Just my two cents from my time as a Catholic.
The Catholic Church can be just as fanatical and unreasonable as evangelical protestants. Catholic clerics ( and the Church at large) however are generally more intelligent, or at least less wildly ignorant/anti-intellectual as the born-again preechers.
They sort of cloak their fanatacism in relatively enlightened/humanist positions: i.e evolution is real, science and religion do not conflict, non-Catholics might actually go to heaven or even honor God in their own way, etc. etc.
However, underneath all that you have positions that are truly midieval: all abortion is bad and evil (even in cases of rape/incest), contraception is evil, gays are evil etc. etc.
There was a tradition once (still believed by a few I think) that celibacy is the supreme form of life, much better than having sex or being married. Wierd..
Even with the intellectual knowledge of some priests... it is more an intelligence of depth, but not width and breadth.
Pope "saint' John Paul II was a very intelligent, learned man. He spoke something like 10-15 languages, and knew much about philosophy and science. However, being very Catholic his thought and knowledge were quite ridgd, precluding the possibiliy that the Catholic Church could ever be wrong, that any of it was immoral or did not make sense.
I go to a Catholic law school and see the same attitude from some of the more "Catholic" students. They are often nice and pleasent enough, but very convinced of the Churche's righteousness and the supposed ignorance/failure/ evil of the non-religious or non Catholic philosophies or positions.
The Catholic Church can be just as fanatical and unreasonable as evangelical protestants. Catholic clerics ( and the Church at large) however are generally more intelligent, or at least less wildly ignorant/anti-intellectual as the born-again preechers.
They sort of cloak their fanatacism in relatively enlightened/humanist positions: i.e evolution is real, science and religion do not conflict, non-Catholics might actually go to heaven or even honor God in their own way, etc. etc.
However, underneath all that you have positions that are truly midieval: all abortion is bad and evil (even in cases of rape/incest), contraception is evil, gays are evil etc. etc.
There was a tradition once (still believed by a few I think) that celibacy is the supreme form of life, much better than having sex or being married. Wierd..
Even with the intellectual knowledge of some priests... it is more an intelligence of depth, but not width and breadth.
Pope "saint' John Paul II was a very intelligent, learned man. He spoke something like 10-15 languages, and knew much about philosophy and science. However, being very Catholic his thought and knowledge were quite ridgd, precluding the possibiliy that the Catholic Church could ever be wrong, that any of it was immoral or did not make sense.
I go to a Catholic law school and see the same attitude from some of the more "Catholic" students. They are often nice and pleasent enough, but very convinced of the Churche's righteousness and the supposed ignorance/failure/ evil of the non-religious or non Catholic philosophies or positions.