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Tag: Catholics

The River Ganges

The River Ganges

Look closely: those crocodiles coming ashore to eat the children are actually Catholic Bishops!  The boy standing bravely on the beach has a Holy Bible sticking out of his coat. A gutted building behind them is labelled Public Schools.  What’s this all about? In the 1870s, when this Thomas Nast cartoon was published, Protestants were aggressively casting Catholics as anti-Bible.  The reason: the Catholics resisted having their kids forced to read the King James version of the Bible (instead of…

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Katholic Killers

Katholic Killers

Note that this cheerful Klansman, sitting on a Catholic clergyman,  is holding both a Holy Bible. That’s because in the 19th and early 20th century, many Protestants claimed that Catholics were anti-Bible. This stemmed in part from Catholic efforts to stop the Protestants from forcing public school children to read from the King James translation of the Bible.   Ironically, Catholics actually did want the Bible to be taught but wanted their children to work off of a Catholic translation. Protestants…

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Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium

Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium

Evangelicals and Catholics Together May 1994 As the Second Millennium draws to a close, the Christian mission in world history faces a moment of daunting opportunity and responsibility. If in the merciful and mysterious ways of God the Second Coming is delayed, we enter upon a Third Millennium that could be, in the words of John Paul II, “a springtime of world missions.” (Redemptoris Missio) As Christ is one, so the Christian mission is one. That one mission can be…

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Dignitatis Humanae: Declaration on Religious Freedom:

Dignitatis Humanae: Declaration on Religious Freedom:

Pope Paul VII December 7, 1965 Vatican II issued this important document, which shifted the Catholic Church’s approach to religious freedom, embracing the American approach.  The statement had been pushed hard by American Cardinals and academics. Dignitatis Humanae was used later by reformers within the Catholic Church who were fighting Communism and other tyrannies. Pope John Paul II’s biographer, George Weigel, argues that he owed his effectiveness, as both archbishop of Krakow and pope, to this Madisonian document. “Absent Dignitatis…

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John F. Kennedy’s speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association

John F. Kennedy’s speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association

John F Kennedy September 12, 1960 John F. Kennedy decided he needed to address the Catholic Issue directly. He did so during a speech in Houston. Reverend Meza, Reverend Reck, I’m grateful for your generous invitation to speak my views.  While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election; the spread of Communist influence, until…

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Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Education by Horace Mann

Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Education by Horace Mann

Horace Mann 1844 Education reformer Horace Mann argued that the Bible by itself—when presented without commentary—was pure and universal, making “the perfect example of Jesus Christ” lovely in their eyes. But he opposed Catholic proposals to allow both Protestant and Catholic translations of the Bible to be taught. Here he explains why: And by allowing and enforcing two different religions, the government proclaims its own absurdity, for both cannot be right. Two opposites may both be wrong, but, while truth…

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Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Catholicism in the United States

Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Catholicism in the United States

Pope Leo XIII January 6, 1895 “It would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity…

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“Yes, the Klan Has No Catholics”

“Yes, the Klan Has No Catholics”

Klu Klux Klan Song Book A couplet from “Yes, the Klan Has No Catholics,” one of the anti-Catholic songs in the Ku Klux Klan Song Book:     Source(s): Jacobs, “Co-Opting Christian Chorales,” p. 370; Danny O. Crew, Ku Klux Klan Sheet Music (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003), p. 207.

Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States Through Foreign Immigration and the Present State of the Naturalization Laws by Samuel Morse

Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States Through Foreign Immigration and the Present State of the Naturalization Laws by Samuel Morse

Samuel Morse 1835 Excerpts from Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States (1835).  At the time, Samuel Morse was a well known painter and a prominent anti-Catholic writer. He would later go on to help invent the telegraph and the Morse Code. He also ran for mayor of New York City as a nativist, but lost badly. [W]e well know what is the nature of Roman Catholic ecclesiastical rule, — it is the double refined spirit of despotism,…

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Al Smith Response To Charles Marshall in the Atlantic

Al Smith Response To Charles Marshall in the Atlantic

Al Smith May 1927 Charles Marshall had written a major piece in The Atlantic arguing that Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic nominee, could not be truly independent from the Church.  Smith’s response, largely written by his advisor Joseph Proskauer, was a significant explication of how to be a Catholic politician in America. Charles C. Marshall, Esq. DEAR Sir: — In your open letter to me in the April Atlantic Monthly you ‘impute’ to American Catholics views which, if held by them, would leave open…

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