Anti-Catholicism over the SCOTUS?

[ck4829]

I've heard numerous RW'ers and even supposedly a 'christian' Right leader express fears about a Catholic SCOTUS.

Now, it doesn't just bother me because it's Bigotry, but it affects me personally. I may be Muslim, but the rest of my family is Catholic.

For just this post, let's put the Liberal/Conservative Ideology aside and discuss what YOU'VE seen and heard. Are Bigoted RW'ers afraid of Catholics on the Supreme Court?

[acmavm]

1. I don't know. I was baptized a Catholic and know from personal

experience that they'd love to be able to burn heretics at the stake if they could still get away with it.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Birthmark]

2. It is most certainly NOT bigotry.

If it were bigotry, then the objection would be to *any* Catholics serving on the Supreme Court. But that's not the case. What is at issue is that a *majority* of the Justices will be Catholic. I have some concerns in that regard. I think that many others do, too. And like me, some of them probably have Catholics in the family as well. It is not a case of bigotry at all.

[JHB]

18. How is that not?

Catholics may not be a minority, but they are the single largest religious body in the country. Frankly, I'm more concerned with what kind of Catholic (lapsed, run of the mill, KoC, Opus Dei?) than the catholicism itself.

[Birthmark]

21. Because...

...I don't want *any* group to be the majority of the USSC. That includes any denominations or even atheists (my group). I don't think that it's helpful to the nation.

[Bill McBlueState]

29. but the question should not be "what religion are you"

The question should be, "Will your religion, whatever it is, interfere with your ability to interpret the law?"

I don't care what religion someone is as long as they understand the proper relationship between church and state.

[Birthmark]

30. Question

Why would they tell you the truth?

[Kolesar]

3. Why catholics?

Right up your alley here: http://www.slate.com/id/2129120/


Two years ago, Republicans found a new way to play victim. They were trying to get Bill Pryor, the attorney general of Alabama, confirmed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Pryor had called Roe v. Wade an "abomination" that had led to "slaughter." Such rhetoric, according to Democrats, suggested that Pryor was incapable of subordinating his moral convictions to constitutional law. A well-connected conservative lobby, the Committee for Justice, fired back with ads depicting a warning on a courthouse door: "Catholics need not apply." The ads accused senators of attacking Pryor's " 'deeply held' Catholic beliefs."

In truth, no opposing senator had mentioned Pryor's Catholicism. The inference was drawn purely from questions about his sharp moral rhetoric. Republican senators took the campaign further, suggesting that criticism of judges who supported abortion restrictions was inherently anti-Catholic. Unlike the old charge of anti-Christian bigotry, anti-Catholic bigotry sounded plausible. For one thing, less than one-fourth of the U.S. adult population was Catholic. For another, Catholics have historically been excluded from high office in this country. Of the first 54 U.S. Supreme Court justices, only one was Catholic. Not until the 1890s did others arrive, and not until 1960 did we elect the first Catholic president. Twenty years ago, only one justice was Catholic. The rest were Protestants.

In 1986, all that began to change....
***
I'd rather be talking about bicycles

[ixion]

4. blah, blah, War on Xmas, blah, blah, War on Catholics, blah blah

Liberal Media, blah, blah, War on Terror, blah blah, War on Drugs, blah blah.

Really, these people are the lowest of the low, and a discredit to mammals everywhere.

[seabeyond]

5. i am afraid of the cathollics on the supreme crt, forget about

the repugs. catholics have their own movement going on in bringing their religious law to all us people. i dont want to live by catholic law, and now we have 4? on the supreme crt. if it was a john kerry catholic that understands it is his religion and not his place to impose it on all people that would be cool but that is not what this group of catholics feel

does the rw have issue with catholics? the baptists dont think it is a valid religion. they think catholics are heathens. they bash catholics.

[sandnsea]

13. That's my underlying hope against hope

Some sort of traditional Catholic common sense takes hold of these people, and the Church, and they realize they can't legislate their religion. It is mind boggling that there will be 5 Catholics on the Supreme Court and that it'll be the most rigid and mean spirited Supreme Court in decades. So far away from "if you can do good you should" that I was raised with.

