Why is the South So Hostile to Catholicism?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Silvereel
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Coming to this thread late, so forgive me if I reapeat anything allready said.

Pardon me if I step on toes, but I think that hostility toward the RCC, is a part of the generally predjudiced culture of the South.

The south used to be very predjudiced and in a lot of cases still is, remember the welcome Civil Rights workers from the North received, there quite a few murdered. My dad when alive called blacks “porch monkeys” my mother called Jewish people “Jew boys”. Off course I am a convert.

And I think the south is still predjudiced. At least here in west Texas where I live, it is very different from south Texas, where there are quite a few Catholics of German, Irish, Polish, Czech origin who hold on to their religion and roots. Here in west Texas everyone joins the Southern Baptist church and the Republican party right away, this is a very conformist area.

Just about the only Catholics here who stay Catholics are the Latinos, and of course they are counted as “non-persons”.

Please note I am generalising, and I realise there are exceptions.
 
pipper said:
Coming to this thread late, so forgive me if I reapeat anything allready said.

Pardon me if I step on toes, but I think that hostility toward the RCC, is a part of the generally predjudiced culture of the South.

The south used to be very predjudiced and in a lot of cases still is, remember the welcome Civil Rights workers from the North received, there quite a few murdered. My dad when alive called blacks “porch monkeys” my mother called Jewish people “Jew boys”. Off course I am a convert.

And I think the south is still predjudiced. At least here in west Texas where I live, it is very different from south Texas, where there are quite a few Catholics of German, Irish, Polish, Czech origin who hold on to their religion and roots. Here in west Texas everyone joins the Southern Baptist church and the Republican party right away, this is a very conformist area.

Just about the only Catholics here who stay Catholics are the Latinos, and of course they are counted as “non-persons”.

Please note I am generalising, and I realise there are exceptions.
Click to expand...
Huge, huge caution: it is mistake, a fallacy, to think that the South is any more prejudiced that the North, or anywhere else on the earth for that matter. It is not, even though it may present more obvious manifestations of human prejudice. I recall a conversation I had with a man from Pennsylvania when he came to ironic conclusion that racism was more pernicious, more widespread, and much more difficult to see in Philadelphia than in Charlestown.

When you are in the South and you make comments about how backwards or how prejudiced people there are, you’ve lost the respect on the issue of anyone in earshot and you’ve harmed your cause.
 
pipper said:
Coming to this thread late, so forgive me if I reapeat anything allready said.

Pardon me if I step on toes, but I think that hostility toward the RCC, is a part of the generally predjudiced culture of the South.

The south used to be very predjudiced and in a lot of cases still is, remember the welcome Civil Rights workers from the North received, there quite a few murdered. My dad when alive called blacks “porch monkeys” my mother called Jewish people “Jew boys”. Off course I am a convert.

And I think the south is still prejudiced. At least here in west Texas where I live, it is very different from south Texas, where there are quite a few Catholics of German, Irish, Polish, Czech origin who hold on to their religion and roots. Here in west Texas everyone joins the Southern Baptist church and the Republican party right away, this is a very conformist area.

Just about the only Catholics here who stay Catholics are the Latinos, and of course they are counted as “non-persons”.

Please note I am generalising, and I realise there are exceptions.
Click to expand...
I hate admitting it, but a lot of what you are saying is sadly true. I was raised as a bigot. hangs head in shame When I was old enough to know better, I stopped it. It’s hateful. And I refuse to raise my kids that way. My sister and I are both Moms, and we have an ongoing battle with our parents who still insist on using racial slurs in front of our children. It makes us mad, and we get our kids and leave. I could go on and on, but you-all get the point. Not all Southerners are like this, but I’m sad to say, many of them still are. And it’s not just the South. My Dad is from Philly, and he is just as bad, if not worse, than a lot of Southerners I know.
Hate is everywhere, sadly. 😦
 
mystagogia said:
Huge, huge caution: it is mistake, a fallacy, to think that the South is any more prejudiced that the North, or anywhere else on the earth for that matter. It is not, even though it may present more obvious manifestations of human prejudice. I recall a conversation I had with a man from Pennsylvania when he came to ironic conclusion that racism was more pernicious, more widespread, and much more difficult to see in Philadelphia than in Charlestown.

