Iran War

[OttoVonBismarck]

I've mentioned some of the weirder strands of American MAGA Catholicism under Francis (especially around the wildly conspiratorial former Nuncio, Archbishop Vigano) and honestly a Trumpian Antipope feels plausible and perhaps appropriate (a phenomenally corrupt and corrupting captivity primarily expressed through gaudy real estate projects).

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. He was born in Italy and lived most of his life there, he was mostly part of the Vatican's diplomatic corps. Priests who primarily work in administrative roles in the Holy See, when they eventually reach a position where tradition demands they be a Bishop or even Cardinal, they will typically be consecrated as the Bishop of what is called a "titular diocese." A titular diocese is basically a "defunct" diocese, canonically it still exists, but for various reasons is not active and usually has not been for centuries. The main source of such dioceses is a) diocesan mergers in areas where Catholic population declines and they combined multiple dioceses into one and b) areas that used to be Christian and basically stopped being Christian often centuries ago. Many titular dioceses are in areas that are ancient--often areas that went with the East in the East-West Schism or that were turned Muslim in the various Muslim conquests.

So anyway, Vigano eventually gets promoted to Bishop of a titular diocese (his was a defunct diocese in Kosovo) and appointed as Papal Nuncio to the United States, this was under Benedict. The Papal Nuncio is conceptually like the Vatican's Ambassador to that country, both in a secular diplomatic sense (e.g. in terms of interacting with that country's government), but also in an ecclesial sense, usually being involved in meetings with the conference of bishops in that country and often serving as papal representative in such affairs.

Also Vigano was extremely traditionalist / conservative. He did fine under Pope Benedict, although in truth Vigano was so reactionary and conservative he likely disagreed with even Pope Benedict on some matters--but as Benedict was the most theologically conservative Pope in the last 50 years Vigano wasn't likely to make trouble with him, also Benedict is the one who raised him to higher offices within the Vatican so there would have been personal loyalty.

When Francis became Pope it instantly became a problem, Vigano immediately began believing in wild conspiracy theories and started suggesting openly that Francis wasn't really the Pope and other various things. This actually culminated in Vigano being stripped of all his clerical offices and ordered to repent a bunch of schismatic and heretical claims he had made, he refused, so was (and remains) excommunicated.

While Vigano was popular with a certain breed of overly political American conservative Catholics, he wasn't part of the clerical community in the United States in the way that other more influential conservative Catholic bishops are--the real influential conservatives are figures like Cardinal Timothy Dolan (NYC), Bishop Robert Barron (Minnesota), Archbishop Alexander Sample (Portland), Bishop Joseph Strickland (Texas). Of that list--only Strickland has gotten to the point of trouble, he was not excommunicated, but he actually was involved with Vigano in surreptitiously claiming Francis wasn't the Pope. After some back and forth with the Holy See they ended up firing him from his "job", but didn't excommunicate him, so he remains a Bishop in good standing but has no assignment, so he essentially was forced into retired status. He still appears at things like the meetings of the USCCB to cause various ruckuses.

The other guys I listed are all fairly conservative, fairly involved in Republican politics: Barron is on Trump's religious liberty commission and has his own online ministry that is itself a major conservative force in the podcast / youtube world with millions of viewers/listeners. Cardinal Dolan has long been openly hostile to Democrats and has made a lot of partisan anti-Democrat statements. These guys unlike Vigano and Strickland, are usually careful to not do anything that puts them in unambiguous conflict with the Catholic hierarchy.

All of them basically are also representative of conservatism in the modern Catholic Church in general. There's a strain of white / Anglo conservatism in American Catholicism that was born out of opposition to the theological liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s. Many white Priests ordained in those decades went on to become very liberal, and when they became Bishops that liberalism became powerful in the American Church. However another wave of Priests basically emerged in opposition within the white Catholic community. Demographics ultimately meant these white reactionary Priests came to far outnumber the liberal ones, as you really only saw a huge tilt towards liberalism in ordinations in a ~15 year span during the 60s and 70s, and then it shifted much more in the other direction for the decades after. Most of the seriously liberal American Catholic bishops and priests are elderly and retired, and have minimal influence in the Church.

(Note, for the purposes of this discussion Robert Prevost / Pope Leo is not even really an American Catholic, while he is from here, spent many years of his life here, much of his formation was in Latin America which makes him very different from the other white Anglo Bishops I mentioned because they are all thoroughly Americans and creatures of American culture and politics.)

In terms of loyalty to the Vatican--I will say this. The schismatic types are not as strong as they seem. The "Rad Trads", who are predominantly white guys, mostly in America, although a big portion of "rad trads" are also French and German (the latter is ironic--German speaking Catholics are among the most liberal, but some very reactionary "rad trads" are from Switzerland / Austria / Southern Germany), are all borderline schismatic and have extreme theological and political conservatism.

But their influence is somewhat illusory because they mostly exist in what I call "influencer space" and not "in the pews."

