Anti-Catholicism

chewkw – Member

Ok I don’t understand this concept of cannibalising a prophet …

Someone enlighten me please as I can’t be arse to Google for answer.

Transubstantiation, innit.

Not so much lapsed here, my term is, survivor. Had the full Bhuna growing up with living in the east end of Glasgow, Catholic school etc, no friends who weren’t Jungle Jim’s till I left school.

Two deaths in the family since August, meant returning to the bygone years and going through all the services etc. After 25years I remembered every single response in my head, quite unnerving. That side of my family that still go to mass and all live in Glasgow still all bang on about anti Catholicism. Having left Glasgow and moved to central north Scotland 20 years since it has never cropped up.

He is somewhat constrained ,by the Bible, in this quest

Perhaps the fact this hasnt prevented him trying proves he really is the antichrist?

I know that the Catholic community lives with the residual memory of being persecuted, and there are still moments when the state recognition enjoyed by the Anglicans in England can serve as a reminder of their historical second-class status, but on a day-to-day basis, I am pretty sure that not many Catholics feel discriminated against.

My mum is a catholic. She’s got 5 cats.

My mum has 2. To be honest I’m just waiting for her to start smelling of wee and begin boarding stuff.

I’m uneasy with anyone who talks to their imaginary friends after they hit about 9.
The Catholic Church cops a bit for many reasons all well documented.

In general though any my religion hates / is better than yours is a bad thing.

I’m uneasy with anyone who talks to their imaginary friends after they hit about 9.

In the nicest possible way – I’m not really sure the conversations people have with others, with themselves as an internal dialogue or with ‘imaginary people’ is any of our business as long as it doesn’t affect us. This I mean with reference to whether they have conversations or not or the subject if they do.

Sometimes (and I include myself in this), I think we believe we have a right to opinions on all kinds of stuff which is really private to other individuals. If they don’t make it our business I’m not really sure we are much entitled to think anything.

I’m pretty convinced that most of the stuff that goes through my mind wouldn’t bear detailed scrutiny and come out well.

When those people go on to make decisions that impact others based on a belief that a higher being is endorsing it. See Blair and Iraq etc. Though this is less of an issue than the massive multi national corporation that seems intent on making itself richer at the expense of the poor it pretends to help.

Not just aimed at Catholics but they seem to be the most grasping of the breed.

You need a trip to the mid or South of ‘merica if you really want to see grasping churches. Clue – not one of them is of the Catholic persuasion.

I was brought up as Catholic, went to a catholic school run by Christain Brothers and nuns.

I turned my back on Catholism as soon as I could for a few reasons:

Bearded man in a dress in the sky, come on, pull the other one
Virgin birth, my arse, “Oi, Joseph, your missus has been sleeping around mate.”

The school was unreal though, the violence perpetrated to us kids was bordering upon abuse, mental and physical and for one year I was the victim along with about 15 other kids in the same class, the other 15 were bright enough to avoid the punishment dished out on a frequent basis and were only subject to it on an infrequent basis.
“So, brother Kelly, if you are into forgiveness and all that, why do you feel the need to strap me on my hand because I got some sums wrong, I’m 9 years old FFS”

– repeat this in my head for one school year, about twice a week because that’s what he did to me. I was so glad when I heard he died of cancer but I’d given up on Catholism long before that and put his painful death down to the ciggies he used to smoke in the store cupboard off the classroom and not divine retribution by the bearded dress wearing bloke in the sky.

I hold the unpopular (On STW) view that we shouldn’t judge people on their holding of religious beliefs at least until it impinges on the freedom of others.

I think it’s okay to judge people on their beliefs. I just don’t think I have the right or obligation to interfere with them.

I believe in ‘God’. I dont believe in the temples and buildings that man built to steer and suppress other men. In the woods you feel relaxed and happy. No amount of religious icon’s, robes or books of myth can compare no?

I think it is full of hypocrisy as far as religions go but I never noticed any anti catholic sentiment.

I’m not sure how you spot a catholic on the street unless you were outside a church as mass ended.

I agree with the sentiments above about the new pope. He does seem to be trying to drag the church into the modern age.

I think you also need to se.parate indivual people from the general religion

Sorry.

I like Muddydwarf.
But if he genuinly believes that ‘being Catholic meant essentially being tbe agent of a hostile, foreign power’ then he shares the same type of prejudice that brands all Muslims as Jihadists

Not what I said Pete, if you’d care to read my OP again please.

