Melanie Phillips to Richard Dawkins: "Oh Do Put a Sock In It, You Atheist Scrooge"

By Melanie Phillips

You really would need to have a heart harder than the five-pence piece in the Christmas pud not to feel sorry at present for Professor Richard Dawkins. 

Christmas must be such a terrible trial for the planet’s most celebrated — and angriest — atheist. All that cheerfulness and pleasure associated with Christianity’s main celebration seems to drive him simply nuts.

Indeed, just a few days ago he lunged into yet another wild denunciation of religious faith. This time, the Chief Inquisitor of Unbelief declared that raising a child as a Catholic was worse than subjecting it to sexual abuse.

Rick Perry Just Wrote Off the Catholic Vote

From The Star-Ledger

By Paul Mulshine

Rick Perry made it plain he doesn't care if he gets any votes from what is by far the biggest religious group in America when he invited the anti-Catholic John Hagee to address that prayer rally of his.

Here's what the Catholic League had to say of Hagee back in 2008 when he was backing John McCain for president:

When he meets with Catholics, he is going to be asked about his ties to Hagee. He should also be asked whether he approves of comments like this: ‘A Godless theology of hate that no one dared try to stop for a thousand years produced a harvest of hate.’

“That quote is proudly cited by David Brog in his recent book, Standing with Israel. Both Brog and Hagee clearly identify the Roman Catholic Church as spawning a ‘theology of hate.’

Hagee has since backed away a bit from those remarks, but anyone paying close attention to this sort of thing has to realize that's just politics. His writings indicate a deep hatred for the Catholic Church. If you doubt that, look at this book excerpt:

When General Titus came marching from Rome in 70 A.D, the Jews were crucified on Roman crosses while their wives and children were forced to watch. This bloody demonstration of mass crucifixion was brutal proof that no one could resist mighty Rome and live!

What happened to the family of our Lord when Hadrian came from Rome in 135 A.D. to crush the Second Revolt? How dare these stubborn monotheistic Jews, loyal to the God of Abraham, refuse to bow their knees to a pagan culture that served hundreds of gods? The sons of Israel fought valiantly until one half million perished at the point of Rome's sword!

Constantine, a Roman emperor who ruled in 306-337 A.D., "Christianized" the Roman Empire. In one day, with one swing of the pen, he made Rome's version of Christianity the official state religion.

That religion was and is full of idolatry!

The monotheistic Jews refused to worship statues of men, birds and animals. The words of God as given through Moses still rang in their ears,

"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one" [Deuteronomy 6:4].

"Thou shalt have no other Gods before me" [Exodus 20 3].

The theology of the devout Jews was more than pagan Rome could understand and certainly more than it would tolerate. The Roman conclusion was;

"The Jews are just stubborn, rebellious people!"

Constantine and his clergymen at the Council of Nicea quickly began enacting a series of restrictive edicts against the Jewish people.

There's a lot more where that came from, but basically what Hagee is trying to do here is the same thing many Muslim fanatics try to do: Paint their own religion as the sole monotheistic faith while describing other religions as pantheistic in nature.

In that regard, what really drives Hagee and other Protestant fundamentalists people crazy is the "Roman" part of the Roman Catholic Church. They believe that when the church found a base in Rome it got corrupted by Roman civilization, i.e. by the most successful and inventive civilization in human history. All of that knowledge and learning that was passed down from Plato to Aristotle to the great Catholic thinkers like Aquinas and Augustine was really the work of Satan - something Hagee has said in almost as many words.

Anyway, he's certainly free to believe that sort of thing. But why Perry would want to be anywhere near him is a mystery - unless it means Perry's not in the running for president.

Let's hope that's the case. Our tolls are already high enough.

The Most Anti-Catholic Political Ad You'll Ever See

From The National Catholic Register
By Matthew Archbold

A Democrat Party supporting independent non profit group has sent out perhaps THE most anti-Catholic political advertisement I’ve ever seen. Sometimes there’s a little subtlety to anti-Catholic political rhetoric but not this time. This is in your face anti-Catholicism. A postcard was sent out to voters with a photo shopped picture of a Catholic priest wearing a campaign button saying: “Ignore the Poor.”

As you can see the pic takes up nearly the entire length of the postcard. It’s anti-Catholicism is not one point of many. It’s the point.

According to its website “The Minnesota DFL supports and works to enact the ideals and principles of the Democratic Party and strives to sustain the foundations in our Party’s grassroots history.”

One of the more worrisome things about this is that this group must believe that there’s enough of an anti-Catholic vote that this would pay dividends. Could that be true?

Never mind the factual basis the charge that the Church ignores the poor is absolutely ridiculous because the Church is THE most charitable organization on the planet. But this postcard has nothing to do with the poor. What this is about is the fact that the Church stands strong against abortion and gay marriage. And that makes some very angry.

This election season has been a nasty one. And this may be its low point.

Archbishop Dolan on the Bigotry of the New York Times

New York's valiant new Archbishop, Timothy Dolan, has had enough of the virulent anti-Catholicism served up daily by the New York Times. Many Catholics have come to accept that anti-Catholicism is the one socially acceptable bigotry in the United States, particularly among those who fancy themselves "intellectuals" and part of the "elite." But enough is enough. In his personal blog, Archbishop Dolan has called ignorance and hatred by their proper names. The Archbishop's column follows:

More from the Times

I know, I should drop it. “You just have to get used to it,” so many of you have counselled me. “It’s been that way forever, and it’s so ingrained they don’t even know they’re doing it. So, let it go.”

I’m talking about the common, casual way The New York Times offends Catholic sensitivity, something they would never think of doing — rightly so — to the Jewish, Black, Islamic, or gay communities.

Two simple yet telling examples from one edition, last Friday, October 15.

First there’s the insulting photograph of the nun on page C20, this for yet another tiresome production making fun of Catholic consecrated women. This “gleeful” tale is described as “fresh and funny” in the caption beneath the quarter-page photo (not an advertisement). Granted, prurient curiosity about the lives of Catholic sisters has been part of the nativist, “know-nothing” agenda since mobs burned the Ursuline convent in Boston in the 1840’s, and since the huckster Rebecca Reed’s Awful Disclosures made the rounds in the 19^th century. But still now cheap laughs at the expense of a bigoted view of the most noble women around?

Maybe I’m especially sensitive since I just came from the excellent exhibit on the contributions of Catholic nuns now out on Ellis Island. These are the women who tended to the homeless immigrants and refugees, who died nursing the abandoned in the cholera epidemic, who ran hospitals and universities decades before women did so in the non-Catholic sphere, who marched in Selma and today teach our poorest in our inner-city schools. These are the nuns mocked and held-up for snickering in our city’s newspaper.

Now turn to C29. This glowingly reviewed not-to-be missed “art” exhibit comes to us from Harvard, and is a display of posters from ACT UP. Remember them? They invaded of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to disrupt prayer, trampled on the Holy Eucharist, insulted Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he was here for a conference, and yelled four letter words while exposing themselves to families and children leaving Mass at the Cathedral. The man they most detested was Cardinal John O’Connor, who, by the way, spent many evenings caring quietly for AIDS patients, and, when everyone else ran from them, opened units for them at the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center and St. Clare’s Hospital. Too bad for him. One of the posters in this “must see” exhibit is of Cardinal O’Connor, in the form of a condom, referred to as a “scumbag,” the “art” there in full view in the photograph above the gushing review in our city’s daily.

Thanks for your patience with me. I guess I’m still new enough here in New York City that the insults of The New York Times against the Church still bother me. I know I should get over it. As we say in Missouri, it’s like “spitting into a tornado.”