Anti-Catholic Quotes

This song and this musical was a profound attack on the essence of racial segregation at a time when discrimination was legal and practiced throughout the country and almost universally in the South. Southern politicians castigated the song, the show, and especially Hammerstein who they called a Communist for promoting such radical views. Ironically, South Pacific became one of the most frequently produced High School Shows by 1979 and remained so into the 21st century including in the South.

He had concluded that Spain, who then ruled the Philippines, was incompetent, cruel and immoral in its rule, but that the Filipinos were not educated or sophisticated enough to rule themselves. However, he felt that he had to protect our commercial interests in the islands and the region, and was worried that commercial interests of other countries would take over and control the area. Another reason that this is a very important quotation is that it indicates the anti-Catholic bias in America at the time. Note that the President stated that one objective was to “Christianize” them. However, Spain had been in the islands for over 300 years and most Filipinos were already Roman Catholic. However, Roman Catholics were then a much smaller proportion of the American population and many Protestants didn’t think Catholicism was a legitimate Christian Religion. When the majority of Americans thought of Christianizing other people, they thought of Protestant missionaries much like England. At the time there was very little criticism of the President for the “error” of stating that Filipinos should be Christianized when they were so already Spanish Colonial Policy and Practice was generally terrible and particularly so in the Philippines, See {629450}.

This quotation, 500 years later, would be used by American anti-Catholics to justify their antipathy to the Catholic Church. This was about a most undemocratic statement about the common man and his capabilities which was completely counter to the American view. The fact that it was 500 years past or that many American Catholics did not believe it or that even if they did, it was restricted to matters of theological faith, was not considered by the Know-Nothings and others.

Cromwell’s motivation for Empire was different from most other English leaders, but defeating the Catholic Spanish in the New World would be another of God’s victories over the Catholics which Cromwell and many of his Puritan followers thought was the desire and will of God.

In 17th century England the Puritans were major opponents of the Celebration of Christmas which at the time had been celebrated mostly by Roman Catholics.

Wesley had been to Island several times and was interested in affairs there. He was a strong advocate of freedom of religion but the violence of the earlier religious conflict made him very wary of the Irish Roman Catholics who seemed to him particularly prone to religious violence.

This quotation illustrates two things. First, the enmity between the Protestants and the Catholic Church which the Lutherans had recently left. See for another anti-Catholic example of the Eastern Orthodox—{635099}. Second, the Muslim Ottoman Turks had recently conquered Constantinople and were very far from Iceland which was safe from their aggression. None the less, the hatred and fear of the Muslims had spread so far and fast in the Christian world, that even Christians who were in no danger prayed to be saved from them. Islamophobia was already well established in the middle of the 15th century.

At the time, The Oath of Supremacy, was required to take a seat in the British Parliament. It was specifically written to keep Roman Catholics out of Parliament. O’Connell and his colleagues adopted a political tactic whereby Catholics would run for Parliament, and then if an when they won, refuse to take the oath and hence be unable to take their seat. And that is just what happened. The Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister, was trying to have Ireland join in union with Great Britain, and he didn’t want Irish Catholic anger and resentment because Irish seats in Parliament were empty by virtue of blatant religious discrimination. King George IV however was a virulent anti-Catholic, but Wellington finally persuaded him to relent and O’Connell and other Irish Catholics finally entered Parliament.

President John Adams, once he became President, was greatly disturbed by the insults and attacks on him and his Federalist Party by many newspapers who preferred Thomas Jefferson and his view of democracy and freedom. Many of his supporters were also concerned about the new different immigrants that were coming to America in large numbers—–namely Roman Catholics. Adams and his Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts which not only worked against new immigrants but was the first major attempt at government censorship of the press in American History. Ironically, these laws—–a blight on American democratic history—–were finally repealed in large part due to the effort of Adams son, John Quincy Adams, who served int the House of Representatives after his presidency and had always been an inveterate foe of the laws that his father had instituted.

See {639434}, {639436}, and {639437} for the triggers to this report.

Many Protestant Englishmen were shocked to hear this, having little familiarity with the details of the functioning of the Church of England—the Established Church of Great Britain—in Ireland and the contribution of the Church to the discrimination against Irish Catholics and the poverty of Ireland.

Fortunately he was wrong, but the threat of a breakup of the American Union intimidated most members of Congress to avoid anything that would offend a state or group of states. Thus slavery became more and more entrenched till it exploded into the Civil War. At the time the issues of contention included the fact that Louisiana was primarily Roman Catholic and ALL other states were majority Protestant. The territory functioned under French Law—the Napoleonic Code, while all the other states operated under the English Common Law (even today this is so), and there was concern with the French and Creole language and whether the Creoles would fit into American Culture.

This sad quotation illustrates how some of the leaders of the Church were so out of touch with law and morality. The Archbishop justified the archdiocesan cover-up of the crimes of sexually predatory priests and actually tried to lay much of the responsibility on children who might have been streetwise. It is almost like the Priests were seduced. The typical action of the church authorities was to transfer the sexually predatory priest to another assignment where in most cases he continued the predation with other children. Even if the children were very sexually active, the law is that they are under the age of consent and may not consent to sexual activity. Any adult having sex with a teen ager is guilty of statutory rape. However, the Church authorities decided in many cases that the age of consent was 12 contrary to state law in most states. Therefore in their minds there was no crime because the child was old enough to consent so they felt justified in not referring the crime to the police. See {633188} . Of course, few of the child victims of the priests were sexually sophisticated. Most were innocent and totally intimidated by the high spiritual and community role of the priest. Weakland was removed from his position of authority as part of the Church program to eliminate the problem of predatory priests and irresponsible bishops.

The main purpose of the oath was to eliminate Roman Catholics who recognized the Pope as the Supreme Ecclesiastical authority. The subtlety evaporated by 1640 when the official oath actually named Rome as the target. See {617547}.

Christmas was not celebrated in England universally until relatively modern times as in the United States. However for much of the history of England it was outlawed to celebrate Christmas. Generally, Catholics celebrated Christmas and Protestants opposed it. See {629839}, {629840}, {629847}, {629848}, {76420}.

View the quotation in juxtaposition to the title of the book he wrote under the pseudonym Brutus. He was a paranoid conspiracy theorist and the “serpent” was the Roman Catholic Church which he was virulently against Catholics along with other immigrants.

The evangelical Protestants have had a very unfortunate history of intolerance, racially against Blacks and religiously against the Roman Catholic Church who many still see as the institution of Satan.

Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan Parliament was opposed to the celebration of Christmas on religious grounds. See {629849} for more on the Puritans and Christmas. Generally, it was the Catholics who celebrated Christmas and typically they had a Christmas Mass. The anti-Catholic bias was so great that the Pope was often accused of being the Anti-Christ - a terrible insult.

“Regulars” in 19th century jargon meant trained and certified physicians as opposed to barbers, midwives, and other non-trained people who practiced medicine at the time. The 19th century anti-abortion laws allowed for “therapeutic abortions” and physicians who wanted to do abortions used the law to eliminate their competition and satisfy the moral reservations of those physicians who were opposed to abortion. See {77244}.