Why do some Catholics repudiate our American values?

[otjm]

Aha. I missed the bit about agrarianism. Not sure if corporate farming on a large scale still fits within that philosophical category; one gets about so large and then it is not a family business anymore.

In any even, I grew up with one foot in the farm world and the rest of me not. I think i prefer farm people, as they seem to be less “driven” and far less involved in the “chin chatter” than those in urban and suburban areas (where I have lived most of my life).

 

[AlNg]

I think the people who repudiate our values are also from the United States. The values to which I refer would include, but not be limited to:

• The equality of all people
• The inalienable rights of all people

Why do some Catholics repudiate our American values?
Because first of all the American laws do not support the equality of all people and the inalienable rights of all people. In fact, in many cases unborn people can be murdered at any time that the mother demands it, even up to the moment of birth. Of course any decent person would repudiate that.
Further, many Catholics repudiate the value of unjust wars. America has been involved in too many wars and has troops all over the place ready to strike at any moment. Iraq has just voted to throw all American soldiers out of the country, while at the same time the American government claims that it has brought so many good things to Iraq, which it never had before. Why then do you suppose that Iraq wants all American soldiers out of its country? Americans have their priorities mixed up when it come to values. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on wars, atom bombs and all kinds of weapons is a priority whereas providing some food to the thousands of starving homeless people living on the streets is not. In fact, I read where those decent people who attempted to give a bit of food to some of the homeless in their cities were arrested and put in jail or fined. For Catholics it is a worthwhile work of charity to feed the hungry and I suspect that many Catholics would oppose arresting those people who attempt to feed the starving homeless people in America. Why not spend a little money to help those who are homeless and cannot find a job instead of wasting so many billions and billions of dollars on weapons of mass destruction and wars in places like Iraq, where they don’t want Americans anyway? Wouldn’t it have been better to spend that money to help out those Americans who are living homeless in the streets or in the parks?

 

[Peeps]

could you please identify the last President of the United States who grew up as the underprivileged son of a working class couple in a poor neighborhood?)

Donald Trump didn’t grow up poor, but his father was far from privileged. He had a very difficult childhood, especially when he was twelve and his father died of flu. After he graduated from high school, he got a job pulling wagonloads of bricks to building sites. Eventually he became a carpenter, and that led to his interest in houses.

Sounds a lot like my dad (R.I.P.)

Something that many American’s aspire to is seeing their children do better than them. This is definitely true in our family, as we can trace back our family history through at least four generations (in the U.S.), and each generation saw a better life than their forbears.

 

[Rau]

I’m sure the OP would be shocked to learn that several constitutional monarchies rank higher than the US on indexes that measure effective democracy and standard of living…

Constitutional monarchies bear little resemblance to monarchies of old.

 

[Peeps]

could you please identify the last President of the United States who grew up as the underprivileged son of a working class couple in a poor neighborhood?)

President Ronald Reagan!

He was born to a low-income family in Northern Illinois in a small down (Dixon). He lived in a small house and attended a small school, both of which you can see today. He graduated from one of the tiniest colleges–Eureka, and worked as a sports broadcaster for several years before he moved to Hollywood and found some small success as an actor.

If you want to see what middle America is all about, visit Dixon/Sterling/Rock Falls Illinois! (My husband and his family are from there!). One of the things you will see is the large mill–closed for years now. Like many people in that area, all of my husband’s relatives worked in this mill and made good money, but they were far from well-off, especially since they originally moved there from the hills of Kentucky where they were, to put it bluntly, hillbillies. (One class of people that it seems like it’s still OK to stigmatize in the U.S. is hillbillies.)

Another President that grew up in modest circumstances was Pres. Harry Truman, and as far as I know, he’s the only President that only had a high school diploma–no college.

 

[Rau]

That’s the case for Australia since 1901 (?). And increasingly for Canada and the UK (the second point) too (sadly).

Australia has a written Constitution. There is a codified balance of power among the parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary.

 

[Dovekin]

could you please identify the last President of the United States who grew up as the underprivileged son of a working class couple in a poor neighborhood?

Barack Obama. His family eventually moved to a wealthy area in Indonesia, but he started off poorer.
Bill Clinton is more unwed mother’s child raised in a lower class home.
Reagan and Truman fit the description well.

Donald Trump does not. His father’s biography appears to have drifted to him in an earlier post here.

The Bushes and the Roosevelts were clearly upper class families.

Jimmy Carter is the last farmer to become president.

 

[twf]

Constitutional monarchies bear little resemblance to monarchies of old.

Yes, but the OP identified “republicanism”, “written constitution as the supreme law of the land”, and a few other uniquely American values as core values Catholics should not challenge…I was just pointing out that liberal democracies can also be monarchies.

