A disturbing societal trend recently reared its ugly head. Age-old fallacies are being reborn and an archaic hatred is being rekindled. And apparently, the USD blog page is on the front line.
This hatred, the progeny of rumor and misinformation, is more than simple critique or criticism. Its biting words exceed satire or humor. I'm not referring to sexism, racism or even anti-Semitism, but rather the hatred of Roman Catholicism. Thanks to the pedophile priest scandal, long-dormant anti-Catholic sentiments are again bubbling up all over, including on my blog's comment section. There, a fellow blogger used several anti-Catholic epithets in a fashion eerily reminiscent of the rhetoric of groups like the KKK and the Westboro Baptist Church. They were so offensive that I deleted them. I was called a fascist for "censoring" my site, but I refuse to entertain that kind of hate.
As you can imagine, it isn't much fun being Catholic these days. Our Church has been declining in both quantity of parishioners and quality of worship since the Second Vatican Council's virtual abandonment of many of our sacred traditions. What's worse, many U.S. bishops' mishandling of the pedophile priest scandal has only exacerbated the situation. Much of society thinks priests are just child molesting pawns for the Pope; of course, this just isn't the case. The vast, vast majority of priests aren't pedophiles. They're ordinary men who feel they were called to represent the Church and work hard to do right by their parishes and communities. You may hate the institution, but you can't deny the good the Church does at the local level.
Like any ancient group, the Church has a long and somewhat checkered past. But despite the decidedly positive, uplifting nature of the modern Church, conspiracy theorists and ignorant people have converged on the institution. Some seize on its past in order to discredit it. It doesn't really work. Yeah, the Spanish Inquisition sucked, thanks for the update.
The major implication of modern ignorance of the Catholic Church is that every two-bit "activist" with a Web site can, and often does, spew anti-Catholic rhetoric akin to those blog comments. Now, as always, I think free speech is great. I think anyone should be able to say anything - though I reserve the right to keep hate off of my blog. However, there is greater virtue in researched speech than in ignorant speech. It pays to inform your criticism. An informed criticism is more likely to be taken seriously and will probably be less hateful than ignorant criticism. Heck, even Wikipedia has a wealth of information that can be used to counteract the ignorant tirades so often leveled at Catholics. Check it out. You may still disagree with us, but at least you'll be smarter for the effort.
One of the more misinformed comments I hear is that the Pope is totally infallible, and we Catholics think he can never be wrong. The blog comment called it the "cult of infallibility." Well, Catholics do believe the pope is infallible, but not all the time. You see, infallibility has only been around since 1870, when the Church officially defined it, and the Pope can only use it to make decisions regarding official Church doctrine or beliefs. The Pope rarely uses this power. In fact, he's only used it once. The only time infallibility was invoked was in 1950, when Pope Pius XII declared the Assumption of Mary an article of faith. That sure doesn't sound like a cult to me.
The Roman Catholic Church is not a cult. Priests don't force us to attend Mass. Parishioners don't sit in A Clockwork Orange-style torture chairs with their eyes clamped open. We go because we want to go. Many people, including the commenter on my blog, show disdain for Catholics because we were brainwashed to "buy into" the organization. That's not true. We are exercising our power of personal choice just like Jews, Protestants, and Muslims.
We could care less about your negative thoughts about our religion. You've got the right to say what you wish about our religion, but please inform yourself before commenting. Your comments will certainly be more credible and you might even find that we're not as "cult-like" as you might think.
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