If you do, you’ll see that I said I had a thought that quickly made me feel guilty & that it caused me to question whether England (Scotland & Ulster has well documented issues) still has a residual anti-Catholic sentiment based on historical folk memory.
I also said that it was felt for a long time that Catholics were seen as agents of a foreign power (Spain, The Vatican etc) this is a matter of historical record & shown in various laws, now mainly defunct thankfully.
I also did say ‘seething’, maybe I didn’t word it correctly but it was meant to refer to how the Catholic Church still has territorial aims on a country that rejected Her 400yrs ago – and for Scotroutes, it was from the ground up, it was the populace of Scotland and England that rejected Catholicism in the face of strong resistance from the ruling classes – take a look at the English Civil Wars.

..and one day i’ll get the hang of cutting and pasting!

I’m not sure how you spot a catholic

Very difficult without guilt goggles. I lived with one (lapsing Catholic, she was, or would that be ‘apostate?’) for a number of years. Lovely family, took me to its full matriarchal bosom. Guilt was the daily bread – delivered as it was with faint irony, usually evidenced by one comically raised brow. Almost as if they didn’t half believe it. It was a fine art. Peculiar sensation and my first real brush with religion. It was so far removed from Popery that I found it hard to reconcile. They must have been those moderate Catlicks 😉

You need a trip to the mid or South of ‘merica if you really want to see grasping churches. Clue – not one of them is of the Catholic persuasion.

Still pretty grasping in Spain, and not afraid to weigh in to politics, either. Which is probably why it still polarises opinion here; I’m certainly a lot more anti-Church than I was before moving here, in the UK I never gave it much thought.

NSFW

Maybe its because I’m currently reading an excellent book The History of England part III – Civil War ( forget the author) and its struck me how essentially religion and politics were the same.
Also how anti Scots the English Catholics were, shown in the old rhyme :-
hark, hark the dogs do bark
The beggars are coming to town
Some in rags and some in tags
And one in a velvet gown
A biting bit of satire about James I and his Scottish Court enriching themselves at the expense of the old English Catholic Nobility and Gentry.

Its an interesting (to me anyway) thought, that these old prejudices are still somehow buried in our pysche, ready to pop up at certain triggers.

Simon, you’re either prejudiced or not.

No one is born with those ideas.

If you feel prejudiced but guilty about it, then say so.
The prejudice is not ‘buried in your psyche’ or some sort of ‘racial memory’.
‘Those things are not real.
They do not exist.

When those people go on to make decisions that impact others based on a belief that a higher being is endorsing it. See Blair and Iraq etc. Though this is less of an issue than the massive multi national corporation that seems intent on making itself richer at the expense of the poor it pretends to help.

Totally and utterly agree on both counts.

Like coolhandluke I was also brought up a very strict Catholic, went to Catholic schools and toed the line until teenage rebellion began at the age of 15. Having come for an ultra-orthodox Catholic family I’ve seen the damage Catholicism does to people and how it messes up their lives. For me, the Catholic church shot itself in the foot when they decided to simplify the mass and Anglicise everything and the beautiful Latin rite and plainsong were replaced by the crude Graham Kendrick type of childish garbage that has no beauty and no interest. I have to confess that I still hanker for a good latin mass and have even attended a high mass at Stonyhurst College (seat of the Jesuits) near my home, when I was amazed to hear Mozart’s Ave Verum sung by the choir. Nowadays I avoid it as much as possible but I have a sneaking respect for the few people who still cling on; there are similarities in my mind between Catholicism and Islam in the way both religions demand extreme discipline.

A school friend of my Dad was a theological advisor to the Pope in the Vatican and he wrote a book in which he argued that Catholic priests ought to be allowed to marry. He got thrown out and banished back to England where he became Catholic chaplain to the University of Cambridge. At the age of 60 he left the priesthood and married a London barrister aged 30, they have two sons who have graduated from Oxford and Cambridge with firsts; not sure what they are doing now but it won’t be media studies.

In Spain the Opus Dei still runs the country quietly behind the scenes, I was briefly employed by the Opus when I was in my third year as English assistant at an Opus college in Seville; I saw the influence of the Opus when I had a passport problem with the local Police (this was before the EU during the Franco era) and my Opus boss, Don Juan Grande, resolved it all for me with one phone call. Not sure if it’s still the same but in those days you couldn’t get a job or do much unless you had “un enchufe” or a decent connection, preferably through the Opus.

Nowadays I view Catholicism as a small fringe religion in the same area as the Quakers or he Plymouth Bretheren, in the UK at least. In Africa they are still up to their old tricks, employing fear and guilt to relieve the poor and the gullible of their cash.

racial memory/resentment from the C17th against the Catholic Church?

Nope, I loathe the Catholic church because of the evil it has done in modern times. Nothing to do with what it did in the past.

