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The Party of Prejudice: No Catholics Need Apply
by American Phoenix | August 26, 2007
It was thought by many that anti-Catholic prejudice was finally overcome when John F. Kennedy was elected President of this country.
Would that it were true.
The Democrats have sunk to new lows in Louisiana. I didn’t think it was possible for Louisiana Democrats to do that, but they have exceeded even my low expectations. The Louisiana Democrat Party has put out an ad which claims to be about Louisiana gubernatorial candidate Bobby Jindal’s views on religion. Jindal is a convert to Roman Catholic Church. (Don’t bother to play it; it’s already been removed from YouTube. Apparently, the Democrats didn’t get the reaction they expected. I saw the ad before it was removed from YouTube; it was stunningly malicious and defamatory.)
You can, however, see this video of a newscast about the ad:
The ad itself makes the following claims:
- In the TV spot, the announcer charges that Jindal wrote articles that “insulted thousands of Louisiana Protestants,” and she holds up an article in which she says Jindal “doubts the morals and questions the beliefs of Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Pentecostals and other Protestant religions.”
Louisiana Governor: Backlash Anyone? The Rothenberg Political Report, Stuart Rothenberg, August 21, 2007- The ad claims that Jindal called Protestants “selfish,” “depraved,” and “heretical”. Louisiana Democrats Fear Catholics, Foreigners; Lie About Jindal’s Writings on Religion, The Influence Peddlar, August 21, 2007
- The companion website claims Jindal says that:
- “non-Catholics are burdened with ‘utterly depraved minds’”
- “individuals who ignore the teachings of the Catholic church [are] intellectually dishonest”
- Jindal describes himself as a “Knight in Shining Armor” while assisting an “intimate friend” with her battles with illness.
The website provides links to articles written by Bobby Jindal, many of them at the New Oxford Review, which are available only by subscription. Captain’s Quarters is exactly right: In this, they cleverly write hyperbolic descriptions of his essays while hiding behind the knowledge that readers will have to pay to read them from New Oxford Review….Their [Louisiana Democratic Party] website lies about what Jindal has written, hiding behing NOR’s subscription-only skirts to throw mud at Jindal.
One other incomplete article is provided in pdf format, but tellingly, there is a handwritten note on the article that says “Catholic dossier”, presumably from the files of the Louisiana Democrat Party.
Captain Ed debunks the ad’s claims:
For instance, the description on the essay I bought claims that “Jindal explains how Catholicism has more merit than all other Religions. Jindal states non-Catholics are burndened [sic] with “utterly depraved minds” and calls individuals who ignore the teachings of the Catholic church intellectually dishonest.”
When I read Jindal’s essay, however, it says nothing of the sort. Jindal quotes John Calvin as saying that all men are born “utterly depraved” and then argues against it:
One of the most consequential, and yet neglected, Reformation beliefs is the view that utterly depraved man is incapable of meaningful sanctification. This rejection of spiritual regeneration and subsequent separation of spiritual from physical realities has resulted in various widely held current beliefs, ranging from predestination to nominalism. Yet Luther was wrong to claim that our sins are as dung covered by snow, for he underestimated both God’s justice and His power. Faith does more than cause God to ignore our sins, for His grace is enough to accomplish a true spiritual rebirth. In embracing God’s grace, our righteousness becomes imparted, as our sins and their effects are “removed from us” …
He also does not call Protestants “intellectually dishonest.” He says that it would not be intellectually honest to ignore the teachings of the Catholic Church when studying Christianity. That doesn’t mean all Protestants are dishonest, but that any comparative study of the religion without at least seeing for one’s self what Catholicism has to say about itself is intentionally self-limiting. He also calls on the Catholic Church to live up to those teachings in almost the same breath.
The Party Of Tolerance, Captain’s Quarters, Ed Morrissey, August 21, 2007 [emphasis added]
The Cafeteria Is Closed debunks another:
I bought another one of the articles the LDP is using to attack Jindal. This distortion is even worse. The Democrats’ website describes the subscription-only article thus:
Jindal describes himself as a “Knight in Shining Armor” while assisting an “intimate friend” with her battles with illness.
Note the slimy insinuation inherent in putting quotation marks around “intimate friend.” Here’s the actual excerpt:
Though she had not said anything, I knew something was wrong. Susan and I had developed an intimate friendship; indeed, our relationship mystified observers, who insisted on finding a romantic component where none existed.
The Democrat Smear of Bobby Jindal, The Cafeteria Is Closed, Gerald Augustinus, August 21, 2007 [emphasis in original]
Professor Bainbridge says much the same thing. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League debunks yet another claim:
“This is one of the most scurrilous smear jobs we’ve ever seen. When Jindal dropped the term ’scandalous’ in his article, he was referring to the sad historical chapter that witnessed a division within the Christian house. To be exact, he made reference to the ’scandalous series of divisions and new denominations’ that marked the post-Reformation period.”
Louisiana Dems Get In the Gutter: Attempt to Smear Catholic Pol, Catholic League, August 21, 2007
The word “scandal” is a term of art in Catholic parlance. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it means the following:
CCC 2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. the person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.
