This
paper was presented at the
"Anti-Catholicism:
The Last Acceptable Prejudice"
Conference
May 24, 2002, Fordham
University, New York, NY
co-sponsored by: The American Catholics in the Public Square Project, Commonweal Magazine,
and Fordham
Universirty's Center for American Catholic Studies
Sic et Non
Response
by Kenneth Woodward
to:
Andrew Greeley / NORC: University of Chicago
/ University of Arizona
Click here
for a printer-friendly version of the complete text
I've been encouraged to speak
personally and anecdotally, and will try to do so in the brief time allotted.
I'll talk mainly about media.
Do I think anti-Catholicism exists_
Yes I do.
Can I define it_ I can try. It's
repugnance for things Catholic, both real and imagined. It's the sort of thing
you recognize when you see it, among Catholics as well as others.
Is anti-Catholicism, historically,
as virulent as anti-Semitism, to which it is often compared_ Not then. Not now.
And likely not ever. But in the American experience anti-Catholicism is older
than anti-Semitism, and still the more acceptable prejudice among academics and
their illegitimate offspring in the chattering classes, among whom
anti-Catholicism is less conscious, less stigmatized, and therefore less
noticed. In any case, why should anyone want to compare social pathologies_
Is anti-Catholicism as important to
American Catholics as anti-Semitism is to American Jews for the maintenance of
group identity_ Not by another long shot. Jews are the lest religious religious
cohort in American society, if we exclude the Jewish Unitarians, Ethical
Culturalists and Buddhists, and so the most in need of prejudice, real or imaged,
for the maintenance of group identity. Their only rivals are the Mormons,
manque Jews themselves. And I say that in full realization that my statement
may be construed by some as itself anti-Semitic, if only because an outsider is
saying it. Those at the American Jewish Committee and other communal
organizations know too well that what I say is true. They are my sources.
Some manifestations of
anti-Catholicism are obvious . For example, I think Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's
diatribe in The New Republic last January--on Pius XII, the Vatican and the
Holocaust--was hard-core anti-Catholicism. But he is a known academic nut. More
to blame, in my view is Leon Wieseltier, the magazine's powerful back-of-the-book
editor and the man who decided to run Goldhagen's venomous piece, giving him
more space than anyone has ever been allotted in the New Republic.
Do I think that some of the coverage of the current
scandal in the Catholic church is driven by anti-Catholicism_ Yes, I think in
style, intensity and the unrelenting nature of the coverage some of it
is. ABC's prime-time news special, "Father Forgive Me, for I Have
Sinned," is a major example of what happens when producers choose a story
line, and take from those they interview only what fits the points they want to
make, thereby distorting not only what people say but the story itself. Peter
Jennings, who is usually sensitive to religious nuance, should have known
better. Similar examples could be drawn from Vanity Fair which,
especially under Tina Brown, has been unblushingly anti-Catholic in a way that
makes me think the editors automatically assume their readers are too.
And then there is the New York
Times. Compared to the way the current crisis in the Catholic church has
been covered by, say, the Los Angeles Times, the coverage in the New York Times has been excessive and
almost gleeful, revisiting old stories when no fresh revelations are
forthcoming and even treating parish councils as if they were radical
innovations. No editor in his right mind would have printed the recent rant by
columnist Bill Keller, unless that editor--Howell Raines--were himself
anti-Catholic. Is says much about the newsroom culture of the Times that
it finds the views of an ex-Catholic worth featuring. But then, compared to other
national newspapers, the Times' op-ed page is the least diversified in
its selection of columnists, most of them products of its own hothouse
institutional culture, and in the opinions it will allow to outside
contributors. For example, it is not unusual to find three or four pieces a
week against abortion when that issue is in the news, but in 38 years of
reading the Times I can only recall--at most--three op-ed pieces arguing
a pro-life position.
Anti-Catholicism comes in different
packages. By its own reckoning, the New York Times is an institution,
not just a newspaper: in its own secularist fashion it is a kind of church,
complete with its own hierarchy and magisterium. For many of its readers, the
Times defines what is real and what is not, what is acceptable thought and
behavior and what is not, thereby setting the boundaries between the secular
polis and the religious barbarians gnawing at the gates. In short, the Times
evangelizes a wholly secular worldview, which bleaches out whatever--even in
New York City--does not conform to that perspective. For instance, where a
newspaper like the Chicago Tribune
routinely includes parochial schools in its annual education supplement, the Times
in its annual supplement has
mentioned them only once in all the years that I've been reading it. Similarly,
when it does its roundup of the year's notable books --at Christmastime,
yet--there is no category for religion. It's news coverage of religion is
spotty, though sometimes well done, but it displays a noticeably unsure
editorial mind in it's judgment of what is important in this area. In short, to
use David Tracy's categories, if the Catholic imagination is analogical and the
Protestant imagination diological, the religious imagination of the Times
is dermalogical--that is,
skin-deep.
