Catholicism in the United States: Republicatholics and Proaborts, together? (updated)
Update: In case the title is not to the point, this post is lamenting the names that either side of the political/religious polemic calls the other, and the results of that trend. For those who are not aware of it, “Republicatholic” seems to be a pet name to call people on the right and “proabort” is the exact converse. There is nothing in this post that intends to treat those names as substantial or true, so, please know that the title of this post refers to a certain (sad) way of characterizing Catholicism in the US: as a collection of people who think the other is one name or the other (or something else uncharitable).
It is sad and strange. The more I think about it, the more sad it becomes. Is this all there is for us, for the Church?
Each side will claim that this dualism is the product of the other’s ideology. But each side has carefully chosen their words of choice precisely because they think it exposes the other side as corrupt. Neither side would accept such a description for themselves, and both sides are sure that with just one more comment, or post, or something, the name will stick and they will win. Or, the more realistic ones, offer their insightful names without hope that the other will change, but out of a sense of justice and truth-telling.
Truth be told, these names will never stick, and they shouldn’t. These names only objectify and disfigure our sisters and brothers. They are an honest account of the poverty of our faith in these 50 states.
What would it mean to put down the nasty words we assume to reveal the other to us in advance, and asked them to tell us their name now. Even if they replied with a nasty word of their own, what if we realized that they are only a degree removed from where we once were and cared for them? Let me be less pious about it and just speak plainly:
When will we end this war and division that is fought with language that can incite hatred and anger and rants and raves and lose and disfigure Christ? Even more bluntly: When will we speak to each other as friend and not foe—as person? What will it take?
Death? Forgiveness? Love? War? Triumph? Catholic? Jesus? The State? Culture? What?
I invite you to answer in the spirit of the question.
Comments are closed.
Few thoughts, Sam.
First, I think discussing things in the blogosphere, it’s a real challenge to conduct oneself charitably. You’re not seeing the person with whom you disagree, and thus his motives for saying what he says can easily be assigned by the reader’s imagination;
Secondly, I think there are conversations (I can’t think of a structure for them, sorry) that really need to happen, because I think a lot of people on both sides feel as if their legitimate concerns are dismissed by the other side, rather than being engaged and discussed honestly.
Thirdly, the political conversation in the US is shaped to a very large degree by mass-media whose interest is not in truth but rather in conflict for ratings’ sake. The media instigates shouting matches, because people like to watch them.
When will we end this war and division that is fought with language that can incite hatred and anger and rants and raves and lose and disfigure Christ? Even more bluntly: When will we speak to each other as friend and not foe—as person? What will it take?
It is not difficult. I am a Democratic Party Precinct Captain. The Republican Captain for the same precint is a fellow Catholic (though different parish). We have come to know each other over the years standing outside the polling place on election day. We talk about the weather and worry it might rain on us. We shrug when someone walks by annoyed at both of us handing out literature. We see each other in the neighborhood now and then and at Catholic events.
For both of us, our faith animates our politics.
The key for us, is that I think both of us JOY in the fact that we have different politics yet are united at the Communion rail.
Sam and let me say this I am entering this with all Charity. I am Catholic that happens to be a Republican. Can you tell me first what does a so called “repubCatholic” is for and what does a DEMcatholic(left out of your post) is for.
I was for immigration reform like many GOP folks including the GOP nominee and yet I saw the now President kill it by a poison pill. Now many of my GOP folks disagreed with me but some of the most GOP loving conservative did not. I bring this up because I guess your title of your post portrays a lets say bias that is counterprouctive.
I currently live in a State where for instance both Democrats and Republicans disagree on certain Obama proposals rooted in Catholic SOcial Justice. On others areas they disagree.
I guess what I am saying is if you are looking at this in Charity then perhaps your title of this post betrays that well it might need to start with you. I am a Republican and a Catholic. I don’t think I am aligned with pro aborts. Maybe you can tell me how I am.
These are hard issues. The Church has time after time said it does not endorse a particular political viewpoint on how to reach those soultion of Catholic SOcial justice. Until both the left and tight realize that on these issues (that are not non negotiable) then we shall have this stand off.
IN the end you paired a particular political party with a vague term Proaborts. You need to widen your critcism.
