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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   31539 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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Y’all are fighting over semantics. Taboo the phrase “anti-Catholic.” Which of the following propositions do you believe?

  1. Some of the Sisters’ beliefs are not compatible with Christian theology.

  2. The Sisters are mocking Catholic religious practices.

  3. The Sisters are mocking political positions held mainly by Christians.

  4. The Sisters are mocking political positions held by Catholics, but not most other Christians.

  5. The Sisters would like to diminish the political power of Christians in general.

  6. The Sisters would like to diminish the political power of Catholics more than other Christians.

  7. The Sisters would like to actively persecute Catholics via ostracization or violence.

  8. The mockery as per 3. already rises to the level of active persecution.

@naraburns, what about you?

I think 1, 2, 3 and 5 are true, but the rest are not. The Sisters are attacking Catholicism for its brand and availability more than out of any specific enmity. Thus I’d be more likely to call them anti-Christian than specifically anti-Catholic, even though they are clearly mocking Catholics.

By your reasoning, someone mocking blacks but whose mockery includes fried chicken and watermelon is just using blacks because of the stereotype's "availability". After all, people other than blacks eat fried chicken and watermelon.

"They're attacking X, but only for their availability, not for their enmity, so it doesn't count" is a bizarre piece of hair splitting.

You may be right.

Those particular racial stereotypes don’t feel like a good fit. I’m not sure whether I can justify that feeling.

But if I pick a closer example—say, a white guy dressing up as Native American while protesting gambling laws—it would still be pretty uncomfortable. Dude certainly wouldn’t be getting invited to baseball games. That feels like it should generalize.

  1. I assume that they do not think that homosexual behavior is a sin, while I believe that the Catholic Church still teaches otherwise.

  2. They dress as nuns, but I see no evidence of them mocking any Catholic religious practices, such as confession, etc.

  3. I see no evidence that they mention any political views held by the Church at all. Their website does not even complain of homophobia by the Church, as far as I can see.

  4. See number 3.

  5. Possibly true, but I see no explicit evidence

6-8: No.

They dress as nuns, but I see no evidence of them mocking any Catholic religious practices, such as confession, etc.

Doesn't dressing as nuns count as a religious practice?

I would say that there's also a difference between a show and actions taken in real life. When Upstart Crow talks about "they burn you for eating a wafer!" (Which I know is referring to the protestant monarch, but there's other eucharist jokes as well) It doesn't feel nearly as mean-spirited as actually partaking in a mock sacrament.

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