How many Catholics think this way?

[Lilyflower]

On another forum, a few posters made comments that I found genuinely disturbing: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=250069

I would like to know how many Catholics truly feel this way? And I’m sure other non-Catholics in addition to myself here would also like to know.

To those Catholics who feel their religion should have the right to suppress non-Catholic religions by law and enforce their religion by law, they need to know that this country…the USA…was founded as a safe haven from that very thing. In fact even Catholics came here, to Maryland, to have a place where they could worship God as they saw fit.

How many Catholics feel that in an “ideal” society, their church should have the authority to suppress non-Catholic religions and impose their beliefs onto others?

Choice is about freedom. I believe that a religion [Christian or otherwise] must be underwritten by freedom of choice to accept or to reject.

Blessings and peace

 

[Greg27]

I think trying to legislate Catholicism as the state religion would certainly fail in any Western country. The first reason is that Catholics are only a minority in most Western countries, and would not be able to bring enough political pressure on the elected governments to bring laws into force which would force everyone to either be Catholic or face deportation or imprisonment. Such actions might have been possible when Catholic leaders were absolute monarchs and had no restraints on their capacity to make law (as was the case in Spain when the Jews and Muslims were forced to convert or face exile), but isn’t possible in these times when governments are constrained by constitutional and judicial restraints which ensure the freedom of religion is protected as a matter of law.

Perhaps in non-democratic countries a Catholic leader could try and enforce Catholicism as the state religion.

 

[Lapell]

1ke is correct.

If a person’s conversion was insincere, that is their problem and there were consequences, which were well known at the time, for doing this. If they did not want to face the consequences, they should not have prenteded to convert and lie when they submitted themselves for baptism, confirmation, Holy Communion and confession.

In addition, the assertion that Jews and muslims, by and large, converted by coercion is not supportable by historical evidence. That is not to say there were not isolated cases; I suspect there may have been. However, it has been an ongoing teaching of the Church, first put in writing by Augustiner in the 5th century, that all conversions must be sincere and come from the heart and that forced conversions is never permitted. So as soon as you say people were forced to convert, we know you are not quoting reliable historical sources.

Well, if the Vatican took the pain of condemning the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, then there must have been deplorable excesses in great number to begin with, must it not?!

 

[Lapell]

If there were ways for a religion to become a “State religion” without a need for coercion or even threats of coercion, wouldn’t such a State religion be acceptable?
However, what would there be a need for such religion to become a so-called State religion?

 

[onetimeposter]

Until about the mid 1960’s, the Church in Quebec Canada had a major stake in every aspect of society, education, health care and Politics.

Quebec was devoutly Catholic. The Quiet Revolution began in the mid 1960’s and the Citizens of Quebec began to rebel against the status quo, the Church included.

Quebec today is the most secularized and liberal Province in the Country. This change took place over one generation.

All encompassing religion in every aspect of a free and democratic country does not work. It didn’t work in Quebec.

 

[Lapell]

Until about the mid 1960’s, the Church in Quebec Canada had a major stake in every aspect of society, education, health care and Politics.

Quebec was devoutly Catholic. The Quiet Revolution began in the mid 1960’s and the Citizens of Quebec began to rebel against the status quo, the Church included.

Quebec today is the most secularized and liberal Province in the Country. This change took place over one generation.

All encompassing religion in every aspect of a free and democratic country does not work. It didn’t work in Quebec.

Also, in Quebec before the Quiet Revolution, Premier Maurice Duplessis used the Catholic religion to justify what unfortunately became a kind of police regime, and unfortunately many bishops kind of cooperated with the regime a bit more than they should have. I don’t think they meant to harm the people in doing so, maybe they were pretty naive. Also remember that in those days and prior to them it was quite a common thing to be sometimes hard on the people in order to make sure the authorities were respected. At times, the situation demanded it. Discipline and efficiency prevailed. The business of the famous “revanche des berceaux”, even though it helped the French Canadians maintain good numbers in their population then, brought unnecessary guilt on those who didn’t give birth to a numerous family back then, it was considered by many to be a sin. I don’t think the whole clergy was unanimous though even then! But it certainly contributed to the “ras-le-bol” within the Quebecois people, too!
There had certainly been deplorable excesses, so that later they seem to all want to throw away the baby along with the bath water, which was quite an excess as deplorable if not worse!

