I remember when “Passion of the Christ” came out, I had friends who went to see it. I said I wouldn’t give my money to such an anti-Semitic project. They said “oh, people say everything’s anti-Semitic these days”. I told them to read the Gary Wills piece about it. So when Gibson and got arrested and said all that crazy shit, I wasn’t surprised. I’m not surprised by this either:
Waskow, a progressive rabbi involved in the Jewish Renewal movement, had criticized the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a Huffington Post op-ed for “attacking the religious freedom of millions of American women and the religious freedom of American nuns” over contraception.
(Bill) Donohue (head of the Catholic League) responded with a note to Waskow that launched an email exchange that ended with a warning, forwarded to BuzzFeed by a source close to the rabbi, that “Jews had better not make enemies of their Catholic friends since they have so few of them” (Donohue writes that this is a saying of Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York). Donohue also includes a postscript saying, “I do not have a long nose.”
Right-wing Catholics are assholes. And, generally speaking, they do hate Jews. It’s just a fact.
Here’s something I don’t understand: the minute I hear this “watch out, we’re coming for this group” stuff, I immediately think — not intellectually, but instinctively — that they might come for me next. Why doesn’t everyone think this way?
Ellen
Right wing Catholics do not believe that there was ever a significant number of pedophile priests. They think that it was all dreamed up by greedy Jewish lawyers to make a buck.
jake the snake
This reminds me of my reaction to the Wisconsin revolt and attempted recall. I felt that, perhaps, finally someone had taken Pastor Niemoller seriously. At least the second line.
“First they came for the communists…” If you look around, there ain’t many commies.
“Then they came for the trade unionists.”
????
Villago Delenda Est
I’m not surprised, either.
Right wing Catholics are still pissed about the Reformation, and want revenge. Hell, they’re pissed about the schism with the Eastern Orthodox!
Linda Featheringill
Since it is the Inquisition [same group, new and improved name] that is going after the nuns, there’s a real possibility that no one is safe.
And if the American Church hierarchy threatens the entire ethnic group of anyone who criticizes them, then again no one is safe. We’re all kin to somebody.
El Cid
It’s pretty rare historically for authoritarian and right wing Catholic movements to blame Jews for stuff, right?
cannonfodder
I don’t really have any problem with Catholics. IMHO they are less confused than other religions. I personally think all the hot air is some agenda they have that has nothing to do with whatever it is they are saying they are all outraged over.
Polish the Guillotines
Israeli Nuclear Weapons: 100+
Vatican Nuclear Weapons: 0
Maybe it’s the Catholics who should be worried. I’m not sayin’. I’m just sayin’.
Linda Featheringill
@Ellen:
Oh, my. So are we going to Christianize the leftover Nazis or will the leftover fascists Nazify the Christian institutions?
delphi_ote
Donohue is a giant douchebag, maybe the biggest douchebag in mass media these days, but I predict the long nose comment is a Pinoccio reference, not a Jewish stereotype reference.
El Cid
@Polish the Guillotines: Yeah, but those are Israelis, not, you know, Jews, if ya knowwhutimean.
dollared
Every time I read Charles Pierce on what he calls “the clan of the red beanie” I wonder less at the corruption of the RCC, than I wonder at the way that US Irish Catholics have become conservative assholes rather than rebellious advocates of the rights of working people.
It truly is sad when people forget where they came from. It makes them lesser people.
schrodinger's cat
Religious fanatics are the scariest of them all, doesn’t matter what religion.
Felinious Wench
One more crosses the line into an “ism.” it’s not a ni-clang, still waiting for that.
Who publishes the asshole?
As more and more lose their shit, the more we boycott the people paying them, the more go down.
Valdivia
This is one of the things I have never ever ever understood of the neocons who are jewish who make alliances with the wingnuts (catholics or other). I say this as a jew who grew up in a deeply catholic country, a very different experience from being an American jew where you are totally part of the mainstream.
Also, too. I was only able to watch The Passion of Mel by pairing it with The Life of Bryan. The latter is a much better film, of course.
