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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / LGBTQ Rights / Gay Rights are Human Rights / Papists love teh gay

Papists love teh gay

by DougJ|  March 21, 20113:40 pm| 237 Comments

This post is in: Gay Rights are Human Rights

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I wonder what this is about, could be statistical noise, in effect, but it’s interesting.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that same-sex marriage is supported by 53 percent of those surveyed. That’s amazing. For the first time in the poll’s history, the level of support for marriage equality cracked 50 percent. For the first time, a majority of men (53 percent) say yes to allowing gays to wed. But what’s truly historic is where white Catholics are on this issue.

The question was straightforward: “Do you think it should be illegal or legal for gay and lesbian couples to get married?” In February 2010, an astounding 55 percent of white Catholics said “legal.” In the current poll, the number jumped 8 points to 63 percent. This Post-ABC News poll corresponds with a Gallup poll I gasped at in June 2010. That survey showed that Catholics (62 percent) and men (53 percent) were leading the charge on acceptance of same-sex marriage, which was supported by 52 percent of all surveyed.

Although I am very hostile to the Catholic Church, I still have some fondness for Catholics and Catholicism. Certainly, I think Catholicism has a stronger cultural tradition than the other Christian religions. You’ve got the Italian Renaissance, you’ve got James Joyce (I know he stopped believing and stuff, but he was influenced). What have the protestants got? “Amazing Grace” is the only thing that comes to mind .

It’s the same way I feel about heroin and cocaine. With heroin, you’ve got Charlie Parker, Exile On Main Street, and Edgar Allen Poe. With cocaine, once you get past Lawrence Taylor’s 1985 season and a few episodes of “Mork and Mindy”, there’s very little that anyone will remember a hundred years from now.

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237Comments

  1. 1.

    Svensker

    March 21, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    Bach, Tom Jefferson, MLK.

    Next.

  2. 2.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    March 21, 2011 at 3:47 pm

    Cocaine gave us the 80s Wall Street “Greed is Good”, American Psycho twosome of vapidity and general misanthropy. So there’s that.

    As far as Protestantism goes, you must admit that Black Gospel music, while not something I would listen to on a regular basis, can be amazing and passionate, so much more so than any just about any other kind of religious choir.

  3. 3.

    Mark S.

    March 21, 2011 at 3:47 pm

    What about Cocaine Blues?

    And I’m glad the Catholic Church is a democracy. The Pope and the bishops really care about what their parishioners think.

  4. 4.

    arguingwithsignposts

    March 21, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    What have the protestants got? “Amazing Grace” is the only thing that comes to mind .

    Seriously? That’s some grade a trollery there, DJ

  5. 5.

    Poopyman

    March 21, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    Well, it sounds a lot firmer than just statistical noise. And Catholics IME are rooted in the real world a lot more than the evangelical types I’ve known, so it doesn’t really surprise me. They’d rather focus on issues that affect them personally.

  6. 6.

    flukebucket

    March 21, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    once you get past Lawrence Taylor’s 1985 season and a few episodes of “Mork and Mindy”, there’s very little that anyone will remember a hundred years from now.

    That’s GOLD Jerry. Pure GOLD!

  7. 7.

    Kathy in St. Louis

    March 21, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    Last night, on 60 Minutes, Safer interviewed Archbishop Dolan of New York. He’s the Right Reverend Status Quo, against divorce, against women and married clergy, against just about everything. All this little survey does is re-enforce just how little Catholics seek guidance from the clergy these days. The sad thing is that, as I sat there listening to this big bag of jocular wind go on and on about how he favors little changes in the Catholic Church, just nothing that Catholics really have been upset about for the past 30 years, I realized, for the zillionth time, that these guys just can’t face the fact that they’ve lost their core audience, probably permanently. No one cares what they think, about gay marriage or anything else.

  8. 8.

    cleek

    March 21, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    With cocaine, once you get past Lawrence Taylor’s 1985 season and a few episodes of “Mork and Mindy”, there’s very little that anyone will remember a hundred years from now.

    without cocaine, you wouldn’t have Styx ! nor Willie Dixon’s/Howlin Wolf’s/Cream’s “Spoonful”. nor Clapton’s (version of JJ Cale’s) “Cocaine”. nor these other nine songs !

  9. 9.

    The Moar You Know

    March 21, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    With cocaine, once you get back Lawrence Taylor’s 1985 season and a few episodes of “Mork and Mindy”, there’s very little that anyone will remember a hundred years from now.

    You forgot Freud, who shot that shit up for decades.

  10. 10.

    Poopyman

    March 21, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    With cocaine, once you get past Lawrence Taylor’s 1985 season and a few episodes of “Mork and Mindy”, there’s very little that anyone will remember a hundred years from now.

    You mean they won’t look back fondly to Charlie Sheen?

  11. 11.

    Elvis Elvisberg

    March 21, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    This isn’t surprising. Catholics are as liberal as the rest of the population, only more so. E.g., on abortion.

    The CARA study of 1,007 Catholic voters found 41 percent unaffiliated with either the Democratic Party or Republican Party, with 38 percent who are registered Democrats and 21 percent who are registered Republicans. In the CARA study:… — Fifty-eight percent said a woman should have the right to choose an abortion…. According to Pew’s survey of more than 35,000 people nationwide, including more than 8,000 Catholics, the following characteristics define Catholic Americans’ views on political issues. Unless otherwise noted, the figures for Catholics mirror those for the population as a whole within 5 percentage points or less…. — Sixteen percent believe abortion should be legal in all cases, and another 32 percent say it should be legal in most cases. Just 18 percent said it should be illegal in all cases; 27 percent said it should be illegal in most cases

    The noisiest anti-choice, anti-health care, anti-gay marriage factions of the Church hierarchy get the attention, because they bark real loud and often have impressive-sounding titles. But Catholics educate their youth too well for them to buy all the BS the Church tries to push on them.

  12. 12.

    Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)

    March 21, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    What have the protestants got?

    JS Bach.

    ETA: @Svensker: got there first

  13. 13.

    joeyess

    March 21, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    It’s the same way I feel about heroin and cocaine. With heroin, you’ve got Charlie Parker, Exile On Main Street, and Edgar Allen Poe.

    Hey, you forgot Dinky Hocker.

  14. 14.

    Chris

    March 21, 2011 at 3:53 pm

    Well, it sounds a lot firmer than just statistical noise. And Catholics IME are rooted in the real world a lot more than the evangelical types I’ve known, so it doesn’t really surprise me. They’d rather focus on issues that affect them personally.

    True. But that’s evangelicals, not Protestants overall – liberal or “mainstream” Protestant churches are as involved, possibly even more, than Catholics in the real world. The Catholic Church is pretty much in the middle between those two strands of Protestantism.

  15. 15.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    March 21, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    @Elvis Elvisberg:

    In all honesty, American Catholics seems to have the exact same problems that American Jews and…well…hell, Americans as a whole seem to suffer from: generally liberal population, represented by starkly conservative leadership.

  16. 16.

    cleek

    March 21, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    OT. but BTW, i have a Name That Tune up now. if you like that kinda thing.

  17. 17.

    R-Jud

    March 21, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    Hmm. Isn’t Andrew Sullivan a Catholic? Slam-dunk there, DJ.

    I’d say Johann Sebastian Bach by himself pretty much wins it for the Protestants.

    ETA: Gah, Svensker, I missed your first comment. I’ll retract that and offer Jane Addams instead.

  18. 18.

    EJ

    March 21, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    Protestants got MLK.

    Edit: Beaten.

    Though I guess maybe it says something that even in England the Catholics get both Shakespeare and Elgar.

  19. 19.

    Tunch

    March 21, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    Sherlock Holmes was a coke-head. It even inspired Nicholas Meyer to write a “new” Holmes novel called “The 7% Solution”.

    I know he wasn’t a real person and all, so maybe that makes Comrade DougJ’s point…

  20. 20.

    Polish the Guillotines

    March 21, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    With cocaine, once you get past Lawrence Taylor’s 1985 season and a few episodes of “Mork and Mindy”, there’s very little that anyone will remember a hundred years from now.

    You’re blithely overlooking the entire golden age of pr0n.

  21. 21.

    rickstersherpa

    March 21, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    As a Catholic, I would say a good word of John Updike and George Bernard Shaw, to mention two Protestants (one a believer and one an apostate). In fact, English literature from John Donne and Milton would express I guess the Protestant spirit(and alternative counter culture from Shakespeare to Pope to Manley Hopkins of English Catholic literature).

    For better and for worse, it was the Catholic Church that transmitted the civilization of antiquity to the West.

    Popes and Bishops, good and bad, eventually die.

  22. 22.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 21, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    Certainly, I think Catholicism has a stronger cultural tradition than the other Christian religions.

    Certainly; the sale of indulgences, Simony, the Inquisition, forced conversion of Jews at various times, the Avignon Papacy, the Crusades, all add to th rich tapestry that is Catholicism.

  23. 23.

    joe from Lowell

    March 21, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    American Catholics don’t take our marching orders from Rome. Frankly, we’re not too keen on the bishops Rome’s been appointing, either.

    We should have our own national Catholic Church, like the Poles.

    There’s an episode in Lowell’s history in which the bishop removed a Polish priest from a Polish parish in the city over some flap, and appointed some doctrinaire, outsider priest to take over as pastor. The parishoners drove him off by throwing stones the first time he tried to get to the church to say mass, and the bishop had to back down.

