Iran War

[HVC]

Now now, don't deflect. You should probably take the time to self refect and consider why you hold these views about the Irish. Bigotry is a pernicious thing.

[Duque de Bragança]

And we have not mentioned yet the case of Catholic non-Hispanic Latin Americans. 

[crazy canuck]

Now now, don't deflect. You should probably take the time to self refect and consider why you hold these views about the Irish. Bigotry is a pernicious thing.

Having spent some time in Ireland, I can tell you that their history is something that is quite important to them.  Somebody that shows vast ignorance of that history will likely receive an unwelcome experience.

[OttoVonBismarck]

No one gives a fuck about the fucking Irish. Bunch of potato eating micks.

[viper37]

Now now, don't deflect. You should probably take the time to self refect and consider why you hold these views about the Irish. Bigotry is a pernicious thing.

Having spent some time in Ireland, I can tell you that their history is something that is quite important to them.  Somebody that shows vast ignorance of that history will likely receive an unwelcome experience.

It seems the same in many countries.

[Sheilbh]

So I know what you are talking about vis-a-vis American Catholics--but as a point of clarity Archbishop Vigano was not an American bishop. [snip]

That's a fair point and totally agree with your post. Vigano came to mind as one of the two Catholic clerics to address the rally on January 6 - I think the other was Bishop Strickland. And I should caveat that what I'm saying is, in my view, in no way representative of American Catholicism in general - but I think there is a strand of MAGA Catholicism which is distinct.

The only point I'd possibly add to your post is that I think there is a political angle to this which I think is the role of, for want of a better phrase, George Weigel Catholicism. I think in the US there was a political (and also deeply felt religious) project of merging strands of American conservatism with Catholicism (or bringing them into dialogue) which I think Weigel represents because I think it's high point was the pontificate of John Paul II. There's lots of stuff that JPII said about capitalism or the environment which might have been uncomfortable for American conervatives, but fundamentally they knew and he knew that they weren't his priority. The priority was fighting communism in Europe and Latin America and, afterwards, a focus on certain social issues and the "family". I think that started to become more complicated but fundamentally held under Benedict. And I think it is a hugely important part of how a shared political project effectively allows for a religious fusionism on the right with evangelicals - ending in a majority Republican-appointed, majority Catholic Supreme Court etc.

It's a little unfair to put all of that on George Weigel but I think he is actually important and stands in for work that was done in effect making Catholicism comprehensible for the American right and the American right comprehensible for the Catholic Church (not for nothing that it also overlaps with Reagan). But I think it is dialogic - the influence is going both ways (especially as the Vatican increasingly relied on money raised by American Catholics).

I'd add that the sort of time-bomb underneath that arrangement, which is relevant given Vigano and other journeys into conspiracy, is that precisely that point of maximum moral clarity/force from the Vatican and alignment between the Vatican and a strand of American politics, was also the point of profound moral corruption. I don't know how much to place on JPII (and I think Benedict tried to fix things once he became fully aware of the depth of the crisis and was overwhelmed in every sense), but there were institutional cover-ups of child sexual abuse and other forms of corruption. There was financial corruption, in part helping fund the fight against communism, there was Marciel Maciel and the Legion of Christ, other senior figures close to the very top of JPII's Vatican with serious allegations about them, other very JPII figures like Bernard Law and Roger Mahony and I think in the long decline of JPII a huge amount of internal backbiting, low level corruption and cover-up and factional in-fighting (which I think Benedict sort of referenced in his abdication).

All of that is specifically relevant for Vigano given where he ends up - and that he was also a whistleblower in the Vatileaks scandal. Before he turns on Francis, he is the nuncio who helps orchestrate a visit by Francis to the US. Francis addresses Congress and, I think in a sign of the deep involvement of parts of the Catholic Church with certain strands of American politics, Vigano (allegedly) arranges the meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis. By all accounts this caused a lot of frustration to the Vatican as overshadowing the rest of the trip, and is also unlikely to be the sort of gesture Francis would want to make make (the only personal audience he had on that trip was with a gay former sutdent of his and his partner). JPII and Benedict might have been comfortable wading into a political controversy/culture war flashpoint like that - it was not Francis' style. What I think is telling in that side of Vigano is the way it's American culture war issues and heroines staring back into the world of the Vatican. Vigano ultimately ends up deeply frustrated with Francis (and schismatic in my view), but his diagnosis in the famous letter to Francis around the corruption of the Vatican and the American Catholic Church (particularly Cardinal McCarrick) was that it was a "gay mafia" promoting and protecting each other.

The reason, I think, that that context of 20-30 years matters is that I think it shapes what's happening now. I think there were certain American Catholics for whom while I have no doubt they had deep faith, part of the attraction of the faith was its political purpose - the First Things, JPII line that was clarifying. At the same time there were figures in the Church who, applying that same mindset, found their political purpose and meaning in aspects of the American right (particularly the culture war, Kim Davis stuff).