DougJ
@El Cid:
Almost unheard of.
beltane
Bill Donohue must be all pissy that it’s no longer socially acceptable to beat up Jewish kids on Good Friday.
Polish the Guillotines
@El Cid: Sure, but to a slag like Donohue, that’s a distinction of convenience.
eric
Here we go again…liberals bashing religion and people that reject their do-what-feels-good moral relativism. You are all so smug with your assured “life ends at death” and “there is no gray-bearded man in the sky” banalities. You are so sure that you know what does and does not exist…that is why Americans hate liberals, and why you will be the first to suffer under the coming reign of the Holy Roman Empire. Remember, we cultivated and perfected the art of enhanced interrogation.
kd bart
Right wing Catholics are pissed that Jesus was a Jew.
Amir Khalid
The Passion Play, as a genre of religious art, does have a long history of anti-Semitism, doesn’t it? And Mel Gibson based his movie on existing passion plays that did indeed exhibit this anti-Semitism. The Passion of The Christ never made it to movie theaters here, but it did get sold on both legit DVD (marked for sale to non-Muslims only) and bootlegs. I saw it and came away thinking that Gibson was nuts.
As for Bill Donohue: he may have believed that since he was quoting a Jew, directing those words at another Jew could not seem threatening. But if I were the Rabbi, and an unfriendly Christian emailed me something like that, I doubt I’d see it as anything but a veiled threat.
DougJ
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, they’d get all fired up by it and then go on pogrom rampages.
MTiffany
Everybody does. It’s just that those that remain silent are merely hoping to be the last group that the thugs come for, as a result of the fact they kept quiet and didn’t cause trouble.
beltane
And I remember David Brooks criticizing Borat for being “mean” because it caught decent, godfearing Americans off guard.
JWL
“Right-wing Catholics are assholes”.
All right-wingers are assholes.
Linda Featheringill
Catholics make up only about 25-28% of the population. But Catholics and evangelicals together make up slightly over 51% of the population.
http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
If they all joined together, they could probably do significant damage to the rest of us.
But they won’t do that. Most of the rank and file members will just tend to their own lives and let their leaders fuss and fume.
On the other hand, it makes me nervous when an ethnic group that makes up a small portion of the population [Jews in this case] are threatened by the Catholic hierarchy.
The Bearded Blogger
Those who don’t are either involved in or condoning the going after said group.
cinesimon
I think most of us don’t feel this way(I feel it for others, but not myself) because the majority of us are white and have never experienced persecution for our skin color, religion or cultural background.
And given the drive by many in America against empathy, self awareness and, science, fairness etc – and in favor of the cheap and nasty ‘individualism’ known as being self-centered, and now that any form of safety net or social justice is seen as socialism or communism, I’m surprised that there are as many as 20% of Americans who care as much for the rights of others as they do of their own. Yes – that would be liberals.
There are many people now who see beings elf centered and not caring about the rights of others as naturally American. Really sad, but becoming more and more true.
MattF
See, there’s a whole generation of Catholics that just weren’t taught properly, that weren’t kept in line, that aren’t afraid of Mother. That’s Donohue’s big problem. As for the Jews… well, it’s always the Jews, but that goes without saying.
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: They really are still pissed about the schism with the Eastern Orthodox. Fights between the two groups still occasionally erupt at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Ron Beasley
Lest we forget the Catholic Church was created to be the state religion of the Roman Empire and state religions are all about control and political power. They are never that concerned about spirituality. Even after the fall of the Roman Empire the church was the power broker in Europe until the reformation.
Linda Featheringill
@beltane:
I had to laugh, as I had forgotten this quaint little custom. :-)
The Bearded Blogger
@cinesimon:
Actually, only a small percentage of americans are elf-centered. Many non D&D gamer americans conflate patriotism with being a selfish asshole
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid:
Except that Ed Koch denies saying what Donohue says he said.
Sasha
Because everyone thinks they’re part of the group that comes after people and are thus safe from it. (At the risk of Godwinning, a Nazi wasn’t concerned that the Nazis would come after the Nazis.)
