The War Between the States aka the Civil War (nothing civil about it) divided the nation and Protestant churches. For example the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists all became separated from their northern brothers and sisters.
But not so for Roman Catholics. Why is that?
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Because Catholics, at their best, understand that the Church and the Faith transcend national boundaries, political conflicts, and personal beliefs and ideals. They also understand that God is no respecter of nations, persons, or parties.
My sentiments exactly, pinanv525.
And the Blacks 1) sat in the lofts or stood in the back of Catholic Churches or 2) had "separate but equal" church buildings.
Like you I am glad we did not officially separate, but the segregation was just as real.
In my previous parish and even in this one, the previous founded in 1810 and the one now in the 1840's, the local priests ministered to the slaves and free blacks. They made sure they were baptized and received the other sacraments. Sadly,yes they had to sit in the choir loft or at the back of the Church, but in most white Protestant Churches they were forbidden, even in the back. We have baptismal records from the time of slavery indicating who was a slave and who was a free person. It is a sad chapter in our country with remnants of it still rearing its ugly head even today, but baby, the south as come along way and in many ways is ahead of our northern counterparts in race relations. But it ain't perfect by any means.
One of my teammates in a previous job was the descendant of free, slave holding blacks of South Carolina. They served in the Confederacy and lost much to the occupation that followed. I have two friends in Africa, one literally a prince, the other a regular tribal member, who have known of slaves even to this day. A large number of the faculty in the Wilberforce University, near my home, some are my friends, are essentially refugees from Africa and the persecution and slavery that still exists today. Many of the workers in small hotels, motels, and night clubs in the US today are actually slaves.
If we see it as a race issue we are still slaves.
rcg
You know, Ignotus/S. Truth, it really gets tiresome when you and other self-hating, guilty libs reflexively holler "Ew, ew, slavery" every time anybody says anything positive about the Church, tradition, or the triumphs of Western (and, yes, largely Caucasian) culture. The glory and grandeur of Greece and Rome..."ew, slavery," wonders of the Renaissance..."ew, slavery," the Industrial Revolution..."ew, slavery." Scientists, explorers, inventors, artists, economists...all the succcesses of our culture and tradition that led to the US Constitution that banned slavery..."ew, ew, slavery." Fr. says I cannot say "moron" on this blog. So, listen up...you are white...get over it!
Pin - What you find "tiresome" are facts.
Nobody has any problem with those "facts." It is called history. For some reason, doubtless best explicated by a review of Freud's chapters on primitive shame and guilt and early ego introjects, you have a need to feel guilty about it. That is ok, but quit insisting that everyone else be as neurotic as you are with your constant whining, hand wringing, and moralistic grand-standing. You are as self-righteous as any Southern Baptist "blue hair."
Pin, I don't feel guilty about the facts history. Nor do I have the need to gloss over the fact of that the Catholic Church was as segregated as any other church at the time of the Civil War. I love this Church, warts and all.
While God is "no respecter of nations, person, or parties," Catholics at the time of the Civil War did not live up to that standard. I am deeply grateful that we, Catholics and others, have been and are being transformed by grace and are now more Christ-like in our attitudes.
I respect the work God has done in us and pray that what He has begun will be brought to a glorious conclusion.
So, what is your point, Ignotus?
Ignotus, Catholics at no time have lived up to that or any other standard anymore than sinners anywhere. You and your ilk like to pick one particlular moral failure, slavery, and use it in a distributive manner to attack tradition, conservative values, and Western culture generally. So, which is a greater moral failure, slavery or the millions of aborted babies that cafeteria Catholics seem to gloss right over? How about the slavery and human trafficking that still goes on in countries that are tacitly supported by so-called "developed" nations with large Catholic populations? Your words belie your belief in moral "progressivism" for which there is no evidence in history or culture and for which there is no basis in Scripture. You love to trumpet about slavery because it has high emotive content for which there is also no basis in culture. Once again, your white guilt is showing...but, at least you get to wear black clothes every day. Doesn't that help just a little? You could get a black hair shirt and do penance by listening to hip hop all day.