    That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    March 21, 2011 at 3:57 pm

    What have the protestants got?

    Pretty much the whole freakin’ Enlightenment. But I will grant you James Joyce.

  25. 25.

    sal

    March 21, 2011 at 3:57 pm

    With cocaine, once you get past Lawrence Taylor’s 1985 season and a few episodes of “Mork and Mindy”, there’s very little that anyone will remember a hundred years from now.

    Sherlock Holmes. Coke(tm). Al Pacino as Scarface.

  26. 26.

    Dan

    March 21, 2011 at 3:57 pm

    Even a life-long Giants fan like myself can see the humor in the Lawrence Taylor reference. To be serious though, for a moment, I’ve always wondered whether cocaine helped/hurt his career. Do we have evidence he was taking it before/during the game? If he was, was it the kind of thing that could actually keep him going for 3 hours of football? How about the toll it took on him afterwards?

  27. 27.

    Comrade DougJ

    March 21, 2011 at 3:57 pm

    @The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik:

    You’re right, I meant Lutherans and stuff like that.

  28. 28.

    slag

    March 21, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    R-Jud makes a good point. If you’re gonna have this discussion, you need to bring up the negatives as well. All pro and no con makes for a fairly weak argument.

    And I forgot to add: Insert Godwin reference here.

  29. 29.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 21, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    @Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): I’d say let’s sing him happy birthday, but I bet he’d hate that song as much as I do, and I have a tin ear.

    Who gets Shakespeare? How do we feel about the theory that he was a secret Catholic? Swift was definitely on the other team, but then they also have Milton, who I find just as goddam boring as you find Milton.

  30. 30.

    NonyNony

    March 21, 2011 at 3:59 pm

    I wonder what this is about, could be statistical noise, in effect, but it’s interesting.

    Well first of all you’ve got the fact that the rank-and-file of Catholics in the US pretty much think that the hierarchy is full of shit on a lot of things. You can chalk most of that up to the ongoing child abuse crap that the Church continually refuses to do anything real about, but there’s also the fact that American Catholics had a lot of personal respect for John Paul II and have exactly the opposite feeling when it comes to Benedict (and he hasn’t done much to help them overcome that lack of respect either).

    Then too you have the fact that American Catholics tend to be far, far more liberal than their religious leaders. And that a good-sized number of American Catholics fall into the “cultural Catholic” model – they were raised Catholic, they give up something during Lent, they refrain from eating meat on Fridays in Lent, they go to Church on Ash Wednesday, Easter, and usually Christmas, they feel guilty about a lot of things they shouldn’t (like their sex lives, the fact that they don’t go to church more often, and the fact that they don’t send their kids to catholic schools like their parents did), but that’s about it. No reason for them to be any less affected by what gay activists have done over the last 30 or so years than anyone else would be.

  31. 31.

    ppcli

    March 21, 2011 at 3:59 pm

    What have the protestants got? “Amazing Grace” is the only thing that comes to mind .

    Did the sockpuppet falseflag troll nabbed a couple of nights ago manage to hack into Comrade DougJ’s account?

  32. 32.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    March 21, 2011 at 3:59 pm

    @Comrade DougJ:

    Just beat up on Calvinism. Everyone hates that.

  33. 33.

    R-Jud

    March 21, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    Catholics: Antonin Scalia
    Protestants: Charles Motherfucking Darwin.

    I should note here that I’m a Catholic (lapsed), btw.

  34. 34.

    stuckinred

    March 21, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    @flukebucket: Ever hear of Erci Clapton?

  35. 35.

    BombIranForChrist

    March 21, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    What has Protestantism got? Yow.

    Well, since you’re including James Joyce on Catholicism’s side, I would put all of Southern Literature on Protestantism’s side. It’s impossible to separate the Protestant God from this, arguably the best literary movement America ever produced.

    Some would make the same argument for Gospel music as well and how you can’t really talk about R&B without talking about Gospel.

    It’s true, though, for the pure Gore and Spectacle factor, nobody outdoes the Catholics.

    And for the record, I was raised Protestant but now I am a Reluctant Atheist ™.

  36. 36.

    ppcli

    March 21, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    @The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik: Though it gotta say “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” does make some un-put-downable reading. Loves me that J. Edwards.

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 21, 2011 at 4:04 pm

    @joe from Lowell: Have you been following what’s going on in Chicago with Michael Pfleger (sp?), I haven’t very closely, but it sounds like a similar situation, the hierarchy going after a priest against the rather forceful objections of the parishioners. No stones in this case.

  38. 38.

    geg6

    March 21, 2011 at 4:04 pm

    Contrary to what all the most defensive Catholic laity think, they are not the Church. Which is why I still like and associate with so many of them, especially my family. The Church, OTOH, is a criminal conspiracy the assets of which should be confiscated by the Hague and distributed to the millions and millions who the Church tortured and abused. And those freaks in frocks should never be allowed to run anything for anyone ever again.

    Good to see my opinion of the vast majority of cafeteria American Catholics are on the side of right and the freaks in frocks, once again, are losers for their hearts and minds.

  39. 39.

    Comrade DougJ

    March 21, 2011 at 4:04 pm

    @BombIranForChrist:

    Some would make the same argument for Gospel music as well and how you can’t really talk about R&B without talking about Gospel.

    Isn’t it just like a protestant to enslave people for 200 years and then take credit for all their cultural accomplishments thereafter?

  40. 40.

    MattR

    March 21, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    @stuckinred: One of my favorite scenes from That 70’s Show.

    (EDIT: Or the long version)

  41. 41.

    R-Jud

    March 21, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    @BombIranForChrist:

    I would put all of Southern Literature on Protestantism’s side. It’s impossible to separate the Protestant God from this, arguably the best literary movement America ever produced.

    Even Flannery O’Connor?

  42. 42.

    eemom

    March 21, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    What have the atheists got? Besides Christopher Hitchens.

  43. 43.

    BombIranForChrist

    March 21, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    @R-Jud:

    SO, so, true, Flannery O’Connor belongs on the Catholic side, and she was maybe even the best of the bunch, but the bulk is Protestant.

  44. 44.

    Carnacki

    March 21, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    @Tunch: No, he was real. It’s reality that is fiction.

  45. 45.

    BombIranForChrist

    March 21, 2011 at 4:09 pm

    @Comrade DougJ:

    Isn’t it just like a protestant to enslave people for 200 years and then take credit for all their cultural accomplishments thereafter?

    Yup, that does seem to be a Protestant drive. It’s all a part of the protestant work ethic … somehow …

  46. 46.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    March 21, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    Those legions of Catholics, do the realize the money they tithe to the Church has paid for hundreds of millions of dollars of anti-gay politicking and billions of dollars in sex abuse settlements, while their “works” are often tax payer funded? I don’t give a fuck if they approve of gay marriage in some general sort of way when many of them vote Republican and pay for the anti-gay jihad.

  47. 47.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 21, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    Protestants get the King James Bible. That’s pretty good.

    I don’t know why people on the thread keep chalking up Shakespeare to the Catholics, though. That’s a fringey view.

    @eemom: XTC’s “Dear God.”

  48. 48.

    Svensker

    March 21, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    @cleek:

    Pretty much the entire output of Hollywood and the rock biz since the late 70s was cocaine fueled. Don’t know if that’s still true.

  49. 49.

    The Moar You Know

    March 21, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    What have the atheists got? Besides Christopher Hitchens.

    @eemom: Ouch. Damn, I wish that wasn’t the case. I still think the nonexistence of a God is the most likely scenario.

  50. 50.

    johnsmith1882

    March 21, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    @cleek:
    With all due respect to Howlin Wolf, Willie Dixon, and Cream, Charley Patton wrote and recorded the first and asskickingest version of Spoonful: http://charleypatton.skyrock.com/2448050333-A-Spoonful-Blues-1929-Richmond.html

  51. 51.

    R-Jud

    March 21, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    @BombIranForChrist:

    but the bulk is Protestant.

    This, I agree with. I also agree that O’Connor was the best of the bunch, and may have become greater yet. I wish she had lived to a hundred.

  52. 52.

    qwerty42

    March 21, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    @BombIranForChrist: … I would put all of Southern Literature on Protestantism’s side. It’s impossible to separate the Protestant God from this, arguably the best literary movement America ever produced….
    Well, there is always Flannery O’Connor, who was very Catholic yet wrote so much about Southern Protestantism.
    Hazel Motes in Wise Blood:
    …Well, I preach the Church Without Christ. I’m member and preacher to that church where the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way. … I’m going to preach it to whoever’ll listen at whatever place. I’m going to preach there was no Fall because there was nothing to fall from and no Redemption because there was no Fall and no Judgment because there wasn’t the first two.”

  53. 53.

    Carnacki

    March 21, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    @R-Jud: Catholics lose points due to Newt Gingrich’s conversion too.

  54. 54.

    joeyess

    March 21, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    @eemom: P.Z. Fucking Myers.

  55. 55.

    cleek

    March 21, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    @eemom:
    Dawkins, Edison, Douglas Adams, Asimov, Percy Shelley, Dirac, Feynman, Freud, Turing, Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, George Carlin, Lance Armstrong, Bruce Lee, Peter Griffin’s dog Brian… there’s a fuckin boatload of em.

    go disbelief!

