What is an 'Anti-Catholic'?

[Chris_LaRock]

I would like the Catholics to explain this to me.

What do you consider an Anti-Catholic to be? All people who disagree with the Church?

There are people who honestly think Catholicism is a false religion, and feel genuine concern for your soul. Do you make a distinction between such people and bigots before you call them Anti-Catholic?

It seems to me that the loving intentions of some critics of the church are overlooked just so that you can discredit them by saying they’re prejudiced.

What are your thoughts?

 

[lak611]

I would like the Catholics to explain this to me.

What do you consider an Anti-Catholic to be? All people who disagree with the Church?

No. I only consider people to be anti-Catholic if they speak angry insults against me because I am Catholic, or if they refuse to even look at official Catholic documents to examine what we believe.

There are people who honestly think Catholicism is a false religion, and feel genuine concern for your soul. Do you make a distinction between such people and bigots before you call them Anti-Catholic?

It seems to me that the loving intentions of some critics of the church are overlooked just so that you can discredit them by saying they’re prejudiced.

What are your thoughts?

If somebody is willing to examine both sides of an issue and not direct personal attacks, I do not consider him anti-Catholic.

 

[Maxply]

It seems to me that you are assuming that anti-Catholics ALL have a pure motivation behind their anti-Catholicism. This simply isn’t the case; the anti-Catholics I’ve met personally take a personal enjoyment/sense of superiority from bashing the Church.

It makes them feel their flavor of Christianity is superior. . . the condition of my own mistaken soul is something they pity because of the ignorance of its owner!

And of course, almost all anti-Christians take an especial interest in bashing the Catholic Faith simply because Catholics seem less willing to bend with the current economic and political winds. I would think serious-minded Protestants would defend Catholics, since they’re very much under attack from Hollywood, cultural elites and politicians, too.

 

[mommyof4]

It’s a mixture of both. Bigots and genuinely loving people with good intentions.

 

[MarcoPolo]

It seems the 2nd and 3rd option of the poll say the same thing.

I’d say, someone anti-Catholic, in it’s normal contextual use throughout this forum, references individuals who not only oppose Catholicism, but do so in bad faith, i.e. a manner that violates the rules of logical argument.

For example, those who use the common straw man argument, or red herring, biased sample, or other common fallacies. In other words, individuals who avoid using right/wrong or true/false as their measure of the Church.

 

[BlestOne]

In my experience anti-Catholics can be of just about any temperament. I have had people try to convert me with anti-Catholic rhetoric out of pure ignorance, they just know what they have been told. But I have also had people so filled with hate for Catholics for various reasons (my grandma was Catholic and they wouldn’t let her divorce her abusive husband, they just want to control everybody, Catholics are the whore of Babylon…) all of which is untrue but to them it is reason to hate. I have also experienced Protestant ministers going behind my back to try to convert my children, which was laughable because my son at age 12 out debated him… (I see a priestly calling here). Whatever the reasons, if they make accusations rather than ask me why or try to reason with me, I don’t usually engage them.

I had one friend that actually asked why we do things the way we do when her church told her anti-Catholic stuff. That was cool, because our friendship stayed in tact. In fact I was overjoyed that she found a church and started attending for the sake of the children.

One of the things I noticed was that when folks come at you with both barrels, they run out of steam fast when they meet resistance. It is like they are prepared for round one of a prize fight but if you calmly give them answers, they lose momentum.

 

[Cari]

I view the word “anti-Catholic” with the same fear and loathing as I view the word “homophobic”. That is to say, it’s an awfully easy word for someone to sling about when running across a person who doesn’t subscribe to your point of view.

Lots of “anti-Catholic” sentiment I’ve run across is the result of misinformation and ignorance, pure and simple. It’s like the Sheen chestnut- about people hating what they THINK the Church is. That’s not “anti-Catholicism”, that’s “anti-false-Catholicism”. Yeah, if we worshipped Mary, I’D be “anti-Catholic”, too.

Even in the case of my MIL, who is the most hateful person I’ve ever met toward the Church, her basis for this hatred is ignorance. She loves her son, and wants what all mothers want, to be with him in Heaven, and her woeful lack of information on the Church leads her to believe that he won’t be there.

However, at some point, when one has been shown that one’s knowledge about a subject is wrong, one needs to address that. My MIL, for example, has been shown time and time again that her beliefs about the Church are erroneous, yet she refuses to read the catechism, adjust her thinking, or analyse WHY she thinks what she thinks. At this point, it has crossed into “anti-Catholicism”. I’m not saying she has to join the Church, but to refuse to admit that Catholics do not, in fact, view the Pope as equal to Christ is simple malice on her part.

 

[kell0618]

No. I only consider people to be anti-Catholic if they speak angry insults against me because I am Catholic, or if they refuse to even look at official Catholic documents to examine what we believe.


If somebody is willing to examine both sides of an issue and not direct personal attacks, I do not consider him anti-Catholic.

I agree with both points. Want to experience anti-Catholicism? Go to the RC board at CARM. They illustrate the anti-Catholic sentiment clearly.

