Why Do Catholics Act Like A Persecuted Minority?

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akasseb

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I feel like I am preaching to the choir here, but feel free to pass this information onto others. It seems like Catholics are always reacting when it comes to moral matters in this country. We react when the Supreme Court determines that abortion is legal, when the federal government mandates that Catholic institutions must cover contraceptives, and when states redefine marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman. When will we see the day that the Church is on the offensive?

A quick search yielded the following results about Catholic representation in government:
  • 6 of the 9 Supreme Court justices are Catholic
  • 18 governors are Catholic (when we consider U.S. territories, we can add 5 more)
  • 24 members of the Senate are Catholic (quality seems to be a problem here)
  • 135 members of the House are Catholic (including the Speaker of the House, Minority Leader, Dean of the House and several chairmen and ranking members of committees)
  • Many members of Obama’s cabinet are Catholic, including: the Vice President, Secretary of the Department of Defense, Secretary of the Department of Interior, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Secretary of the Department of Labor, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Secretary of the Department of Transportation
  • This list does not include the hundreds of state senators, state representatives, and judges from various court systems
  • We also have to consider the numerous colleges and universities, hospitals, primary and secondary schools, organizations, and charities.
  • Finally, there are more than 70,000,000 Catholics in the United States (the largest religious body in the nation)
I think it’s time that Catholics start determining the culture of our country!
 
That is an excellent and very thought-provoking list.

Don’t forget that Catholics are the largest religious group in America (although the Baptists would edge us out if they counted children on their membership rolls).
 
Catholics have been determining the culture of the country, but sadly by embracing it instead of challenging it. So many have been so eager to “fit in” that they looked the other way or joined in instead of standing up and saying “this has to stop”. That’s the problem, not our numbers.
 
akasseb said:
  • Finally, there are more than 70,000,000 Catholics in the United States (the largest religious body in the nation)
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But if you consider that only 22% of Catholics attend Mass weekly, and the same figure is the percent who think the Church’s teaching on contraception is correct, perhaps the 70 million number is misleading. A high percentage of that number have only a loose identification as being Catholic. They do not base their views or their voting on Church teaching or Church leadership.

I think Church leadership on political and cultural issues will be blunted until the Church is able to get US Catholics to start toeing the line on basic Church teachings. For example, only 26% of Catholics receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) at least annually. 45% say they never do.
 
DavidFilmer said:
That is an excellent and very thought-provoking list.

Don’t forget that Catholics are the largest religious group in America (although the Baptists would edge us out if they counted children on their membership rolls).
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I beg pardon?

Is that an amalgamation of Southern Baptists AND Baptists with all their kids?

Southern Baptists have 16-17 million members
Catholics have 68-72 million
self described “Ex-Catholics” number anywhere from 20-30 million. Obviously its a lot harder to count them… they don’t go to church (or they go to a whole bunch of churches).

I don’t know how many adherents the mainline Baptists have in the U.S., but I highly doubt it’s enough to supplant Catholicism’s spot at #1. Baptists don’t even have big families… the vast majority of them believe contraception is acceptable, hence average American family of 1.2 children.
But if I wanted to answer the overarching question of the OP: if the majority of Catholics don’t follow the orthodox teachings of the Church, then the days of influencing society are long since past. I’ve heard stories of course of this happening in the 40’s, 50’s, and into the 60’s.
 
I think there needs to be clarification on what it means to be “Catholic”. There are people who claim to be “Catholic” who never set foot in a church, who were baptized as infants and then never went back, people who no longer attend Mass, etc. It’s like “Catholic” is a person whose grandparents were Catholic, almost like they think Catholic is an ethnicity rather than a religion. (A kid asked her mother if they were Christian, even though they were never baptized and never went to church.)

They need to ask if the person is practicing their faith by attending weekly Mass, and then take the number of “yes” votes to count Catholics. Those numbers would be a lot fewer, that’s for sure.
 
akasseb said:
[snip]

I think it’s time that Catholics start determining the culture of our country!
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Some analysts are suggesting that Rick Santorum may have lost the Michigan primary because of his criticism of Jack Kennedy’s Houston speech in which JFK assured Americans that his administration would not be beholding to the directives of a religious leader in Rome. I would suggest that the reason there are as many Catholics in elected government positions as there are today is because Americans took JFK’s assurances to heart and voted for these candidates’ political positions rather than for their Catholic affiliation. If Catholics want to reverse that trend, I can think of no better way than to now assure Americans that Catholics candidates will place their allegiance to the Church above their allegiance to their country.

I’m not suggesting that a candidate’s religious preferences do not or cannot inform their policy choices, but I think the OP severely underestimates the blow back that might result from a coordinated effort to establish this as a Catholic country. While Catholics may count on support from other sects in regards to issues such as gay marriage and abortion, that support could very well be offset or even over-ridden by other issues such as immigration reform, contraceptive use and death penalty abolition where a significant number of Americans disagree with Catholic positions.
 