[seabeyond]

24. and i tell you sandnsea i have a love of catholics. for whatever

reason i have always hung out with the catholic girls, lol lol. they were fun. play,.... they knew how to be bad, cause after all they jsut went to the priest on saturdays and said some hail mary's? bah hahahah. i moved to texas for the first time i expereinced the fundamentalist. from '98-2004 in a fundie christian school, i had a crash course in fundies. yet all the friends i hang with are catholics, the only four in town. and married one, lol lol. i love the fundie, i love the catholic. i have watched what the extreme in both groups, the leaders have done in manipulating and controlling of their sheep in hate and fear. i really have a tough time writing off all htese people i love because of their confusion from the last 5 years of lies, these people they rust have been telling them. i took kids out of christian schol because of the persecution. the teaching of hate, in anger and fear. ow a year later i am dealing with the public school 2nd grade and these people going after my second grader on whether he is a good christian, and having to be taught the repug side, like they dont get enough of it. i think i am going to have to talk to teacher. and i just dont want to fight this. i am depending on her to teach my son, help him to love school, get better in his handwriting, and not be so afraid of math. i cant have her thinking he doesnt believe in god and is not a christian too.....

it is absurd what we are doing today.

[Lars39]

28. But they work together on the issues they agree on, like abortion

and birth control.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. I have evangelical relatives

who, since the 60s (and probably before) have shown an anti-Catholic bias. Personally, I am concerned about the fact that some say that Scalia may be giving his faith more weight in deciding cases than the law-but I would be concerned about this no matter what that faith would be. I am also concerned that the court appears to be returning to a white male club.

Salaam.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. The real question should be - is Alito a member of Opus Dei

rather then RC? Most RC's aren't even 'religious'. However Opus Dei is a secret cult and Alito would not be able to separate himself from his loyalty to OD. You can assume that a member of OD, will always put OD before his country and that should be enough to disqualify anyone being considered for a position such has SC justice.

[rpannier]

10. Cult Yes...Secret I'm not so sure

I've seen former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn intervied many times on TV about Opus Dei.

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. Opus Dei is not secret

but many of their high profile followers will not admit that they are members or anything else about their participation with this group.

[Bridget Burke]

20. A secret cult with a website?

I'd hardly join--even if I hadn't become Atheist/Agnostic. But it's not really the all-powerful group that some imagine. Hint: The Da Vinci Code is fiction.

www.opusdei.org/

[rpannier]

22. Isn't that amazing

The DaVinci code (A NOVEL I don't really like) has been listed as a FICTION book since its release. Some of these hacks need to get a life.

[zbdent]

9. They should be afraid that the SCOTUS might just declare

meatless Fridays to be the law of the land . . .

[JerseygirlCT]

11. It's always surprising to me

I have to say, even here on DU, I keep seeing these strange ideas wrt Catholicism.

It's really not some exotic, out of the mainstream, dying to take over the world faith.

There is certainly a long and checkered history -- but remember, for much of that history the Catholic church was a good half of all Christianity. Catholics cover the gamut, politically.

I think the wild-eyed nut-jobs you see on the evening news (think that Donohue jerk from the Catholic league) are in no way representative of most American Catholics. They're getting facetime because they stand out, because they're loud and ugly and divisive. Most American Catholics do NOT follow every stricture laid on by Rome. Most have different ideas about things like contraception. Because Ratzinger says so, doesn't make it so for them.

I wouldn't be in the least concerned about Alito's Catholicism. In itself, that tells me very little about how he would be as a justice. I AM very concerned about his demonstrated record of employment and rulings and writings. He's shown himself to be a hard-line rightwing conservative, without much respect for individual rights and with a warped sense of the importance of the Executive branch of government. As an example: Whether his antagonism to abortion rights stems from his religious beliefs is really immaterial. The problem is the antagonism, not how he got there.

[JHB]

16. Same here, JerseygirlCT...

Heck, I'm an ex-Catholic atheist, so I'm hardly an apologist for Catholic problems and/or abuses by the heirarchy, but sometimes some comment about the church will float by that'll leave me wondering what century that person is in.

Though such comments do tend to confirm my view (admittedly prejudicial) that if the fundamentalist/evangelical Protestants of the Religious Right ever "won" and pushed gays, atheists, etc. back "in the closet" and could once again act as de facto state religions, every Catholic and Jew who ever sided with them would be left wearing the "chump" cap, because they'd be the next target.

[JerseygirlCT]

27. No doubt

No doubt at all.

I'm also an "ex", having joined the Episcopal church. But the church I was raised in, the 12 years I spent in parochial school... none of that included the sort of stuff I read about sometimes here. My parish was known as more liberal, and I know I would have hated a couple of neighboring ones (mainly b/c of the issues of how women were treated there -- at least my pastor understood the problems and wished he could fix them.)