CCC 2285 Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”85 Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep’s clothing.86
85 Mt 18:6; Cf. 1 Cor 8:10-13.
86 Cf. Mt 7:15.
Jindal obviously wasn’t calling Protestants “scandalous.” He was calling the divisions within the church scandalous because they led Christians to separate, which damages the virtue of unity. The ad doesn’t mention that Jindal praised the vigor and sincerity of Protestant groups. Louisiana Candidate Decries Anti-Catholic Political Ads - CWNews, American Papist, August 22, 2007.
Further, Hot Air reports that Bobby Jindal’s Wikipedia entry was edited to include these smears. According to Hot Air:
The footnote links to title of the article that the Democrat ad mischaracterizes, and the paragraph itself takes the position that the Democrat ad takes. So yes, it looks like the Democrats have edited Jindal’s own Wikipedia page to smear him.
Desperate Democrats attack Bobby Jindal’s religion; Updated: Are Louisiana Dems editing Jindal’s Wikipedia page?, Hot Air, August 21, 2007.
You can still see that Wikipedia entry in the history, although it has been removed from Bobby Jindal’s Wikipedia entry. The person, EnzoAntonius, who edited the Wikipedia entry appears not to have been a Protestant or any kind of Christian at all, but an atheist. Gee, what a surprise. Not!
A WHOIS search reveals that the registered owner of the website is Daniel Mizell. Not surprisingly, it is a private registration, although the owner’s name is not private. Who is Daniel Mizell? Daniel Mizell is or was an intern at the Lousiana Democrat Party. His name once appeared on the Louisiana Democrat Party’s page listing its staff. His name has since been removed, but fortunately, you can see the cached version listing his name. They should have heeded my friend Stormwarning’s advice. You can discover much information over the internet - and in less than five minutes.
An intern! Apparently the Louisiana Democrat Party doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to register this website under their own name, not even the name of their Communications Director, Julie Vezinot. Were they thinking that they could blame this on a “loose cannon”, who has now been fired? If so, I’m not buying it. That would be too convenient.
The question is, to whom do the Democrats think they are trying to appeal? The ad was to be run in three northern Louisiana parishes which are predominantly Protestant. The Curt Jester makes an interesting allusion to the Know Nothings, which was a nativist American political movement empowered by fears that the country was being overwhelmed by Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to American values and controlled by the Pope in Rome. The New “Know Nothings”, The Curt Jester, August 21, 2007. The only difference now is that Jindal is an Indian. Which doesn’t help the Louisiana Democrat Party, since they’ve also been playing the race card all along, referring to him by his Indian name “Piyush”, which he hasn’t used since he was four years old.
Fortunately, this ad didn’t create much traction with its expected audience. In fact, it’s created a backlash so big that even Democrats are coming out against it, as Lair of the Catholic Caveman, and Full Circle point out. The ad has been pulled. While it’s obvious that anti-Catholic prejudice is alive and well, it’s also evident that many people, including non-Catholics and non-Catholic Protestants, are speaking out against it. When will the Louisiana Democrat Party pull the website as well?
Ain’t free speech grand? One is reminded of the Aesop’s Fable in which:
AN ASS, having put on the Lion’s skin, roamed about in the forest and amused himself by frightening all the foolish animals he met in his wanderings. At last coming upon a Fox, he tried to frighten him also, but the Fox no sooner heard the sound of his voice than he exclaimed, “I might possibly have been frightened myself, if I had not heard your bray.” The Ass in the Lion’s Skin, Aesop’s Fables, ed., Electronic Text Center, Univ. of Virginia.
UPDATE (August 30, 2007):
Michael Gerson has written a brilliant column on this. Allow me to quote liberally:
And Jindal’s chosen tradition is a muscular Roman Catholicism. In an article published in the 1990s, he argued, “The same Catholic Church which infallibly determined the canon of the Bible must be trusted to interpret her handiwork; the alternative is to trust individual Christians, burdened with, as Calvin termed it, their ‘utterly depraved’ minds, to overcome their tendency to rationalize, their selfish desires, and other effects of original sin.” And elsewhere: “The choice is between Catholicism’s authoritative Magisterium and subjective interpretation which leads to anarchy and heresy.”
This is the whole basis for the Democratic attack — that Jindal holds an orthodox view of his own faith and rejects the Protestant Reformation. He has asserted, in short, that Roman Catholicism is correct — and that other religious traditions, by implication, are prone to error. This is presumably the main reason to convert to Catholicism: because it most closely approximates the truth. And speaking for a moment as a Protestant: How does it insult us that Roman Catholics believe in . . . Roman Catholicism? We had gathered that much.
This Democratic ad is not merely a tin-eared political blunder; it reveals a secular, liberal attitude: that strong religious beliefs are themselves a kind of scandal; that a vigorous defense of Roman Catholicism is somehow a gaffe.
This is a strange, distorted view of pluralism, which once meant civility, respect and common enterprise among people with strongly held and differing convictions. In the liberal view, pluralism means a public square purged of intolerance — defined as the belief in exclusive truth-claims and absolute right and wrong. And this view of pluralism can easily become oppressive, as the “intolerant” are expected to be silent.
Hat tip: A Strange Way to Woo Religious Voters, Pro Ecclesia * Pro Familia * Pro Civitate, August 29, 2007
Topics: Catholic, Christianity, Politics, Religion |
October 28th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
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