 

[mommyof4]

I agree with both points. Want to experience anti-Catholicism? Go to the RC board at CARM. They illustrate the anti-Catholic sentiment clearly.

Yep. It’s like walking into hostile territory. You can literally feel the venom radiating from the computer screen.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Anti-Catholicism to me is this. They claim the Pope is the Anti-Christ, that we worship an idol in the Blessed Sacrament, saints,and Mary, that we killed millions of people in the Inquistions (actually it was civilian authorities who killed thousands not millions), and believe that the Catholic Church is Apostate, and was Guardian of Truth but fell away from it.

That the Catholic Church invented doctrines like purgatory, indulgences, etc. Jack Chick is one example and Lorraine Boetner’s Roman Catholicism (the main source of Evangelical Chrsitian source on the Catholics), as well as SDA’s (yes, I believe they are also Anti-Catholic), and those authors who wrote the Left Behind Series, in their Books the Pope is an evil man. That is what I see as Anti-Catholicism.

 

[Chris_LaRock]

Jack Chick is questionable. I’ve read some of his tracts that seemed to have positive intentions. I read a few that were about the Catholic church. Some seemed more loving than others.

I get the impression that there are a lot of touchy people who may confuse genuine concern for hate.

 

[Allweather]

I think an anti-Catholic is anyone who knows the claims the Catholic Church makes for itself, as the ancient institution Jesus established, and yet still refuses to stop protesting against it. Make no mistake, the Catholic Church isn’t just another “denomination.” It is the 800 lb gorilla of Christianity. To know it, and yet oppose it, makes one an anti-Catholic.

 

[lak611]

I think an anti-Catholic is anyone who knows the claims the Catholic Church makes for itself, as the ancient institution Jesus established, and yet still refuses to stop protesting against it. Make no mistake, the Catholic Church isn’t just another “denomination.” It is the 800 lb gorilla of Christianity. To know it, and yet oppose it, makes one an anti-Catholic.

I question how many of those who are opposed to the Catholic Church really “know” it. Many may be invincibly ignorant due to their upbringing. Although there are converts to every faith, the majority of people just practice their faith that they were raised in. I have asked people I know why they belong to the faith they do (Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Jewish), and they all said that it was because that is what their parents were.

 

[anthony022071]

It seems the 2nd and 3rd option of the poll say the same thing.

I’d say, someone anti-Catholic, in it’s normal contextual use throughout this forum, references individuals who not only oppose Catholicism, but do so in bad faith, i.e. a manner that violates the rules of logical argument.

For example, those who use the common straw man argument, or red herring, biased sample, or other common fallacies. In other words, individuals who avoid using right/wrong or true/false as their measure of the Church.

Many of the “fallacies” listed in that link can be found throughout the Bible,in the prophetic books,in the words of Jesus,in the letters,in Catholic apologist writings,in the books of our Pope. Reason can’t be so restricted or codified to the extent of excluding appeals to emotion,fear,ridicule,slippery slope argumentation,etc. Reasoning involves far more than what logicians are willing to admit.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Many of the “fallacies” listed in that link can be found throughout the Bible,in the prophetic books,in the words of Jesus,in the letters,in Catholic apologist writings,in the books of our Pope. Reason can’t be so restricted or codified to the extent of excluding appeals to emotion,fear,ridicule,slippery slope argumentation,etc. Reasoning involves far more than what logicians are willing to admit.

Understand that making conclusions via emotion, etc. doesn’t make you wrong, but if you happen to be right, it isn’t “because” you appealed to emotion. The truth is subservient to no emotion. Like I said, the ultimate measure must be right-wrong/true-false.

And if an anti-Catholic sets up a straw man of a Catholic teaching and proceeds to tear it down, then that anti-Catholic is using faulty reasoning.

 

[JesuXPIPassio]

I’ll tell you what I think about your poll question, it’s a mix of both cases. In many present day cases, it is just hate for us, but there are people who genuinely think we’re wrong. But they come to that view through the dirty glasses that were passed down to them from previous generations. Like, in the US, in previous times, it was just bigots who hated us. But they passed down this bias to the point that people today could really think we are that bad, and they act on that untrue perspective. This is what’s the problem in the American media now. People really do look at the Church and think it’s really corrupt or evil or whatever; they just inherited the stupid views of stupid people. In a way, it’s hard to blame them, since it’s what they’ve been immersed in since they were born. But in another way, it seems like it is their fault for perpetuating these acrimonious biases because they can use their logic to figure the truth out, and they virtually never do.

 

[Allweather]

Anti-clericalism has been a feature of many modern countries. France, which at one time was the most Catholic country in Christendom, sponsored the French Revolution of the late 1700s, which was intensely anti-clerical. Many of the same ideals that led to the French Revolution were also part and parcel of the American Revolution, just a few years earlier. Another example is Mexico, which is a very devoutly Catholic country, but has seen terrible persecutions of the Church by governments. I’m not knowledgeable enough to be able to draw the line through these things that shows how the Enlightenment leads to anti-Catholicism, or at least anti-Christianity, but it sure seems like there’s a connection.