The key for us, is that I think both of us JOY in the fact that we have different politics yet are united at the Communion rail.
I’m increasingly puzzled by comments like this.
Are we all “united” at the communion rail? Really? We barely look at one another when we go to church. Some “traditionalists” want to do away with the sign of peace to reinforce that the Mass really isn’t about unity — that is, it’s not about us being united with one another, but about us as individuals being “united” to Christ, but sidestepping any sense of the church as one Body in the Eucharistic feast.
What would it mean to be “united” at the communion rail anyway, when various policies that either side is pushing result in the deaths of members of the Body of Christ which we claim to receive and become at the communion rail? What kind of unity are we talking about?
I do think we are united on some level around the Eucharistic table, don’t get me wrong. But the liturgy after the liturgy exposes the disunity that exists even as we gather as “one Body.”
“Can you tell me first what does a so called “repubCatholic” is for and what does a DEMcatholic(left out of your post) is for.”
jh: I must have not been clear enough, the terms I used are the most often used terms by either side, they are not a comprehensive list of nasty words. And they exist in am polemic, not side by side. The point is that the reduction is usually to call each other these names in a way that avoid real, rigorous disagreement. As Matt says, we are too often left with the very poison the media gives us, I think. So, I have no affection for these terms, none of them.
The media instigates shouting matches, because people like to watch them.
As Matt says, we are too often left with the very poison the media gives us, I think.
I searched Google News (not the Web) for “Republicatholics” and got not one hit. A search for “pro aborts” or “pro-aborts” got eight hits, half of them from pro-life “news” sources.
Now, I don’t know how many news sources Google News draws from, but it is thousands and thousands, large and small.
If a term doesn’t come up in a Google News search, it’s not being used by “the media” in the sense you mean here.
It is way too convenient to blame “the media” for everything. In this case, it won’t wash. There’s poison, but it’s not coming from “the media.”
I am not claiming to have invented the term Republicatholic, but I have not seen it used anywhere but at Vox Nova and my own personal blog, to my recollection. When I started using the term, I was not, to my knowledge, using a term I had heard somewhere else. In any case, use of the term “Republicatholic” for a Catholic Republican seems somewhat harmless (and pretty damn funny in some cases) when compared to the use of the term “proabort” to describe simply a “liberal” (whatever that means) Catholic when he or she is simply not pro-choice. The former is simply a joke meant to tease. The latter is often simply a lie.
It is my hope that one of the things we can do about this problem is to conduct ourselves as Christians here at Vox Nova (and wherever else we visit in the blogosphere). As Matt points out, this is a difficult place to be charitable. Let’s make a concerted effort to stand out, not just for our views, but for the way we engage one another.
David: You are right about the insular nature of my observation, it is pretty much an “in-house” problem (within the Catholic blogosphere), but comes from larger sources (e.g. media, and other thing too).
However, I am not using the words as specific terms, but rather to express a certain uncharitable sentiment they express. I have used phrases from both sides at different times in my life, but lacked the cleverness to express them in a single term. I often would say that democrats, liberals and pro-choicers (that were all the same thing, of course) were baby-killers. I later used to say that too many (conservative) Catholics assumed that Jesus and the GOP were synonymous. I was wrong in both respects. Primarily, becuase I was not concerned about the Truth, but about hurting those who disagreed with me and hurting them into submission.
These feeling of mine are captured by these terms—terms you can find in the comboxes at Vox Nova, American Catholic, and more. I think that they prevent us from actually engaging in rigorous and even agonistic (but not antagonistic) dialogue.
The empirical case is beside the point, for me.
On the media, though, you are quite right, most of the blame should rest squarely on our own shoulders (myself included).
Michael: I think that, in the same way, the actual semantics of the terms (what they mean individually) is less important to me here.
The point is that the sentiment required to try and slap a label on a person, or even an ideology, requires work, hard work. Doing that work is important, to be sure, and such language—or, to put it another, the sentiments required to use such language—is counterproductive, I think.
TIPS ON CIVILITY
USE EMOTICONS
As is often pointed out, tone is very important, but without hearing someone’s voice, it often happens that what was not meant as a hostile remark or an insult is nevertheless read that way. This is why emoticons were invented for Internet discourse. Note the dramatic difference between these two examples
Wrong
You are a blithering idiot and have incurred excommunication latae sententiae for your heretical rants.