When you are in the South and you make comments about how backwards or how prejudiced people there are, you’ve lost the respect on the issue of anyone in earshot and you’ve harmed your cause.
Click to expand...
I guess you missed the part where I said I was generallising?

And I never called anyone backwards. I did imply that my parents were backwards, and they were, but I did not say anyone else is backwards.

I am sorry if I offended anyone here, or in general, that is the furthest thing from my mind.
 
pipper said:
I guess you missed the part where I said I was generallising?

And I never called anyone backwards. I did imply that my parents were backwards, and they were, but I did not say anyone else is backwards.

I am sorry if I offended anyone here, or in general, that is the furthest thing from my mind.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I understood your qualification about generalizing. I simply wanted to throw up a caution, because when folks start hinting down a path of suggesting some kind of special backwardness in the South, or of an especially prejudiced view, that’s not going to sit well with it’s denizens. It is going to look to them like a prejudice in and of itself.
 
. Depends where you live. I have yet to meet a hostile protestant here in TN. My area has quite a few Catholic Churches and I know we don’t take any heat from the Masons either. In fact our Parish surrounds a Masonic lodge on all three sides. They we’re too stubborn to move, so we kind of just built around them.
 
Perhaps I am going at this differently becuase I have a different background.

You see, I was not born and raised in the church, I was raised in a very predjudiced Evangelical denomination, that happens to be mainly tho not entirely in the south, it is mostly based in Tennesee, Kentuckey, and Texas where I am.

I was raised on a constant three times a week diet of sermons, that constantly berated Catholics and the Church.

They like the mormons were based on the Apostacy/Restoration dichotomy. They beleived that the original church went out of existence when they “apostacised” themselves out of existence stopped being Christians and started being Catholics. They beleive that Christianity just went of existence for centuries until the founders of this denomination “restored” it back into existence. Millions of people consider Catholics to be not Christians, but “idol worshipping pagans” who need to be “brought to the Lord”.

They taught they were the only Christians to exist, and the only people going to be in heaven, just their little sect, and I bet you all know the name of that denomination:).

That is why I get so worked up about predjudice, I was brought up on it, until I graduated, and thrown out of the house the same night.

When I converted my mother told me that I had left Christ and his only church and I was going to hell.

Also I was abused physically and verbally the entire time, at the ripe old age of 9 my stepfather broke my leg with his bare hands, and I was shot at as well, the rest of the time I was embaressed at gymn class from all the bruises and welts from the near daily beatings. The teachers noticed this and did nothing, because here in Texas at the time I was considered my parents property to deal with as they pleased.

When child abuse laws were passed years too late for me they were based on animal cruelty laws.

I know we are to forgive, but in my parents case, that is very difficult.😦
 
The only hostility I get is from my parents. And, like me, they’re Yankee transplants.

My father was raised Byzantine Catholic, my mom Roman Catholic, and both became Baptists last year. My father will sit there and say I’m burning in hell, that I worship Mary, that I’m a pagan, all the stuff. I’ll try to defend myself, as I consider it a personal attack, and my mom will interrupt and say it’s just how my father was raised. :eek:

And I know my father isn’t getting this info from the Baptist church he attends. I go there with them, they call themselves a non-denominational church, but once you join, you find out their Baptist. The pastor there is a good guy, isn’t afraid to tick somebody off, and does sermons that I swear a priest could use for a homily, verbatim.

Only once did the pastor say anything remotely anti-catholic. Every now and then, he’ll bring up how his church was started (vision he had in Texas), and this time, it was the weekend after our bishop was ordained, it made the local news and paper (I was amazed) and he said “at our church, we don’t have bishops for the people to elect.” I turned to my mom and said “I must have missed the voting mass.”