  56. 56.

    joeyess

    March 21, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    @Carnacki: hear, hear!

  57. 57.

    Svensker

    March 21, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    @Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel):

    JS Bach.

    That could be the only thing and it would be enough.

  58. 58.

    qwerty42

    March 21, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    @BombIranForChrist: oops, well I see R-Jud has already made the point.

  59. 59.

    joeyess

    March 21, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    @cleek: that list tops ’em all.

  60. 60.

    joe from Lowell

    March 21, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I haven’t, but I’m not surprised Cardinal Ratzinger…

    pause for dramatic effect…

    would go after him, given his politics.

  61. 61.

    slag

    March 21, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    @cleek: And none of those people have ever killed, maimed, and tortured millions of other people. Well…except Bruce Lee maybe.

  62. 62.

    joeyess

    March 21, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    Dawkins, Edison, Douglas Adams, Asimov, Percy Shelley, Dirac, Feynman, Freud, Turin, Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, George Carlin, Lance Armstrong, Bruce Lee… there’s a fuckin boatload of em.

    Go! And believe no more!

  63. 63.

    Elia

    March 21, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    How dare you intimate that Bowie’s mid-to-late 70s work is not going to be remembered! The man can’t even recall making Station to Station, he was so coked out!

  64. 64.

    R-Jud

    March 21, 2011 at 4:17 pm

    @slag:

    And none of those people have ever killed, maimed, and tortured millions of other people. Well…except Bruce Lee maybe.

    But he looked so awesome doing it.

  65. 65.

    Comrade Mary

    March 21, 2011 at 4:18 pm

    Hey DougJ, both my attempts at a comment about Archbishop Dolan have been smote and vanished into the ether on hitting Submit. Apparently your server is catholic, too.

  66. 66.

    ChrisB

    March 21, 2011 at 4:18 pm

    @sal: Damn, I wanted to tell DougJ to say hello to my little friend but you got there first.

    @Dan: Toll? What toll? LT cured his habit by playing golf, remember?

    I knew this would be a golden thread once I read DougJ’s post.

  67. 67.

    Svensker

    March 21, 2011 at 4:18 pm

    @slag:

    And none of those people have ever killed, maimed, and tortured millions of other people. Well…except Bruce Lee maybe.

    Ooops, sounds like someone needs to renounce Stalin again.

  68. 68.

    MaximusNYC

    March 21, 2011 at 4:18 pm

    Yep, Bach alone is enough to justify the Protestant Reformation.

    Someone already mentioned Sherlock Holmes in the “cocaine” column. He may be the only really good thing associated with it, but he’s pretty damn good.

  69. 69.

    Spaghetti Lee

    March 21, 2011 at 4:20 pm

    @cleek:

    I think Zuckerberg doesn’t need any gods other than his ego.

  70. 70.

    cleek

    March 21, 2011 at 4:20 pm

    without coke, the last half hour of Goodfellas would be a story about some guy making a pot of tomato sauce.

  71. 71.

    LGRooney

    March 21, 2011 at 4:20 pm

    Read Poe while on you’re on coke and you might change your mind.

  72. 72.

    jibeaux

    March 21, 2011 at 4:20 pm

    I’d add Graham Greene to the Catholic plus side, C. S. Lewis to the Protestant plus side (yes, I know how wingers feel about him, but I’m allowed to like him too, independently and for my own reasons), and this for the atheist column. Like, everybody’s got something to give, man.

  73. 73.

    Alex S.

    March 21, 2011 at 4:21 pm

    Well, cocaine has Miles Davis and heroin has Miles Davis. Also, catholicism has ninjas the Spanish Inquisition and protestants have pirates.

  74. 74.

    CaptainFwiffo

    March 21, 2011 at 4:21 pm

    Don’t get too excited. They’re not reporting the size of the subsample. The margin of error for subgroups is higher than the headline number.

    For instance, you’ll occasionally see a winger pimping a poll that shows 20% of blacks voting for a Republican. Given the proportion of blacks in the population, and their tendency to not respond to pollsters, that might be a subsample of 50 individuals in a poll with 1000 total respondents. The margin of error for a group that small is something like 20%.

  75. 75.

    New Yorker

    March 21, 2011 at 4:21 pm

    Although I am very hostile to the Catholic Church, I still have some fondness for Catholics and Catholicism.

    That’s probably because most Catholics haven’t bothered following the Church off the right-wing culture wars cliff. My observatly Catholic girlfriend isn’t going to ditch her gay friends no matter what the Church or its lay bullies like Maggie Gallagher or Bill Donohue say.

  76. 76.

    Sly

    March 21, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    The only thing the Church gave to Renaissance Italy was a series of corrupt popes and increased demands for money. A convincing argument can be made that the humanist literature that sparked the Reformation was a direct criticism of the Renaissance Church.

    At any rate, most of the good stuff that came out of the Renaissance was the result of banking families who made a killing by importing goods from the Levant, murdering their competitors, and protecting their turf with private mercenary armies that fought battles as bloody as they were pointless. They only patronized the arts to make themselves look more civilized than they actually were.

    The whole period is kind of overrated, I think. Lots of pretty things used to mask one of the most corrupt societies that ever existed in Europe.

  77. 77.

    Comrade DougJ

    March 21, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    @cleek:

    Ha ha. That’d be true without “Monkey Man” too.

  78. 78.

    t jasper parnell

    March 21, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    @Comrade DougJ: Those damn Proddies and their anti-Slavery movements.

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    The thing about the Catholic hierarchy, is that they have repeatedly learned nothing from the past half a millennium. They parishioners are leaving them behind, again. This has only happened repeatedly from the time of Luther on. They’re far more concerned with lining their own nest than dealing with the actual spiritual needs of their flock.

    They really have no fucking clue how damaging the coverup of the pedophile priests has been. Ranks up there with the Ninety-Five Theses in its impact, long term.

    Benedict is a real lackwit about a great many things.

  80. 80.

    Svensker

    March 21, 2011 at 4:24 pm

    Also, you talk about the Catholics. You talk about the Protestants. But where is the talk about the Orthodox, hmmmmm? The forgotten, original Christians? Pope, smope — they even cross themselves backwards, those Catholics. Let’s talk about the Patriarch, eh?

  81. 81.

    stuckinred

    March 21, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    @qwerty42: Have you seen the film directed by John Huston? It was filmed in Macon, GA in 1979. Flannery babysat for the screenwriters Michael and Benedict Fitzgerald when they were kids and the interview with Benedict on the DVD is really interesting.

  82. 82.

    Brian S (formerly Incertus)

    March 21, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    @BombIranForChrist:

    It’s impossible to separate the Protestant God from this, arguably the best literary movement America ever produced.

    I am of mixed feelings about the southern literary mind, and I say that as someone who’s undoubtedly part of it (albeit a miniscule part). But even inside that tradition, well, Flannery O’Connor stands up pretty well as the Catholic representative. I’ll take her over most of the protestant males in the pantheon.

  83. 83.

    Comrade DougJ

    March 21, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    @t jasper parnell:

    A lot of those abolitionists were Unitarians, that’s not even a religion.

  84. 84.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    @Alex S.:

    OK, are we talking Captain Jack Sparrow pirates? Because he’s neck and neck with Cardinal Fang for pure entertainment value.

  85. 85.

    Svensker

    March 21, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    @Comrade DougJ:

    And Quakers, too.

  86. 86.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    @Svensker:

    The Ottomans really mucked the entire high profile of the Orthodox thing up back in 1453. I mean, who’s going to pay attention to “the Third Rome”, anyways?

  87. 87.

    Rob

    March 21, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    True that Flannery O’Connor was a Catholic. (As was Alfred Hitchcock, a propos of nothing.)

    I think it’s funny to see nonbelievers in a pissing contest over the merits of the faiths they were raised in. (One commenter even said, “We win”!) In a recent conversation I felt piqued at a friend and fellow non-believer’s special hatred for the Catholic Church. It’s not that I didn’t agree with it mostly, I just tried to say that any Christian descendant from Western Europeans should probably accept community ownership for the horrors of the Crusades. And he simply said, “Nope, it’s all on Catholics!” I don’t know where his ancestors were then…

    To return to the topic at hand, I wonder how the religions of respondents in these surveys were determined. If it’s by self-identification, as I imagine it is, the Catholic faith is one which many folks claim as their own long after they’ve actually left their religion behind. Up until the point when I began to label myself an atheist, I still called myself Catholic even though I had really stopped believing.

  88. 88.

    OzoneR

    March 21, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    Catholics and Men, two of the most regressive groups in the world? Yeah, there’s something wrong with this poll.

  89. 89.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 21, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    @Elia: And why ignore the notion that it took the brain surgery following the coconut knock on his noggin to get Keith Richards to give up the blow? Of course, he’s rather an outlier in so many ways.

  90. 90.

    gnomedad

    March 21, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    @geg6:

    Contrary to what all the most defensive Catholic laity think, they are not the Church.

    Heh, the Church agrees. CINOs.

  91. 91.

    Duncan James Watson

    March 21, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    What about the Protestant Reformation itself? It revealed and stopped quite a bit of corruption. The buying of indulgences, the abuses of secular power, etc.

    The structure of Presbyterian Church with its bicameral houses along with an elected executive had a major impact on the US structure.