Right
You are a blithering idiot and have incurred excommunication latae sententiae for your heretical rants. ;-)
ALWAYS BE RESPECTFUL
Make sure you always make it clear that you respect your interlocutor and disagree only with his ideas.
Wrong
You’re a pretentious, pompous idiot whose pathetic understanding of theology makes the Baltimore Catechism sound like Hans Urs von Balthasar.
Right
With all due respect, you’re a pretentious, pompous idiot whose pathetic understanding of theology makes the Baltimore Catechism sound like Hans Urs von Balthasar.
REMEMBER ROMANS 12:20
[I]f your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head!
Right
You evil SOB!
Right
My dear brother, though you may ridicule and taunt me, I keep you in my prayers in the sincere hope that you may repent of your current positions and escape the eternal torments of hell.
Sam,
While I agree that invective is too often used in place of dialogue, and people are often too quick to assume bad faith on the part of their opponents, it seems to me that while name calling ought not to be inevitable, very strong disagreements probably are.
Because the parties are associated, to one extent or another, with issues that people take very seriously at a moral level (violence against the unborn, war, the “violence” of capitalism, immigration, approaches to health care, the definition of marriage, euthenasia, etc.) people end up with very strong views as to whether it is acceptable from a moral standpoint to vote for one party or the other (or any at all).
This is compounded by the tribalism of our political climate, in which it is standard to assign good motives to those in one’s own party and bad motives to those in the other. Even when one realizes this is the case, it’s hard to resist thinking in these terms to some extent. For instance, when a fellow Catholic who I know is a huge Democratic Party tells me “Catholicism may not require that you vote for any one party, but it certainly makes it impossible to vote Republican” find myself in a state of some perplexity: If one can reconcile oneself with that party’s support for abortion (and to a lesser but not inconsequential extent gay marriage, euthenasia, secularization of the public square, etc.) I find it very hard to understand how any other party would be beyond the realm of possible support. But obviously, there are those (some of them authors here) who see it as absolutely impossible for a serious Catholic to vote Republican, yet quite possible for one to vote Democratic.
I think you’re right that there should be an acknowledgement that we are all united as members of the Body of Christ — but given that those on both sides often base their objections to the policies of the other side on their understanding of Christ’s teachings, I think it’s understandable that there’s tension there as well.
Darwin: You are right that these issues are not trivial. However, it is precisely because of that name-calling is so problematic. It denies the chance to really get into a serious and even heated discussion over real things with real people, I think.
Sam,
To clarify: I agree with you that name-calling is problematic and unnecessary. I try to avoid it, though I’m sure that if one searches long enough one can probably find me transgressing.
What I do, however, fear is very hard to avoid is the sort of thoughts about one another that leaves one likely to name call.
So for example, given what I think to be true about how the world is and how it works, it is hard for me to believe that a Catholic who enthusiastically endorses Obama because of concerns about war, health care, and the economy takes the evil of abortion all that seriously — because it seems clear to me that the amount of good which Obama is likely to do in regards to war, health care, and the economy is very small, and thus I find it impossible to see how these rather slight benefits could out-weigh the moral scandal of giving one’s support to someone who endorses abortion as a right (however “tragic”).
Similarly, the reaction of left leaning Catholics to me makes it fairly clear that, at least in their minds, the possible goods to be achieved by free market economics or by the Iraq War are so small, that the only possible explanation is that in fact I hate the poor and hate Iraqis.
Now, I think it certainly helps conversation, understanding, and general peace if both sides avoid turning those impressions into insulting labels, but I have more difficulty understanding how people can avoid having the impressions themselves — short of people being rather more hesitant about their politics (which is something I try to do, though with mixed success.)
Darwin,
My personal experience is that it is much easier for me to avoid having bad impressions about people with whom I disagree on serous issues if I have a genuine relationship with them apart from the discussion of those issues. When I know someone who is a serious Catholic, a loving parent and a loyal friend, it is much easier to treat him charitably when we disagree about same-sex marriage. I think that in the blogosphere, where we are missing those personal connections, we need to be able to give people the benefit of the doubt. Most people I meet in real life are quite decent folk. It takes practice, but if we imagine that the people on the internet are whole people with real lives and concerns and hopes and fears, I think we will grow better at treating each other with charity. (Not that I have always succeeded myself.)
