Protestant, Jew, and Catholic Taboo Comes to Light

Let us start this exploration with a prayer:

Dear God. Help us to work together for the future of America. Help us to forgive our enemies, to love all men as brothers, and to tolerate our differences with both intellect and the spirit of brotherhood.  Please give us the ability to see truth, so hidden and twisted by those who care nothing but for their own selfish designs. Designs that separate with fear, designs that will ultimately destroy us all.

Please guide us God. Please show us the way to your light of truth. We know the bloody finger-prints of tyrants are not your own, and enslavement by debt and lies are opposed to your light of truth. Help us to fight an enemy that originates in our own failings, and utilized by those who profit by the promotion of ciaos. Thank you God, for giving us life.

By: Ken LaRive, TLB Contributor

The reason for this paper is to bring to the surface why Protestant,  Jewish, and Catholics are at odds with one another. Of course the complexity of this phenomena is beyond the scope of this paper to answer completely,  but it is hoped that the reader will find it interesting enough to further investigate this very important subject, a subject plaguing our country from its inception. A subject that is taboo to talk about.

One might think, from a modern but narrow perspective, that the conflict over Obama-care on both birth control and abortion demands on Catholic Hospitals is the primary split in philosophy and moral ethics, but this division has existed for many hundreds of years, and is far stronger and convoluted.  It existed, whether it is taught as history or not, by the powers of church-states. The blight on personal liberty from European church-states gave the primary reason for America to be flooded with emigrants. They hungered for the freedom to express themselves and their religions under an all-encompassing Constitution and Bill of Rights, but quickly saw that some in power made that dream extremely difficult.  And then those same rights, so cherished then, is maligned and disregarded as obsolete by the Progressive and neocon movement today, as the NDAA and Patriot Act testifies.

From the dark ages, to the light of reason…

What is called the early modern period is what followed the late Middle Ages. It was the beginning of what is now called the Age of Revolutions, and began by the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It ushered in The Age of Discovery and the light of a new Renaissance, and it ended about the same time as the French Revolution in 1789.

It was a time of world exploration, and exploitation too, and both goods and unprecedented new ideas spread around the globe. It affected every single society around the world, and stimulated the free trade of exotic animals, plants, wood, spices, but also, diverse religious ideologies as well. Church States destroyed all cultures they came in contact with, for slavery and gold.

From the 15th to 19th centuries, Christianity, by European colonization, quickly spread around the world, and we must admit, it spread with veritable intolerance for anything considered “unsaved”, by the teachings of Jesus Christ. In this rich tapestry of Renaissance diversity, born on the back of war and destruction, many new Christian denominations sprang up from the original Catholic Church. One of the foremost came from what was called the Protestant Reformation, and with it there appeared a new rise in sectarian conflicts that inspired an era of anti-Catholicism and antisemitism that persists to this very day. But please understand, hatred for Catholics and Jews go back  a thousand years before the first Protestant was thought about, and probably for the exact same reasons… They were not pure in their philosophy, and at times they inspired fear to stay in control.

The complexity of religious unrest is astounding when studying history, and understanding what repercussions it produced by moral ideals like good and bad and right and wrong extremely difficult. Each religion made a case against the other, based on what they know of historical conflicts, and in most cases, fear and jealousy of the other, and all of it cemented by the teachings as far back as mother’s knee. Each of them, without a doubt…if they could… would have entirely exterminated the other to the last man. And because of this hatred, millions upon millions of people have suffered and died, or worse, remained under the enslavement of their paternal and tyrannical yoke.

Some of our greatest Founders…

“Ben Franklin gave what he thought a prophecy when he spoke at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. In was one of the most anti-Jewish statements of all time:

“I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. That menace, gentlemen, is the Jews. In whatever country Jews have settled in any great number, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion upon which that nation was founded by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within a state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal.

For over 1700 hundred years, the Jews have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, as they call Palestine. But, gentlemen, did the world give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires. They cannot live only amongst themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race. If you do not exclude them from these United States in the Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land, and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives, our substance, and jeopardized our liberty.

If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born where they will or how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American’s, and will not even though they live among us ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. Jews are Asiatics, are a menace to this country if permitted entrance, and should be excluded by this Constitutional Convention.”

But then…

In spite of it all, our international banking system, the US Media and Hollywood, and The Federal Reserve, are all under the predominant influence of Jews, with powerful Zionist Jews being the only religion to hold office with a dual citizenship with Israel. No other country in the history of mankind have let the Jews hold so much power over both their government’s influence, and a monetary system that has enslaved us in a debt that can never be paid.

The United States of America embraced them with respect, and they flourished unimpeded in our free enterprise system. And so, since they are now in control, and dominate our country from many hooks, they are also responsible for what has and will happen to her. America is their last haven because of the fear of Zion and the lawlessness an unpredictability of Israel. Their hatred is escalating around the world, and that tempo is the sound of war. And in the middle, Anti-Zionist Jews are rising up to differentiate themselves, as they see that Zion is doing their religion irreparable harm.  But then all are taking sides, and in the process our beloved America is dying.