I think in that context you've then had the American right has got crazier and more unhinged and simultaneously the Vatican has moved to a more "Global South" perspective perhaps (or more bluntly a religious view that does not consider the moral significance of a county clerk refusing to issue gay marriage license as remotely close to war, environmental degradation and economic exploitation). I think those two processes have accelerated simultaneously producing this particularly weird strand of MAGA Catholicism within the church in the US - and I think I would position the key figures in that as Vigano and Strickland. I don't like Dolan or Barron but I think they have hewed far closer and more comfortably to the institutional church. I am reminded of a similar but reversed process around French society, the Church and Lefebvre because I suspect if there's any place likely to produce a new SSPX it's the US. Or to put it another way their political and religious beliefs (and certainties) were integrated and are now fractured.

The other thing I would add is that I think it aligns now with the rad trads and traditionalist Catholic aesthetics online. I think that is new-ish and I'm not sure it'll last - or I'm not sure the extent to which it isn't primarily an online trend.

Again I totally agree on the diversity and mainstream-ness of most Catholics in the US. But I think there is also a distinctive sect, as there was in France before and then after Lefebvre, within American Catholicism - and it matters for the rest of the world because American Catholics have lots of money, huge amounts of influence within the wider church and dominate, as you frame, it the influencer space. I totally recognise the description of priests from Africa (here, especially Nigeria) and the Philippines (less so Latin America here) who don't have that "American" streak - they're not actually that saturated in American politics and the American culture wars. In general, I think they're often, conservative, not all that traditional liturgical and ultra-montane - which is a world away from the positioning and aesthetics of that MAGA Catholicism.

And FWIW I think this stuff seems separate but I think it matters. I think both because I think that bridge from Catholic thinking to the American right is hugely important (particularly intellectually) in the 80s and 90s, as is the JPII-Reagan alliance. But now when you have many Catholic figures in public life on the right and two Catholic bishops in purple at the Stop the Steal rally (Vigano remotely) on January 6, it's important still. To your wider point it is absolutely key to tease out the strands of the vast mainstream of American Catholicism with all its traditions and diversity, but also, I think, a radicalising, distinctive and prominent influencer space of MAGA Catholics - and the forces driving and reinforcing that process.

[Valmy]

I suppose it's possible, at a long stretch, although I hazard the guess they'd be more insulted that you think all Irish are hooligans willing to start a bar brawl at the drop of a hat

Some guy walking into a pub saying Catholics are the same as Protestants in America, unless they are Latin American, isn't exactly a drop of that hat now is it.

He is saying a lot of Catholics have been brainwashed by the evangelical Republican propaganda machine. So I think Irish would understand an overwhelmingly powerful and evil protestant machine ruining their faith and brainwashing them

[Norgy]

No one gives a fuck about the fucking Irish. Bunch of potato eating micks.

Tell us what you really feel, Otto! 

[Norgy]

I think all are underestimating the power of Opus Dei's twisted Catholic teachings. That organisation is just sinister.

Some might wonder why I am so opposed to the Partido Popular in Spain and the Portuguese and Italian right, and it all has to do with Opus Dei.

It has harnessed quite a bit of power in the United States as well, and that simply scares the shit out of me.
John Paul II was a cunt.

[grumbler]

So, definitely true.

Yeah.  Else why would the Pentagon summon a Vatican diplomat for a meeting? Foreign policy is conducted by the State department, not DoD.

[HVC]

You're forgetting the possibility that they requested the pope call a crusade

[Tamas]

So, definitely true.

Foreign policy is used to be conducted by the State department, not DoD.

Fixed that for you.

[Duque de Bragança]

I think all are underestimating the power of Opus Dei's twisted Catholic teachings. That organisation is just sinister.

Some might wonder why I am so opposed to the Partido Popular in Spain and the Portuguese and Italian right, and it all has to do with Opus Dei.

It has harnessed quite a bit of power in the United States as well, and that simply scares the shit out of me.
John Paul II was a cunt.

CDS-PP is almost dead, holding only in alliance with the centre-right PSD, so don't worry too much about the Portuguese right or conservatives.

[Sophie Scholl]

I think all are underestimating the power of Opus Dei's twisted Catholic teachings. That organisation is just sinister.

Some might wonder why I am so opposed to the Partido Popular in Spain and the Portuguese and Italian right, and it all has to do with Opus Dei.

It has harnessed quite a bit of power in the United States as well, and that simply scares the shit out of me.
John Paul II was a cunt.

I'm really hoping that Leo undoes the Canonization of Josemaría Escrivá. Fuck that guy and the organization he founded. 

[viper37]

I think all are underestimating the power of Opus Dei's twisted Catholic teachings. That organisation is just sinister.

Some might wonder why I am so opposed to the Partido Popular in Spain and the Portuguese and Italian right, and it all has to do with Opus Dei.

It has harnessed quite a bit of power in the United States as well, and that simply scares the shit out of me.
John Paul II was a cunt.

I'm really hoping that Leo undoes the Canonization of Josemaría Escrivá. Fuck that guy and the organization he founded. 

I believe this applies, no?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility

https://www.catholic.com/qa/are-canonizations-infallible

Pope John Paul II canonized the Opus Dei founder, to undo this would mean that a previous pope failed in his divine duty, was misinformed or otherwise misled, something that can not happen when you represent God on Earth.

It's akin to admitting the divine Augustus made a mistake in not writing a proper constitution with codified rules of succession for his empire.  (because, well, I had to think of Rome, you know...)