    I always find that Catholics are the worst as far as history of the Christian churches. They believe it starts and stops with Catholicism.

  92. 92.

    UnkyT

    March 21, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    Cocaine has Rick James – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PR_rzF8ofw

  93. 93.

    Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)

    March 21, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: @eemom: @cleek:

    And the only reason Beethoven isn’t on that list of atheists is he suspected that if their was a deity, his name was Beethoven.

  94. 94.

    Brian S (formerly Incertus)

    March 21, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    @Rob:

    I think it’s funny to see nonbelievers in a pissing contest over the merits of the faiths they were raised in

    Well, I can promise you that I’ll almost never jump up and defend the way the Jehovah’s Witnesses do anything, especially as it relates to family life. At least I got a book’s worth of poetry out of that experience.

  95. 95.

    slag

    March 21, 2011 at 4:33 pm

    @Svensker: Yeah. But he got all f’ed up by his religious upbringing.

  96. 96.

    Calouste

    March 21, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    There are 10 countries in the world that do gay marriage. Four of them are solidly Catholic: Belgium, Spain, Portugal and Argentina, and two of them, Canada and the Netherlands have significant Catholic minorities. In Mexico, same-sex marriages are only performed in Mexico City, but must be recognized in the whole country.

    It’s not the Catholics who are against gay marriage, it’s just the church hierarchy.

  97. 97.

    Delia

    March 21, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    @Comrade DougJ:

    Unitarians were a real religion back in the 18th century.

    And for the Protestants: Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu.

    RCs get J.R.R. Tolkien and Walker Percy.

  98. 98.

    Citizen_X

    March 21, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    @Brachiator:

    What have the protestants got?__
    Pretty much the whole freakin’ Enlightenment.

    Hell, yeah. I mean, ha ha, could you imagine something like the French Revolution taking place in a Catholic country?

  99. 99.

    Svensker

    March 21, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The Ottomans really mucked the entire high profile of the Orthodox thing up back in 1453. I mean, who’s going to pay attention to “the Third Rome”, anyways?

    Another thing to lay at the feet of the infidel Turks!

    (No offense to any living Turks, of course.)

  100. 100.

    Surly Duff

    March 21, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    The Catholic Church is responsible for the Italian Renaissance? For reals? Someone go tell those historians that the asshole Catholic monk, Savonrola, that burned all that spectaular renaissance art and literature wasn’t really a Catholic. They are seriously fucking up doug’s history lesson.

  101. 101.

    Superluminar

    March 21, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    @cleek

    without coke, the last half hour of Goodfellas would be a story about some Irish guy making a pot of tomato sauce.

    yeah, you’re right, you do need to do a few lines for that movie to be entertaining.

    @Comrade DougJ
    What one gets to claim “Fuck You” though? Also too, Conor Friedersdorf : coke addict or smackhead?

    I think m_c comes under “both”…

  102. 102.

    Comrade DougJ

    March 21, 2011 at 4:42 pm

    @Superluminar:

    m_c is a Muslim.

    Conor…I’ll go with pot.

  103. 103.

    qwerty42

    March 21, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    @stuckinred: Yes, I saw the movie. Wasn’t true to the book, but was very enjoyable. Most stuff done by Huston is, and his doing Wise Blood was quite a selection.

  104. 104.

    Tsulagi

    March 21, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    Catholicism and heroin, yeah I can see the parallelism.

  105. 105.

    DS

    March 21, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    Ah, spoken like a true Catholic. I guess the fact that the Catholic Church had about 1500 years on “Protestants” – and given that there is not one Protestant Church but dozens of break-away sects from Catholicism – has nothing to do with our lack of charming customs. Also, you might want to look into the fact the Protestant sects deliberately rejected the cult-like craziness of the early modern Catholic Church in favor of a doctrine which preached austerity and individualism rather than eating Jesus three times a week.

  106. 106.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 21, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    They really have no fucking clue how damaging the coverup of the pedophile priests has been. Ranks up there with the Ninety-Five Theses in its impact, long term.

    Is that true? From what I read, it’s true in Ireland, and I know a few of my own Catholic (way fucking lapsed, myself) relatives have been turned off, but they weren’t strong believers/Mass-goers. My aunt who thinks it’s all a liberal conspiracy is an outlier even among her generation (about 80), but most of family seem to have been unaffected by it. I know in France and Italy church attendance is in single digits in under 50s (maybe under 60s by now), but Spain? Poland? Portugal? Mexico? I have no idea

  107. 107.

    joe from Lowell

    March 21, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    @slag:

    And none of those people have ever killed, maimed, and tortured millions of other people.

    Mao. Stalin. Lennin. Pol Pot.

  108. 108.

    Comrade DougJ

    March 21, 2011 at 4:46 pm

    @Tsulagi:

    Think about it: protestantism is Wall Street, Catholicism is requiem for a dream.

  109. 109.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 4:47 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    Mao. Stalin. Lennin. Pol Pot.

    I denounce them all. Particularly that Stalin, lapsed Orthodox priest guy.

  110. 110.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 4:48 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    It’s happening in Belgium, in Germany, in Australia.

    The Church’s future seems to be in Africa at this point. Which should prove pretty interesting the first time one of “them” is a serious candidate for Pope.

  111. 111.

    cleek

    March 21, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    @Tsulagi:

    Catholicism and heroin, yeah I can see the parallelism.

    I don’t know just where I’m going
    But I’m gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
    ‘Cause it makes me feel like I’m a man
    When I put a spike into my vein
    And I’ll tell ya, things aren’t quite the same
    When I’m rushing on my run
    And I feel just like Jesus’ son
    And I guess that I just don’t know
    And I guess that I just don’t know

  112. 112.

    Citizen_X

    March 21, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    @Svensker:

    Pretty much the entire output of…the rock biz since the late 70s was cocaine fueled.

    Well there’s another big, black mark against cocaine in my book.

    As a matter of fact, you could give cocaine indirect credit for punk rock. It wouldn’t be stretching matters at all to say that the rise of punk was pretty much driven by a furious hatred of coke-addled, self-indulgent late-70s rock stars.

    Heroin, OTOH? That was still cool.

  113. 113.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    March 21, 2011 at 4:50 pm

    Cocaine’s got the Bee Gees. Oxycontin is stuck with an anal cyst.

  114. 114.

    arguingwithsignposts

    March 21, 2011 at 4:50 pm

    @Comrade DougJ: I was wondering the other day if Unitarian Universalists have big Easter Sunday services. I guess not.

  115. 115.

    Tuttle

    March 21, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    … it was the Catholic Church that transmitted the civilization of antiquity to the West.

    Most historians would vociferously disagree with that statement.

    Islam, via Byzantium, preserved the vast, vast majority of the ancient works that survive to this day. Most of the others were found, during the Renaissance, moldering and ignored in monasteries.

    Yea Cicero, that “righteous pagan”, had his works preserved by the Catholics, but the very term used implies that works of unrighteous pagans were, quite intentionally, not preserved.

  116. 116.

    cg

    March 21, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    In August 2009, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to accept and support GLBT clergy who are in lifelong, monogamous relationships. I think the Episcopalians beat them to it.

  117. 117.

    RP

    March 21, 2011 at 4:53 pm

    It’s the same way I feel about heroin and cocaine. With heroin, you’ve got Charlie Parker, Exile On Main Street, and Edgar Allen Poe.

    Don’t forget Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.

    EDIT: Damn it. I didn’t see 110.

  118. 118.

    Zifnab

    March 21, 2011 at 4:53 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I mean, who’s going to pay attention to “the Third Rome”, anyways?

    Try saying it with a thick German accent during the 30s.

  119. 119.

    joe from Lowell

    March 21, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Similarly, I denounce the Catholics who carried out the Inquisition, blah blah blah blah blah.

    But, really, pointing out that someone with a particular belief system about religion did something horrible doesn’t actually make others who hold similar beliefs responsible for those actions. It doesn’t even make the belief system responsible for those actions.

    The vast majority of Muslims are decent, peaceful people, and it would be grotesque to blame them or their beliefs about religion for 9/11, even though the people who carried it out claimed that their beliefs about divinity were the cause of their actions. No, those assholes would have been assholes regardless of their religious beliefs.

    Ditto atheists and the Khmer Rouge.

    Ditto Catholics and the Inquisition.

    After all, there are always people who will use appeals to a belief system to justify what they want to do, and there are always fanatics who genuinely do think their belief system compels them to be assholes. In both cases, it is the people, not the beliefs, that are to blame.

  120. 120.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 21, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: I remember when Benny wheezed in, there was a lot of talk that he would be the last European pope. I would give my left nut if I could know my racist and devout uncle would live to see a black pope, but something tells me the first non-Euro will be a Latin American of appropriately Spanish name and complexion

    Speaking of Renaissance corruption, I saw something the other day about a film about the Borgias, with Jeremy Irons as Alexander VI, that could be good. I didn’t see who’s gonna play Lucretia

  121. 121.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    March 21, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    Wow, people could find non-believers who do bad things. They do those bad things because they are human, not because they don’t believe. Just like religious people who do bad do so because they are human and not because of their beliefs. But only one of those groups claims the mantle of knowing how to live morally and invokes an authority greater than any other human to present their argument.

  122. 122.