Roman Catholic persecution

Wikipedia:”Hostility to Catholics and their Church was prominent among Protestants in Britain and Germany from the Protestant Reformation onwards. Immigrants brought that hostility with them to the American colonies. Two types of anti-Catholic rhetoric existed in colonial society. The first, derived from the theological heritage of the Protestant Reformation and the religious wars of the sixteenth century, consisted of the Biblical “Anti-Christ” and the “Whore of Babylon” variety and dominated anti-Catholic thought until the late seventeenth century. The second type was a secular variety which focused on the alleged intrigues of Catholic states which were hostile to both Marxism and Classical Liberalism.”

In 1788, John Jay urged the New York Legislature to require office-holders to renounce the pope and foreign authorities “in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil,” which included both the Catholic and the Anglican churches.

In 1719, Rhode Island imposed civil restrictions on Catholics. In 1642, the Colony of Virginia enacted a law prohibiting Catholic settlers. Five years later, a similar statute was enacted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anti-Catholicism reached a peak in the mid nineteenth century when Protestant leaders became alarmed by the heavy influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany. Some believed that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation.

In his best-selling book of fiction, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court (1889), author Mark Twain indicates his hostility to the Catholic Church… He admitted that he had “…been educated to enmity toward everything that is Catholic.” …Beecher’s well-known Plea for the West (1835) urged Protestants to exclude Catholics from western settlements. In spite of it all, at the beginning of the 20th century, approximately one-sixth of the population of the United States was Roman Catholic.

And so, Protestantism

Protestants, or what might be considered Evangelical Christians, grew to control our early country, and they bashed anything non-Protestant. They carried a gun and their own version of the Christian bible as they pushed the American Indian to the brink of extinction with justifications that they were the almighty wrath (hand) of God… Jews, according to their own Torah,  viewed by Christians  in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, think of themselves as God’s chosen people, and what they do is justified by the almighty wrath (hand) of God… They, both Jews and Protestants, are seen to be the perfect duet in our government’s downfall, from the far right to the far left, with a marshmallow center of secularists who pull their strings. They view each other by what they consider biblical prophecy, along with, I should add,  a copious amount of potential power and wealth. Secularists laugh in their dark heart, and use this duality for their own good…. And though today it may seem they are teaming up with Zionist Jews, history tells another story, and truth is gleaned from the words of their  primary reformer, Martin Luther:

“The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows, seven times higher than ordinary thieves”

“We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them.”

“The blind Jews are truly stupid fools”

“Now just behold these miserable, blind, and senseless people.”

“eject them forever from this country”

“they are nothing but thieves and robbers”

“What then shall we do with this damned, rejected race of Jews?”

“Such a desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous, and devilish lot are these Jews”

“They are the real liars and bloodhounds”

“We are at fault for not slaying them.”

“I shall give you my sincere advice: first to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.”

“Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.”

“Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews.”

“Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them”

“If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs”

“If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the river Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over with the words `I baptize thee in the name of Abraham’.”

And so, why is Catholics at odds with Jewish and Protestant Zionism? Here is an essay, I hope, that can open that door, and perhaps, finally find a solution to the greatest obstacle to coexistence in the history of America, and with its far-reaching influence, the entire world…

Roman Catholicism and Zionism are Irreconcilable

“In 1904, Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, was granted an audience with Pope St. Pius X. His purpose in meeting with the Pope was to gain support for the founding of a Jewish state in what was then known as Palestine. As Herzl recorded in his diary, the Pope gave an unfavorable response, saying: “We are unable to favor this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem – but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church, I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people. And so if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you.” ( This response might smack of “antisemitism” to modern ears, which are ultra-sensitive to criticisms of Zionism. However, as Catholics, we should give deep consideration to the theological and moral implications of the words of this pope-saint. While many Protestant groups are now giving wholesale support of Zionism, Catholics must recognize the inherent dangers to their faith that Zionism presents.

First of all, as Catholics, we must recognize that the Catholic Church is the New Israel. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, citing the Vatican II decree entitled Ad Gentes, refers to the Church in this way, stating, “Jesus instituted the Twelve as ‘the seeds of the new Israel and the beginning of the sacred hierarchy’” (paragraph 877). Likewise, in his first epistle, St. Peter applies terms formerly reserved for the Jewish people to the followers of Christ, thus explicitly pointing out the Church’s place as the New Israel: “you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people” (1 Peter 2:9). Clearly, we can see that it has been the traditional Catholic understanding that this title, “New Israel,” belongs to the Church. Implicitly, the Jewish people are no longer “the chosen people” or the “most beloved children of God.” To confirm this, the temple of Jerusalem was providentially destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 AD. This essentially destroyed the old Israel as a nation, because without a temple, it could no longer offer sacrifices to please God.

