Catholics

The Irish "Highest Temperature EVER" has stood for 130 years + up to this week.
Sadly after this week, it is STILL the HIGHEST TEMPERATURE EVER.

The talking heads are being very cool about it, but inside they must be boiling.
You know the way the media make and keep obituaries for the great and the good so they can release them as soon as they die - I think they must have had a plethora of 'ABSOLUTE PROOF NOW OF CLIMATE CHANGE' pieces ready to unload on us over the weekend.

Christus Imperat wrote:

I said this and saw Dublin hasn't even hit 80F/27C. I don't mean to say that isn't hot (I have enjoyed both US Sunbelt and Great Plains summers), but have you considered that investing in energy production would allow you to hide indoors with air-conditioning?

Interesting that you write that now. 25% of Irish energy production is used by data centres, it was 5% 10 years ago. The investment is going fine. All to serve the corporations.

Oire wrote:

Protestants put mosque on top of bonfire. World is outraged. Even Catholic bishops have to respond.
They put popes and Vatican flags on these things every year.

My good friend Oire,

As a Catholic writing to an Irish Catholic, I suspect that very little of what follows will strike you as entirely unfamiliar.

You know perhaps better than most Europeans how misleading the old historical caricature can be in which Protestantism is presented as naturally synonymous with religious liberty, constitutionalism and Enlightenment, whilst Catholicism is reduced to obscurantism, persecution and the Inquisition.

History is considerably less tidy than that.

Obviously, I am not speaking of all Protestants. Protestant Christianity contains an immense variety of churches, traditions and political cultures, many of which have made genuine contributions to religious liberty and democratic life. I am speaking instead of certain fundamentalist currents, and of the rather curious habit among many Protestants of treating religious tolerance as though it were somehow an exclusively Protestant historical achievement.

Here in Brazil, matters have become rather peculiar.

Among many evangelical Protestants associated with the political Right, Catholics who refused to support Bolsonaro, or Catholics who defend traditional Catholic social teaching concerning poverty, labour, social responsibility and inequality, have sometimes simply been described as communists.

Liberation Theology becomes, in this vocabulary, merely “communism inside the Church”, and Catholicism itself becomes suspicious whenever Catholics refuse to reproduce the religious culture of the American evangelical Right.

There is a certain historical irony in this.

Brazil has documented cases of employees being pressured to participate in evangelical prayers or religious services in the workplace.

And we had the infamous incident when a bishop of a big Protestant Church, repeatedly kicked an image of Our Lady of Aparecida on national television because he regarded Catholic devotion to her as idolatrous.

That was not sixteenth century Europe.

It was Brazilian television.

More recently, Brazil has even developed what journalists and researchers have called “narco Pentecostalism”, criminal organisations whose leaders combine drug trafficking with an aggressively evangelical religious identity.

In certain territories controlled by such gangs, practitioners of Afro Brazilian religions have been threatened, temples have been attacked or closed, and there have even been reports of pressure against Catholic churches and Catholic religious practices.

One is left with the extraordinary spectacle of something resembling a narco theocracy, armed criminals controlling a neighbourhood whilst deciding which religious expressions are acceptable within it.

Religious liberty, apparently, but subject to local terms and conditions.

There is also a wider historical context which is often neglected.

During the Cold War, sections of the United States political establishment regarded radical currents within Latin American Catholicism with considerable suspicion. Liberation Theology, Christian Base Communities and politically active Catholic clergy were frequently interpreted through the prism of anti communism.

At the same time, many American evangelical missionary organisations expanded throughout Latin America, and a considerable number of them carried a strongly anti communist political culture.

I would not claim that Washington simply created Brazilian evangelical churches or “installed” Protestant churches throughout Latin America as though they were government offices. That would be historically crude.

The reality was more complex.

There was, however, a genuine convergence between American anti communist interests, many conservative Protestant missionary networks and religious groups deeply suspicious of the Catholic Left.

American religious organisations also possessed enormous advantages in finance, publishing, radio, television, missionary infrastructure and cultural influence.

Brazilian evangelical Christianity was certainly not manufactured in Washington.

But neither did it develop in complete isolation from American money, media, missionary activity, theology and political culture.

And then there is prosperity theology.