    AAA Bonds

    March 21, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    Doesn’t surprise me too much as someone raised Catholic, and I’m pretty sure I know why it’s happening.

    It’s exactly like the numbers on organized labor in America as a whole. . .

    . . . it’s the young people.

    Certainly, I think a lot of “liberalization” is going on among older Catholics – with younger Catholics, once again, as a big driver.

    But also, every year, another batch of Catholics moves past the 18+ barrier when they can take these surveys, and more importantly, an older (but still young) batch of Catholics moves into the age group that actually RESPONDS to these surveys.

    Catholicism is a conservative institution, but it predates the systems that govern our world today, and so it’s hardly in lockstep with American conservatism. The Catholic Church has officially backwards ideas about birth control, homosexuality, and a number of issues.

    But, just as officially, it’s far more progressive than the American government when it comes to organized labor, immigrants’ rights, social justice, the death penalty and the rights of prisoners, and world peace.

    The Church is also pro-Palestine, which is not really a conservative/progressive issue as much as a nettle bush, but it’s something a lot of people are surprised to hear.

    And as this poll demonstrates, many Catholics in many countries are personally far more liberal on those issues where the Church is backwards.

    Many liberals, even many liberal ex-Catholics, seem to be bemused by the strong strain of liberalism among Catholics. But Catholics are perhaps the number one swing group that Democrats can court effectively.

    And Democrats don’t need to do it by abandoning their positions on issues like gay marriage, but by reinforcing their commitments to other Catholic values that the Republicans have utterly abandoned for capitalism.

    Considering the numbers in 2008, and the counter-trend in 2010 – hell, considering the Kennedys and their legacy compared with Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindal – y’all need to keep on this like white on rice.

    For doing that, I thank you.

  123. 123.

    Alex S.

    March 21, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    Off-topic: It seems that Atrios has read yesterday’s thread about him (talking about us) and took some of the criticism to heart… his newest posts have… explanations.

  124. 124.

    arguingwithsignposts

    March 21, 2011 at 4:56 pm

    @Citizen_X: Lou Reed, I believe, wrote a song about teh heroin. But that was the ’60s, IIRC

    ETA: I see I’ve been beaten to the syringe.

  125. 125.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    Yes.

    I blame the pedophile assholes and their defenders that infest the entire Catholic hierarchy, which you have this regrettable tendency to reflexively defend.

    I’d recommend feeding the lot of them to lions, if it were not cruel to the lions to do so.

  126. 126.

    Zifnab

    March 21, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Is that true? From what I read, it’s true in Ireland

    Dude. This was an event that made the Irish hate Catholics. That’s on par with making the English hate tea or the Republican hate tax cuts.

    If that doesn’t qualify as an earth shattering ideological shift, I don’t know what does.

  127. 127.

    cleek

    March 21, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    cocaine and heroin both own the death of John Belushi

  128. 128.

    Comrade DougJ

    March 21, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    @cleek:

    Also too, Jesus’ Son is a great book.

  129. 129.

    arguingwithsignposts

    March 21, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Joseph Heller wrote a great book “God Knows” that was a hilarious take on King David. Not sure if he was protestant or catholic or jewish. but there ya go.

  130. 130.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 21, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    @Alex S.: probably best to let it go. You’d need a Soros grant to fund a nut-picking of Eschaton comment threads.

  131. 131.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    I might add, that every time the Catholic hierarchy is attacked for its repeated criminality in covering up pedophile members of the clergy, asswipes like Donohue insist that it’s an attack on his beliefs, not on the individuals concerned. I assume his beliefs include one where it’s OK for the parish priest to bugger boys.

  132. 132.

    Amir_Khalid

    March 21, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Odd, to see a comment thread on a liberal-inclined American blog discussing Catholics’ contributions to art and culture that still hasn’t mentioned music from New Orleans, or for that matter Bruce Springsteen.

  133. 133.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 21, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    @Alex S.: WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  134. 134.

    Brachiator

    March 21, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    Hell, yeah. I mean, ha ha, could you imagine something like the French Revolution taking place in a Catholic country?

    Wasn’t King Louis XVI a Catholic?

  135. 135.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 21, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    @Zifnab:

    If that doesn’t qualify as an earth shattering ideological shift, I don’t know what does.

    But from what I’ve seen, nothing like that has happened here, with all caveats about anecdotes not being data.

  136. 136.

    joe from Lowell

    March 21, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    @Barb (formerly Gex):

    Wow, people could find non-believers who do bad things.

    And, in what’s genuinely a shock, you completely failed to write the same comment in response to the much larger number of comments from people who found Catholics who did bad things.

    They do those bad things because they are human, not because they don’t believe. Just like religious people who do bad do so because they are human and not because of their beliefs.

    And in fact, I wrote that before you did.

    But only one of those groups claims the mantle of knowing how to live morally and invokes an authority greater than any other human to present their argument.

    Wait, only religious believers claim the mantle of knowing how to live morally? Somebody tell Hitchens.

  137. 137.

    Bubblegum Tate

    March 21, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    @gnomedad:

    Heh, the Church agrees. CINOs.

    That’s exactly what wingnutty Catholics are saying about this poll. Well, they’re saying there are two possible explanations:

    1. The poll is a lie
    2. CINOs

    What’s odd is that the ones I see pushing the “if they said that, then they aren’t REAL Catholics” line are also the ones who like to trumpet the most about How Catholics are the powerhouses of conservatism, the ones whose sheer numbers hold success of failure in their hands, etc.

  138. 138.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    March 21, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Nobody mention that 2/3 of Catholic Bishops have participated in sex abuse cover ups. Meanwhile secular groups who have adults in charge of kids have mandated reporter laws and would be pursued much more effectively by law enforcement if they did what Catholic priests do. And it’s our current political system now that doesn’t just subpoena all the records the Church has on all these priest shufflings. But it would be completely inappropriate to hold responsible for this.

  139. 139.

    arguingwithsignposts

    March 21, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: SUPERTRAINS!

  140. 140.

    joe from Lowell

    March 21, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    which you have this regrettable tendency to reflexively defend.

    Fuck you. I have never, even once, defended the individuals who covered up the molestation.

    Fuck you.

    Apologize.

  141. 141.

    Dennis

    March 21, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    @Zifnab:

    You misspelled thick Russian Accent and before 1917. So you know.

  142. 142.

    Keith G

    March 21, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    Protestant spirit(and alternative counter culture from Shakespeare to….

    The Bard’s family was very Catholic. In fact, one of his uncles was tortured and executed because of his popish activities.

    William was most likely a Protestant in name only.

  143. 143.

    Citizen_X

    March 21, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    @Brachiator: Snarking, I was.

  144. 144.

    Superluminar

    March 21, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    Which one is responsible for John Cole’s posts on Libya?
    I’m not talking about religion here.

  145. 145.

    Svensker

    March 21, 2011 at 5:08 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    Pretty much the entire output of…the rock biz since the late 70s was cocaine fueled.

    Well there’s another big, black mark against cocaine in my book.

    I don’t know about the Punk scene. I was working in the regular rock business at that time and into the early 80s, and everything was drugs. Mostly coke, but weed, too, to come down from the coke. It was incredible. It’s actually amazing more folks didn’t die or blow their brains up considering how much stuff everyone was doing.

    Edited to add: The only thing different about John Belushi and everyone else during that time was that John was unlucky. His way of life was standard MO then.

  146. 146.

    Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac

    March 21, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    Because I’m too lazy to read all the comments, i’ll toss in that I think the question isn’t straight forward. It could be construed as biased, arguing such that “illegal” is not the right word for the situation for most religious folks would state in their own justification. The religious conservative folks I talk with run on about “as long as it’s not ‘M’arriage” and blathering on from there. They never really consider “illegal vs. legal” in their own mind, so when you say illegal, bringing up ideas of criminality, support would increase.

  147. 147.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 21, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    @Superluminar: : Xenu and Moroni

  148. 148.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    One of the things that the French Revolution was all about, along with all this “off with his head!” in reference to Louis XVI, was a very strong anti-clerical vibe. It was something of a real turnaround when Napoleon invited the Pope to Paris for his coronation as Emperor. By then much of the revolutionary fervor had been spent, and Napoleon’s role was filling the power vacuum that resulted from that.

    Still, France has never been as “Catholic” as it was before 1789.

  149. 149.

    one_outer

    March 21, 2011 at 5:11 pm

    Well, since you’re including James Joyce on Catholicism’s side, I would put all of Southern Literature on Protestantism’s side. It’s impossible to separate the Protestant God from this, arguably the best literary movement America ever produced.

    I lurk this blog. First comment. The above quote pushed me to do it.

    Nothing Southern has ever been the best anything American. The region has a monolitical commitment to mediocrity in everything from language to customs to government.

    That is all. Back under my rock :(

  150. 150.

    futzinfarb

    March 21, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    What have the protestants got?

    Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion?

  151. 151.

    AAA Bonds

    March 21, 2011 at 5:13 pm

    @BombIranForChrist:

    Walker Percy.

  152. 152.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    @joe from Lowell:

    No apology. You, like Donohue, repeatedly confuse the hierarchy with the belief system. You willfully do so as a reflexive defense to any criticism of the hierarchy. We’ve seen it repeatedly.

    So fuck you back.

  153. 153.

    slag

    March 21, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    @joe from Lowell: Calm down, Francis. The whole point is that, if you’re gonna take the credit, you also get to take the blame. That’s all.

