1521 is an aggressive anti-Catholic tabloid published in England by the Vocal Protestants International Fellowship. In a recent issue is a box with a likeness of the president and the headline, “BILL ‘I LOVE THE JESUITS’ CLINTON” The ensuing article makes hay of Clinton’s affectionate remarks about his Jesuit schooling (at Georgetown University), concluding Clinton to be just another Jesuit stooge in that order’s effort to dominate the world.
“It did not take long before the Jesuit whisper in the Clinton ear was heard around the world. Via the papist lobby, headed by (guess who?) Ted Kennedy, the Jesuits are eager to see their giant silhouette looming large over Ulster.”
It doesn’t matter to the 1521 folks that Clinton’s actions and political philosophy largely oppose the teachings of the Church or that Ted Kennedy, besides being relatively powerless in Washington, has done nothing but hinder the Church’s interests in America. They don’t care that the Jesuits are fragmented and can’t get their own house together, much less worry about taking over somebody else’s. And they want us to believe the focus of this whole Jesuit/Clinton thing is Northern Ireland?
They are convinced, though: “The Jesuits, the cursed Kennedy family, [Gerry] Adams and Sinn Fein [the IRA’s political arm]–the equation is there for all to see, then why is it not shouted aloud for all to hear? Because the Jesuits have an interest in the media too!”
Autumn is just around the corner, which means it’s time for . . . the annual Call to Action National Conference. To be held in Chicago (where CTA is headquartered), this year’s conference, entitled “We Are the Church: What If We Meant What We Said?”, promises to again be a festival of all that is angry and ignorant and proud in the dissenting Church.
Speakers include feminist theologians Joan Chittister and Rosemary Ruether, Matthew Fox (formerly of the Dominicans, lately an Episcopalian), as well as last year’s star of the show, Edwina Gateley, who will again help “celebrate eucharist.”
Among the more interesting-looking talks scheduled for the conference are “Body Prayer and Movement,” “Spirituality for Generation X,” and “The Right-Wing Religious Movement.”
You’ve probably noticed This Rock‘s numerous mentions of and examples from the on-line Catholic Resource Network. In the same spirit we now commend Cheese Whiz BBS, an on-line service with the largest collection of pro-life files in the country and hundreds of files pertaining to Catholic interests. Cheese Whiz BBS is directed by sysop (system operator) Sue Widemark. To log on, telephone (602) 279-0793. There is no charge for membership.
The Book Your Church Doesn’t Want You To Read is the title of the recently-published “textbook of freethought.” Edited by “religious researcher” and former Hawaii governor’s aide Tim C. Leedom, The Book is an anthology of more than 50 essays purporting to “expose and challenge” religious beliefs, and all of the essays conclude that religion is a Bad Thing–especially Christianity: Seven-eighths of the book is devoted to debunking Christianity, and Catholic beliefs and practices are given special attention.
The essays range from the tired and conventional (“The Resurrection: What is the Evidence?”) to the curious (“The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors,”) to the absurd (“Horus: the Way, the Truth, and the Life”). Reminiscent of Fundamentalist writing about Catholicism, this last essay argues that Christianity arose out of pagan religions, so Jesus was nothing special after all, just one of many “sage/saviors” in religious history. The same thing is tried with the Trinity: “As far as we go back into the ancient world, we find that all known cultures had a ‘three-in-one’ triune God.”
The Book has no kind words for evangelism, claiming that Catholic missionaries in the New World had killed “50 million non-Christian natives” within “one century of the ‘discovery of America.'” Nonsense. Look at the mathematics: 50 million in a century works out to 500,000 natives killed yearly (nearly the total of four years’ of casualties during the Civil War) or 1,400 killed daily for a century–even more if the missionaries took a break at Christmas.
Besides, the native population of America didn’t approach 50 million during the 1500s. Did the missionaries import victims? If they killed off everyone, whom did they baptize? Why did they bother to build missions to bring civilization and Christianity to the New World if they were going around wiping out the folks who were supposed to be in the pews?
“From Rome to the Bible Belt, The Book is causing the storm of the century”–so runs the cover blurb, but this is just puffery. Poor research and shrill, antiquated arguments (mostly from the nineteenth century, when this kind of bitter, Ingersollian atheism was hip) mark this shoddy work, which is typical of the “freethinker” crowd, whose scholarship falls below that of even most Fundamentalists. Christianity really bugs these people, but all the thinking in the world can’t “free” them from the Hound of Heaven.