DC,
I’ve never believed you hate the poor nor hate Iraqis. Nor do I think it is true of most Republicans. I do think the results of Republican policies are unjust to the poor.
And while I accept (with sadness) that you think I do not take the evil of abortion all that seriously, I’m familiar with many other Republicans, starting with Senator McCain, Party Whip Cantor, former President Bush, National Chairman Steele and Senate Leader McConnell who would not make the same accusation.
So I think it is quite possible to have more respect for differing discernments that we see on this and other blogs, at certain Town Hall meetings, on talk radio, etc.
Brett,
That’s a good point about knowing people in person. Knowing and liking someone personally is a major help in not seeing them as nothing more than the sum of their objectionable opinions. Though at the same time, I think often when we know people personally we instinctively avoid talking too much about those topics most likely to cause division, or when we do so we do it in a light, semi-humorous manner — sticking to banter rather than serious discussion.
So it may be doubly hard to maintain that in an online environment where people not only don’t know each other personally, but are specifically there to talk about topics which often raise contention.
Kurt,
For what it’s worth, you seem like you’d actually be someone fairly pleasant to meet in person, which I guess is proof of Sam’s point that people respond well to not being called “RepubliCatholics” or come to that “Calvinists” or “militarist” all the time.
DC,
I don’t even consider “Calvinist” a slur. My grandfather was raised as a member of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, a Calvinist/Reformed body.
True. I’ve known some great people who are very proud of being Calvinists, because they believe Calvinism to be reflective of the truth.
Arguably, however, it becomes a slur when one Catholic tells another Catholic “you’re being a Calvinist” about a topic — I suppose rather in the same way “socialist” is not necessarily a slur (after all, there are lots of people who choose to be members of socialist parties) but calling people who are not actually socialists “socialist” as a way of categorizing their views as false is generally considered an attack or slur.
DC, I’ve never believed you hate the poor nor hate Iraqis. Nor do I think it is true of most Republicans. I do think the results of Republican policies are unjust to the poor.
Nor have I, though I do think that the poor and Iraqis fall well outside of your circle of concern.
Good point, DC. I am a Socailist. And as a Socialist, I’m well aware the President is not one.
If I observe that there is a certain ideology that wraps up republicanism and Catholicism (contrary to the plain sense of the gospel and Catholic teaching as well), and if I call that, along with Michael I., “republicatholicism,” is that an “uncharitable sentiment”? I guess that depends on my state of mind when I make the charge, but there is also an argument in there susceptible to counterargument–so let’s hear it. That’s debate.
Whether the debate itself does all that much good is another question!
David – I would argue that it’s not uncharitable to refer to “republicatholicism” or “republicatholics” in general, which is how I tend to use the term. It would be uncharitable to say something like “What do you know? You’re just a republicatholic.”
I agree that there are special problems given that there’s no room for F2F interaction on the internet.
http://www.netlingo.com/word/F2F.php
That’s why I mentioned ‘cyber-balkinization’ as a factor in the acrimony vis a vis the ‘traditionalists vs. the progressives’(‘Chaput/Pavone vs. Kmiec/Korzen’ or ‘CatholicVote vs CatholicsUnited’) in another post, but here is a link to a story about a book on the subject (of politics and the net) that I found interesting.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/07/sunstein/
On the other hand, a personal relationship can make things more intense, rather than more respectful. When I was a teen my father and I threw canned vegetables at each other over a political argument- while they were still in their cans!
I would argue that it is impolite to use a term to describe someone if they tell you that they reject the term. If you insist against their wishes, then it’s merely name calling.
Over a period of 3 months in 2005, I was finally able to convince my dad to start using the term ‘pro-life’ instead of ‘anti-choice’. My argument was simple. If you accept my name for myself, then I’ll accept yours. Using someone’s preferred name isn’t an endorsement of the ideology that caused them to choose the name; it merely acknowledges that it reflects THEIR OWN view of their ideology. Also, it allows you to get beyond labels and actually talk about something more substantive.
If you call someone a ‘proabort’ or the ‘American Taliban’, then you just shut each other down and waste everyone’s time.