I read both of these comments and thought these are paranoid Catholics. I’ve heard time and again about discrimination against Catholics by others but didn’t think it was a big deal.
Late 1950’s in the South:
I’ve read it was commonly taught in bible study that if Kennedy became President, the Knights of Columbus would rise up and kill protestants in the US. After all, the KoC are the Pope’s militia and they had sworn an oath pledging their lives to the Church.
I knew there were protestant ministers that went off the ledge about Catholics but I just thought that was their ignorant misunderstandings. Obviously, those ignorant ministers could convince a lot of people but didn’t think they were of any consequence.
As far as the south is concerned, I grew up in the south and really never heard of such. It’s a credit to my parents that they were the generation that broke with the old and didn’t pass what they had learned onto their children. I knew my parents doctrinally thought their were major differences between Catholics and what they believed and I’m pretty sure that for a time, my father thought Catholics were hell bound. He developed a close friendship with a good Catholic man in the late 1970s and they were friends until my father died. Through this friend, he knew that Catholics could understand the Gospel even if their rituals were different. Before anyone misunderstands that statement “he knew that Catholics could understand the gospel”, let me explain. It was my father’s view and mine, that there were many in this world that professed or had professed faith in Christ, in different faith communities that really weren’t living the life and possibly never believed what they professed.
There was a short article or letter to the editor about the history of the KKK in my small, rural, Midwest hometown. Basically it was the KKK standing on one side of the street and the Catholics (represented by the KoC, I think) on the other side. It blew my mind to read that. I can’t remember how things were sorted out but there isn’t a KKK there anymore.
Anyway, I thought a lot of this rambling was Catholic paranoia. In an effort to prove the quoted posters wrong, I googled a bit and found
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Catholicism_in_the_United_States
I’m nothing short of shocked and amazed that this was something that I had no idea regarding. I had a little bit of knowledge of some of it but had no idea of the institutional and government supported Anti Catholic feelings in our past.
.
As one that didn’t grow up Catholic, I’m more than ashamed that some of these people and I shared a religion. As someone that has been a Catholic for a bit more than 4 months and 1 week, I’m offended that my brothers, my sisters, my Church, my bishop, my Pope, my God and My Savior were treated this way. Everyone thinks that the world in which they are living is as bad as it gets. This is another reminder, that their has always been evil and always will be.
Again, I’m grateful to have had the parents I did that didn’t pass onto me what they probably learned in their childhood.
