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Reads like something from the Know Nothing party[1]. Lots of broad characterizations without much support and several internal contradictions, referring to Cath

Reads like something from the Know Nothing party[1]. Lots of broad characterizations without much support and several internal contradictions, referring to Catholics of different political persuasions..What exactly is the thesis other than a strong anti-Catholicism? . While the article is ostensibly about the CIA, the swipe at the Supreme court at the end gives his biases away.The fact simply is that Catholics of various political persuasions from JFK to John Brennan to Scalia became more prominent in American government as the descendants of poor Irish, Italian, and German Catholics became better educated. Do we really want to descend back to the days when a group of a certain ethnic or religious persuasion can be targeted as a secret cabal of conspirators behind every door? [1]https://www.britannica.com/topic/Know-Nothing-party https://www.britannica.com/topic/Know-Nothing-party

trasz 5y ago
„Secret”? Getting rid of Catholic regime was one of the cornerstones of western civilization, a prerequisite for Human Rights.
- skissane 5y ago
  That’s deeply ahistorical, given that early Protestantism had scarcely more tolerance for diversity of thought than the Catholicism of the same period did. In the Reformation period (1517-1555 or 1648, depending on one’s periodisation choices), the majority of both Protestants and Catholics agreed that the government had the right to impose one version of Christianity on the population and prohibit (with force, even capital punishment) any competing versions of it (to say nothing of non-Christian religions or non-religion), their chief disagreement was over which version of Christianity the state should so impose, whether Catholicism or some version of Protestantism – and Protestants often displayed as much intolerance for competing versions of Protestantism as Catholics and Protestants displayed for each other. Whereas today, both the Catholic Church and the vast majority of Protestant churches officially agree that religious freedom is an important value that every government ought to respect. And how they both got from rejecting religious freedom to embracing it is a complicated story, but I think one should avoid overly simplistic versions of it (such as ones in which all the heroes are Protestant and all the villains are Catholic)
  - trasz 5y ago
    You are right, but it doesn't change the fact that without Revolution and Reformation, the Catholic Church would simply be too powerful for any change to take place.
    - skissane 5y ago
      I think even this response is ahistorical. If you study the actual history of the papacy in the Middle Ages – the Great Western Schism, the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Avignon Papacy, King Philip IV of France's murder of Pope Boniface VIII, the power claimed (and even exercised more than once) of the Holy Roman Emperors to forcibly remove Popes from office, the disturbing mess of the 10th century saeculum obscurum, in which the papacy was basically the plaything of a powerful Roman noble family, and interestingly two women (Theodora and her daughter Marozia) acted as the real power behind the papal throne – it turns out the Catholic Church went through repeated periods of great weakness, in which Pope after Pope found out that all these elaborate theological doctrines on papal power don't mean much when Kings and Emperors have armies much larger than yours, and if you upset the wrong people they'll have you murdered, and then they'll bribe and threaten the Cardinals to make sure they elect a successor more to their liking. At many points the mediaeval Catholic Church was actually weaker than it would be in the Reformation period. I'd argue that all the bickering over religious doctrines which the Reformation produced, had the unintended result of making the Catholic Church stronger – in those parts of Europe which remained majority Catholic – than it had been before.
      - trasz 5y ago
        It’s still beside the point. Yes, there were times where the Church has been weaker. However, during that period its influence wasn’t so harmful, so it didn’t matter. Also, doctrines aren’t particularly important; it’s only a set of glorified fairy tales, irrelevant to all but some of its followers. What does matter was breaking its ideological monopoly, without which the humanism could never take off.
        perl4ever 5y ago
boomboomsubban 5y ago
The author is a professor at a Catholic university, likely making them Catholic, and I never got the feeling the point of the piece was to be anti-Catholic. It seemed to criticize the CIA's co-opting of Catholicism, with even the Supreme Court bit being more about attacking the right-wing shift of Catholicism than Catholicism itself.
- silent_cal 5y ago
  You obviously don't know much about the typical American Catholic college.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    My experiences are limited to the one I attended, but I'd say most of the Humanities professors were Catholic. An English professor at a Catholic university writing about Catholicism is probably Catholic, or at least unlikely to be anti-Catholic. Particularly one that uses a phrase like "Damascene moment."
    - cardiffspaceman 5y ago
      > Particularly one that uses a phrase like "Damascene moment." More than likely a literate person of European or Christian background. The phrase references a key moment from the New Testament.
- taxyz23 5y ago
  Perhaps I misread his sentiment but the Catholic call outs are hard to justify otherwise. I don't know Mr. Barnhisel's religion but it's not at all a good assumption that since he teaches at a Catholic college that he is in fact Catholic, or if Catholic identifying, is faithful to its essential teachings. . Many if not most professors in large US Catholic colleges are not Catholic. Hires are made without regard to religion particularly outside of the theology and philosophy departments. And why not ? Most major US Catholic colleges have long-ago (at least since 1960s) abandoned any attempt to teach, explain, defend, or even in some cases, tolerate Catholicism, nor the practice of its theological or moral teachings except in a cafeteria style manner to support left-wing causes which may or may not be in line with Catholic teaching. [1][2] [1]https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304791204576401930158962312.html https://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527023047912045764... [2]https://www.city-journal.org/html/taking-catholic-out-catholic-universities-15495.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/taking-catholic-out-cathol...