Literalreddy
@MTiffany:
“…they might come for me next. Why doesn’t everyone think this way?”
Everybody does. It’s just that those that remain silent are merely hoping to be the last group that the thugs come for, as a result of the fact they kept quiet and didn’t cause trouble.
Djur
@Linda Featheringill: Luckily, Bill Donohue is not a member of the Catholic hierarchy. He rubs elbows and dicks with the Bishops, certainly, but he has no standing to speak for Catholics or the church.
The media just needs to ignore this Jew-hating bully. There’s plenty of conservative Catholics available who don’t indulge in hate speech.
This is hardly the worst thing Donohue has said about Jews, either.
Roger Moore
Because they’re too busy thinking, “Who are we going to go after next?”
DougJ
@Linda Featheringill:
Uh, that already happened.
Gin & Tonic
BTW, Bill Keller’s piece says that Donohue is a divorced father of two, which I didn’t know. Cafeteria Catholic just like everybody else.
Patricia Kayden
So Waskow should shut his Jewish mouth or Donohue and his one-man org will get him? I have Catholic friends who cannot stand the man. Nothing but a blowhard.
DougJ
@Gin & Tonic:
It’s a stupid thing to say anyway. There’s no special animosity between Jews and Catholics in this country. I have Boston Irish family and half their friends are Jewish.
jl
Nice that Donohue finally and so clearly outed himself as a miserable bigot.
I sense an uptick in the rate of rightwing hate monger self destruction. I am wondering, if the Democrats are in such disarray and Mittminions have such a good shot at winning, why are the right wing hate mongers taking themselves out with such gusto. Desperation? Knowledge that their cause is doomed, and all they can do is blow it all up before they lose?
But, then I think, it could be just because their inner demons of crazy and vicious finally catch up with them, each and every one, sooner or later.
I hope the former is true, though.
Josie
I cannot imagine that the majority of Catholics approve of or even like Bill Donohue. The ones I know are too smart to follow the lead of that asshole.
geg6
Wow. As we all know, I have nothing but contempt for the church and their apologists. But I must say this: I grew up in the church and among an entire neighborhood of Catholics. Not once, ever, did I ever hear anti-Semitic sentiments expressed by any person in my circle. By my Protestant, Methodist, and Presbyterian aunts, uncles and neighbors, yes. But never by a Catholic. But then, except for my own mother, none were strict Catholics and all, including my mother, were politically liberal. I must have grown up in a very weird suburban world, never encountering in a serious way, rightwing fascist hacks like the leaders of today’s RCC until my college days. When we ran an election in 4th grade, I was chosen to be one of the candidates. The other student chosen to run and I had a big battle over which candidate we’d be. Nobody wanted to be Nixon and nobody in the class wanted to vote for Nixon. The entire elementary school was like Humphrey central. We were all stunned when Nixon won the election. We never heard a parent discuss voting for anyone else and we didn’t yet understand the damage that the events of 1968 had wreaked on the Democrats.
Anyway, I lost the argument, campaigned as Nixon, and kicked ass in the debates, apparently with a persuasive argument about Nixon’s secret plan to end the war. I also won the election. Heh.
PurpleGirl
@Amir Khalid: Gibson’s father is known as a very right-wing, “tradtional” RC who has backed priests and other who use the Latin mass and various other older forms. It’s one of the reasons he took the family to Australia. He was known as a hot head in and around Peekskill.
As to why many Americans don’t see the problem in such threats, well, they think they are protected by their being white, Christian and male.
ETA: And there’s a generation of Catholics who never learned or don’t remember when they were discriminated against and looked on as if they were ni**ers. Both Irish and Italians experienced this and have forgotten.
Mnemosyne
One of the things that most pissed right-wing Catholics off about Vatican II was its deep and sincere apology to Jews for centuries of persecution. That’s one of the biggest things that schismatic churches like Papa Gibson’s object to. The stuff about masses in English and women not covering their heads in church is small potatoes as far as they’re concerned.