    Personally, I take neither credit nor blame. I’m with Darwin (who, by the way, eventually became a non-believer).

  154. 154.

    Elia

    March 21, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    Has anyone mentioned yet how thoroughly Judaism mops the floor with all this gentile BS–Catholic, Protestant, Quaker Oats; whatever.

  155. 155.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 21, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    @Brachiator: The French Revolution was not Catholic. Tous les eveques a la lanterne!

  156. 156.

    AAA Bonds

    March 21, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    @Barb (formerly Gex):

    The fact is, many of them DON’T donate anymore, even in parishes where there’s been no credible charges of sexual abuse brought against priests.

    The Catholic Church won’t say it out loud, but as someone with family members working within it (as lay employees), the American Church is undergoing a crisis of funding that predates the worldwide economic crisis by five years or more – and it’s largely over its reprehensible handling of sexual abuse by priests.

  157. 157.

    Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods

    March 21, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    It’s the same way I feel about heroin and cocaine. With heroin, you’ve got Charlie Parker, Exile On Main Street, and Edgar Allen Poe. With cocaine, once you get past Lawrence Taylor’s 1985 season and a few episodes of “Mork and Mindy”, there’s very little that anyone will remember a hundred years from now.

    If you’re so concerned with posterity, why do you spend so much time blogging. /snark

    Also, Sigmund Freud, Baudelaire, David Bowie from 72-80–maybe the second greatest winning streak in music next to the Let it Bleed-Exile Stones.

  158. 158.

    arguingwithsignposts

    March 21, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    @Elia:

    Has anyone mentioned yet how thoroughly Judaism mops the floor with all this gentile BS—Catholic, Protestant, Quaker Oats; whatever.

    They see me trollin’, they hatin’. Tryin’ to catch me trollin’ dirty.

  159. 159.

    Professor

    March 21, 2011 at 5:20 pm

    @rickstersherpa: John Donne started out as a catholic but converted to Anglican.He wrote some poetry including ‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’. In this poem were the lines ‘to whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee’ and ‘no man is an island’. To whom the bell tolls became the title for one of the E.Hemmingway’s books.

  160. 160.

    Seebach

    March 21, 2011 at 5:20 pm

    @eemom: Not exactly fair, considering believers were likely to kill or shun non-believers for hundreds and thousands of years.

    Who knows how many secret atheists there were?

  161. 161.

    Alex S.

    March 21, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    @Elia:

    True, Seinfeld wins.

  162. 162.

    Comrade DougJ

    March 21, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    @Elia:

    I think Judaism is the most respectable western religious for it’s worth. The idea that you should make the really crazy members of your religion wear special hats was genius.

  163. 163.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 21, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    @Professor: John Donne is like gold to aery thinness beat.

  164. 164.

    Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods

    March 21, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    @The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik: Quit making up the rules as you go along–that’s just playing Calvinistball…

  165. 165.

    shortstop

    March 21, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    @Kathy in St. Louis:

    I accidentally caught two minutes of this. It was the two minutes during which Archbishop Makes My Gaydar Go to Eleven chuckled avuncularly and answered the “Did you ever have doubts about pursuing your Calling?” question with an obviously well-worn story about how his “attraction” as a young man to “several wonderful women” made him fleetingly wonder if a life of “celibacy” was for him. I had to leave the room before I broke my eyes from rolling them too hard.

  166. 166.

    arguingwithsignposts

    March 21, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    @Comrade DougJ:

    I think Judaism is the most respectable western religious for it’s worth.

    Except that it’s not a western religion. but other than that, i’d agree.

  167. 167.

    shortstop

    March 21, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    @Comrade DougJ: I’m cryin’ over here.

  168. 168.

    soonergrunt

    March 21, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    @joe from Lowell: There’s too much money to be harvested here for that.
    {/former catholic}

  169. 169.

    Elia

    March 21, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    @Comrade DougJ: Haha true enough. This would be a better country if more people had to signal their beliefs/tribal associations through silly hats (and/or walks, if you’re of British descent).

  170. 170.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 21, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    @AAA Bonds: I hadn’t heard that. There are a couple of Catholic institutions that I support. I’ve been tempted to cut them off less because of the abuse scandals–never a hint of scandal about either one–than because of the Bishops’ tax-subsidized Republican activism. But people doing good work for the poor would be the only ones who would notice, the cardinals would not miss my money.

  171. 171.

    joe from Lowell

    March 21, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    No apology. You, like Donohue, repeatedly confuse the hierarchy with the belief system.

    Nope. I, of all people, most certainly do not do not. You’re just confused, as yo usually are, by your determination to slur the whole for the crimes of individuals. You make a point of phrasing your attacks as to apply as broadly as possible.

    And I’ve never, even once, accused you of attacking the belief system, but rather, those who adhere to it. Which you do, consistently.

    You willfully do so as a reflexive defense to any criticism of the hierarchy.

    What I do in response to attacks on “the Church” as a collective noun – and do so thoughtfully, as a human being who retains his free will and makes arguments as a I choose to do so, not “reflexively,” you arrogant prick – is to denounce you for your willful, repeated, determined efforts to define the guilty in a manner that goes beyond the individuals who committed wrongdoing, and include those who did not in your condemnation.

    So keep fucking yourself, but it’s clear you don’t have the decency to apologize for your slurs against the innocent members of the clergy, including those who did a whole hell of a lot more than you (since any number is greater than zero) to stop and uncover it. After all, dragging them into your slur is your point.

  172. 172.

    AAA Bonds

    March 21, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    @shortstop:

    I caught a promo for this and the “anchor” said in voiceover HE’S NOT LIKE ANY PRIEST YOU’VE EVER SEEN and showed him holding a bottle of Stella Artois.

    That made me wonder if there had been a single Catholic or ex-Catholic involved in that commercial from beginning to end other than that priest. Or were they trying to imply that Catholic priests usually drink CHEAPER beer?

  173. 173.

    Shoemaker-Levy 9

    March 21, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    I am very hostile to the Catholic Church… What have the protestants got?… It’s the same way I feel about heroin and cocaine.

    You’re trying too hard, Doug.

  174. 174.

    joe from Lowell

    March 21, 2011 at 5:29 pm

    @slag:

    The whole point is that, if you’re gonna take the credit, you also get to take the blame.

    The people taking “credit” on behalf of different churches are doing so in jest.

    The people throwing blame on the church, on the other hand, are quite serious.

  175. 175.

    AAA Bonds

    March 21, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I still give to CRS during disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti, as in many Catholic countries, they’re the ones most connected to community infrastructure when disaster strikes. That’s not to knock on secular organizations, of course.

  176. 176.

    joe from Lowell

    March 21, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    @soonergrunt:

    There’s too much money to be harvested here for that.

    I don’t propose asking.

  177. 177.

    Ash Can

    March 21, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est #150: I’ve never seen joe from Lowell do that. Link?

  178. 178.

    Southern Beale

    March 21, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    What have the protestants got? “Amazing Grace” is the only thing that comes to mind .

    Seriously? The good, the bad, the ugly:

    • CS Lewis & his ouevre
    • Puritans & our whole “Thanksgiving” mythology
    • Abolition
    • Quakers
    • Amy Grant and the whole modern evangelical music thing
    • The Rapture and all of that Book of Revelation nonsense
    • Anti-abortion activism. I know Catholics are anti-abortion but it’s the evangelicals who made this their cause

    … I’m sure there are others …

  179. 179.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 21, 2011 at 5:36 pm

    @AAA Bonds: Heh. Almost every priest I ever knew growing up, including a couple of distant relatives, liked a nice cocktail or two.

    This is a priest I think it would be fun to go drinking with.

  180. 180.

    tworivers

    March 21, 2011 at 5:37 pm

    Doug J – A good post marred by a silly ending bit. Great artists come from all faiths (including agnosticism/atheism)

    John Coltrane was brought up protestant but later explored other faiths.
    John Lennon was raised Anglican but was pretty atheistic leaning
    Virginia Woolf was brought up agnostic
    Ingmar Bergman had a Lutheran minister for a dad but later professed atheism (interestingly, he seemed a bit tortured by the idea of there being no God – he kept coming back to it over and over again).
    Dostoevsky was Eastern Orthodox

    the list could go on

  181. 181.

    slag

    March 21, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    @joe from Lowell: Wait a second. Who died and made you Omniscient?

  182. 182.

    JGabriel

    March 21, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    @R-Jud:

    I’d say Johann Sebastian Bach by himself pretty much wins it for the Protestants.

    Bach? Bah! I counter with: Mozart.

    .

  183. 183.

    AAA Bonds

    March 21, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Is it really even a thing among Protestants that clergy can’t drink? I mean, I’m sure a lot of sects demand that, given the historical links with Prohibition, but do those sects even make up most of American Protestantism?

    And do their clergy even care?

  184. 184.

    shortstop

    March 21, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The whole Jesuit order is fun to go drinking with.

    But bringing it back to Catholic vs. Protestant, no Catholic can hold his liquor like an Episcopalian. Papists = pikers in that department.

  185. 185.