Anyway, I don't think it serves us here well at all to play into gross generalizations and stereotypes. Not every Christian is a fundamentalist. Not every Catholic is Opus Dei. Not every fundamentalist is a nut, even. When we start to categorize and stereotype people, we're pushing them away. We need to be welcoming people, not alienating them.

Just MHO of course.

[sandnsea]

12. It would be 5 Catholics

With Alito. An Episcopalian, Protestant and 2 Jews. It's kind of surprising the fundies aren't balking on this.

[JHB]

15. I thought the OP said some were?

n/t

[sandnsea]

17. I mean visibly

Protests and prayer circles and such.

[Bridget Burke]

19. In certain matters, the Religious Right is officially pro-Catholic

But their roots are anti-Catholic.

The Committee for Justice was the driving force behind the "anti-Catholic" allegations, as they ran high-profile print and radio ads in 2003 asking “Why are some in the US Senate playing politics with religion?" and featuring a courthouse with a sign hanging from the door reading "Catholics Need Not Apply.”

C. Boyden Gray, who served as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush in the 1990’s, formed the Committee for Justice in 2002 at the behest of Sen. Trent Lott and White House adviser Karl Rove, who realized they needed an “independent," outside group to focus on helping confirm the president’s judicial nominees.

www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=20102

Lanier Swan of Concerned Women for America is on the CFJ's National Committee to End Judicial Filibusters. Check out the rest of the site if you have a strong stomach:

http://committeeforjustice.org/contents/news/news040405.shtml

Concerned Women for America was founded by Beverly LaHaye to fight the Equal Rights Amendment. She's married to Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind books & long-time member of the Religious Right. I've linked to the CWFA site many times; right now, they're "Alito all the way!" But the Religious Right sprang from an extremely anti-Catholic offshoot of Protestantism. Here's the Catholic League's take on Tim LaHaye, as revealed in his Left Behind series:

Catholicism is idolatrous, Satanic in origin, based on secrecy and fear, and filled with pagan doctrines and practices. He then proclaims that “(a)fter reading the above quotations, you may be inclined to think me anti-Catholic, but that isn't exactly true; I am anti-false religion.”

www.catholicleague.org/research/leftbehind.htm

The Religious Right has allied itself with the Catholic Church because of abortion & gay rights; although the Church is certainly NOT enlightened on the latter topic, the Religious Right is even more extreme. But the Church's anti-unjustified war, anti-capital punishment & pro-social justice doctrines are NOT shared by the Religious Right. If the Right gained more political power, they would put the "Papists" in their place.

The fear that Alito would vote against choice because of his beliefs is valid--just one of many reasons to oppose him. But the Religious Right's true hate & fear of the Church is shared by some--even at DU.

[napi21]

23. Bernie Ward talked a lot about this when Roberts was being

interviewed. For those who don't know, Bernie was a Fransciscan priest, and has been a talk show host on KGO radio in SF.

He said there were several questions HE would love to ask Judge Roberts.

1. Are you a practicing Catholic?

2. If you are, you must believe the Church teachings that Abortion is murder, and anyone who aids in furthering it, or doesn't do anything to stop it, will go to hell. Are you going to do your best as a SC justice to overturn Roe, or are you prepared to support current law and go to Hell for a job?

Bernie is a good talk show host, and he doesn't hesitate to push the religious issues, especially with the RW.

If you think about the 2 questions he wanted to ask Roberts, maybe you'll understand why many people are concerned that the SCOTUS will be majority Catholic.

BTW, I'm a Catholic who attended Catholic schools for 12 years! I still go to church every Sunday, but for many reasons, I question some of the things I see and hear from my church.

[Strong Atheist]

25. How about an atheist on the S.C.?

:evilgrin:

You want to see trouble stirred up ...:evilgrin:

[BurtWorm]

26. It depends what kind of bigots they are.

The anti-Catholic bigots, of course, are afraid of Vatican influence on the court. The anti-woman, anti-minority bigots, on the other hand, have no problem with a Catholic majority on the court as long as the majority reflects their own brand of bigotry. They might *all* blame the Pope, though, if the majority were Catholic Kennedy-Cuomo Democrats.

[DemGirl7]

31. I haven't heard any bigotry from the fundies on a Catholic SCOTUS

all I've heard is that the fundies and every other RWer saying that the Liberals are the anti-Catholics and crap like that.