Though it also depends what you mean by “of old”. When the American colonies rebelled against Britain in the 18th century, Parliament, not the King, was supreme…despite romanticized accounts of throwing off the “tyranny of the king”. The authority of the monarch has been limited in Britain for centuries. In France, the “absolute monarch” phase was early modern…medieval French kings certainly did not have absolute power…and in fact often had very little power outside of Paris and the surrounding countryside.

 

[tafan2]

• Restoration of the concept of Christendom
• Restoration of the Papal States
• Reasserting the supremacy of the pope over temporal rulers
• Restoration of the Holy Roman Empire under the papacy
• Restoration of monarchy as the normative constitutional model
• Restoration of the concept of a noble class
• Abolition or significant abridgement of democracy, perhaps reducing representative democracy only to a

I call BS. I hang around this forum quite a bit, and I have seen hardly any if this. Now, there are people, such as myself, who have justified the Crusades, who have held that Christendom when it existed was a good thing; so there is a small grain of truth in a couple of this list that you are twisting malignantly. With others, eg restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, I have never seen once advocated for on this forum and can only charitably conclude you are very confused.

 

[Dovekin]

There is a basic idea being expressed that is valid, even if some of the particulars listed are not accurate. The nit picking of individual points ignores that there has been a significant change in the way the Church relates to secular governments. There was a real reform that was endorsed at Vatican II that suppressed much of the defense of the Ancien Regime as the premodern political situation was known in France.

In addition to the brief description from Benedict XVI that I quoted in the first reply here, there are other writings that show the same dynamic. Liberty Equality and Fraternity by Cardinal Lustiger of Paris. His focus is on the French Revolution

 

[tafan2]

I am not nitpicking his individual points. I am wholeheartedly condemning the whole list as being written in such a way as to present many of us as negatively as possibke, even to the extent of fabricating much of the list.

And I fully understand and support the Church’s changing way of relating to secular governments which you describe.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The United States has freedom of thought and speech. That’s the most “traditional American value” of all. If somebody in USA wants to advocate the restoration of a monarchy or any other unpopular idea, they’re allowed. And they’re being very American by doing so.

The Vatican never much liked the idea of the USA. The Vatican always preferred the idea of a Catholic monarchy with Catholicism as the official church, and the Catholic ruler faithful to the Church and putting Catholic ideas in place. Republics and democracies were considered forms of secularized mob rule and often resulted in the Church’s influence being greatly diminished, Church property being seized and in the worst case the Church being outlawed.

Popular uprisings in European Catholic countries, and a few non-European ones also, usually didn’t go well for the Church…property would be lost, clergy would be killed en masse, etc. - so it’s understandable that the Church would not be thrilled about government for the people and by the people. Often, those rebelling were rebelling in part against the authority and riches of the established Church. Also, such rebellions usually went hand in hand with a general upending of the social order, an increase in immoral behavior across the board, and a big decline in Catholic religious practice, often because it was outlawed.

In the US we arguably have had the same thing happen. The Church hasn’t been outlawed and probably won’t be, but we live in a secular society pushing secular values, and the laws of the country do not promote Catholic values since we have legal abortion, legal gay marriage etc. So some people want to change that and go back to the Church “ideal” of medieval times. No doubt this looks much better from a comfortable 21st century perspective than if one actually had to live through it.

I’m not sure why you think it’s so unusual that someone in US would have these ideas.

As for “how widespread” the movement is, look around you, do you see huge groups marching in support? It’s just another little fringey idea like the other one million little fringey ideas in USA. It probably lives mostly on the Internet.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

With others, eg restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, I have never seen once advocated for on this forum and can only charitably conclude you are very confused.

The OP probably reads more than one forum and lumps them all together in their mind.

Anyway, I have a hard time taking the initial post seriously because anyone who’s been on Catholic Internet forums more than 2 minutes knows there’s a fringe group of young men (not all of whom are from USA) with a Crusader fixation who advocate for this sort of thing, and further know it is a fringe group not worthy of a huge wall-of-text post like we actually run into these people at church (we don’t - and the OP says they are Catholic, presumably goes to church and should know this), and even further know that most of this stuff is people’s Internet pipe dreams.

 

[Peeps]

a Crusader fixation who advocate for this sort of thing, and further know it is a fringe group not worthy of a huge wall-of-text post like we actually run into these people at church (we don’t - and the OP says they are Catholic, presumably goes to church and should know this), and even further know that most of this stuff is people’s Internet pipe dreams.

Too many of those Netflix/Hulu/Amazon series about medieval life and times?

