Why Catholics Are Right

[Rev. Rye]

This brings me to the anti-Catholicism that has become the last acceptable prejudice in what passes for polite society and has become so obvious and so pronounced that to even repeat the fact seems almost banal.

Seriously? And anti-Hispanic prejudice isn't still alive and well in this day and age, even by politicians? Hell, what about fat people, smokers, pedophiles, Arabs, naturists, intellectuals, Germans, Canadians, Nazis, PeTA, transsexuals, Papparazzi, southerners, mormons, atheists, Scientologists, pagans, satanists, and people from New Jersey? And that's just what I came up with on the top of my head.

Very few people dislike Catholicism because of its theology, but many oppose it because of the moral and ethical consequences of its teachings.

And that actually seems like a good reason to oppose it. Do people hate Nazis because of the inconsistencies in its doctrine? No, they hate it because it leads to genocide.

In spite of that, in 2008 the Internet video-sharing website YouTube hosted 40 videos showing the graphic desecration of the consecrated host. They had been posted by an anti-Catholic activist who was seen burning, nailing and stapling the Eucharist and flushing it down a toilet.

How graphic can it be? It's a fucking cracker. Would they react the same way if he did the same to, say, a saltine cracker?

but I have lost jobs in media because of my Catholic belief that, for example, life begins at conception and that marriage can only be between one man and one woman. Being part Jewish, on the other hand, has positively helped me in my career, whereas my serious Catholicism has led to at least two firings and many doors in media being closed.

Why do I get the feeling there's something he's not telling us?

It has to be discussed, but it has to be discussed honestly and accurately. The rest of the punches thrown at the Catholic body? The Church was nasty to Galileo, the Church tried to convert Muslims and the Crusades were horrible, Hitler was a Catholic and the Pope was a Nazi, the Inquisition slaughtered millions of people, the Church is rich and does nothing for the poor, children were abused and the Vatican knew about it all and did nothing, celibacy leads to perversion, Catholics worship statues, Catholics believe the Pope is infallible and can never do anything wrong, and so on and so on and so on.

All right:
Church was bad to Galileo- Yeah, but at least they did change their minds, thus undermining his claim that the Church is unchanging.
The crusades were horrible- Considering that it was pretty much an attempt by the church to claim Jerusalem for their own, and that by the end, everybody, the Church in particular, ended up looking bad.
Hitler was a Catholic- He was certainly raised one and claimed to be one, but, evidently, it didn't do him much good.
Pope was a Nazi-If they're talking about Benedict, he was certainly in the Hitler Youth, just like every other kid in his age cohort, and the fact that he was with one destructive ideology shouldn't be lumped into the things he did with another destructive ideology. If we're talking about the problems with the popes between 1933 and 1945, even I will admit there's some grey area: remember that the Vatican was completely surrounded by one of Hitler's main allies.
The church does nothing for the poor- I will admit that the Church does help the poor; admittedly, it is the only thing me and the Church agree upon socially.
The vatican did nothing about child abuse- No, for the record, I do not consider simply reassigning pedophiles to places where they will still have access to children to be a good one. If they can send Jacques Gaillot to a diocese that doesn't even exist for being too liberal, just giving pedophiles a change of scenery seems to be a very stupid move.
Celibacy leads to perversion- I'm just going by what I see: If you want to be celibate, then power to you. If celibacy is forced, it will not work. Desire can only be restrained when it is weak enough to be restrained, as Blake said.
Catholics worship statues, and the Pope is infallible- Even I can assume that the statues are a convenient enough focal point for prayer, and that papal infallibility is only on very rare occasions.