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Anti-Catholicism

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Anti-Catholicism is religious or political opposition to the Roman Catholic Church, particularly of a kind employing alleged mischaracterizations, stereotypes and negative prejudices. Anti-Catholicism typically applies only to those instances in which Roman Catholics are persecuted or discriminated against for their beliefs by other Christians; Roman Catholics may also be the target of persecution of Christians generally.

Contents

1 Religious anti-Catholicism

2 Political anti-Catholicism

3 Contemporary anti-Catholicism

3.1 Actions frequently labeled anti-Catholic

4 See also

5 Additional reading

6 External links

6.1 Anti-Catholic websites
6.2 Catholic responses

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Religious anti-Catholicism

An Anti-Catholic sign in where a high percentage of anti-catholics live

An Anti-Catholic sign in Detroit where a high percentage of anti-catholics live

Traditional anti-Catholicism (which originated during the Reformation) is promoted by Protestant Fundamentalists such as Ian Paisley and Jack Chick, while the new secular anti-Catholicism is generally promoted by secular organisations.

According to a report by the Catholic League, the Internet has many anti-Catholic websites. Traditional anti-Catholic works include Charles Chiniquy's 50 Years In The Church of Rome and The Priest,the Woman and the Confessional in which he accuses Catholicism of being pagan. Such sentiments are common among some Protestant fundamentalist Christians, denying as they do that the Catholic Church is a Christian church. Proponents often reference Scripture, such as the Book of Revelation, chapters 17 and 18, which they claim depict the Pope as the Antichrist and the Catholic Church as being the "Whore of Babylon". Proponents of anti-Catholicism also claim that the Mass is an abomination in the eyes of Jesus Christ. Many anti-Catholics also claim that Catholics worship the Blessed Virgin Mary.

One high-profile example of anti-Catholicism is the series of tracts produced by noted anti-Catholic and comic book evangelist Jack Chick, in particular his Alberto series. These tracts accuse the papacy of using the Jesuits to incite revolutions all over the world, and claim that the papacy was the driving force behind Muhammad and helped both Communism and National Socialism come to power. One of the most famous tracts is titled Are Roman Catholics Christians?, in which the reader is told that the Catholic Church's doctrines are against God and inspired by Satan. While these views are not widely held, several Roman Catholic organizations continue to battle anti-Catholic sentiment fed by, or explicitly formed by, such materials. Jack Chick's chief source of Anti-Catholicism is Alberto Rivera who claims that he was a Jesuit and that he infiltrated many Protestant churches.

Other Anti-Catholic works in the religious domain include John Foxe's Book of Martyrs in which he potrays the Church as a persecutor of Protestants. The book also created the English legend of "Bloody Mary" and became a bestseller next to the Bible. During the 19th century, Rebecca Reed's Six Months in a Convent sold 200,000 copies in a month within publication in 1835. Reed claimed that she was held captive in an Ursuline convent near Boston. Though the Mother Superior of that convent denied Reed had been a nun, an angry mob burned the convent. Reed's commercial success inspired other anti-Catholics to embroider tales told by a brain-damaged Canadian girl named Maria Monk into an even larger best-seller, Awful Disclosures of the Hotel-Dieu Nunnery, in which it was claimed that nuns served as a harem for Catholic priests, and any children born to such unions were murdered after baptism. Monk's tales were shown to be fictional shortly after their publication. Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons claims that the Catholic Church originated from a Babylonian mystery religion and that its practices are pagan.

In Northern Ireland and Scotland, the social and political division among Catholics and Protestants extends even to football, with supporters of the Protestant Rangers F.C. despising the Catholic Celtic F.C..

Sedevacantists are groups of former followers of the Roman Catholic Church who condemn the succession of Roman Popes as illegitimate and Antipopes, pleading for other Popes. An example is the Palmarian Church.

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Political anti-Catholicism

A tradition of political anti-Catholicism also exists in various Protestant countries, and in particular the English speaking countries. Protestantism was firmly established in England with the accession of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1570, Pope Pius V sought to depose her with the Regnans in Excelsis ("Ruling on high"), which purported to declare Elizabeth deposed and to acquit her Roman Catholic subjects of further allegiance to her. This added a political dimension to what was a purely religious conflict, and rendered Elizabeth's subjects who persisted in allegiance to the Catholic Church politically suspect. The failed invasion of England by the Spanish Armada was an attempt by Philip II of Spain to put into effect the Pope's decree, and to enforce a claim to the throne of England he held as a result of being the widower of Mary I of England. Later episodes that deepened anti-Catholicism in England include the Gunpowder Plot, in which Guy Fawkes and other Catholic conspirators are alleged to have attempted to blow up the English Parliament while it was in session. Later, the so-called "Popish Plot" involving Titus Oates was in fact a plot by anti-Catholics to make Roman Catholicism seem a renewed political menace by means of a fictitious assassination scheme.