In a country with enormous social inequality and millions of economically insecure people, its appeal is not particularly mysterious.

Believe correctly.

Give correctly.

Demonstrate sufficient faith.

And material prosperity may supposedly follow.

The implication can become rather brutal, poverty is no longer merely an economic condition but can be interpreted as evidence of spiritual failure.

Combine that with certain forms of Christian Zionism and matters become stranger still.

Some evangelical churches interpret biblical passages such as Genesis 12:3 as establishing a continuing political and spiritual obligation towards the modern State of Israel.

Under this interpretation, support for Israel ceases to be simply a matter of foreign policy.

It becomes a religious duty.

“Bless Israel” and God will bless you.

Oppose Israel and you risk opposing God.

In the most extreme prosperity oriented versions of this belief, the idea can become almost transactional, individuals or nations that support Israel will prosper, whilst those who oppose it will suffer divine punishment.

That is less a political argument than a form of theological blackmail.

And it has had a considerable influence upon sections of evangelical political culture in Brazil.

The result is sometimes rather extraordinary.

People living ten thousand kilometres from Jerusalem can become more emotionally committed to a particular interpretation of Israeli politics than many Israelis themselves.

At that point several distinctions disappear.

The Jewish people are not identical with the State of Israel.

The State of Israel is not identical with whichever government happens to govern it.

And criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud or any particular Israeli government is not intrinsically antisemitic.

Antisemitism means hostility towards Jews because they are Jews.

It is real, historically catastrophic and morally repugnant.

Precisely because antisemitism is serious, however, the term should not be diluted into a convenient defence against ordinary political criticism.

Yet among certain churches influenced by Christian Zionism, these distinctions can collapse.

The Jewish people become identified with Israel.

Israel becomes identified with the Israeli government.

The Israeli government becomes identified with the fulfilment of biblical prophecy.

And therefore criticism of Israeli government policy risks being interpreted not merely as criticism of a state, but as opposition to Israel, the Jewish people and ultimately God himself.

Once such a theological chain has been constructed, almost any policy can acquire a degree of divine immunity.

The “Crescent Moon people” acquire a particular place within this apocalyptic worldview.

They are no longer regarded merely as adherents of another religion or as participants in ordinary geopolitical conflicts.

They can become actors in an eschatological drama.

Modern Israel is interpreted as a fulfilment of prophecy.

Conflict in the Middle East becomes evidence of the approaching End Times.

Support for Israel becomes a religious obligation.

And the return of Christ is imagined somewhere behind the next geopolitical crisis.

This don't requires romanticising Islam or pretending that Europe has no genuine difficulties involving Islamist extremism, failed integration, sectarianism or religious intolerance within some people of crescent moon communities.

Europe plainly does have such problems, and they should be discussed openly.

But criticising Islam, Islamism, immigration policy or failures of integration is one thing.

Putting a replica mosque on top of a bonfire is another.

That distinction should not be particularly difficult for Christians to understand.

Which brings us back to Northern Ireland.

The recent decision to place a replica mosque on a loyalist bonfire provoked widespread condemnation, including condemnation from both Catholic and Church of Ireland leaders.

And rightly so.

But, as you certainly know, the use of Catholic, Irish and Vatican imagery on loyalist bonfires is hardly unprecedented.

In previous years, such bonfires have included Irish flags, Vatican flags, Catholic imagery, political posters and even an image of Pope Francis.

Apparently the appearance of a mosque has finally persuaded some people that burning another community's symbols might be rather uncivilised.

Better late than never.

There is another historical irony here.

Catholics are endlessly reminded of the Inquisition, confessional persecution and violence committed by Catholics in earlier centuries.

Fair enough.

Those things happened.

They should not be concealed, sanitised or excused.

Saint John Paul II himself insisted that the Catholic Church confront the historical sins committed by Christians, including intolerance and violence undertaken in the supposed defence of religious truth.

That is what mature historical consciousness requires, not pretending that one's own tradition was innocent, but confronting its failures.

What becomes tiresome is the accompanying morality play in which Catholics persecuted everybody, whilst many Protestants supposedly marched directly from the Reformation into liberal democracy.

That is simply poor history.

The Puritan settlements of New England were not secular liberal democracies.

The Salem witch trials of 1692 remain among the most famous examples of religious paranoia in colonial North America.

