When did Catholics shift this far towards the right/conservatism?

[Methodist]

When I was Catholic in the 70s-90s, most Catholics supported Labour, Amnesty International, Howard League for Penal Reform, CND, regulation of the arms trade, fair trade, Third World debt cancellation, citizenship for illegal immigrants, anti-apartheid. Politically, similar to Anglo-Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, Salvation Army.

I am seeing on CAF a dramatic shift to the right:

Support for Thatcherite/Reaganomics free-market capitalism.

Fears about leftism, socialism, communism, Marxism, i.e. anything left of the above.

Praise for Franco, Salazar, Pinochet.

Praise for Putin; denial of interference in western democracy.

Hostile to universal healthcare. . . .

Originalism/textualism/strict constructionism (anti-“judicial activism”), Constitutionalism, “Tenthers”, states’ rights, Lost Cause of the South.

Reliance on right-wing media (Breitbart, Fox, RedState, LifeSite, Washington Examiner, NY Post) with no awareness of their bias.

Hostile to mainstream media; perception that objective news sources, e.g. BBC, are biased; perception that fact-checking sources, e.g. Snopes, Full Fact, are biased.

. . . .

Running down younger generations; conversely, blaming baby boomers for many of the ills of the modern world.

. . . .

“Woke”, “wokeness”, “wokedom” used as pejoratives; attacks on liberals, progressives, “social justice warriors”, “snowflakes”, “virtue signalling”.

Fears of “totalitarianism”, i.e. the above.

. . . .

Support for European imperialism/colonialism; a post calling for statues of Mandela to be destroyed.

Harsh attitudes to illegal immigrants; unfounded claims that they commit more crime.

Support for harsh treatment of criminals (inhumane prison conditions, life without parole, death penalty, corporal punishment, humiliation as punishment).

. . . .

Conversely, unqualified support for Israel.

. . . .

Anti-EU.

. . . .

Anti-science, e.g. climate change denial, anti-vaccination, pro-DDT.

Covid-19: anti-lockdowns, anti-masks.

. . . .

A readiness to explain (or overlook) appalling behaviour by Trump; false claims about Biden (e.g. dementia); unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.

. . . .

 

[MNathaniel]

. . . .

What do you want, exactly?

Obviously no one is going to bother replying to (or even reading) every point in that enormous list you put together.

If you actually do expect (or invite) people to debate every little point with you – count me so far out we don’t even share the same planet anymore.

 

[adamhovey1988]

The media confuses centre right with far right. To them, anything right of centre is “far right”. That’s rich, coming from private businesses ironically supporting socialism.

 

[Methodist]

I guess some kind of explanation for what has happened to the Catholic Church over the past 20 years. I was a very committed Catholic until about 20 years ago, when for various reasons I ended up joining my wife’s Methodist church. However, I always saw the political orientation of the two denominations as being more or less the same: strongly committed to social justice, racial equality, overseas development, human rights, peace, and the environment. I have felt the call back to the Catholic Church, and that is why I began browsing on CAF. However, it seems that in the 20s years I have been away, the Church has changed beyond recognition. The Church of England used to be known as “the Conservative Party at prayer”. From what I am seeing on CAF, I am wondering whether the Catholic Church is now something like “the John Birch Society at prayer”.

The media confuses centre right with far right. To them, anything right of centre is “far right”. That’s rich, coming from private businesses ironically supporting socialism.

Hence providing examples of things that could reasonably and justifiably be described as radical right, alt-right, or far right.

 

[MNathaniel]

However, I always saw the political orientation of the two denominations as being more or less the same: strongly committed to social justice, racial equality, overseas development, human rights, peace, and the environment.

The Church is a religion, not a political orientation.

The Church continues to be strongly committed to social justice, racial equality, human rights, peace, and our common home. (Specifics like “overseas development” and “the environment” start to get into the weeds, but obviously unless you mean something weird by them, the Church supports whatever has goodness and not evil in it.)

If you perceive the Church as no longer supporting human rights or peace, etc, sounds to me like you’ve been affected by the media and environment you’ve spent the last however many years immersed in.