If the Church had stood firmly by Vatican II and rejected the right-wing objections to it, I would probably still be a churchgoing Catholic today. Unfortunately, conservative elements started undermining it pretty much from the day it was made doctrine, and JPII didn’t stand against them, because for the most part (except maybe the Jew-hating), he agreed with the conservatives.
Valdivia
The one time I felt totally self conscious as a jew in this country happened when Glen Beck had his big bacchanal at the Mall two years ago. A friend of mine had a press pass and took me along. The blatant ‘We Are the Elect’ ‘This is Our Country’ not even hidden quasi fascist theology on display scared the hell out of me. Specially a group carrying a huge wooden cross with blood soaked american flags. That gathering wasn’t a political one, it was a revivalist takeover of the public square.
GxB
@Valdivia: Hey Valdivia, I think you mentioned being born in Costa Rica (?) before, 2 questions: 1) Have you ever considered going back?, and 2) If the answer to #1 is yes, can I come with?
Yutsano
@Valdivia: All this for a Mormon. Christian hypocrisy never fails to astound me.
DougJ
@Josie:
Most have no idea who he is. He speaks for very few.
Joseph Nobles
@Amir Khalid: Gibson’s Passion was based on Anne Catherine Emmerich’s The Dolorous Passion of Jesus. One of her embellishments of the story has Jews within the Temple building the cross soon to hold Jesus. So no anti-Semitism here, right?
She’s also responsible for the astounding scene (reproduced so lovingly by Gibson) in which the Roman soldiers flip the crucified Christ over to crimp the nails. It’s the only time I had to stifle laughter while watching the picture show. I got this image of the soldiers cartwheeling Christ down Golgotha. Straight to Hell I’m going.
PurpleGirl
@Linda Featheringill: It seems that the fights erupt regularly around Easter.
Valdivia
@GxB:
I have to be sincere: I never really do as beautiful as it is. It took me a long time to become an American citizen and I am proud of being one and I’ll be damned if after all of that I am going to throw in the towel to the crazies. But: if they do end up taking over, I have my passport still and anyone can come with :)
@Yutsano: I know! I grew up with very public displays of state religion, CR is a catholic country. But I have never, not even there, seen anything like what I saw from Beck and these people. It made me want to go hide under the bed.
beltane
@DougJ: In the Northeast at least, Jews and Catholics have tended to live in the same “ethnic” neighborhoods and later on, suburbs (one nickname for Massapqua Park, LI used to be “Matzoh Pizza Park”). Bill Donohue seems to hunger for the bad old days of 19th century Poland; he is probably alone in this desire.
jl
@PurpleGirl:
I think conservative Catholics get quite annoyed when it is pointed out that the Eastern Orthodox Church has more claim to being the original one true church than RCC.
And a number of born again fundy Christians I knew from when I was growing up who got burned out on the crazy, the paranoia, the anti science, all the BS, converted to Eastern Orthodox, when they wanted to remain spiritual but had to give up them hellfire crazy fundy prot ways.
Not sure if that is true elsewhere, and quite a big Eastern Orthodox population where I grew up. Edit: which might explain the odd transformations I saw in my home town.
jl
@Valdivia:
” But: if they do end up taking over, I have my passport still and anyone can come with :) ”
Wow! Thanks! Put me down on the list too. Let me know when you feel time to start taking deposits.
Costa Rica is a beautiful place, and the country has done some very admirable things.
magurakurin
@eric: nice try, but we already have someone for the position. If David Koch leaves, though….perhaps you could leave your name and number…if something opens up….
Nick
I guess it’s probably just me but…I don’t know, I can see someone liking Glenn Beck. Like, he’s an asshole but I can understand someone being like, “Yeah! Give it to them libruls, Glenn! You show those fuckers!”
But Bill Donohue? Whenever I read stuff like this, he has this…quality to him where really cannot imagine anyone associated with him being like anything other than, “Jesus, Bill, calm down. You’re embarrassing us. Look, I’m sorry about him. Here, please take a kleenex to wipe that spittle off your face.”