 

[Lilyflower]

Not Catholicism but interestingly atheism in UK aims to bring us ‘believers’ to their way of thinking by bullying humiliation and intrimidation.

Atheists have argued that Christians should not be allowed to participate in democratic elections and other political arenas and should be barred from public life.

It is not of Catholicism the OP should be asking but in UK atheism

 

[Kaninchen]

Not Catholicism but interestingly atheism in UK aims to bring us ‘believers’ to their way of thinking by bullying humiliation and intrimidation.

Atheists have argued that Christians should not be allowed to participate in democratic elections and other political arenas and should be barred from public life.

It is not of Catholicism the OP should be asking but in UK atheism

Could you give us some citations on those atheist positions? I’ve never come across atheists arguing for the disenfranchisement of Christians.

 

[Allyson]

To those Catholics who feel their religion should have the right to suppress non-Catholic religions by law and enforce their religion by law, they need to know that this country…the USA…was founded as a safe haven from that very thing. In fact even Catholics came here, to Maryland, to have a place where they could worship God as they saw fit.

Hello,

Someone has already elaborated on the history of Maryland, and the suppression of Catholics there. I would add, that if you look at the history of the founding of the colonies, the religious freedom which people like the Puritans sought was not religious freedom for everyone, but religious freedom for themselves, because in England you had to be Anglican. They did not want to be Anglican themselves, so they came to the New World. They had no problem setting up the charter of their colony (Mass.) in such a way that their sect alone was allowed to exist.

God Bless,
R.

 

[Lapell]

Not Catholicism but interestingly atheism in UK aims to bring us ‘believers’ to their way of thinking by bullying humiliation and intrimidation.

Atheists have argued that Christians should not be allowed to participate in democratic elections and other political arenas and should be barred from public life.

It is not of Catholicism the OP should be asking but in UK atheism

I think the topic is about whether it’s desirable that Catholicism–it could be said of any religion… AND anti-religion (or non-religion)–become a State religion to the exclusion of others.
If all individuals on earth all chose to become Catholics on their own, without any coercion from any group among them nor any false arguments, I think it would be awesome. But clearly, given our rather crooked human nature we probably won’t see the day when it would happen! And that is also true of other religions.

 

[Lapell]

Could you give us some citations on those atheist positions? I’ve never come across atheists arguing for the disenfranchisement of Christians.

Oh, I think many people in the Soviet Union were sent to the Gulags precisely because they kept their faith and would not keep their faith to themselves alone. You remember how they used to say, “Religion is opium for the people”, and so one of the tenets of Communism precisely was to eradicate religion from the people. Not everybody was sent to the Gulags for that reason, of course! But there was a great number of them. Not just in the Soviet Union itself, but also in what were called its satellite countries in Eastern Europe.

 

[Lapell]

And so what Lilyflower stated here about the atheists in UK might well be something quite likely, it seems to me.

 

[Lapell]

I know there ARE atheists who are respectful of the faith of other people. I don’t know their percentage! I wish the anti-religion atheists would be very few, but I don’t believe so!

 

[Kaninchen]

Oh, I think many people in the Soviet Union were sent to the Gulags.

Since the UK, the activities of whose atheists the poster was describing, was never part of the Soviet Union and, since I was requesting information about the UK’s atheists’ supposed demands for Christian disenfranchisement, I fail to see what possible relevance your response might have.

Oddly, though, I’m currently reading Anne Applebaum’s “Gulag: A History Of The Soviet Camps” (which follows on from reading Montefiore’s “Stalin: The Court of The Red Tsar” which is a study, inter alia, of the mechanics of Soviet Terror from the heart of the regime). One thing many people don’t realize is that a sizable proportion of camp inmates were, actually, atheists and communists.

It was what the ‘Purges’ were all about.

 

[Kaninchen]

And so what Lilyflower stated here about the atheists in UK might well be something quite likely, it seems to me.

Well, where’s the evidence?

 

[packermann]

The last (most infamous) time when Catholics tried to impose their religion onto others, it ended up being called by history “The Spanish Inquisition”. I’d think Catholics would not want to go that route again, considering that the church still has trouble living it down.

