The Cause of Anti-Catholicism in America?

[levi86]

I think theres many reasons,

Mainly I think there is a general “anti establishment” and individualist attitude within America. So naturally people are going to prefer their own interpretation of the bible as apposed to submitting to the “authority of Rome.

Secondly I think that Americans love a good conspiracy theory, in this case it involves the “corruption of the early church.

 

[bones_IV]

Axion:

Curiously it is this that I think has led to a more moderate position in Britain.

The reformers originally wanted to tear down every monastery in the land so that nothing remained to remind people they had ever existed. But the job was too great, cost too much money, and was soon abandoned.

So everywhere in Britain still remain the ruins of the old Monasteries. They stand as a finger of condemnation pointing at the Reformers. The Protestants destroyed them and built nothing to compare. So people have a huge reminder that the protestants were destroyers of Christian works…

www.castles-abbeys.co.uk

http://www.btinternet.com/~timeref/whitbyabbey1.jpg

Similarly major towns are dominated by their former Catholic Cathedrals as nowhere in America. Few can believe these are works of the devil.

http://www.thisisyork.co.uk/york/insideout/attractions/images/bar_walls4.jpg

King Henry of course bore the blood of 72,000 Catholics. The Protestant Churches recently apologized to Rome for the terrible abuses that their ancestors did. I think this is only a positive step forward. I remember reading it someplace. I remember reading this one book of the Protestant Reformation and it showed an English poster of the Four Evangelists stoning the pope! Talk about morally offensive. But even in the Catholic Church there were terrible abuses which scandalized many a Catholic and as a result had their faith shaken.

 

[Axion]

Which protestant churches apologised to Rome?

The CofE maybe. I can’t think who else.

 

[bones_IV]

Axion:

Which protestant churches apologised to Rome?

The CofE maybe. I can’t think who else.

That’s who I was thinking of. It was reported recently. We catholics have caused anti-Catholicism. Don’t blame the 60’s cause the 60’s didn’t do it. We by our own sins caused the anti-catholicism that’s prevalent in today’s society. It’s because Catholics do not practice their faith.

 

[BillyT92679]

Al Masetti:

There was a HUGE amount of anti-Catholicism in Europe. 100-year wars. 30-year wars. Refugees to America.

The colonists brought their hundreds of years of prejudice with them and it grew on fertile grounds along with the carryover of “national” competition: France vs. Spain vs. England. Later, vs. Russia.

And then you had the German immigrants who settled in a band from Texas to Illinois. And Polish immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania. And Swedes who settled in Minnesota. And etc.

Is there any wonder why and where the anti-Catholicism in America came about? It’s a wonder, there is so little of it.

Why would Poles be anti-Catholic? I’m not Polish, but they are some of the most ardently Catholic folks out there. (Yes I know about the PNCC, but they aren’t Protestants by any means)

 

[Ortho]

One of the reasons a tradition of anti-Catholicism developed is because the Vatican meddled in secular politics for hundreds of years. It’s a deep rooted attitude.

 

[BillyT92679]

Ortho:

One of the reasons a tradition of anti-Catholicism developed is because the Vatican meddled in secular politics for hundreds of years. It’s a deep rooted attitude.

Meddled? The Holy See was the spiritual leader of the West for centuries and kept in afloat… it was power hungry kings who wanted that influence to end.

 

[Ortho]

BillyT92679:

Meddled? The Holy See was the spiritual leader of the West for centuries and kept in afloat… it was power hungry kings who wanted that influence to end.

The popes had armies. They ruled their own nation. Did they lose spiritual leadership when they lost them?

 

[Psalm45_9]

Montie Claunch:

I was wondering if anyone could suggest a good book on the issue of Anti-Catholicism in America? You know, The History, The Roots, The Cause of it all. Some really in depth kind of stuff. I figure when I run up against it I should have at least a little more information beyond the superficial. Please and Thank you. And God Bless.

Anti-Catholicism in the 18th and 19th centuries was fueled by nativism. In other words the English and German Protestants came over here to escape the “High Churchness” of their native lands. They settled this land first and there was paranoia of “idol worshiping Papists” in the young forming democtratic country they established.

But thanks be to God that our Deist founding Fathers voted for the first amendment of our constitution, or most of us wouldn’t be here speaking in English right now. (Considering what the first amendment said is why the Puritans settled at Plymoth Rock, and even why a small group of Catholics settled in Maryland; naming their establishment after their Catholic Lord; Baltimore.)

 

[Zooey]

I think we have to remember that this country was founded by people who were, yes, religious dissidents, but largely British.
Then, other groups showed up…(like my Celtic ancestors), who were “different”. I think that the initail prejudice may have been more to do with the fact that the “new” immigrants were speaking other languages, etc, than with religion.
But once English became the language of the newbies as well, what was left? A lot of people, I suspect, simply grabbed on the religious differences as the handiest way to label folks as “other”.
This would explain why prejudice against Jews became a major issue, too. The earliest Jews (pre-War of Independence) were more tolerated, as far as I have read, than those who came later, from other parts of Europe.

:crying: “Most of us hate anything that we don’t understand”–Kris Kristoffersen.