    Joel

    March 21, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    Catholics: Galileo (some good that did him), Copernicus, Lavoisier, Descartes, Pasteur, Fermi…

    Protestants: Newton, Bacon, Kepler, Darwin, Planck, Gauss, Eddington, Bohr…

    In other words, Germany and England versus France, Italy and Spain… Wroth mentioning that Jews have won nearly 200 Nobel prizes since its inception.. Not a bad record.

  186. 186.

    Brachiator

    March 21, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    Snarking, I was.

    Snark noted, hence my one liner. I’m not taking any of this Catholicism vs Protestantism especially seriously. To do so, one might accidentally invoke the Spanish Inquisition. And no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

    @FlipYrWhig:

    The French Revolution was not Catholic. Tous les eveques a la lanterne!

    It was an eruption in a Catholic nation. Good quote. To the barricades! Spanish Civil War, also not Catholic.

  187. 187.

    BC

    March 21, 2011 at 5:51 pm

    Back in the 1960s, it was well understood that religion was influenced more by the culture it was in that it was by its hierarchical structure. So American Catholics, Protestants, and Jews (1960s sociology did not consider Muslims or Buddhists) had more in common with each other than they did with coreligionists in other countries. Don’t imagine that has changed much in the intervening years.

  188. 188.

    eemom

    March 21, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    @tworivers:

    Dostoevsky was Eastern Orthodox

    aHA! I knew we had somebody.

    Actually most of the great Russian authors probably were EO.

  189. 189.

    Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy

    March 21, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    Lessee, mix the BJ Wars of Religion with the ubiquitous music-penis effect, and you get the world’s worst thread, evar! Wheeeee!

  190. 190.

    Felonious Wench

    March 21, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    @shortstop:

    no Catholic can hold his liquor like an Episcopalian.

    Damn straight.

    Our Christmas Eve tradition has become Drinking With the Irish Catholics Down the Street. My heathen Episcopalian husband and I can even drink THEM under the table. Although their need to burst into song on the way is always the evening’s highlight.

  191. 191.

    Chet

    March 21, 2011 at 6:01 pm

    @Sly: “Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

    – Orson Welles, The Third Man

  192. 192.

    shortstop

    March 21, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    @Chet: Yes, very funny, but a blood libel against the towering cultural significance of good chocolate.

  193. 193.

    Erikthe Red

    March 21, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    With cocaine, once you get past Lawrence Taylor’s 1985 season and a few episodes of “Mork and Mindy”, there’s very little that anyone will remember a hundred years from now.

    Can someone help me out with the above??

  194. 194.

    Professor

    March 21, 2011 at 6:09 pm

    @Joel: Italy came into existence in the 1870s under King Victor Emmanuel II. His full title was Victor Emmanuel Regnum d’Italia (Verdi). It was formed under catholicism.

  195. 195.

    Chet

    March 21, 2011 at 6:14 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Well, in all fairness, there is a (slight) amount of truth to this. Cognitive dissonance being what it is, it’s always easier to see the corruption within, and the evil done by, a religion whose theological precepts you don’t happen to share in the first place, or which you have consciously rejected.

  196. 196.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    March 21, 2011 at 6:15 pm

    @joe from Lowell: Wow, such a lot of hostility for someone who makes the same points as you. For what it is worth, I never had a problem with religion until about a decade ago, and I am not going to apologize for forming an opinion about religion based on the version that affects my life.

    All I’m saying is that I’m tired of people pointing out bad atheists whenever someone decries some terrible thing some religious person does somewhere. That wouldn’t have to be an indictment of all religion, except that many people won’t let that stuff remain just a criticism of the action and insist on making it about religion itself.

    Also, please note that I never said only the religious can claim the mantle of morality. I said they do that AND they invoke an authority superior to themselves and anyone they are debating with. Kind of an important omission in your reading.

  197. 197.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    March 21, 2011 at 6:17 pm

    @AAA Bonds: So that’s what Bush’s faith based initiative was about.

  198. 198.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 21, 2011 at 6:17 pm

    Anyone mention Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne, Milton, or any of those lads for the Protestants? Although not specifically Protestant, Emerson, Thoreau, et al., are clearly coming out of the Protestant tradition in New England.

  199. 199.

    Patty K

    March 21, 2011 at 6:18 pm

    John Donne was a Protestant (“Do not send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee”)as no doubt was Shakespeare. Pretty funny to claim Joyce for your side since he so actively repudiated Catholicism.

  200. 200.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    March 21, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    @joe from Lowell: P.S. It is not my job to protect Catholics. They spend millions of dollars to oppress me. Everyone with that label ends up strengthening the image and the power of the Catholic church. Catholics need to clean Catholicism up, not me.

    I didn’t realize that in order to express my beliefs, I had to first denounce anti-Catholicism, broccoli, and Stalin.

  201. 201.

    Keith G

    March 21, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    @shortstop:

    no Catholic can hold his liquor like an Episcopalian.

    Sorry sister, but I grew up among the Hungarian side of my family (East end of Toledo) and those popists partied.

    BTW, the one time I had drinks with a Jesuit, he ask me out.

  202. 202.

    jl

    March 21, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    John Donne and Shakespeare are not clearly representatives of Protestantism: their fathers’ Catholicism, and personal histories and works indicate conflict over religious identity.

    And Lutherans are Protestants?

    Hmmm…. They’re not *real* Protestants. For one thing, their music sounds good, which is very unusual for Protestants (some Gospel music excepted).

  203. 203.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    March 21, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    @slag: Well, the religious sometimes speak to someone who is omniscient…

  204. 204.

    Chet

    March 21, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    @jl: Lutheran music sounds good? Well, in some places it does, but in others (such as the LCMS church I was raised in, and which Mom still attends) there’s been a movement over the last couple decades to dump a lot of the traditional hymns and liturgy in favor of megachurch-style presentation and insipid “praise music”.

  205. 205.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    March 21, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    @rickstersherpa:

    For better and for worse, it was the Catholic Church that transmitted the civilization of antiquity to the West.

    Yeah . . . sure . . . all right . . .

    The Arabs (particularly in Andalusia) had nothing to with it.

  206. 206.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    March 21, 2011 at 6:38 pm

    @rickstersherpa:

    For better and for worse, it was the Catholic Church that transmitted the civilization of antiquity to the West.

    Yeah . . . sure . . . all right . . .

    The Arabs (particularly in Andalusia) had nothing to with it.

  207. 207.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    March 21, 2011 at 6:43 pm

    @Svensker:

    There are two reasons to leave them out. 1. In the US, there are more atheists than Orthodox, so they really aren’t that relevant here. 2. The Orthodox and the Catholics BOTH claim to be the original faith. From what I’ve read, it is reasonable to view them as both being the result of an evolutionary split in Christianity.

  208. 208.

    Comrade DougJ

    March 21, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    @Chet:

    Great, great line.

  209. 209.

    jl

    March 21, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    @Chet: My condolences. One of my relatives *used to be* a musician in her Lutheran church, and they did the same thing. She is not longer a Lutheran. She takes her church music seriously.

  210. 210.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    March 21, 2011 at 6:49 pm

    @Ozymandias, King of Ants: Dammit. Why won’t you credit the Catholics for preserving something that they would have destroyed had it not been for the Arabs?

  211. 211.

    jl

    March 21, 2011 at 6:53 pm

    @Chet:

    “In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

    That is an unfair slam on democracy and peace, and the cuckoo clock (which my Swiss connections tell me is really a Black Forest German thing, like lederhosen).

    The Renaissance Italians were dilettantes, and their wars were small beer.

    Around this time the Swiss were the professional mercenaries who slaughtered the rest of Europe, and eventually each other, for money. Then they decided their entrepreneurial talents would be more profitably devoted to banking and international business.

  212. 212.

    Citizen_X

    March 21, 2011 at 6:53 pm

    @shortstop: The Swiss? Pah! The Maya say no.

    And while we’re on the subject of brutally violent cultures and their legacies, let’s hear it for the Mesoamericans, who:

    1: invented writing, a feat only matched by the Assyrians and maybe the Chinese;
    2: invented corn (“invented” is the right word, given that we still aren’t sure how they did it–see “origins” here);
    3: discovered chocolate, and
    4: at this rate, correctly predicted next year’s Apocalypse.

    Edit: Argh! Fixed links.

  213. 213.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 21, 2011 at 6:55 pm

    @jl: Lutheran would be the original Protestants. Martin Luther? Come on.

  214. 214.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    March 21, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    @Barb (formerly Gex): Because I was taught too much by my Jesuit teachers, of course.

    Also, too: we must never forget that it was Jews who helped translate so much from Arabic into Latin.

  215. 215.

    Wile E. Quixote

    March 21, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    And then there’s this gift of Protestantism.