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@dollared:
As one who sprang from that very stock (well, 50%)… I wonder the same damned thing every day.
Nick
PS. I can totally imagine how that conversation between Koch and Donohue went.
Koch: Well, I hope that our communities will become closer as time goes on. After all, Jews need all the friends we can get! [because there’s so few of us!]
Donohue: Haha, you’re right! [because if you piss us off, we might just kill you all!]
So it’s pretty understandable that Donohue got confused once you account for the fact that it’s hard for a human shaped piece of shit to understand the nuances of human communication.
the Conster
@eric:
Needs more cowbell.
DougJ
@Nick:
I don’t think the Kochs are Jewish.
EDIT: I see, you mean Ed Koch. I’ve go the Koch brothers on the brain.
lacp
The reason most people aren’t afraid of Bill Donohue coming after them is because they have no idea who he is.
Water balloon
There are a lot of conservative Irish Catholics in the media, but there are a lot of liberal Irish Caholics in the media as well. I don’t think Irish Catholics as a whole are any more conservative than other groups of white people.
Donahue is awful however, and has said some pretty awful racist/homophobic/anti Semitic things before.
GxB
@Valdivia: Hmm, well thanks for the forthright answer. I’m always fascinated by opinions from an “outside” angle. Careful with that offer though, we might need a BIG boat. Course I’m only half joking about it all anyway, and I guess I should thank my stars for as good a lot as I got.
Davis X. Machina
@Linda Featheringill: You have to subtract Catholics like me. I’m the socialist I am because the Jesuits had, in the days of Don Arrupe, all of us read The Other America in 9th grade, and later when I heard Michael Harrington was involved in starting a party, I looked into that.
Been a DSA/USA member ever since.
. Preferential option for the poor, and all that.
Water balloon
@DougJ: I’m pretty sure Donohue was talking about former NYC mayor Ed Koch (rhymes with botch) not the Koch brothers.
pseudonymous in nc
@Djur:
I used to take that position, but I think it’s become obvious that Bullshit Bill Donohue exists to spout what the red beanie brigade might think in their off-duty hours, but can’t say themselves.
DougJ
@Water balloon:
Yes, you’re right! My bad.
jl
@DougJ:
” I don’t think the Kochs are Jewish. ”
Koch is a German name, and would be Cook in English. I think most Kochs are German gentiles.
Darkrose
@The Bearded Blogger:
Thalmor puppets! Death to the Dominion and their Imperial lackeys!
…I may have been playing a bit too much Skyrim lately. Sorry.
lacp
@pseudonymous in nc: He does seem to be pretty good in the role of useful idiot for the retrograde parts of the church hierarchy.
Aaron Baker
Bill Donohue is a ne plus ultra.
I’m too lazy to look for it now; but there’s an Irish radio interview of Donohue, in which he excuses the Catholic Clergy’s child abuse–and you can hear the disbelief and horror in the voices of the interviewer and (I think) a victim of that abuse.
stratplayer
Right-wing Jews who think any of these people are their friends are seriously delusional.
Aaron Baker
Here’s a link to the radio interview:
http://www.benedictionblogson.com/2009/11/04/bill-donohue-on-irish-radio-roman-catholic-abuse-survivors-gold-diggers-common-punitive-practice/
Truly a loathsome creature.
Thoughtcrime
Nobody expects……..oh, I’ll come in again!
Roger Moore
@beltane:
Some places in the Southwest, too. That’s why LA Mexican cuisine includes pastrami, including the famous (and inaccurately named) Kosher Burrito.
Maude
@Valdivia:
After the Beck rally, he started to go downhill. That’s the bright side.
You were right to be scared. That hatred is real and dangerous.
jl
@Aaron Baker:
Oh Lordy. Donohue is disgusting. Thanks for that link.
The guest took Donohue to the cleaners and showed what a vicious clown he is.