Of course, there’s also the uninformed coworkers. One thought, upon finding out I’m Catholic, that we had punch cards for the priest to verify that we were at mass on Sunday. And he was serious.

Edited to add…
Of course, it could be that the area is a tourist area, so the locals are used to all types of people coming here. And there are a lot of transplants here too. It’s not uncommon to find out that somebody you thought was a native actually moved here 20 years ago.
 
Very good on the electing bishops :rolleyes:
One of the guys we have here is the pastor at a medium sized Baptist church… he tends to come to people’s doors very agressively, telling people how the King James Bible is better than the Greek etc. etc… I can only imagine what he’d do if someone told him they were Catholic!
 
Hey y’all,

I live in the Heart of Dixie, Alabama. I was raised protestant (Assemblies of God), though I ventured far from God in my early twenties. I dabbled with wicca, and eventually settled on agnosticism. All the while, my family stayed fairly neutral about it all, choosing rather to ignore the big pink elephant standing in the room.

About 5 years ago, I became a Christian. The Holy Spirit literally led me into a local Catholic church (Our Lady Of Sorrows, Homewood, Alabama) one Sunday morning. I was bitter to God, doubtful of salvation and broken and battered spiritually. However, that morning God opened up my eyes.

I returned to a non-denominational protestant church after that for a few years. I was active and on fire for God. I still felt like there was something more, though. My wife was also active in the protestant church, but was not fond of the Catholics.

One day, I decided to visit the campus of EWTN. I work in the city where it is located. While there I met (thanks to the Holy Spirit) Marcus Grodi, whom some of you may know from the EWTN series, “The Journey Home”. He challenged my protestant beliefs and made me hungry for knowledge of the Catholic church. I began a wonderful journey of education and worship, eventually deciding to convert.

My wife was leary of the change at first, though one day she looked at me and said “You are different. You are a better husban, father and friend. What’s changed?” I began to tell her of my passion for the Catholic church. That day was a turning point in our relationship with each other and with Christ. She is now extremely supportive of my faith, though she still is active in the protestant church.

My brother in law also decided to convert to the Catholic church from protestantism, and our RCIA class was nearly standing room only! If I can remember correctly, we had nearly 60 new converts in our class.

More to the point of this thread, however, is the reaction of my family to my conversion. While they were mostly willing to ignore the agnosticism, they became frantically opposed to my conversion to Catholicism. I was amazed at the different reaction, but realized that it was a long term socialization of this southern society to the Catholic church. They do not hate the Catholic church, the hate what they believe the Catholic church to be.

In my own journey with my family, I have begun to write about my conversion experience, and describe not only the spiritual and emotional reasons for converting, but also the logical and doctrinal reasons. I have bought several copies of Fr. Mark Romero’s book “Unabridged Christianity” and passed out to family and friends. Slowly but surely my family is starting to come around.

Catholics, especially new converts should be encouraged! Bathe in prayer each family member and friend you attempt to approach about the Catholic church. Find good resources that simply explain the doctirne and beliefs of the church, and educate yourselves to the point you can explain the basics. Through this, be kind, patient and warm, and you will start to see a change of hearts in those you love. That is the best way we can change the image of the church, and in reality it is the best way we can evangilize for our parishes! We are all missionaries in one way or another!

If anyone in the Birmingham area would like to chat more, please feel free to private message me!

Peace be with you,

J.O. Ling
 
pipper said:
I guess you missed the part where I said I was generallising?

And I never called anyone backwards. I did imply that my parents were backwards, and they were, but I did not say anyone else is backwards.

