“The Catholic Church Is The Whore of Babylon…”
God, I’ve always loved that quote*. Almost drove off the US 17 in a laughing fit when I heard it read during an NPR broadcast of Whad’Ya Know. It was the gem contained in an author read excerpt (a most distinquished lady of letters, Mary Lee Settle) from her biography of her West Virginia grandmother. It also arrived at an opportune moment in my life, pondering the mysteries of ‘Christian‘. We were all baptized Roman Catholic, but have never ‘practised’ as such. Consequently, we’ve all wandered off to different degrees/expressions of ‘faith’, as it were. Granted I am the tree hugging mystic Druid of the bunch, but, for convenience sake, I’ve always just said ‘Catholic’ when asked.
But you know, I was never asked until I moved south of the Mason-Dixon line. Where ‘Catholic’ was as common as a nickel in your change in the Northeast and California (and where, hell, NO ONE would be rude enough to ask one’s religion as part of an introduction), in the South that answer became something viewed with suspicion and barely contained contempt by ‘Christians‘ and pretty much used as an excuse for the most miserable exhibits of ill-manners I’ve ever had the misfortune to endure. And that honestly bugs the sh$t out of me. To this day. Especially when it’s tacitly endorsed by Southern governmental agencies. Witness this gem, in Sunday’s (And how appropriate is that?) local fish wrap:
Christian adoption agency rejects Catholic couples because ‘faiths are in conflict’
JACKSON, Miss. — A Christian adoption agency that receives money from Choose Life license plate fees said it does not place children with Roman Catholic couples because their religion conflicts with the agency’s “Statement of Faith.”
Bethany Christian Services stated the policy in a letter to a Jackson couple this month, and another Mississippi couple said they were rejected for the same reason last year.
“It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith,” Bethany’s state director Karen Stewart wrote. “Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant’s time, money and emotional energy.”
The Statement of Faith that has caused the ruckus?
…all Bethany staff and adoptive applicants personally agree with the faith statement, which describes belief in the Christian Church and the Scripture. It does not refer to any specific branches of Christianity.
“As the Savior, Jesus takes away the sins of the world,” the statement says in part. “Jesus is the one in whom we are called to put our hope, our only hope for forgiveness of sin and for reconciliation with God and with one another.”
I’m confused. Sounds alot like what I remember, even when it was in Latin, from those knee-numbing days of my youth.
Sandy Steadman said she was hurt and disappointed that Bethany received funds from the Choose Life car license plates. “I know of a lot of Catholics who get those tags,” she said.
She added: “If it’s OK to accept our money, it should be OK to open your home to us as a family.”
I know this is a long one, but, like I said, it bugs the sh$t out of me, the pretentious, holier-than-thou twits. Sometimes I think Jackson or Jalalabad ~ what’s the difference?
*
I didn’t hear her walk onto the porch. Like many heavy women, Addie had silent feet. I did not know she was close to me until she spoke. “The Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation,” she said to wake me up. She wanted to talk. She said she thought I ought to know about the Catholics, in case.
Addie: A Memoir: Mary Lee Settle, University of South Carolina Press, 1998
July 19, 2005 1:00 pm 
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Hmm, it seems that they’re affiliated with the PCA, as opposed to the commie PCUSA that we belong to. That church near your place is PCA, sis; remember when we were there for Christmas? How welcoming they were to us?
Another good reason why no religious organization should get money from any fees the state collects.
Yowza! Can you feel the love?
I have no problem on religious organizations getting state money as long as it is with the proviso that the religious organizations may not impose religious qualifications on the disbursement, i.e. i have no problem with the state helping to fund a church’s soup kitchen, say, so long as the soup kitchen feeds all who come there and not just the baptists or whatever.
I am more in the camp of the govt not funding religious orgs, due to the conflicts that can arise. If the govt wants to help, how about just reducing the tax rate of the people who would otherwise contribute, and even those like Bill who prbably would not contribute anyway would still get the benefit of lower taxes. Everyone wins, and we get a little more cash away from the govco types.
I’m confuzzed. I thought Bethany was a Baptist-run adoption agency, but that article said Presbyterian. I don’t agree with Bill on much concerning religious matters, but I totally agree with him that “churches” shouldn’t be getting state funds at. all. If they want to have benevolence programs, let them get the money from their members or other private donations. Which is, ironically, the way Catholics have been doing for years.
Lisa – true that. It’s so they can set the limits they please without it becoming a big plastic hassle with the gummint. If the Bethanists weren’t on the State Dime, they would be utterly free to set such a condition on adoptions. File me under Crusader’s camp in this matter.
Which is, ironically, the way Catholics have been doing for years.
Exactly, Lisa. EX-actly. Once your hand is in the state till, you owe all the taxpayers equal footing.
These same Southern ‘Christian‘ denominations are the first to claim the love of Christ, but also to boot your ass out the door if, oh say, you have AIDS (contracted through sexual means or otherwise).
