http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/nyregion/08zero.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
Now this is interesting. I was aware there was widespread anti-Catholicism in the early United States, but I thought it became really "a big deal" much later on, when enormous numbers of Irish came fleeing the Potato Famine.
(Colonial anti-Catholicism struck me as something largely limited to the Puritans, on theological grounds.)
The claims of those who claimed Catholics would turn the U.S. over to the Pope did not come true, even when we elected John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, as U.S. President. Islam, which is far less centralized than Catholicism, would be even less of an "infiltrator threat." After all, the closest thing Islam has had to a universally-acknowledged leader is the Caliph, and there has not been a Caliph since 1922, when the last Ottoman Emperor was deposed.
In fact, Catholics have gone on to make many great contributions to the United States. Our open society is one of our greatest strengths and we should not let the fears of the moment potentially deprive us of talented people. I agree with Father Madigan on this issue.
Still, it's good to hear that the backers of the Cordoba House (the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque") are not accepting foreign money, let alone money from the Middle East. At the very least, it's generally a good idea to avoid even the appearance of evil.
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I agree this is good. What if they for instance had accepted money from the Saudis who's Wahhabi ideology is behind almost all Sunni Islamic terrorism?
ReplyDeleteAccepting Saudi money would be a very bad idea, as it would give credibility to the project's enemies.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am an extraordinarily big anti-fan of the House of Saud and Wahabism.
Matt, your liberalism is showing again, as you are trying to equate Catholics with Muslims.
ReplyDeleteCatholics are a whole other beast than Muslims. Catholicism is a religion; a pagan one, but still a religion.
Islam is not a religion - it's a political ideology, similar in origin and methods to Nazism and Communism. Whether there is a Caliph or not in Mecca doesn't matter - Communism didn't die with Marx either, it just continued to fester and infect countries all over the world.
Both would ideally have no place in the USA, but I'll take Catholics over Muslims any day.
You again. While you're here, how about you click on some ads or buy some Amazon products via the links in my posts and make me some cash?
ReplyDeleteSince you obviously know how to find my site whenever I say something you don't agree with, I imagine you've been here in the times between "In Defense of the Ground Zero Mosque" and this one.
How you can think I'm a liberal when I mock PC ("Tomorrow When the War Began"), drum up suspicions that regulations on lead shot are a back-door attempt at gun control, tell a prominent Islamic extremist to bugger himself, criticize rich Saudis for using British libel laws to suppress American authors, defend General McChrystal, and suggest cutting spending (farm subsidies) is beyond me.
Here are some quotes for you to chew on:
"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."
Guess who said that?
Thomas Jefferson. One of our Founding Fathers. The latter quote pertains to the law he wrote about freedom of religion in Virginia.
Here's another quote:
"(Everyone) ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."
That one is from George Washington. He needs no introduction.
If these men were "liberals," who were the "conservatives" of their day? The ones who persecuted Catholics in Great Britain or Protestants in France?
And the Treaty of Tripoli said the U.S. was not founded on the Christian religion, let alone some authoritarian Protestant-supremacist perversion that your comment about how ideally Catholics have no place in the US would suggest you believe in.