 

[TK421]

A person that watches medieval Netflix shows will conclude that the entire medieval ages were the worst time period imaginable and the Crusades were Christians invading pacificistic and enlightened Muslims.

I’m pretty sure they won’t advocate for a return to a monarchy, among other things.

 

[Dovekin]

I could easily see the OP gleaning the points in those lists from conversations here, particularly if you include source documents cited like PiusX’s anti-modernist writings and PiusIX’s Syllabus of errors. This does not mean every person subscribes to all of the positions, either as an American or anti-American. There was a clearly anti-revolution ideology in the Church in the 19th century that some associate themselves with.

It is helpful for some of us to understand how this developed. Far from presenting people “as negatively as possible” it shows them as having legitimate, if outdated, sources for their positions.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Too many of those Netflix/Hulu/Amazon series about medieval life and times?

In Europe it is often associated with nationalism. I think US people pick it up from there…

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

@Dovekin Thank you for that quotation from Pope Benedict. The breadth of his erudition and the clarity of his expression never fail to impress.

@phil19034 With regard to heresy, I think the crucial thing here is that although the Church was responsible for determining what constitutes heresy, the enforcement of a sentence of death for heretics was within the remit of the civil authority. There are several problems with this, from the perspective of the contemporary world. First, it violates the separation of the state and religion. Even countries that still have an established church do not impose an obligation of religious conformity upon citizens. Secondly, it violates freedom of belief and freedom of speech. Quite simply, the state is not responsible for the salvation of its citizens’ souls.

With regard to the Crusades, I would agree that these historical events have often been misunderstood as a result of their being judged according to the values of a different age. I feel about as much in the way of a personal connection with the Crusades as I do with the Peloponnesian War or the Battle of Waterloo. That is to say, they are of intellectual interest, but I do not take sides or feel any kind of personal attachment to any particular school of historiography.

@Divine3 I would not agree that the United States was founded as a Judeo-Christian nation. The most that one could say is that we are a nation founded by people who shared a Judeo-Christian heritage. Inherent in the concept of freedom of religion is the option for people to follow no religion at all. If you look at the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers, only a minority were what one could describe as orthodox Christians. The prevailing religious philosophy of the age was Deism. This approach to religious belief could take many forms. Thomas Paine, for example, rejected Christianity entirely, whereas Jefferson rejected only its supernatural claims.

As for the views cited, I have never met anybody in real life who holds these views, but I have certainly read them online.

@twf I am not sure how your comment pertains to what was said in my post. Having attended grad school at Oxford, I have lived in a country which is a constitutional monarchy and I am perfectly well educated about the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy and familiar with the standard of living in countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Scandinavian and Benelux countries. Those extreme conservatives who are nostalgic for papal coronations and the sedia gestatoria and who wish for the restoration of the Papal States and the Holy Roman Empire do not have in mind the kind of monarchical constitution that exists in a country such as Canada or Sweden.

 

[Poet]

The other examples given in the second category are extreme and I have never met an USA Catholic promoting 1/8 th of what was stated.

Same here.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

I struggle to understand how urbanization is an American value and why agrarianism is inherently a bad thing.

That is not what I said. I was listing a number of other historical developments in the United States and other developed nations that are also from time to time repudiated by very conservative Catholics. There is a thread beginning with this post, for example, in which somebody articulates his disapproval of large cities. The thread leads to a discussion of that particular contributor’s disapproval of democracy. That same contributor does not consider slavery to be inherently abhorrent.

Agrarianism is not an inherent bad thing, but I find it peculiar that some people promote an economy based on agriculture and artisanal production and a demographic distribution in which most people live in small rural settlements as if it were something that could feasibly be achieved in the modern world.

Same here.

I never said otherwise. As I said in my comment above, this is a school of thought that I have encountered exclusively on the internet, not among Catholics I actually know.

@twf Again, at no point did I assert that these values are in any way superior to those of any other country or of the founding political philosophy of any other country. My question is simply why is it that on the internet (although not in real life) I read comments by some very conservative Catholics (almost always American) that repudiate values that I should have assumed would be held by most people today. As I also said, it seems obvious that those people who seek the restoration of monarchies are not talking about constitutional monarchies such as Canada’s.

Evidently you are justifiably proud of Canada’s constitutional order, and rightly so. I find Canada and many other constitutional monarchies under Queen Elizabeth II to be admirable nations, and, as I have expressed on another current thread, there are even advantages to the Westminster model of democracy, such as the supremacy of the legislature, that are not found in the United States.

Don’t have time to respond to all of it but it’s worth noting that Americanism is a heresy and the enlightenment was born out of hatred for the church.

Thank you. This rather nicely illustrates my point.