Nineteen people were hanged and Giles Corey was pressed to death.

They were not burned, a distinction worth making, since the popular image of witches being burned at Salem is historically inaccurate, but the persecution itself remains perfectly real.

Maryland presents another interesting example.

It was founded under the Catholic Calvert family partly as a place where English Catholics might live with greater security, and its early history became associated with experiments in religious toleration.

Catholics nevertheless became a minority there, and political changes eventually brought renewed restrictions upon them.

So the history is rather more complicated than the childish formula:

Protestants invented freedom.

Catholics invented fire.

You, being Irish, require even less explanation than I do concerning the absurdity of that mythology.

Catholics in Ireland experienced centuries of political and religious discrimination under Protestant dominated institutions.

The Penal Laws are hardly an obscure historical footnote in Ireland.

And this is precisely why I find the modern situation so darkly ironic.

Many evangelical Protestants in Brazil casually use the word “Christian” as though it referred principally, or even exclusively, to evangelical Protestants.

One hears people speak of “Christians and Catholics” as though Catholicism were somehow a separate religion rather than the largest historic branch of Christianity.

Nearly two thousand years of Christian history can apparently be erased by sufficient exposure to American evangelical television.

Within the most militant sectors, one can encounter a worldview in which Catholic saints are dismissed as idols, Afro Brazilian religions are treated as evil, the crescent moon people are regarded as enemies within an apocalyptic struggle, secularists are agents of moral collapse, left wing Christians are communists, and criticism of Israeli government policy becomes opposition to God's plan for history.

At some point one is entitled to ask what precisely remains inside their definition of religious liberty.

Among certain evangelical Protestant movements, there is something resembling a modern Protestant crusading mentality, except that this crusade is not attempting to liberate Jerusalem.

Jerusalem already occupies the centre of the prophecy.

The perceived enemies are elsewhere, Muslims, secular society, inconvenient Catholics, traditional religions, progressive Christians and anyone else who refuses to accept the entire theological and political package.

Again, this does not describe all Protestants.

It would be absurd and unfair to suggest otherwise.

Many Protestants actively oppose precisely this sort of religious fanaticism.

Indeed, the joint condemnation of the recent bonfire display by Catholic and Church of Ireland leaders demonstrates that ecumenical solidarity against sectarian hatred is entirely possible.

But the phenomenon exists.

And pretending that religious intolerance must somehow cease to be Protestant intolerance merely because Protestantism is conventionally associated with religious liberty is itself a form of historical propaganda.

So yes, my Irish friend, I shall respond in an appropriately Catholic fashion.

I shall pray for the many Protestants who have allowed political tribalism to distort their Christianity.

And I shall pray for the "the crescent moon" people whom they wished to humiliate.

Because, unless I have badly misunderstood the Gospel, Christ's commandment to love one's neighbour does not contain a denominational exemption clause.

And there remains one final irony which is difficult to resist.

For centuries Catholics have been portrayed as the obscurantists who burned things in the name of religion.

And now we find religious fanatics enthusiastically building the bonfires themselves.

History does have a sense of humour.

A rather British one, unfortunately, my Irish friend.

Dear, Board of Catholic states...

Greetings, my fellow Catholics. In this desperate time, we claw to one another, For I've just witnessed the devastation of our fellow believers by communist forces, the ruins that remain. Dystopia. This is why the Falangist Island state of St Maximillian seeks out refuge here...Among our fellow believers.

CHRIST IS KING!

St Maximillian wrote:

Dear, Board of Catholic states...

Greetings, my fellow Catholics. In this desperate time, we claw to one another, For I've just witnessed the devastation of our fellow believers by communist forces, the ruins that remain. Dystopia. This is why the Falangist Island state of St Maximillian seeks out refuge here...Among our fellow believers.

CHRIST IS KING!

Welcome stranger. Catholics of any stripe that are skeptical of the World Assembly are welcome here. Falangism has baggage, but I personally get the war footing as my account suggests--though such a demanding ideology is common among young men and government plants.

Asceticism is vital to salvation, for some foul spirits are only removed with fasting in addition to prayer, but forcing people to starve is rarely good for their souls. Christ is King indeed, because he showed us that love means dying to self and supporting by example first and words second.