I’m a left footer and I don’t think I’ve ever felt persecuted as a result of it. Having said that, I’ve always lived in areas in the north of England where you’d never really call us a minority as there’s bloody loads of us. You may have heard…. we’re quite prolific when it comes to breeding 😉

Anyway… had a pretty strict catholic upbringing, and nothing will make you resent a religion more than having it forced on you*. I find, and always have found, the views of the catholic leadership in Rome as totally archaic and ridiculous. My own family was fractured when my auntie wanted to marry a non-Catholic. My grandparents wouldn’t accept it, and they left the country (eloped) to get married. We never saw them for 15 years. Ludicrous!!! Breaking up with your own kids on some principle dictated by a bloke in a frock! Tragic! But thats how things were.

Its different now, in reality.The catholic church in this country has modernised, often despite of, and contrary to the wishes of those in the vatican. Its fairly obvious from the fact that I, and most of my catholic friends don’t all have 9 kids, that we’re not rigidly adhering to the churches views on contraception. Amongst many other things. I have friends that are …. *shock horror*…. GAY! …..*GASP*

I do think there are a lot of positives from a catholic education. My kids attend a catholic school and church. It was important to us that they did. It still champions a strong sense of community. And in a world of wishy washy liberalism, that often sits on the fence and refuses to condemn stuff, the Catholic church will still stand up and say something is inherently categorically wrong. Not a bad thing in my book. And the church still does a lot of genuinely charitable work, that it just quietly gets on with.

Nowadays I view Catholicism as a small fringe religion in the same area as the Quakers or he Plymouth Bretheren.

You couldn’t be more wrong! Catholicism is booming. The waves of immigrants from both inside and outside of the EU come from strongly catholic countries, and still practice their faith. Catholic congregations are growing year on year, boosted by immigrants. The catholic church I take my kids too is absolutely rammed for every service. Literally standing room only. You read the press stories about the decline of organised religion. And for the C of E that is the case. Not Islam, and not catholicism. They’re both on the march. The catholics just do it in a less shouty, explodey, be-heady way 😉 so it hasn’t been noticed. But both are steadily growing.

In contrast to catholicism, I always thought of the Church of England as the box you tick that says ‘none of the above’ when asked about religion. Its not a proper religion, is it?;)

* No… not literally. I never experienced ‘the Choirboys Lament’

Pete, you sort of make my point for me.
Yes, I felt prejudice & yes, I then felt guilt for it.
My point is why did I feel that prejudice?
I have no religious upbringing, my mother is staunchly secular as am I. I have had no dealings with the Catholic Church so where did it come from & why?
I have to disagree about the concepts of national pysche and folk memory as I do believe these things exist – for better or worse.

*I also have negative feelings about the CofE but that’s a different subject.

I’ve found the Catholic guilt thing to be s bit of a myth really. Not seen in most of the Catolics I’ve been – but often joked about by the same.

Must admit that I’m not keen on any institutions having a lot of or a monopoly on power. I’m certainly of the belief that power is corrosive, corrupting and often misused. I don’t really care whether the power is political, religious or commercial. It’s all bloody negative for most of us.

Just read Malvern Rider’s post.

You’re bang on. Being a catholic means being dogged by a constant, nagging sense of guilt. I’m not quite sure what it is I’ve done wrong, but I must have done something

Mind you… I usually have 😀

Binners, you’re being pursued by original sin. Do the feelings get worse when you eat a Granny Smith?

Married one Catholic,
Now in a relationship with a different one.
Close catholic friends
Been to more masses in the last 30 years than any other religous celebrations.

So am not anti “Catholics”, but I am anti-Catholicism if you are talking about the Religion rather than the Faith. And I think that any one who actually thinks about it, would be. Pope Francis however is a breath of fresh air. But, in the recent past:

Attitudes to Condoms in Africa
Attitudes to Homosexuality
Moral pronouncements of senior Clerics in the UK
Longstanding links with the Mafia in Italy (Francis seems to be breaking these – anyone want to buy him life insurance?!)
Suppression of liberation theology and links with fascist regimes.
The mass canonisation of dubious characters to get poorer bums-on-pews.
And, of course, systematic cover-ups of child abuse.

Not a great record , is it?

It is ok for the educated UK or Italian Catholic – who cheerfully adopts a selective “buffet” approach to doctrine and dogma – as evidenced by the Birth rate in Italy of 1.3 children per couple – but that isn’t the Global picture.

So until the Vatican and the Clerics all move into the 21st century, and stop playing control games, I will be anti the Church, but not the individual believers,

Simon, you ask ‘why did I feel that prejudice?’

Thats because you’re prejudiced.
Usually the corrosive drip, drip of low level hatred mixed with a failure to separate the individual and the collective.
That’s your ‘folk memory’ right there.
🙂
I’m sorry, but that’s the nature of things.
Babies are not born with an inbuilt hatred of others.
It takes good, honest indoctrination to do that.

But where does that ‘hatred’ come from then?
Ive no history of exposure to religion or sectarianism beyond the media, none of my family are religious, none of my friends to my memory have ever espoused anti Catholic sentiments, so where?