trasz 5y ago

„Secret”? Getting rid of Catholic regime was one of the cornerstones of western civilization, a prerequisite for Human Rights.

skissane 5y ago
That’s deeply ahistorical, given that early Protestantism had scarcely more tolerance for diversity of thought than the Catholicism of the same period did. In the Reformation period (1517-1555 or 1648, depending on one’s periodisation choices), the majority of both Protestants and Catholics agreed that the government had the right to impose one version of Christianity on the population and prohibit (with force, even capital punishment) any competing versions of it (to say nothing of non-Christian religions or non-religion), their chief disagreement was over which version of Christianity the state should so impose, whether Catholicism or some version of Protestantism – and Protestants often displayed as much intolerance for competing versions of Protestantism as Catholics and Protestants displayed for each other. Whereas today, both the Catholic Church and the vast majority of Protestant churches officially agree that religious freedom is an important value that every government ought to respect. And how they both got from rejecting religious freedom to embracing it is a complicated story, but I think one should avoid overly simplistic versions of it (such as ones in which all the heroes are Protestant and all the villains are Catholic)
- trasz 5y ago
  You are right, but it doesn't change the fact that without Revolution and Reformation, the Catholic Church would simply be too powerful for any change to take place.
  - skissane 5y ago
    I think even this response is ahistorical. If you study the actual history of the papacy in the Middle Ages – the Great Western Schism, the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Avignon Papacy, King Philip IV of France's murder of Pope Boniface VIII, the power claimed (and even exercised more than once) of the Holy Roman Emperors to forcibly remove Popes from office, the disturbing mess of the 10th century saeculum obscurum, in which the papacy was basically the plaything of a powerful Roman noble family, and interestingly two women (Theodora and her daughter Marozia) acted as the real power behind the papal throne – it turns out the Catholic Church went through repeated periods of great weakness, in which Pope after Pope found out that all these elaborate theological doctrines on papal power don't mean much when Kings and Emperors have armies much larger than yours, and if you upset the wrong people they'll have you murdered, and then they'll bribe and threaten the Cardinals to make sure they elect a successor more to their liking. At many points the mediaeval Catholic Church was actually weaker than it would be in the Reformation period. I'd argue that all the bickering over religious doctrines which the Reformation produced, had the unintended result of making the Catholic Church stronger – in those parts of Europe which remained majority Catholic – than it had been before.
    - trasz 5y ago
      It’s still beside the point. Yes, there were times where the Church has been weaker. However, during that period its influence wasn’t so harmful, so it didn’t matter. Also, doctrines aren’t particularly important; it’s only a set of glorified fairy tales, irrelevant to all but some of its followers. What does matter was breaking its ideological monopoly, without which the humanism could never take off.
      - perl4ever 5y ago

boomboomsubban 5y ago

The author is a professor at a Catholic university, likely making them Catholic, and I never got the feeling the point of the piece was to be anti-Catholic. It seemed to criticize the CIA's co-opting of Catholicism, with even the Supreme Court bit being more about attacking the right-wing shift of Catholicism than Catholicism itself.

silent_cal 5y ago
You obviously don't know much about the typical American Catholic college.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  My experiences are limited to the one I attended, but I'd say most of the Humanities professors were Catholic. An English professor at a Catholic university writing about Catholicism is probably Catholic, or at least unlikely to be anti-Catholic. Particularly one that uses a phrase like "Damascene moment."
  - cardiffspaceman 5y ago
    > Particularly one that uses a phrase like "Damascene moment." More than likely a literate person of European or Christian background. The phrase references a key moment from the New Testament.
taxyz23 5y ago
Perhaps I misread his sentiment but the Catholic call outs are hard to justify otherwise. I don't know Mr. Barnhisel's religion but it's not at all a good assumption that since he teaches at a Catholic college that he is in fact Catholic, or if Catholic identifying, is faithful to its essential teachings. . Many if not most professors in large US Catholic colleges are not Catholic. Hires are made without regard to religion particularly outside of the theology and philosophy departments. And why not ? Most major US Catholic colleges have long-ago (at least since 1960s) abandoned any attempt to teach, explain, defend, or even in some cases, tolerate Catholicism, nor the practice of its theological or moral teachings except in a cafeteria style manner to support left-wing causes which may or may not be in line with Catholic teaching. [1][2] [1]https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304791204576401930158962312.html https://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527023047912045764... [2]https://www.city-journal.org/html/taking-catholic-out-catholic-universities-15495.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/taking-catholic-out-cathol...