Evangelical leader Chuck Colson knows that first they come for the Catholics and then they come for the rest of the “right-wing” Christians.
Protestants have a special duty to condemn anti-Catholic bigotry. Shamefully, at one time many Protestants accepted the vile teachings of Paul Blanchard, author of American Freedom and Catholic Power. They supported the anti-Catholic agenda of the group for which he was general counsel: Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Our Catholic brethren should not have to wait to hear our voices forcefully raised against the bigotry now directed against them.
That’s why I am circulating with some other Christian leaders a statement calling on Protestants to join us in condemning this bigotry.
We also call on groups that present themselves as the enemies of prejudice to join us as well. And in particular, we invite Americans United to do so. Let us know once and for all: Are they selective opponents of prejudice? Do they regard anti-Catholicism as an acceptable form of bigotry?
It is appropriate to demand an apology when people in public life use their position to engage in bigotry—just as we did with Don Imus. Subscribers to the Inquirer ought to drop their subscriptions, or boycott the products of their advertisers, until an apology is forthcoming.
All forms of bigotry are vile and must be exposed for what they are: attacks on the very character of a civil society. Apologies are called for.
Americans United is a particularly virulent anti-religion group that aims not just at Catholics, but at all conservative religious groups in the public square. It’s nice to see that some Evangelicals are just turning a blind eye toward the problems of the past and are in fact calling for reparative action in the present.
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http://www.breakpoint.org/media/dkContent/6428/042607_BP.mp3
At the link above, you can hear Chuck deliver his message on BREAKPOINT. He has a great delivery.
What an interesting about face in our country’s religious-political life. As I looked over internet sites with stories and comments about the Supreme Court decision, the most virulent and visciously anti-Catholic were on liberal-or Democrat oriented sites. But weren’t we Catholics once the backbone of the liberals and the Democrats in politics. On the other hand many conservative Protestant sites were clearly upset at the anti-Catholic blather being thrown around. It seems the Know-Nothings and KKK have moved into different digs from which to lob their hate bombast.
I feel like we are being insincere with ourselves when we discuss things like this. Are we honestly “outraged” at the cartoon, or are we outraged at the double standard.
Seeing the cartoon doesn’t REALLY outrage me. That people poke fun at anything just strikes me as human.
What outrages me is that when I express mild amusement at a “Koran, now in 2-ply with aloe” cartoon, I’m a hate monger, a racist, a…take your pick. What I really am is mildly careless and crude in my sense of humor when I’m around a majority and make an assumption (very occasionally wrong in the midwest) that no one’s around who I’m going to hurt with my careless humor.
That is human. Human’s have prejudices equally on both sides of these issues, the vast majority are mild. To insist that they stop being human is in-human.
I don’t think we as Catholics really accomplish Truth by joining the “outrage” at prejudice crowd. You have Paul indulging in it with his comments on Cretians.
If we are not truly “outraged” by the cartoon we shouldn’t be fighting the battle there. We should be fighting the battle on us being abused and terrorized on the other side for actions that, in the worst case, are mere carelessness.
It’s not the cartoon itself which is most egregious, but it stands for all of the bigoted remarks which create an atmosphere of exclusion for people who take their faith seriously. Left unchallenged it won’t be long before it’s just accepted as seriously bad manners, at best, to bring your faith anywhere outside of your home or your church,
Colson’s wife if Catholic and in his books he shows respect to our belief.