I wish there was that kind of segment in US corporate media, where there is at least one guest who knows the facts, and has the wit and cool to present them and dissect BS for what it is.
And a host who knows how to regulate the interview and shut down clowns when they try to filibuster.
kc
I’m sure Donohoe was just referring to those anal-sex-loving secular Hollywood Jews.
Gex
@Linda Featheringill: Well, actually they have done that. They’ve done that quite successfully on gay issues and they’ve done some pretty good damage to women’s issues. But other than that…
Steve
Everyone claims to love the Jews these days, especially the wingers. But when you don’t dance to their tune the mask comes off. We’re so ungrateful, don’t you know, after everything they’ve done for us.
Omnes Omnibus
@stratplayer:
There, fixed.
cinesimon
I’ve never understood why right wing Jews and a majority of Israelis – and 100% of settlers – think the Catholic Church – or any right wing ‘christian’ group are allies of Israel and Jews.
In their short-sightedness, it seems that right wing Israelis and political leadership have been too lazy to understand that these ‘Christians’ only motivation is ‘End Times’ fundamentalism, that all Jews must repent and become born again if they want to go to heaven before they perish in the prophesied massive bloodbath with Muslims(creating the infamous 2-meter deep river of Jewish blood)- and that it’s been clear for a ling time now, that it’s in the religious interests of these truly evil people to prod, advocate for, manipulate and incite both sides – the Jews and the Muslims – so they continue to fall in line with their cult-like belief in the End Times.
It sounds like a bizarre conspiracy theory, but it’s very true. The fundamentalists are only pursuing their religious beliefs when they urge Jews to wipe out Muslims, and sell arms to middle eastern dictators.
jl
@Roger Moore: Actually there is a population in the SW, running west from NM with a few scattered as far as Southern CA, that is both Hispanic and Jewish, most of whom have very long and deep roots in the region, from long before most of the ancestors of the current Christian tighty whitey residents even thought about moving the place called Amercia.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@delphi_ote:
I think it’s both a floor wax and a dessert topping!
mainmati
@Linda Featheringill: Raised an American Catholic in the ’60s, a comparatively liberal era compared to now. And still, the contradictions drove me to be agnostic. But, I still distinguish between the upper and lower clergy. The former are utterly corrupt and misogynistic. The latter (pedophile priests excepted) are mostly trying to do a good job but in America the nuns are the true soul of the Good Church.
FlipYrWhig
My background is part Jewish, part Baptist, never even remotely observant, and I was a crusading secularist from the time I was about 6. Even given all that, I don’t want to diminish the social justice Catholics, like the “nuns on the bus,” who are doing a lot to remind me to make finer distinctions between the Catholics who are the problem and the Catholics who are down with the people and hence a goodly part of the solution. It’d be like saying “professors” are smug, self-contented props in an authoritarian hierarchy. Well, some of us certainly are, but not a dominant share.
jl
@cinesimon: How many of these gullible Jews understand that the fundy prot friends want to get up a apocalyptic WWIII right on top of Israel, and are eager to then watch all the Jews who will not convert to their brand of crazy Christianity, to literally die forever in a fire?
batgirl
@lacp:
Yes, I always got the feeling that Donohue is a one man operation and never understood why the press gives him a forum as if he speaks for a large group.
Omnes Omnibus
@Odie Hugh Manatee: As far as I am concerned, Donohue has used up more than his share of benefit of a doubt. I am ready and willing to put the worst interpretation possible on anything the man says.
jl
@batgirl:
“why the press gives him a forum as if he speaks for a large group.”
Because the corporate US news media is a corrupt and depraved goon, thug, and freak show, put on to make money and catapult the propaganda. IMHO.
beltane
@cinesimon: You’d think these right-wing Jews would have at least a faint memory of who it was that persecuted them over the past two millennia, but maybe this type of historical awareness is too much to ask for.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
donahue has to reach a point where he no longer fills the buchanan void as america’s racist uncle.
ericblair
@Darkrose:
I’m not elf-centered. Couldn’t stand Dobby with the Yoda-esque third-person warbling. Tittered with glee when he died. Spoiler alert, BTW.
ericblair
@jl:
Pretty sure the Likudnik nutjobs are thinking how easy it is to manipulate the dumb fundies to do whatever they want, based on the fundies’ crazy interpretation of some BS old scroll written by some tripping lunatic. Works both ways.