The Let’s Go series of travel guides has been one of the most popular among budget travelers for the last 20 years. What sets these guidebooks apart from others has been the quality of writing. The Let’s Go books are often humorous, anecdotal, and offbeat. This renegade streak has taken a nasty turn of late.
Although in the past Let’s Go has turned up its Harvard-published nose in the direction of the Church (for instance, declaring apodictically that, although the Coliseum in Rome is venerated as a place where Christian martyrs met their fate, “only pagan gladiators died in the games”), an anti-Catholic bent is more in evidence in the latest Let’s Go series.
In Let’s Go: Austria 1994 we find an expanded “health” section with detailed information for “travelers in need of an abortion” in Austria, Hungary, or the Czech Republic. “In Austria, all female citizens have access to legal and risk-free abortions.” Ah, but “legal, risk-free abortions” is a catch-phrase that arises from a certain political and moral attitude–and it’s also false, since no abortion is truly risk-free for the mother, and abortions are intended to be maximally risky for the unborn children. The section on abortion is strikingly cold-blooded: It might have been titled, “Travelers in need of an.aspirin.”
Immediately preceding the abortion section (unintended symbolism?) is advice on contraception: where to get it, what to use, what has the best “quality.” Cheekiest of all is the exhortation, “[Y]ou might want to stock up on your favorite brand at home . . . in case you need some on the flight over.”
In addition to snide remarks aimed Church-ward (many of them critiques of Austria’s “bizarre folk [read: Catholic] rituals”), Let’s Go fudges history and in doing so creates a direct affront to the Church, with which the history of Austria is inextricably intertwined. The writers of the “Osterreich 101” section try their best to present an Austrian history free of Catholicism. They can’t quite pull it off and have to settle for mentioning the Church in passing or, better yet, in unflattering connection with political and social oppression.
Read Let’s Go and you’ll think the Austrians considered the Reformation the best thing since sliced Brot. “Burghers and nobles were drawn to Protestantism because it affirmed rationality [even though Luther called reason “the damned whore”] and freedom from Habsburg despotism. Peasants found the Protestant doctrine attractive because it freed them from onerous tithes to the Church. Social hierarchies, though, kept the two groups from forming a united front against the emperor and Church.”
The ultimate in chutzpah comes with the mention of King Gustavus Aldophus of Sweden, who, according to Let’s Go, was the only thing that “saved the Protestants from further persecution” after Archduke Ferdinand “decided to forcibly convert Austria to Catholicism. But Austria already was Catholic, and it was Gustavus Adolphus who, funded by Cardinal Richelieu of France (who feared a unified Austria), tried to convert Austria to Protestantism. Adolphus, perhaps the greatest military strategist of his age, eventually made his way to the gates of Vienna, where he was killed after getting lost in a fog. His forces were beaten back to the north, and the stalemate was drawn. Today central Europe remains divided along almost the same lines as then: Protestant Scandinavia and northern Germany giving way at Bavaria to the south which, to the apparent chagrin of the editors of Let’s Go, has remained Catholic.
A popular Fundamentalist accusation (one of Jack Chick’s favorites) is that Catholic devotion to Mary comes from pagan worship of the goddess Isis. When confronted with the charge, we do our best to dispel this notion, but a defense of Marian devotion was made no easier by a recent article in the National Catholic Reporter:”GODDESS ISIS ALIVE AND WELL IN COUNTY WEXFORD” This was part of a series of articles surveying the state of the Church in Ireland.
“At the end of an Aeon and the beginning of the space age, the Goddess Isis is manifesting as the feminine expression of divinity,” explains Olivia Robertson, co-founder in 1976 of the Fellowship of Isis. Isis has returned in this age to “restore harmony” to a universe divided by “the principles of patriarchal religion.”
Isis worshipers accept, even promote, the alleged link between Isis and Mary. “Isis kept the flame of compassion alive during the Christian era as the Virgin Mary: Isis bore Horus as a virgin birth.” Marian titles such as Star of the Sea and Seat of Wisdom originally belonged to Isis, say Isis’s followers.
According to Robertson, many Catholics (this is Ireland, after all) are getting in on the act, including two priests: one, a Jesuit who makes no secret of his association, and another who won’t reveal himself and whom Robertson describes as a “higher-up.” The article concludes, “[I]t’s hard to deny that Isis has somehow come back to life down there. It’s a typical Irish religious story.”