The secular left has its sights set on the Catholic Church. It is evident that they hate everything we represent, 2000 years of unchanging obedience to God. This group is powerful and runs the majority of the media, which will always try to paint Catholics as ‘evil’ or ‘medieval’.
 
anp1215 said:
quality, not quantity.
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That is a reasonable approach. However, it does dilute the numbers greatly. If there are 70 million Catholics in the US, but only 25% take Church teaching seriously, perhaps the political bloc of US Catholics is 18 million. Its still a large number, but certainly less impressive at first glance.

However, this issue does cut to heart of the political influence of the US bishops. If they claim 70 million voters but 3/4 of those Catholics ignore their leadership, it undercuts the respect which non-Catholic politicians will give them.
 
akasseb said:
I feel like I am preaching to the choir here, but feel free to pass this information onto others. It seems like Catholics are always reacting when it comes to moral matters in this country. We react when the Supreme Court determines that abortion is legal, when the federal government mandates that Catholic institutions must cover contraceptives, and when states redefine marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman. When will we see the day that the Church is on the offensive?

A quick search yielded the following results about Catholic representation in government:
  • 6 of the 9 Supreme Court justices are Catholic
  • 18 governors are Catholic (when we consider U.S. territories, we can add 5 more)
  • 24 members of the Senate are Catholic (quality seems to be a problem here)
  • 135 members of the House are Catholic (including the Speaker of the House, Minority Leader, Dean of the House and several chairmen and ranking members of committees)
  • Many members of Obama’s cabinet are Catholic, including: the Vice President, Secretary of the Department of Defense, Secretary of the Department of Interior, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Secretary of the Department of Labor, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Secretary of the Department of Transportation
  • This list does not include the hundreds of state senators, state representatives, and judges from various court systems
  • We also have to consider the numerous colleges and universities, hospitals, primary and secondary schools, organizations, and charities.
  • Finally, there are more than 70,000,000 Catholics in the United States (the largest religious body in the nation)
I think it’s time that Catholics start determining the culture of our country!
Click to expand...
Problem: the vast majority of American Catholics are heretics who hate the Church, reject its teachings, and spit on its authority.
 
sw85 said:
Problem: the vast majority of American Catholics are heretics who hate the Church, reject its teachings, and spit on its authority.
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Gee, I hope not! :eek: 🙂

I think that’s a bit strong. Rather I’d say that most are clueless after getting nearly no formation since the 60’s, just want to “fit in” with the prevailing culture, and don’t understand why they should follow Church teachings when they spend one hour a week giving time to God, if that.

I blame the modernizers who were bent on changing the teachings of the Church to suit their denials of revealed religion and eternal truths. They’ve done their work well, as we can see. It’s the sheep who have suffered the most, so let’s have a bit of compassion for those whom Our Lord loves, even if they don’t “get it”.
 
akasseb said:
I feel like I am preaching to the choir here, but feel free to pass this information onto others. It seems like Catholics are always reacting when it comes to moral matters in this country. We react when the Supreme Court determines that abortion is legal, when the federal government mandates that Catholic institutions must cover contraceptives, and when states redefine marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman. When will we see the day that the Church is on the offensive?

A quick search yielded the following results about Catholic representation in government:
  • 6 of the 9 Supreme Court justices are Catholic
  • 18 governors are Catholic (when we consider U.S. territories, we can add 5 more)
  • 24 members of the Senate are Catholic (quality seems to be a problem here)
  • 135 members of the House are Catholic (including the Speaker of the House, Minority Leader, Dean of the House and several chairmen and ranking members of committees)
  • Many members of Obama’s cabinet are Catholic, including: the Vice President, Secretary of the Department of Defense, Secretary of the Department of Interior, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Secretary of the Department of Labor, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Secretary of the Department of Transportation
  • This list does not include the hundreds of state senators, state representatives, and judges from various court systems
  • We also have to consider the numerous colleges and universities, hospitals, primary and secondary schools, organizations, and charities.
  • Finally, there are more than 70,000,000 Catholics in the United States (the largest religious body in the nation)
I think it’s time that Catholics start determining the culture of our country!
Click to expand...
Why do Catholics act like a “persecuted minority?” Maybe because something like the Huffington Post can publish something that says - among many other things:

*“Catholics participate in a barbaric ritual dating back two millennia, a “mass” in which a black-robed cleric casts a spell over some bread and wine, transfiguring it into the actual living flesh and blood of their Christ. Followers then line up to eat the Jesus meat and drink his holy blood in a cannibalistic reverie not often seen outside Cinemax.” *

Anything even mildly critical or just questioning of, say, Islam, or Judaism, would have been immediately branded “hate speech.” But where’s the outrage? Where is the media falling all over itself criticizing such over-the-top slime? Cue the crickets. As the book title several years ago said: “Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice.”
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Why do Catholics act like a “persecuted minority?” Maybe because something like the Huffington Post can publish something that says - among many other things:

*“Catholics participate in a barbaric ritual dating back two millennia, a “mass” in which a black-robed cleric casts a spell over some bread and wine, transfiguring it into the actual living flesh and blood of their Christ. Followers then line up to eat the Jesus meat and drink his holy blood in a cannibalistic reverie not often seen outside Cinemax.” *

Anything even mildly critical or just questioning of, say, Islam, or Judaism, would have been immediately branded “hate speech.” But where’s the outrage? Where is the media falling all over itself criticizing such over-the-top slime? Cue the crickets. As the book title several years ago said: “Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice.”
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Oh you know they wouldn’t dare criticize Islam because they know they would be targeted for bombings or assassinations. They’re just like the schoolyard bully who picks on the scrawny kid because he knows he won’t fight back.