Sasha
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Read HOW THE IRISH BECAME WHITE. Same dynamic at work.
David Koch
Geez, I thought Phil Donahue was a nice guy. Who knew.
DougJ
@beltane:
The proportion of Jewish Americans who are right wing is about….you guessed it, 27%.
trollhattan
Can you imagine Donohue’s public platform if (colossal douche) Santorum got the nom? Rih’s campaign made me more aware of Konservative Katholics than anything else I’ve encountered. I feel sorry for the nuns and laypeople who go forth and do Jesus’ work. The asshat wing of the church sullies their actual good works.
Roger Moore
@jl:
The influence I’m mentioning is quite specific; there was a fairly long period when Boyle Heights was home to both Jews and Chicanos, with some obvious culinary influences. I think, though I’m not sure, that the Jews in Boyle Heights were from a completely different stratum from the ones in the Fairfax district.
As for the idea that there is a population of crypto Jews in the Southwest, I’ve heard about people debunking the belief in a large cryptojewish population. They think some of the Jewish rituals they’ve talked about are actually from Evangelical Christian groups that deliberately adopted some Jewish practices and were active in trying to convert Catholics in the Southwest in the early 20th Century.
Phil Perspective
@Djur: Except he does .. Dolan and probably others .. are on the same wave length .. just like Mother Angelica(of EWTN fame) was tight with JPII
Phil Perspective
@batgirl: He isn’t a one man operation. He’s the unofficial spokesbot for people like the Knights of Columbus .. Man-on-Dog .. and other assorted RWNJ Catholics
jl
@Roger Moore:
Well, thanks for tip on the Hispanic Pastrami and the Kosher Burrito. I will look for next time in LA.
As for the SW Hispanic Jews, yes, the customs and story telling and family histories are very confused, and there are tall tales of ‘secret synagogues’ and such.
But fact is, there is a community of Hispanics there who think they have Jewish ancestry and some who identify themselves as Jewish. And I’ve read reports that claim a higher than expected genetic markers typical of a Sephardic population in the area. I would not be surprised if communities of Jews expelled from from Spain ended up there and some cultural memory remains, no matter how garbled and mixed up it is.
Edit: and I don’t think fact that protestant evangelists and frauds from all sides tried to take advantage of the stories necessarily means that the stories are false. Some of the debunkers are all that respectable in their methods and open mindedness either, IMHO.
Tehanu
A teensy nitpick — I see this all the time and it drives me nuts — it’s GARRY Wills, with two R’s, not Gary. Sorry to be so anal.
DougJ
@Tehanu:
Thanks.
Liberty60
This is why every Jew, regardless of their thoughts on economy, social morality, or governance, needs to keep focused on one simple fact:
The professed love of the rightwingers for Israel and the Jews is the same sort of twisted love that prompts lurid murder-suicides, the kind where some guy writes how he loves you so much he wants to wear a coat made of your skin.
For rightwingers, Jews function as just cast extras in their Rapture play. As long as Jews are willing to play their part, they are treated kindly- but step out of line, and watch the fangs come out.
Nick
“The professed love of the rightwingers for Israel and the Jews is the same sort of twisted love that prompts lurid murder-suicides, the kind where some guy writes how he loves you so much he wants to wear a coat made of your skin.”
I think that’s a little too kind, actually. Someone who wants to wear a coat made of your skin obviously wants to be close to you. Close to you in an obviously twisted sense, yes, but close to you.
The kind of folks you’re talking about want the Jews to go away. First to Israel and then to Hell, and hopefully in rapid succession.
Valdivia
late but:
@jl:
No deposit needed, yet! :)
@GxB:
no worries we can build a BJ Ark!