It comes as a little unpleasant to find yourself feeling that sudden rise in ire – I was actually in the church at the time.

Well, growing up in the 70’s, as we both did, anti Catholic sentiment was rife on the news and in the media.

I was spat on several times as a kid on the Whit Walks into Manchester.
Ignorant people mistook the actions of terrorists for the desires of ordinary people – see Islam today.
Ignorance and generalisation was everywhere.

It still is.

The racial memory thing is dangerous bollox.
And I’ve no idea where race comes into this btw, if you could clarify?

We’re just arguing about which God we don’t believe in.

I don’t think the heir to the thrown can marry a catholic (and take the throne)
They may be trying to repeal that one tho.

Edit: it’s already been repealed. Hurrah for Catholics!
I believe this was one of the reason Charles couldn’t marry Camilla originally. Daft.

I am Catholic, I never experienced or was aware of any prejudice living in around London and the South East. Obviously the situation in Northern Ireland and Scotland, especially Glasgow was/is quite different.

Every human being on the planet is prejudice.

It is part of human nature, despite what the Guardian says.

Anti-Catholicism in the modern UK exists. The obvious places are in parts of Scotland and in NI.

However, it is also part of accepted “English Culture”, you just have to look at the Lewes thread for that. The fact that burning an effigy of the Pope is considered “harmless fun”, despite being very offensive to a large number of UK citizens is a clear sign of that.

Also, the reason that it is offensive, isn’t really anything to do with the actual Pope but the violent symbolism which it represents towards a group of people.

Additionally the majority of Catholics in the UK are of Irish descent and there is plenty of history of Irish oppression over the centuries.

I was brought up a Catholic, went to Catholic school, altar boy the full works.

(Never got by bottom felt by any dodgy priests, never heard any rumours or stories either.)

Encountered loads of anti-Catholicism growing up in the 70’s.

I totally rejected it in my teens, only go to any Church for weddings and funerals now.

Recently I have only personally encountered open anti-Catholicism when dealing with knuckle draggers from certain parts of Scotland.

Where did you grow up Rusty? I’m really interested in your experiences. As I’ve said, I never experienced any open abuse because of my catholicism. Nobody really cared. There was piss-taking (2 way) but never open hatred. And this was in Warrington, where the IRA hardly endeared themselves to many people.

Maybe I was pretty naive. I was genuinely shocked the first time I went to Northern Ireland though, and experienced proper sectarianism. It was alien too me, and I found the whole experience pretty depressing.

My girlfriend at the time was Irish catholic, from ‘Bandit Country’. Her dad had strong republican background. One of my best mates was serving in the army in Derry. The fact that I was best man at his wedding (ironically marrying a catholic girl) caused all manner of problems, and brought out some pretty unpleasant sentiments from quite a few people, who I then viewed much differently

Moston/Blackley Binners.

The Prods paraded into town on one day, the Catlicks the next.
We had violent anti Catholic protests in the mid 70’s, while the IRA was at it’s height.

Vividly remember being spat at as a four or five year old walking down Rochdale Road as a child at Whitsun, bottles being thrown etc.

The irony being there were no stauncher anti IRA people than my mum’s Catholic family.
Plus ca change.

Trying to join sports clubs and being told they weren’t for me but ‘have you tried St Whatsit’s down the road?’ etc etc.

Thinking about this, I would say that it wasn’t the experience of being in a Catholic Church or hearing Catholic rites that upset me – that washed completely over my head, a complete irrelevance.
What DID irk me was the quite naked statement of politics intent – the desire to bring England back under Catholic dominion, with all the imposition of certain laws (like Ireland) that entails.
I do not wish to live under religious law* when religion is anathema to me, so I suppose I’m opposed to Catholic Dogma /that particular church’s dogma rather than people who are Catholic – that I really couldn’t give a fig about.

*Also the reason I’m opposed to the CofE as a State Religion – I resent religious people handing down laws based on a cult I’m not a member of.

P.S. When I say racial memory, perhaps a more accurate term would be cultural memory.

@muddy – I don’t think if we brought the UK back more towards to Catholism vs CoE we’d have anti-abortion laws etc or the type of practice you have in Ireland.

A specific example on Ireland, I was told by a good friend (from South) that although I was Catholic I would not be welcome (or even safe) in Republican bars as I was English and that would by far over-rule my religion as a factor.

and we pray that Mother Mary returns England to the one true Church

I can never remember hearing that prayer in Church or at School when I was a kid.

I have never heard any Catholic ever suggest this!

Why not Scotland and Wales though?

the desire to bring England back under Catholic dominion

I don’t think there is any real desire or interest in this for 99.9% of Catholics, including the “management”. Although I can see why this statement would upset you.