Anti-Catholicism is on the rise and despite its frequency many Catholics often seem surprised to hear it. CMR is here to help by offering you the top ten clues that you’re about to hear something anti-Catholic.
We break it down by percentage. This is math folks. We’ve carried the ones and everything. (No, we’re not going to show our work. Just trust us.)
Broken down by percentage points here are the chances you’re about to hear something anti-Catholic if you hear:
44% chance if someone says “I’m not religious but I’m very spiritual.”
49% chance if someone says, “The Pope during WWII…”
A 53% chance if someone says “I read in the New York Times…”
57% chance if someone says “I don’t need an intermediary between me and God…”
68% chance if a representative of Barack Obama’s Faith Based Advisory Council office is quoted.
83% chance if you hear from your television, “You’re watching Hardball…”
84% chance if someone says “Richard Dawkins said…”
89% chance if someone says “I don’t normally watch “The View” but Joy Behar said…”
94% chance if there’s any mention of a flying spaghetti monster.
98% Any mention of The Inquisition or the Crusades.
100% If someone says “I was raised Catholic so…” anything that follows is guaranteed to be anti-Catholic.
Hope these help. Please feel free to add your own.
July 15, 2010 at 9:27 pm
90% Welcome back to "The View"
100% If Joy Behar is on TV
July 15, 2010 at 9:42 pm
*Any man who prefaces a statement with, "I used to be an altar boy…." From John Kerry to Sean Hannity this clause has been used to justify disident actions.
*Anyone who uses terms like "Faith Community" or includes the word "pastoral" in thier sentences. Both now are used exclusively by former or disident Catholics to express thier rejection with Orthodox practices.
July 15, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Thank you to Jimbo and William for their sincere answers.
July 15, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Well, I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school, was an altar boy, and am still Catholic. Just wanted to skew your numbers a bit. 😉
July 15, 2010 at 11:29 pm
1000% What the world need is more tolerance…
July 15, 2010 at 11:48 pm
I am sympathetic, to a degree, with those posting her who do not want Catholics to have a victim mentality. Neither do I. But, the culture we live in is more and more anti-Catholic, we need to know that, so we can deal with it.
What does it mean to be anti-Catholic? It means to have hatred and contempt for Catholic teaching. It does not mean disagreement with Church teaching. For example, many Protestants have sincere disagreements with us on many issues such as, for example, veneration of the Virgin. If someone is a Christian, who believes that veneration of Mary detracts from worship of Christ, that person disagrees with the Church, but that, in itself, does not make the person anti-Catholic. LIkewise, a Jew can believe that it is blasphemous to think that the man Jesus was God, but that, in itself, does not translate into being anti-Catholic.
The distinction is between since disagreement, on one side, and bigotry and hatred, on the other. It is anti-Catholic to mock and dismiss the Church and her teachings. It is anti-Catholic to present a world view in which the Church is always and everywhere presented as persecuting and oppressing others. It is anti-Catholic to argue, as many do, that the Church was responsible for Hitler. It is anti-Catholic to say that anyone who is pro-life, or in favor of traditional marriage, is a bigot.
The real issue here is respect. We live in a society which has many different points of view. Those who disagree with us, but are respectful and try to understand us, are not anti-Catholic. On the other hand, those who are militantly secular, and wish to destroy all traditional morality, deliberately and intentionally target the Church, because they know full well that the Church is the primary thing standing in their path.
July 16, 2010 at 12:01 am
I find that whenever someone is described as a "devout" Catholic (say Nancy Pelosi), they are often anything but.
July 16, 2010 at 12:02 am
I am anywhere in New York City other than Chuch or my apartment
July 16, 2010 at 2:11 am
95% chance "In Revelations it says…."
July 16, 2010 at 3:32 am
Any Catholic who describes themselves as 'devout' rather than 'practicing' has about an 86% chance of saying something anti-Catholic…
July 16, 2010 at 1:54 pm
95% when the person starts a discussion, debate, question, answer with "But the BIBLE says…"
92% when a person tells you "Christianity is a relationship with Jesus, a church is just a building."
100% when someone tries to tell you there is a difference between Christianity and Catholicism.
98% when someone tries to say they love Catholics because their Grandmammy was a Catholic. (this is when they start to not only mock the Church but mock their Grandmammy and end it with "and bless her soul!"
98% will tell a married woman that she doesn't submit to her husband the way they interpret Eph 5 but they're the same ones that believe the Church to be wrong about ordained women.
July 16, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Here something anti-Catholic:
How's this for anti-Catholic. You are a physician with a "good number" of children interviewing for a new job. You explain that you do not dispense birth control for the purposes of contraception. And you explain the basis in faith by which you make that choice. Then you are insulted, ridiculed, humiliated and literally laughed at to your face with the comment, "Well that explains why you have that mob of kids, huh?
July 16, 2010 at 8:31 pm
70% chance if someone says, "According to the USCCB's Faithful Citizenship voter's guide…"
90% chance someone says, "As a devout Catholic…"
July 16, 2010 at 10:03 pm
I heard it on MSNBC