Cowards.
 
MarcoPolo said:
Ditto. Nancy Pelosi, for instance, is hardly a “Catholic.” Why are we counting imposters?
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There in lies the problem.

I understand that sheep and goats don’t look all that different. And I understand that the Church’s primary concern is to keep all of it’s members from slaughter, but when a goat raises its head and says, “I’m a goat and what you sheep believe is crazy.”

Maybe the shepards need to separte that goat from the flock.

But they almost never do.

Chuck
 
This is an interesting question and it brings up a point I think about occasionally. I observe that many Catholic programs (e.g. college groups, forums, classes) like to employ adversarial language. Abortion is “us vs them,” sacred tradition is “us vs them,” sexual propriety is “us vs them,” and so on. Every issue is presented as an attack, an affront, or a crisis.

I wonder, is this a healthy attitude? Is it good to constantly be drawing distinctions and making groups inside and outside the church?
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
This is an interesting question and it brings up a point I think about occasionally. I observe that many Catholic programs (e.g. college groups, forums, classes) like to employ adversarial language. Abortion is “us vs them,” sacred tradition is “us vs them,” sexual propriety is “us vs them,” and so on. Every issue is presented as an attack, an affront, or a crisis.

I wonder, is this a healthy attitude? Is it good to constantly be drawing distinctions and making groups inside and outside the church?
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We don’t have to “make” groups opposed to Catholic teaching–they simply exist. To ignore the fact would be foolish.

Having said that, we could be less adversarial in our approach to those with whom we disagree. But again, we’ve tried that and found it was taken for weakness not attempts at being reconciliatory.

Catholics have enemies because we oppose some of the most cherished licenses of a society bent on self-indulgence in moral issues. It’s our duty to say that some things are simply wrong, no matter who does them. And that is bound to make us adversaries whether we wish it or not.
 
Della said:
We don’t have to “make” groups opposed to Catholic teaching–they simply exist. To ignore the fact would be foolish.

Having said that, we could be less adversarial in our approach to those with whom we disagree. But again, we’ve tried that and found it was taken for weakness not attempts at being reconciliatory.

Catholics have enemies because we oppose some of the most cherished licenses of a society bent on self-indulgence in moral issues. It’s our duty to say that some things are simply wrong, no matter who does them. And that is bound to make us adversaries whether we wish it or not.
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You have demonstrated exactly the attitude I was describing. I propose that this attitude is good for the religion in the short term, bad for religion in the long term, and always bad for the spirit of people who believe these things.

It is good for religion in the short term:
It encourages orthodoxy
It may result in an effective defense of a real crisis
It may attract new members who agree with the church’s position

Bad in the long term:
Leads to a “Boy who cried wolf” attitude amongst the laity
Causes other groups to view the religion as too insular, reactionary, and unreasonable
Causes overzealous members to over-correct and form fundamentalist positions

Bad for people involved:
Causes them to “see as man sees” and be uncharitable to people they view as egregious sinners
May cause them to grow weary and despairing of the constant barrage of crisis.
May make them focus more on what is wrong than what is right.
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
You have demonstrated exactly the attitude I was describing. I propose that this attitude is good for the religion in the short term, bad for religion in the long term, and always bad for the spirit of people who believe these things.

It is good for religion in the short term:
It encourages orthodoxy
It may result in an effective defense of a real crisis
It may attract new members who agree with the church’s position

Bad in the long term:
Leads to a “Boy who cried wolf” attitude amongst the laity
Causes other groups to view the religion as too insular, reactionary, and unreasonable
Causes overzealous members to over-correct and form fundamentalist positions

Bad for people involved:
Causes them to “see as man sees” and be uncharitable to people they view as egregious sinners
May cause them to grow weary and despairing of the constant barrage of crisis.
May make them focus more on what is wrong than what is right.
Click to expand...
Nope, I can’t agree, nor do I feel any “shame” for supporting the truths of the Church in the teeth of constant harassment and opposition within and without the Church. It is no lack of charity to teach the truth, although that truth must be taught in love. But, giving in to people’s weaknesses out of a false sense of kindness does no one, especially not them, any good in the long run or the short term. The evidence is all around us that indulging people’s weaknesses is the very thing that has led to the crises we see today in society, in our families, and in the Church itself. Feeding the crocodile only gets one closer to him so he can devour you whole, it never ever converts him into a pet.
 
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