a human trait which differs from simply being of a certain culture.

How many people think their mom or their dad is the ‘best’? Larger groups are just an extension of this. It isn’t inherently bad to think this. In fact it is somewhat off putting to encounter people who completely disparage their people and culture.

I don’t find fault with Africans or anyone else for preferring their culture. But for some reason as a White person I’m not allowed to prefer my culture. In fact it is suggested that my idea of culture is invented while at the same time I’m told I need to embrace other cultures (which do exist) so as to eradicate the degenerate cultural traits of my culture (which now exists so as to be disparaged).

 

[qui_est_ce]

Half the Catholic churches nowadays have a priest who has been imported from Africa, the Philippines, or “South of the Border” somewhere because the US isn’t producing enough priests on its own, and the vast majority of these priests from other places would no

My parish had a priest from India two years ago, one from Nigeria last year, and this year one from Viet Nam. The parish where I attend daily mass has a priest from China.

I don’t live in an ethnic neighborhood, mostly white middle class, but my parish has Philipino families, black families, Nigerian families, Mexican families, Polish families, and some Asian. Those are the ones I know of. Could be many others that I don’t know of. That’s out of 900 families in the parish.

We are catholic!

 

[steido01]

Arkansan said “most white Americans are too mixed to identify with any given European ethnicity.” The only implication is stated. To gather an idea of what he thinks about that would require more information.

Word games.

You’ll note that I’ve repeatedly asked for clarification of his reasoning for his views. His responses have been cryptic and crafted with careful avoidance of any substantive answer.

No, the 3/5ths compromise was because Northern states with less slaves didn’t want the Southern state’s with more slaves to have as much power. The counting of persons determined congressional representation.

Sure, the Compromise was agreed to on population/representation grounds, but Abolitionist motives were the driving factor behind it (I won’t get into the argument of anti-slavery vs. Abolitionism. Two sides of the same coin). While many of the Founders were themselves slaveholders, a good many were also opposed to the practice. Of the 39 framers of the Constitution, 22 voted to ban slavery in new territories, 20 voted to ban it outright. That’s over half. But this is for another thread.