Fr., my understanding is that in the Protestant churches in Macon and throughout the South, many slaves did attend church with their white masters. They usually sat up in a gallery, though. After the war, the former slaves who had attended these churches went on to build their own and these new churches were often (but not always) named for the "white" churches they had come from, i.e. First Baptist Church on High Street and First Baptist Church on New Street.
I don't understand how you find the facts of history to be "attacks" on "conservative values and western culture." Enlighten me?
Enlighten you? You are being deliberately stupid and wiggling like a pig in s... to miss the point. As long as everyone else gets it that is no problem.
Never wrestle with a pig Pin. After a while you figure out the enjoys rolling in the mud.
As I expected . . . no answer. Instead, you revert to your adolescent vulgarity. So much for the conversion of heart offered us in the Lenten season. Better luck next year!
I've answered you in the previous post you pretended to misunderstand. Aren't you being a bit judgemental for a progressive, liberal Priest? You presume to know my heart...and, you are name calling. Shame!
The question you did not answer was "How do the facts of history constitute attacks on conservative values and western culture?"
I don't understand how you can conclude that anyone is attacking western culture or traditional values by pointing out the brutality of many European colonial powers who extracted riches from African and South American peoples.
I don't understand how you can conclude that anyone is attacking conservative values or western culture by pointing out that, while the Catholic Church did not undergo a formal schism in the face of integration, segregation was the de facto reality for whites and blacks in the Catholic Church of that day.
I am trying to understand how you conclude that facts constitute attacks.
Everybody knows the facts, (*bad name*). Most of us accept that history is full of terrible events and wrong ideas. We understand that human nature, in whatever era, remains the same. We also understand that you have to take the good with the bad, celebrating our triumphs and learning from our failures. But, libs want to focus on an institution that ended 150 years ago and use it as a means to denigrate Western culture, the Church, and anything that smacks of tradition. Face it, you feel guilty for being white, you hate tradition as stodgy and limiting, and you and other libs whine alot about liberty without understanding freedom at all...(*extreme profanity...I mean like staying in the Confessional all day kind of profanity*)!!!
Ignotus, I was thinking about attending Mass at your Church to prove to myself that Donatus was wrong. Now, you have me wondering if maybe he was correct, at least in some cases.
For the record, I don't feel guilty for being white. I don't experience guilt over having two hands, a pancreas, or a hairy back, either. I experience guilt when I have acted in sinful ways. Being white is no sin - ergo, no guilt.
For the record I don't hate tradition. On the other hand, I don't elevate to the level of Tradition that which is merely custom.
I find your claim to be this: You can know the history of slavery and segregation in the Catholic Church and talk about it, but that doesn't indicate anything negative about you. If I, on the other hand, who know the history of slavery and segregation in the Catholic Church, talk about it, that makes me a whiner, that makes me ignorant of the true meaning of liberty and freedom.
I understand now. Thanks.
a hairy back really bothers me.
Whose? Yours, I hope . . .
Indeed, there are hairy problems that mere grooming cannot solve. Like spending and borrowing the future, thus putting our children and grandchildren into bondage. Sounds like more slavery to me, but more egalitarian of course, as it enslaves everyone.
Did ya'll notice that instead of a headline condemning inflation, the "ASSociated Press" said consumers are spending more on gas and food?
Hmmmmm, printing money, excessive borrowing caused by excessive spending "taxes" the poorest of the poor via inflation. That's the Obama crowd implementing the "fundamental option for the poor?"
Does it bother anyone else in this discussion that one form of slavery has been replaced by New-Deal politics with an equally evil form of slavery? Although not specifically racial, this new species of slavery does disproportionally disadvantage Blacks by keeping so many of them on the plantation of Big Government. Their elitist masters, including Black and White progressives, convince them that they are incapable of rising above their status.
The Blacks who recognize their dignity and worth as individual human beings rebel against such notions and successfully escape the plantation. Their innate conservativism continues to blossom and thus they suffer vilification and persecution from progressives, regardless of color. They are no longer “Black enough.”
A conservative might well be defined as one who recognizes that human nature doesn’t change, like Catholic teachings on faith and morals do not change. Like the Church, history repeats itself and calls us to change. Progressives ignore the calls and lessons of history and Church and therefore remain Hell-bent on repeating the mistakes of history, ergo, continued slavery.
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