The Spanish Inquisition was NOT about imposing religion on others. Modern scholoarship shows this is completely wrong. Read The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision by Henry Kamen (who is himself not a Catholic but a Jew).

The Muslims invaded Spain and placed it under Muslim rule for 700 years. Then after many battles, the Spanyards were able drive most of the Muslims out. For security reasons the Muslims (and also the Jews) were not given high positions in the government, for fear that they would betray Spain to the Muslim armies and Spain would the be under Muslim rule again. Many Muslims and Jew converted to Catholicism. This made the King suspicious, that they these were false conversions and that these converts were actually spies working for another Muslim invasion. The King requested the Pope to bring Inquisitors to test the genuiness of their faith. If the Inquisitors suspected their sincerity, they would notify the King, who would take care of the punishment.

The Inquisitors were not interested on any Muslims or Jews who stayed in their faiths, so it was not about imposing their religion on them. The issue was security. They wanted to make sure that converts to Catholicsm were not actually spies working for the Muslim raiders.

 

[packermann]

Could you give us some citations on those atheist positions? I’ve never come across atheists arguing for the disenfranchisement of Christians.

Once, in the question time after a lecture in Dublin, I was asked what I thought about the widely publicized cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland. I replied that, as horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing up the child Catholic in the first place

Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion
He also argued in his book that a parent who teaches his child religion is a child abuser and should be treated as such.

*If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion. *

Sam Harris

*Religion makes enemies instead of friends. That one word, “religion,” covers all the horizon of memory with visions of war, of outrage, of persecution, of tyranny, and death…Although they have been preaching universal love, the Christian nations are the warlike nations of the world. *
—robert green ingersoll, “The Damage Religion Causes”

And then there is simply the title of Christofer Hitchens’ book -
God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

If religious teaching to children is worse than child abuse, if religion is worse than rape, if religion poisons EVERYTHING, then a practioner of religion should be disenfranchised just as a child abuser, a rapist, or a general poisoner of everything is disenfranchised.

 

[MDK]

If they converted “of their own volition”, then why did they keep practicing Judaism in secret, in fear that the authorities would find out and bring them before the Spanish Inquisition?

Many Jews claimed to convert for political or business advantages, without really being faithful… kind of pathetic and shallow, isn’t it. It was these who were insincere and made no real change to Catholicism, only in public image.

I love the Jewish people, our acnestors in faith. However, these people were not true to either their Jewish faith which they professed in private, nor to the Catholic faith they professed in public, for public gain. These people could obviously not be trusted, for starters…

 

[MDK]

What are you talking about? If you’re referring to my post, do you really understand what was said, and how it fits into the overall context? For instance, it didn’t refer to the overall picture, but a segment of the Jews people just as defined above… namely, those who said they converted on their own simply for financial or social benefit, but who really did not. They were lying about their faith in God, were they not? Since many of the other issues had been addressed, this was a small example to answer a question about why Jews were professing to be Catholic in public, but still remained Jew in private. I think it was inappropriate. I would never renounce Catholicism even if persecuted or put to death. I’ve asked my company to never send me again to Saudi Arabia, becasue it will probably be a premature death for me. I will talk about Christ, and they have laws against that… talk about harsh!

Please don’t confuse anti-Judaic with anti-Semetic. There was both, but it’s not fair to lump them together. Being anti-Judaic after the Messiah has come is fairly appropriate, don’t you think? I am opposed to the continued practice of Judaism, because people miss out on the Savior. Anti-Semetic is simply prejudice, and certainly offends God.

If you want to look at the overall picture, there was persecution of the early Church by the Jews, and later persecution of Jews by Christians. That’s a very long discussion. What’s your point?

 

[Catitude]

And if you read the Bible you would also know that Jews were killing Christians (as were the Romans) because they saw the early Christians as a threat. But those who did were a select few as were the Jews in 15th century Spain who faked a religion to move higher up in politics. The Church has never and will never condemn Jews nor do I think the Jewish religion as a whole has ever condemned Christianity. And could you please be more specific about the times the Church supposedly did horrible things to Jews that we are still supposedly living down?