    Harry Blackitt: Look at them, bloody Catholics, filling the bloody world up with bloody people they can’t afford to bloody feed.
    Mrs. Blackitt: What are we dear?
    Harry Blackitt: Protestant, and fiercely proud of it.
    Mrs. Blackitt: Hmm. Well, why do they have so many children?
    Harry Blackitt: Because… every time they have sexual intercourse, they have to have a baby.
    Mrs. Blackitt: But it’s the same with us, Harry.
    Harry Blackitt: What do you mean?
    Mrs. Blackitt: Well, I mean, we’ve got two children, and we’ve had sexual intercourse twice.
    Harry Blackitt: That’s not the point. We could have it any time we wanted.
    Mrs. Blackitt: Really?
    Harry Blackitt: Oh, yes, and, what’s more, because we don’t believe in all that Papist claptrap, we can take precautions.
    Mrs. Blackitt: What, you mean… lock the door?
    Harry Blackitt: No, no. I mean, because we are members of the Protestant Reformed Church, which successfully challenged the autocratic power of the Papacy in the mid-sixteenth century, we can wear little rubber devices to prevent issue.
    Mrs. Blackitt: What d’you mean?
    Harry Blackitt: I could, if I wanted, have sexual intercourse with you…
    Mrs. Blackitt: Oh, yes, Harry.
    Harry Blackitt: …and, by wearing a rubber sheath over my old feller, I could insure… that, when I came off, you would not be impregnated.
    Mrs. Blackitt: Ooh.
    Harry Blackitt: That’s what being a Protestant’s all about. That’s why it’s the church for me. That’s why it’s the church for anyone who respects the individual and the individual’s right to decide for him or herself. When Martin Luther nailed his protest up to the church door in fifteen-seventeen, he may not have realised the full significance of what he was doing, but four hundred years later, thanks to him, my dear, I can wear whatever I want on my John Thomas…
    [sniff]
    Harry Blackitt: … and, Protestantism doesn’t stop at the simple condom. Oh, no. I can wear French Ticklers if I want.
    Mrs. Blackitt: You what?
    Harry Blackitt: French Ticklers. Black Mambos. Crocodile Ribs. Sheaths that are designed not only to protect, but also to enhance the stimulation of sexual congress.
    Mrs. Blackitt: Have you got one?
    Harry Blackitt: Have I got one? Uh, well, no, but I can go down the road any time I want and walk into Harry’s and hold my head up high and say in a loud, steady voice, ‘Harry, I want you to sell me a condom. In fact, today, I think I’ll have a French Tickler, for I am a Protestant.’
    Mrs. Blackitt: Well, why don’t you?
    Harry Blackitt: But they – Well, they cannot, ’cause their church never made the great leap out of the Middle Ages and the domination of alien Episcopal supremacy.

  216. 216.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    March 21, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    @Wile E. Quixote: Win.

  217. 217.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 21, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    @shortstop: Jebbies are the best. Grand fun with whom to drink and/or debate. Which may or may not be coincidental to their relative standing within the big Church hierarchy, heh.

  218. 218.

    fraught

    March 21, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    I hated this whole thread. Not one comment about how awesome it is to be gay married.

  219. 219.

    arguingwithsignposts

    March 21, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    @fraught: It’s so awesome to be gay married that I haven’t even tried it yet. Perhaps because I’m not gay. or married. or wanting to be either. So there is that.

  220. 220.

    Ruckus

    March 21, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    @eemom:
    The truth perhaps?

  221. 221.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 21, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    @joe from Lowell: f

    Joe:

    There you go. “The Church” and “The Hierarchy” are basically one in the same.

    You can’t separate the two, and there’s a reason for that. It’s part of the entire design.

    This is where Protestants got off the boat, starting nearly five centuries ago. It’s the reason for the Reformation.

    And you wind up defending the individuals who constitute the hierarchy when you reflexively rush to the defense of “The Church”.

    Quite aside from my views of of religion, in general, which are more of the PZ Myers school of thought on that, my beef is with the reflexive rush to defend “The Church” when the various felonies committed by people well into the hierarchy are wished away as being actionable because, well, it’s “The Church” we’re talking about here.

    Sorry, but they’re utterly and irredeemably corrupt. None of this “Jesus forgave my sins” bullshit that the vile Gingrich creature (a Catholic, btw…) as he proceeds to check out the ass of some campaign worker and contemplates the unceremonial dumping of wife #3.

    No, instead, let’s talk about beautification of John Paul II, who ALSO helped with the cover up of the pedophile priest scandal.

    The rot is deep. Dunno how you Catholics are going to deal with it…but a reflexive defense of “The Church” ain’t the answer when the rot is that deep.

  222. 222.

    fitzwili

    March 21, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    Well from the Epicopalian side we brought unto you a nice gin and tonic so that should count.

  223. 223.

    jprfrog

    March 21, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    Uh…I haven’t scrolled all the comments, so I might be late with this, but…

    Ever heard of J. S. Bach (a Lutheran)? BTW today is his 326th birthday.

  224. 224.

    beckya57

    March 21, 2011 at 9:40 pm

    As a David Bowie fan, I’ve offended by your dissing of cocaine, his drug of choice.

    And yes, while the leadership of the CC is pretty much a lost cause, many Catholics are quite reasonable and caring people, who have the good sense to ignore much of what their leadership says.

  225. 225.

    Gus

    March 21, 2011 at 10:39 pm

    I know he stopped believing and stuff, but he was influenced

    Having studied Joyce a bit, I’m not 100% certain he really quit believing entirely. Your observation about heroin vs. cocaine, though, right on. It never occurred to me before, but music and musicians really go to hell when they get hung up on blow.

  226. 226.

    Pseudonym

    March 22, 2011 at 12:31 am

    At some level the fact that American Catholics tend to be somewhat liberal isn’t too surprising; it may have more to do with their historic place as unwelcome immigrants in American society than their religious beliefs. Another possible influence is the simple fact that Catholics by definition aren’t evangelicals, they don’t believe in the literal word-for-word interpretation of the Bible or young Earth creationism or some of the more obvious nonsense, so people with “issues” and a tenuous grasp on reality might be more likely to flee the Catholic church for somewhere they can maintain epistemic closure.

    That doesn’t really explain lay nutcases like Bill Donohue, Rick “Frothy” Santorum, Tom Monaghan, Mel Gibson, 56% of the Supreme Court…

  227. 227.

    Xenos

    March 22, 2011 at 12:32 am

    From Drinan to Dolan in one generation. What a pity.

  228. 228.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    March 22, 2011 at 12:41 am

    @fraught: With DOMA, there is no such thing as gay married in the states. No gays in the US can comment on that.

  229. 229.

    Xenos

    March 22, 2011 at 12:55 am

    @Pseudonym:

    Catholicism has both liberal and authoritarian tendencies and traditions. Now the authoritarians are ascendant you find authoritarians (eg. Clarence Thomas, Newt Gingrich)attracted to the authoritarian sectors of the Catholic Church. This says more about the converts than the church as a whole.

  230. 230.

    Ecks

    March 22, 2011 at 2:50 am

    Does the Church of England at least get niceness?

  231. 231.

    Lee Baker, Westerville, Ohio

    March 22, 2011 at 9:12 am

    I used to think I was a “lapsed Catholic”. Who knew that Catholicism would lapse? But when they move pedophile priests around they became theological incoherent, and they don’t seem to realize it. I think Pope Paul VI (is that right? With our movement back to Roman Numerals these days I get confused) flat out repudiated it and said the offenders should be removed. But he was the stongest — perhaps the only — voice from Church authority who has said so. Benny says, well maybe taking a longer view pedophilia may be tolerated in some cultures(!) Also, abortion, “No!”, wars of choice based on lies, “No problem!” (This was when he was in his meddling in US politics mode.) They’re f***’n done, over. Last rites? On my death bed I wouldn’t allow one of those creeps to do a fly-over.

    Yes, Joyce was certainly influenced by the Church. He was jesuitical in his systematizing, but magical all the same, and to the very end. Who ever thought to use language in such a way? And to carry it through with such thoroughness and humor. It’s — all of it –unique and beautiful stuff.

    Protestant contributions? Well I’m late posting on this thread and in scanning through the comments I know this point has already been made, but it can’t be overstated: BACH!!!

  232. 232.

    Harold

    March 22, 2011 at 9:19 am

    Shakespeare, Milton, Rembrandt, Goethe. Purcell, Handel. Van Gogh. English romantic poets and American Transcendentalists (last two tended to be Unitarians).

    Catholic countries more generous patrons of the arts.
    J.S. Bach’s greatest work was written for a Catholic prince.

    Michelangelo did some of his greatest works for the Republic of Florence (not only the Vatican and Medici Princes).

  233. 233.

    shortstop

    March 22, 2011 at 10:03 am

    @Pseudonym: It’s not just the U.S. Catholics in the U.K., Europe and Australia tend, in varying degrees, to be more liberal than their church. Catholics in the least developed areas of Latin America and Africa tend not to be. Think it has less to do with any uniquely American experience and more to do with an escape from rank poverty creating an uppity anti-authoritarianism among the flock.

  234. 234.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 22, 2011 at 10:27 am

    @Erikthe Red: Not recognizing the references? Lawrence Taylor played linebacker for the New York Giants and was a fearsome force in his day.

  235. 235.

    FlipYrWhig

    March 22, 2011 at 10:28 am

    Chalk up, for the Bloody Papists, Miguel de Cervantes.

  236. 236.

    Karen

    March 22, 2011 at 10:48 am

    Catholicsm gives you Stephen Colbert. And Jim Gaffigan.

    Judiaism gives you Jon Stewart.Plus a lot of really neurotic comedians.

    Heroin gives you Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and I believe Jimi Hendryx. And as several people said, the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed.

    And is it me or does a lot of the artist’s creativity get lost when they sober up?

  237. 237.

    RobNYNY1957

    March 22, 2011 at 11:07 am

    What do the Protestants have? Johann Sebastian Bach, thank you very much.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpWY8UrYFJc

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