Valdivia
@Maude:
this is indeed the one good thing. but that day, boy did I need a drink!
geg6
@cinesimon:
You are seriously deluded if you think any Catholic, including rightwing assholes like Donohue, have any concerns about End Times. Catholicism does not emphasize or even consider that shit. It is not a significant factor in any of their machinations. They laugh and make fun of the Protestant rubes who think the LeHayes are any sort of prophets. The very idea tells me you are ignorant of Catholic doctrine and, though on the right side, too ignorant to discuss the subject in a serious way.
master c
@Linda Featheringill: IF?
They are totally in bed together- sad for me, as I miss my old church.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Omnes Omnibus:
I agree. I was only being snarky about those who think otherwise.
If the foo shits…
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
@jl:
I think the term that both of you are groping for is “conversos” or “Marranos.” Given how early the Spaniards were conquering the Americas, it would make sense that there would be some conversos in their numbers trying to escape the watchful eye of the Inquisition:
Mark S.
That is true. My parents go to a church that still does the Latin mass. One Christmas I was back there, some asshole parishioner was passing out fliers that quoted the Protocols of Zion.
Nutella
The nuns on the bus are in Chicago today and stopped by Joe Walsh’s office to tell him how wrong he is. He said God approves of him voting to starve social programs but added:
Not much of a Catholic boy if he doesn’t know what genuflect actually means. (You genuflect to the altar, not to people.)
Bobby Thomson
Most people are really fucking stupid. SATSQ
brettvk
@geg6: But the practices of Protestant-originated “charismatic” worship have been accepted in some Catholic congregations, or so I hear (glossolalia, etc.) so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch if some Catholics began playing with end-time prophecy. It’s not like they didn’t indulge in it around 1000 CE.
cinesimon
geg6, your manner suggests you can’t be bothered anyway.
jl
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks. Yes, those are the names I was thinking about.
catclub
@Water balloon: “I don’t think Irish Catholics as a whole are any more conservative than other groups of white people.”
Atheists, agnostics, Quakers, vermonters, episcopalians, Jews, scientists.
I could go on.
catclub
@geg6: and yet, the statement of faith is:
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
so the end times are there.
jl
What do you know. Albuquergue official site has a page on conversos and crypto-Jews. Figure it would be NM, that ancestral lore is really big in NM. Awhile back, a friend of mine from Los Alamos was trying to convince me that Ken Salazar, Sec. Interior was a converso. I said what the heck would you, white goy Anglo person, know about it? She says, oh, everyone around here knows about the Jewish Hispanics. But regardless of how many have that heritage, and how much of truth is lost to history, it is a lore widely believed.
Conversos & Crypto-Jews
http://www.cabq.gov/humanrights/public-information-and-education/diversity-booklets/jewish-american-heritage/conversos-crypto-jews
Percysowner
Well, I’m not Jewish. I’m female and I give to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood and my only child is a daughter with a Masters Degree and a determination to not have children until she is financially secure and ready to be a parent. I also used to be a librarian. I’ve always kind of figured “they” would be coming for me one day based on all of the above. So I keep on donating to the ACLU and PP and keep on voting for Democrats and hope for the best. I may be paranoid, but the fact that I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me either.
Mnemosyne
@Nutella:
Makes you wish one of the nuns on the bus was Sister Mary Stigmata (aka the Penguin).
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Well, sort of. Catholic doctrine is that someday the world will end and Jesus will return, but there is no way of knowing how or when it will happen. All of the “end times”/Rapture prophecy bullshit with its detailed timelines is definitely Protestant, not Catholic.
gorram
To be fair to the Irish Catholics of this country (from whose stock I am also partially sprung), they were pretty avid defenders of unions and other institutions for the working class. Until they were well entrenched in the White and Christian middle class (largely as a result).
It’s a sad fact that “I got mine, so fuck you” sets in so very quickly once you feel like something other than a target of discrimination or a marginalized people.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
FTR, it was a Roman that drove the nails in.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
FTR, it was a Roman that drove the nails in.