On some topics, political leftists are happy with the Church. On other topics, political rightists are happy with the Church. On other topics, political centrists are happy with the Church. On different topics, ALL political parties find themselves at odds with the Church (unless certain countries have minor, explicitly Catholic political parties).

It honestly sounds to me like this is a matter of perception, not reality. People of all political affiliations are constantly trying to drag their politics into the Church, but that doesn’t actual tie the Church to one political ‘side’.

 

[EXdrinker]

Surely this has to be a joke post.

 

[RhodesianSon]

We actually started paying attention to church tradition and teaching.

 

[MNathaniel]

I will add: if you feel that some center of gravity in the Church is moving in one direction rather than another, perhaps consider what tends to provoke that in a human body: external forces trying to drag one in the opposite direction. To remain in place, a body must lean in the opposite direction. So to the degree that you perceive a reaction within the Church body that is leaning rightwards, perhaps examine the external world with a fair eye and consider whether possibly, just possibly, the outside world is trying to drag the Church radically leftwards, and those you perceive as leaning to the right are just trying to stay in place, practice their religion, and not be forced in someone else’s politically radical direction.

 

[Motherwit]

The political centre of gravity in the Catholic Church has seemingly shifted from left to right, and a significant portion, perhaps a majority, are radical, alt, or far right. I am wondering what happened while I’ve been away.

I completely agree with your assessment. I’ve been a practicing Catholic for around 60 years ie my whole life. I remember the healthy symbiosis of those who felt called to guard doctrine and those who felt called to the compassionate love and merciful example of Christ and those, perhaps the majority lived the middle ground. There weren’t a lot of harsh radicals either way.

I naturally side with the Popes that Vatican II was a gift of the Holy Spirit and necessary for the Church in the 3rd millennium but sadly the ‘spirit’ of protest again reared it’s ugly head within the Church and in somewhat of an irony, it attracted many with the original Protestant spirit to cross the Tiber to participate in the new ‘protest’.

That’s my humble opinion of what happened anyway.

 

[Methodist]

Thank you for your reply. My comments are based on what I have seen on CAF over the time I have been browsing here. When I see Catholics seriously suggesting that women should be denied the vote, for example, or discussing the Battle of Lepanto or the Battle of Vienna in connection with the present-day spread of Islam in Europe, I am afraid I see a Catholic Church that has shifted very, very far to the right of where it was 20+ years ago.

Surely this has to be a joke post.

Not remotely. I have been reading threads on here for several months, and I have been searching some old threads, and I see a lot of evidence that Catholics today are quite closely aligned with a spectrum of right-wing political positions including some that are quite extreme.

We actually started paying attention to church tradition and teaching.

Interesting. I didn’t know that it was, for example, Church teaching and tradition to repeatedly claim, with no evidence, that a politician has dementia when he clearly doesn’t.

I didn’t know that it was Church teaching and tradition to argue that prisoners should be denied proper dental treatment.

I didn’t know that it was Church teaching and tradition to write-off the first black president of South Africa as a terrorist and call for statues of him to be destroyed.

I didn’t know that it was Church teaching and tradition to repeatedly and forcefully argue that Abraham Lincoln started an unconstitutional and illegal war of aggression and to falsify history to claim that the Confederacy was in no way racist or founded for the purpose of maintaining slavery.

I didn’t know that orthodox adherence to the Catholic faith required believers to promote a paranoid, hysterical fear of any political ideology short of small government, low taxation and low public spending, and privatised, deregulated free-market capitalism or a similar paranoid, hysterical fear of any movement which challenges the oppression of women and minorities. I also didn’t know that Catholics were called upon by the Church to deliberately misrepresent statistics to claim that a majority of interracial crime involves black people victimising white people and that white people are more likely than black people to be killed by the police.

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

When abortion became legal and supported by democrats for one.

It’s the child sacrifice of old under a new name. True Catholics are against anything that goes against God’s laws.