Today, there are even some Jews who recognize that the diaspora, or dispersion of the Jewish people from the land of Israel, was a divine punishment for their apostasy. Groups such as the Neturei Karta, an anti-Zionist movement of orthodox Jews, profess a belief that the Jewish people have no right to the land of Israel, given to them by the generosity of God in the Old Testament, because they were not faithful to God’s covenant. This was the general understanding of Catholics at the beginning of the 20th century, as well. On the Neturei Karta website, they state, “The Creator gave us the Holy Land thousands of years ago. Yet, when we sinned, He took it away and sent us into exile. Since that time our task is to wait for Him to send the Messiah. At that time, the Creator alone, without any human being lifting a hand or saying a word, will bring us together and take us out of exile.”  Also on their website, one may find pictures of orthodox Jews, complete with traditional locks and long beards, standing at protests burning Israeli flags and holding signs with slogans like “Judaism Rejects Zionism” and “We are against ‘Israel’ because we are Jews.” Arguing that Zionism is a novel idea without precedent in Jewish tradition until the end of the 19th century, these anti-Zionist orthodox Jews hold that all Jews had this understanding of the diaspora previous to the modern manifestations of Zionism.

The Neturei Karta and other orthodox anti-Zionist Jews make an observation that all Catholics and Protestants should also make: the modern state of “Israel” has no right to the name “Israel.” The name “Israel” was given to the land promised to the descendents of Abraham. It is a name that represents the Old Testament covenant between God and the Jews, so it has a clear connotation of religious obligation. However, at the root of modern Zionism is the idea that the Jews, religious or not, have a right to the land once called Israel. This is an idea that does not hold water in orthodox Judaism or traditional Catholicism. The modern Zionist state is secular in nature, only giving lip service to religious observations. It turns Judaism into a matter of race and culture rather than religion. In fact, anti-Zionist Jews claim that the majority of Zionist Jews are atheists. Thus, to call the modern Zionist state, which does not hold the essence of ancient Israel (i.e. the covenant with God), by the name of “Israel” is to mock both Judaism and Christianity. To accept its use of the name “Israel” would be like conceding to a pretender the crown of a rightful heir.

For the majority of the modern Israeli state’s short history, the Vatican did not maintain formal diplomatic relations with the Israeli government, nor did it even recognize its right to exist. The reasons behind this are unclear, but on December 30, 1993, the Vatican reversed this policy and formally recognized Israel, opening diplomatic relations. This decision seemed to fly in the face of what Pope St. Pius X told Theodor Herzl 89 years earlier. How could the Church, which represents Christ, give consent to the existence of a state that bases itself on the premise that the Jews are still “the chosen people” with a right to the land of Israel, despite their apostasy and failure to accept the Messiah? Such an act seems to give assent to the false idea that Jews do not have to convert and recognize Christ as the Messiah (an idea that has been popular among some high-ranking Church prelates).

Regardless of the prudence of this decision, the Vatican has consistently remained critical of Israel’s repressive policies towards Palestinians (both Muslim and Christian). This is an absolutely necessary measure, because the Church, as the ultimate moral authority on earth, must maintain its moral credibility. If the Vatican is going to accept Israel’s right to exist, it must at least hold Israel to the same moral standards that it holds any other Western country.

While the Vatican has been openly critical of Israel’s policies regarding the Palestinians, it seems that some American Catholics, who have been tainted by the pro-Zionist political influences that dominate American politics, would have us overlook the injustices committed by the Israeli government. George Weigel, a prominent Catholic political commentator, is a prime example. Weigel has consistently lauded the Vatican’s efforts at dialogue with Israel, while rarely, if ever, acknowledging the rights of Christian and Muslim Palestinians to dwell there. In fact, Weigel was a co-signer of a pro-Israel statement that appeared as an advertisement in the New York Times on March 17, 1996.  The advertisement was entitled “We stand with Israel.” Summarized, the statement expressed support for Israelis made victims of Palestinian violence. However, the statement made no mention of the manifold, internationally-recognized acts of violence and human rights violations made by the Israelis against the Palestinians. It thereby gave the illusion that Israelis are the only victims of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What is most disturbing is that two American bishops and four archbishops also allowed their names to appear on the statement. Such actions do incredible harm to the moral credibility of the Church, especially in the eyes of those who know the details of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Because of Israel’s heavy influence on world politics, Catholics must be prudent in their approach to the question of Zionism. In a time when most Europeans see Israel as a threat to world peace , American Catholics, in particular, need to be cautious about allowing “national policy” to be their moral compass in matters of international politics. For the sake of the one true faith, Catholics must not come down on the side of injustice, irreligion, and apostasy.

(For more on George Weigel see my letter to the Arlington Catholic Herald.)  ed.”

December 6, 2003

Author’s note: I have intentionally left out several religions, the most dangerous, it seems, are fundamentalists Muslims.   I will continue to address them as I have in the past, as both complex and taboo. In the process, I hope to find the truth of the matter.

God bless us, one and all.

 

See original here: http://www.examiner.com/article/protestant-jew-and-catholic-taboo-comes-to-light