I am sorry if I offended anyone here, or in general, that is the furthest thing from my mind.
Click to expand...
Hey, darlin’, you didn’t offend me, I’m from Alabama, lived in Alabama almost all my life, and my father was a bigot, still is a bigot, he’s almost 85 and he’ll probably always be a bigot. Lots of people around me are bigots. I had to scold a whole table of big ol’ guys who had a had a few beers while watching a football game before they came into MacDonald’s a while back. They were yelling obscenities and trying to pick fights with the Latinos working there. The Latinos couldn’t say anything, so it fell to little ol’ gray-haired me. I hate to back down from a confrontation, so I strolled over to their table and asked 'em what the bleep was wrong with them. They didn’t like it but they shut up and left pretty darned quick. Turns out the black and Latino folks working there go through things like that every day. I had no idea.

And my friend who digs at me for being Catholic just started doing it (where I could hear it) and I’ve known her for years. I’ve gone through it with more than just her. There’s a guy that goes up to one of the bookstores and rags on one of the girls who works in the coffee shop. She’s Jewish and he really has it in for her. He made her cry once. He tried it with me when he spied my Catechism open on my table. He sat down to spar with me, but he didn’t realize that this Catholic was ready for him. We sparred for quite a while and it became obvious to me that I really caught him off guard. Heh. That was fun. He never tried that with me again.

Btw, as to prejudice elsewhere, I lived in the north for a few years and I’ve traveled all over the country. I’m not happy to say that prejudice is alive and well in every region and it comes from all sides, all races, all creeds. You may find more of one kind of prejudice in one place and more of another kind in another. But it’s all around us. I’m not offended when someone points it out. I’m offended that it exists.
 
pipper said:
When I converted my mother told me that I had left Christ and his only church and I was going to hell.

Also I was abused physically and verbally the entire time, at the ripe old age of 9 my stepfather broke my leg with his bare hands, and I was shot at as well, the rest of the time I was embaressed at gymn class from all the bruises and welts from the near daily beatings. The teachers noticed this and did nothing, because here in Texas at the time I was considered my parents property to deal with as they pleased.

When child abuse laws were passed years too late for me they were based on animal cruelty laws.

I know we are to forgive, but in my parents case, that is very difficult.😦
Click to expand...
Wow, are you serious? God bless you.
 
pipper said:
They taught they were the only Christians to exist, and the only people going to be in heaven, just their little sect, and I bet you all know the name of that denomination:).

Also I was abused physically and verbally the entire time, at the ripe old age of 9 my stepfather broke my leg with his bare hands, and I was shot at as well, the rest of the time I was embaressed at gymn class from all the bruises and welts from the near daily beatings.
Click to expand...
I hate to admit that I’m not sure which denomination you’re talking about. I almost thought JW but you threw me when you mentioned “mostly based in Tennesee, Kentucky, and Texas where I am.” So…I give up, which group is it? (I have a dear friend who is a former JW. Her mother doesn’t like her daughter hanging out with Catholic me at all and she doesn’t make any bones about it. My friend is currently a Wiccan. Oy.)

As far as the abuse and pain you’ve suffered…I’ll keep you in my prayers. Forgiveness isn’t easy, you’re right. The Sacraments and prayer will really help there. The Rosary will help too. (You probably already know all that.) Welcome Home! 👋
 
Crimsonflyboy said:
It sounds like Protestents are concerned with the quantity of parishoners while Catholics are concerned with the quality of parishoners. 😉
Click to expand...
Amen Amen, 2Nd Peter 3:16 comes to mind. Ever hear of Chick publications? A lot of his tracts were once as important as the King James Bible. Admittedly by even most protestants both are full of errors. As a convert from the south
I can testify that the Church is growing wonderfuly in my area of the south and most all the new Catholics say they felt drawn. The truth of the faith espically in the Eucharist
is ,thanks be to GOD, being used by the HOLY SPIRIT, to draw them in. The light from the candle set on a high place is lighting the whole house. His will be done Garland
 
JPUSC said:
Wow, are you serious? God bless you.
Click to expand...
Yes unfortunately I am very serious, I never exagerate or fib on a religious forum, or anywhere else for that matter.