 

[jeannetherese]

I noticed that Amnesty international was one of the groups you mentioned as receiving the support of some Catholics in the past. Of course, this does not mean that Amnesty International was endorsed by the Catholic Church, but rather that some Catholics might have found its work aligned with Catholic principles. I was one of those Catholics.
Of course, in those days, Amenesty International had not begun arguing in favor of abortion.
I don’t think so much that it is a question of Catholics shifting to the right; rather, they are continuing to uphold the rights of the preborn, while Amnesty has ceased to seek the protection of all lives, without bias.
I ceased my support when they lowered their standards.

 

[MNathaniel]

My comments are based on what I have seen on CAF over the time I have been browsing here.

Then this does not justify your original post where you said:

The political centre of gravity in the Catholic Church has seemingly shifted from left to right, and a significant portion, perhaps a majority, are radical, alt, or far right.

Why on earth would you (clearly an adult) think that a tiny number of online strangers (only around 70 users regularly check in each day here) on a niche website are an accurate sample to draw any kind of conclusion about what a “significant portion”, much less a “majority”, of a religion of 1.2 billion people thinks?

You can google up any number of random opinions on any number of websites.

You have only yourself to blame if you choose to hold a belief system responsible for the random peripheral opinions of random internet strangers who believe in it.

 

[adamhovey1988]

Goodness, I hope so

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

My comments are based on what I have seen on CAF over the time I have been browsing here. When I see Catholics seriously suggesting that women should be denied the vote, for example, or discussing the Battle of Lepanto or the Battle of Vienna in connection with the present-day spread of Islam in Europe, I am afraid I see a Catholic Church that has shifted very, very far to the right of where it was 20+ years ago.

You do realize that this is an environment of anonymous internet Catholics and not truly representative of the thoughts and beliefs of Catholicism in general, right?

 

[adamhovey1988]

You do realize that this is an environment of anonymous internet Catholics and not truly representative of the thoughts and beliefs of Catholicism in general, right?

I am not fond of being lumped into a group such as “far right”.
The Church has consistently condemned racial ideology (although, sometimes our bishops misrepresent Church teaching on the topic), and so do I, ALL racial ideology.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

I am not fond of being lumped into a group such as “far right”.

I would also agree. Some radical posters do exist but they’re typically shouted down by the rest of us more reasonable posters who don’t want to see that be the face of the Church.

 

[ProVobis]

FWIW,

 

[Methodist]

When abortion became legal and supported by democrats for one.

It’s the child sacrifice of old under a new name. True Catholics are against anything that goes against God’s laws.

And I am also strongly opposed to abortion. However, being opposed to abortion, even voting for a political party that also opposes abortion, does not explain why so many people on CAF have decided to wholeheartedly embrace the full platform of right-wing, conservative ideologies, including populist, nativist, isolationist positions which sometimes result in outright racism and anti-Semitism.

I naturally side with the Popes that Vatican II was a gift of the Holy Spirit and necessary for the Church in the 3rd millennium but sadly the ‘spirit’ of protest again reared it’s ugly head within the Church and in somewhat of an irony, it attracted many with the original Protestant spirit to cross the Tiber to participate in the new ‘protest’.

That is a very interesting analysis. Certainly a lot of the right-wing ideology that I am seeing embraced by Catholics is the sort of thing that I was more used to seeing from evangelicals and fundamentalists such as the Jerry Falwells, the various Bob Joneses, and, in the UK, Ian Paisley. I always thought of these evangelical and fundamentalist denominations as being aligned with the conservativism of the likes of Goldwater, Reagan, and Thatcher, whereas more moderate Protestants tended to be more left-wing.

Why on earth would you (clearly an adult) think that a tiny number of online strangers (only around 70 users regularly check in each day here) on a niche website are an accurate sample to draw any kind of conclusion about what a “significant portion”, much less a “majority”, of a religion of 1.2 billion people thinks?

It is the largest lay apostolate on the internet and the largest online community of Catholics in the world. I was therefore taking this to be a representative sample of Catholicism within the anglophone world.

I noticed that Amnesty international was one of the groups you mentioned as receiving the support of some Catholics in the past.

True, but that does not explain why so many Catholics on CAF are, for example, in favour of the death penalty and also call for a range of other harsh measures against criminals and illegal immigrants.

 

[fhansen]

As a rule, CAF tends towards the conservative side.