The reality in the pews in the church here is actually that the American Catholic Church is the most racially diverse Church in America. My local parish is maybe 30% white, 50% Hispanic, with the rest being other races.

A good representation of what Catholicism is like in America today would be our Parochial Vicar. He is in his early 40s and is from Uganda. He is extremely theologically conservative, socially conservative, and politically conservative. However he is also nothing like the "rad trads." He is ultra-orthodox and ultra-loyal to the Church hierarchy. He would quite literally probably walk into a fire before he would engage in schism against the Church. He also is only political if you are Facebook friends with him or talk to him privately outside of Church. He has no room for or interest in discussing politics in his pastoral role.

Due to the crisis in America with far too few men getting ordained, it's also typical that we have to "import" a priest from a developing world country like we did him--African countries and Latin/South American countries being a common source of priests now, also the Philippines.

The Priests coming from these countries tend to be theologically very orthodox, and conservative, they have conservative social values. But they also tend to not have what I'd call the "American" streak in them. Guys like Doland, Barron, Strickland, a big reason they can often seem in conflict with the Holy See is because they are white American boomers who have that stereotypical American obsession with personal independence and dislike of hierarchy and authority (humorous in a Catholic priest.) These conservative developing world priests, they have none of that, these guys are insanely loyal to the Church hierarchy and have a fanatical loyalty and love of whoever is the current Pope. I think a lot of the conservative Anglo American Bishops in some corners of their mind just see the Pope as "a guy who got elected", and they'll begrudgingly respect him but that's about it. The developing world guys, are much more true believers that the divine was active in the selection of the Pope, to them any sort of anti-Papal schismatic thought is akin to disobeying God directly.

It's worth always remembering--the Anglo Catholics are overrepresented in American public life / politics, but are not nearly as represented in the pews. As an Anglo Catholic myself most of my adult life I've been at best 50% of whatever parish I attend. The Church here is just very racially diverse and in most regions is very dominated by first and second generation immigrant families. These people often have weaker English skills so they aren't part of the "influencer" space in the English speaking world, but frankly based on demographics--they are the future of the Church in American, not white guys like me. (FWIW this is also why a number of Catholic Bishops have been so critical of Trump's ICE shenanigans, something like 90% of people caught up in these deportation waves have been Catholic.)

[Duque de Bragança]

Non Latino American Catholics are basically Protestant anyway. Even the "Italian" ones are as catholic as they are Italian after a generation or two

The Irish will appreciate that, not to mention the "real" Hispanics (Iberians) and/or Latins, Italians (from Latium?) at the very least, not fake hyphenated ones.   

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, HVC should probably avoid going to a pub in Ireland.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I think y'all are mis-parsing HVC's statement.  He's talking about American Catholics who are not Latino, not Catholics who are not Latino-American.  I still don't think he's right, though, and there would be a lot of Irish-, Italian-, Polish-, and Filipino-American people who would be rather upset at that notion.

[Jacob]

Thanks for the insight, OvB.

[crazy canuck]

I think y'all are mis-parsing HVC's statement.  He's talking about American Catholics who are not Latino, not Catholics who are not Latino-American.  I still don't think he's right, though, and there would be a lot of Irish-, Italian-, Polish-, and Filipino-American people who would be rather upset at that notion.

I hazard a guess that if HVC were to walk into a pub in Ireland and say those words, he would have a hard time making it out.

It's not just the first second or third generation Americans from Ireland, who would be upset about it.

[Valmy]

Why would Irish people care about what HVC has to say about American Catholics?

[HVC]

I wasn't talking about anyone outside of America, why would the Irish care? Although I admit I forgot about Filipino-Americans

That being said I don't know how catechismicly correct (is that a term ) multi generational Irish-American Catholics are. I may have erroneously lumped them in with the other white American Catholics. Which, admittedly, might be a biased view because I only see the crazies.

[HVC]

Is the non hyphen confusing you two? I didn't say Latino-American Catholics, I said Latino American Catholics. Ie, Americans who are catholic and Latino.

[crazy canuck]

Why would Irish people care about what HVC has to say about American Catholics?

You might have missed the last several hundred years of Irish history.  How wonderfully American centric of you.

[HVC]

Why would Irish people care about what HVC has to say about American Catholics?

You might have missed the last several hundred years of Irish history.  How wonderfully American centric of you.

Now you're just trying not to understand

[Valmy]

Why would Irish people care about what HVC has to say about American Catholics?

You might have missed the last several hundred years of Irish history.  How wonderfully American centric of you.

I know enough to know Catholocism isn't doing great in Ireland right now. So I don't know how much they would be willing to get into a brawl over a bunch of Catholic Americans being basically MAGA protestants.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, I guess you guys are right.  Why would people in Ireland possibly be upset that someone in Canada makes a claim that Catholics are the same as Protestants in American unless they are Latin American, and then an American jumps in to defend it based on an a view that Catholics in Ireland are not doing great.  I cannot see any possibility that would cause any upset in a country where that religious division has been significant for centuries.  Yep, nothing to see here. 

[HVC]

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

[crazy canuck]

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.