I guess Y’all are not that familiar with the denomination that call’s itself “THE church of Christ”. The other forum that I am in for church of christers who have left is full of such stories. One poster had her father say to her: “When you return to God, give us a call” that is the attitude held by the more hard core cofcers and as far as I know, they are the majority in the Campbellite denomination. They have a sub-forum dedicated to abuse from the “church of Christ” and it’s members.
 
Ya know the Holy Eucharist was a big draawing point for me too. As a child I would lay in bed reading the kjv, (THAT WAS THE ONLY BIBLE AVAILABLE TO ME).

Mostly concentrating on the gospels. I would read the gospels about the Eucharist where Jesus said" “This Is my body” he never said a word about symbols or “emblems” as I was being taught in the “church of christ”, and the part that clearly says that St. Peter is the rock the church is built on. The “church of christ” tought very differently, while claiming to be founded on the literal teachings of the bible. While they claim to go by the bible, it is obvious that they look at Catholicism, and do the opposite, from predjudice aimed at the Catholic church.

Folks I type and spell poorly becuase I am a stroke patient with parkinsons, and please don’t call me darlin’, I am a man too:)
 
pipper said:
Ya know the Holy Eucharist was a big draawing point for me too. As a child I would lay in bed reading the kjv, (THAT WAS THE ONLY BIBLE AVAILABLE TO ME).

Mostly concentrating on the gospels. I would read the gospels about the Eucharist where Jesus said" “This Is my body” he never said a word about symbols or “emblems” as I was being taught in the “church of christ”, and the part that clearly says that St. Peter is the rock the church is built on. The “church of christ” tought very differently, while claiming to be founded on the literal teachings of the bible. While they claim to go by the bible, it is obvious that they look at Catholicism, and do the opposite, from predjudice aimed at the Catholic church.

Folks I type and spell poorly becuase I am a stroke patient with parkinsons, and please don’t call me darlin’, I am a man too:)
Click to expand...
Hey Piper, I am from eastern Ky. originally but now live in south central Ky. close to the Tenn. line. I am very familliar with the church of christ. In our small town the local c of c pastor puts a piece in the weekly paper berating Catholics mostly, but on occasion he smacks at the other protestant sects in this area . The fruits of his labor are fewer and fewer people paying any attention to his rantings. I left a small German Baptist sect known as the church of the brethern. Very amish in belief and practice. I thank JESUS for drawing me and now you to the truth of the Catholic Church. I converted in 1969 and while that has been some time it seems only a short while for me and my walk grows sweeter each day. I will pray for you and while it is hard to forgive such things that you suffered at the hands of the ones charged with your care as a child it is not impossible. Gods peace to you and bless you with his presents always. Garland
 
ccolley2 said:
… As one Catholic apologist(John Martignoni put it…there is nothing contrary to scripture in the Catholic faith, and there is nothing in the Catholic faith that is contrary to Scripture.
CC:thumbsup:
Click to expand...
A fine example of a Catholic evangelist - John Martignoni went to the same high school as I did - in Alabama.
 
Just a thought about being Catholic in the deep South. If y’all are a Catholic down here then you actually have to learn and be well versed about the Faith. When people learn that you are a Catholic you will be challenged about your Faith. Our fellow Protestant brothers in Christ deeply love our Lord and their challenges are sincere if not misguided. I ALWAYS look forward to these challenges as they present great opportunities to present Catholic truths. Our faith intellectually is an extremely easy one present. Biblically, intellectually and logically it is consistent and TRUE. And yes you will find yourself making a lot of converts down here in the religious South.
 
pipper said:
and please don’t call me darlin’, I am a man too:)
Click to expand...
You sure you’re from the South? I call everybody “dahlin’”, it’s an old Southern tradition, donchaknow. 😉 But if you prefer, I can call you sumpin else. What do you prefer?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top