In this area, I will defend the Catholic Church strenuously. While the Church believes homosexuality is a sin, it’s a belief out there for all to see. But as Christians, they turn no human being in need away because of race, religion or sexual orientation. Catholic Charities have been loving caregivers to the victims of AIDS, tuberculous, leprosy and other medical and social scourges for decades. (My own aunt worked for years as a volunteer for the Diocese of Atlanta caring and nurturing their AIDS patients.)
There’s also another huge area of hypocrisy as far as ‘Christian‘ schools in our neck of the woods. When Jeb Bush came out with his school voucher program, to our ever lasting shame, Escambia county came up with the only failing schools in the state to qualify. For all the children who then had access to a quality education, a chance to learn something outside their poverty stricken, underfunded hellhole of a school, there was a nasty shock in store. The only schools who stepped forward and agreed to the guidelines to accept vouchers for these children were the five Catholic elementary schools in the county. Why so, when Pensacola has some of the toniest, ritziest Christian schools in the country and here’s a chance to do something truly Christian with little effort? Because the Christian schools refused to accept the limitations, denying desperate kids a shot at the backbones of an education. (While also, co-incidentally, maintaining their lily-white-with-carefully-groomed-black campuses. I mean, it costs to go there and be damned if some Cervantes Street brother gonna get in, when I paid for my child not to have to deal with those types.)
Hell of a Christian example, when the Word of the Lord is more important than children being able to read it.
Now , now sis, put away the broad brush. There are Catholic groups here in North Cackalackie that wouldn’t pee on you if you were burning even if you were a member, and some real hell-fire-and-brimstone churches that I have seen fall over backward to help the same people who are their greatest antagonists. Shoot, the SBC church that we are members of often time run counter to the convention in the things we help with. Our head pastor has told them to fly a kite a few times
I went to a Church of Christ-affliated university. We had daily chapel, a 11:00 p.m. curfew, and were only a couple of years removed of having to wear dresses (with hose!) to class. I thought that NO place on earth could be that strict.
Until I heard about Pensacola Christian College. Ye gads. So nothing you can tell me about so-called “Christian” prep schools in that town would surprise me.
(I don’t think I used a ‘broad’ brush, sexist twerp! And that’s Norf Cackalackie.)
Now, in light of my general antipathy to organized religion in general, I don’t even qualify as a ‘holiday Catholic’ (since I can’t stand the hypocrisy of that even though the services rock) but there’s another thing that bugs the sh$t out of me: the misinformation passed out like Gospel about the Roman Church in general. (I can’t remember the last time I heard a priest criticise or demean a Protestant/Fundamentalist order. Like HEY! It’s not done, people!) Let me see if I can explain my post to folks who have no clue how ‘Roman Catholic’ (and I refer only to Roman Catholics) actually works, from an organizational stand point. Simplified, as I’m no expert.
As far as the ‘Roman Catholic Church’ ~ every single Roman Catholic parish runs under the auspices of a central diocese and all diocesan roads lead to Rome. Things can’t run amok for very long without a hammer coming down, both spiritually and financially. While you can have very, very conservative individual congregations, maybe a couple chock full of ugly people and ideas, isn’t that true of any cross section of folks on the sidewalk? But all one has to do, looking for help, is move up the chain of command and, I assure you, you’ll find it. Now, I don’t know a thing about the way your church is set up, but most of the Southern congregations seem to be loosely connected, maybe through Baptist roots, but are free to jet out and set up their own ‘church’ in a mini-mart if they don’t like their pastor, what the church hierarchy (if there is one) is saying ~ any number of reasons. There is no one voice that speaks for all of you or one of you, right? In Roman Catholic land, I can use a broad brush in the context of the post above. Skirmishes abound but, ultimately, there is a ‘convening authority’. Every fellow saying Mass has been through the same training, can walk into ANY parish and can speak to any Roman Catholic in the country. Any Roman Catholic can do the same AND receive the Sacrements. Bar none. Your ‘church’, from what you write, has a heart (as if I would expect you to belong to anything other than a truly Christian church ~ you wouldn’t stand for any hateful nonsense!) and can act autonomously of the other churches within it’s affiliation. A Roman Catholic parish can only go it’s own way to a point. Very few would in any case, as the dogma ground rules in situ and stone. Besides, what works for one parish might just work for a ton more, so they’d want to share.
‘Catholic Charities’ “
That’s what I’m referring to when I use that term, NOT to what one church/parish does or doesn’t do within it’s limited purview. And the important thing to remember is that you don’t have to meet any religious/moral checklist for help from Catholic Charities. You just need…to need.
As for the section on the schools in my humble burg, the brush can’t be broad enough and it’s all on record in the fishwrap.
The broad’s got the brush out.
Ok, narrow your point to charities, and I can live with that. But your intial writing was a bit more open ended.
Was not.
But I digress from the original post, which was about:
Christian religious discrimination within Christian religions.
If you’ve got your hand out to the gubment, you need to deal with all the hardworking folks whose toil put those dollars in your hand.
Which is why they should not take $ from the govt, if they are wise.