In the context of British traditional values, the beliefs that underlie this sort of anti-Catholicism were summarized by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England:

As to papists, what has been said of the protestant dissenters would hold equally strong for a general toleration of them; provided their separation was founded only upon difference of opinion in religion, and their principles did not also extend to a subversion of the civil government. If once they could be brought to renounce the supremacy of the pope, they might quietly enjoy their seven sacraments, their purgatory, and auricular confession; their worship of reliques and images; nay even their transubstantiation. But while they acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they cannot complain if the laws of that kingdom will not treat them upon the footing of good subjects.

— Bl. Comm. IV, c.4 ss. iii.2, p. *54

The gravamen of this charge, then, is that Catholics constitute an imperium in imperio, a sort of a fifth column of persons who owe a greater allegiance to the Pope than they do to the civil government. Accordingly, a large body of British laws, collectively known as the penal laws, imposed various civil disabilities and legal penalties on recusant Catholics. These laws were gradually repealed over the course of the nineteenth century; however, the law of succession to the British throne continues to bar Catholics, and anyone married to a "papist", from the line of succession.

These accusations have to some extent been exported to the United States, where anti-Catholicism has historically been conspicuous among the beliefs of various nativist organisations from the Know-Nothing Party to the Ku Klux Klan. Within more recent years, suspicion of the political aims and agenda of the Catholic Church have been revived several times. In 1949, Paul Blanshard's book American Freedom and Catholic Power portrayed the Catholic Church as an anti-democratic force hostile to freedom of speech and religion, eager to impose itself on the United States by boycott and subterfuge. These accusations continue to have some currency because of the Catholic hierarchy's alliance with the anti-abortion movement and their periodic threats to use excommunication to compel Catholic elected officials to vote in accordance with the hierarchy's wishes.

The submission to the Roman Pope has led to several governments to try to separete their local Catholics from the Roman Church. Thus, the juror priests of the First French Republic and the Catholic Patriotic Association in Communist China.

Anti-Catholic authors in the secular domain include Avro Manhattan (whose books, The Vatican's Holocaust, The Vatican Billions and Vatican, Washington, Moscow Alliance accuse the Church of engineering wars and trying to rule the world) and Dan Brown, whose best-selling The Da Vinci Code depicts the Catholic Church as an organization determined to hide the truth about Jesus Christ and early Christian feminism.

The Duvalier dinasty of Haitian dictators favored the local religion of Voudou to weaken the Catholic church.

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Contemporary anti-Catholicism

Anti-Catholicism is a term applied by some Catholics to those they believe to be unfairly critical of the Church or its actions, leadership, or beliefs. It differs from religious discrimination or religious persecution where individuals are treated negatively because of their Catholic beliefs.

Many Christian Fundamentalists, for example Bob Jones, Sr., have frequently been labeled as anti-Catholic because of their statements against the Catholic Church.

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Actions frequently labeled anti-Catholic

Claiming that Roman Catholics are not Christians
Referring to the Roman Catholic Church as a cult
Committing hate crimes against Catholics
Criticising Catholic dogma
Incorrectly characterizing Catholic beliefs
Claiming Catholic involvement in various conspiracies; see, for example, the claim of the "Black Legend"; those who accept the term believe that the atrocities attributed to the Inquisition have been deeply overstated
Ascribing sinister motivations to the Pope or others in Church leadership without evidence to support such claims
Highlighting illegal activities of Catholics, like the priest sex abuse scandal. Especially when it is implied that Catholics or priests are more likely to engage in such activity.
Disagreement with past actions of the Catholic Church (like the Inquisition), without placing such actions in historical context
Some Roman Catholics also find the use of the term "Roman Catholic Church" or "Roman Catholicism" to be offensive, as they believe there to be "one holy, catholic and apostolic Church". They believe the term "Roman Catholic Church" falsely implies a separation where they believe none to exist. They prefer that their Church be referred to by the name it uses most often for itself, the "Catholic Church."