It is common for defenders of the
Catholic church like William Donohue, to substitute Jews or blacks or gays for
Catholics and ask those who smear Catholics if they would dare ridicule these
other identity groups in the same fashion. In general, I think that is a fair
test, and I am astonished to learn that his adversaries find his question
repulsive. Clearly, Catholics are
fair game, but why should this be so_
My guess is that most
Americans--including most Catholics--do not know the history that John McGreevy
has outlined for us. Harvard, to take but one example, has courses dealing with
anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny, homophobia and the like, and you can be
assured that in the nation's major divinity schools preoccupation with these
sins is central to their not-so-informal curriculum. But I do not think that at
any elite institution--including perhaps Notre Dame--you will find courses
devoted to anti-Catholicism. In other words, our elites have been shaped by
social constructions of reality that exclude anti-Catholicism as part of the
American experience. Charitably, we might say that in some cases we are dealing
with vincible ignorance, not outright prejudice.
This morning, distinction was made
between religious anti-Catholicism and cultural anti-Catholicism. I can accept
the former: there are doctrines and beliefs of various religious traditions
that I find personally odious, and as a Catholic I am in no way bothered by the
residual Reformation-style anti-Catholicism of, say, Bob Jones
University--especially when I see that Bob Jones III, the university's putative
heir-apparent, chose to do post-graduate work at Notre Dame. But I must say
that I am struck by the fact that Protestants--including evangelicals--have
been noticeably sympathetic and non-judgmental toward Catholics over these past
four months of scandal. As well they might, since a recent story of child abuse
in Protestant churches shows an average of 70 such allegations a week, though
you won't find that mentioned in the New York Times.
As for cultural anti-Catholicism, I am surprised by the persistence of old
stereotypes, such as those mentioned by Andrew Greeley today. One expects such
crudities among academics, because the academy, particularly in the humanities,
has become so ideologically driven and allergic to institutions and forms of
authority other than its own. But I'd be surprised if it were prevalent in the
business world--or even in country clubs--and I must say I have not found much
of it in the environment of Newsweek. Quite the opposite.
Looking back over some 750 articles
I have written for Newsweek, I find that less than 4 per cent deal with
mainline Protestants. Over these years, Newsweek's top editors--all of
them but one in the past 40 years Protestant or Jewish by background--have
manifest certain preferences in the coverage of religion. (Religion covers, by
the way, have for 25 years always been among the annual best-sellers on the
newsstand, though the biggest draws are usually cover stories about some htmlect
of the figure of Jesus.) In order of preference, what the editors have wanted
from me are: first, stories about Catholics. Second, stories about Catholics.
Third--at least since the rise of Jerry Falwell in the late 70's--stories about
Evangelicals. Fourth, Catholics. Fifth, everyone else. Yet Protestant readers,
including clergy, very often compliment the magazine on it's coverage of
religion--even though they never see their own traditions written about. In the
words of the late Lenny Bruce, I think we have to ask why it is in the media,
and not just Newsweek, that the Catholic church is treated as "the
only 'The church_"' Here, I think, we can get into some of the ambiguities
of cultural anti-Catholicism, ambiguities which make the Catholic church at
once attractive and suspect in a nation that is still, historically and
numerically more Protestant than anything else.
Size: a quarter of Americans identify as Catholics. And like
Evangelicals, they are perceived as having political weight, at least in local
elections. Reason enough to pay attention, certainly reason enough to worry if
you don't like what the church teaches.
Authority: friends would say authoritative, foes would say
authoritarian and in the church you can find Catholics in both camps. Authority
means the church makes truth claims, which some elites find onerous--including
many Catholics. It also means there are moral norms, which some elites,
especially those who came of age since the 60s, find hard to accept--except
unless they are of their own manufacture. Hence the power of the word,
"choice."
Authority implies Hierarchy, another structural mark of the church
that many folks find alien on principle. The irony is that Americans readily
accept the need for hierarchy in corporations, the military and even to a
degree in sports. But in religion most Americans are female in the sense that
Carol Gilligan uses the term: we like circles, not pyramids. That the Catholic
church is a pyramid that allows a lot of circles to be formed inside its
space--that is, freedom within order--seems to escape most observers.
And then there is Sex. The Catholic church takes sex and gender
seriously--maybe too seriously--which means it holds out norms to be observed.
But on matters of sex and gender, we are well into a normless society, a
society which, on both the popular and elite levels also takes sexy too
seriously, but for very different reasons. Here there really is a culture war,
and institutionally, the Catholic church is the biggest, easiest target. I
could go on but I want to make sure two main points are clear.
The first deals with identity.
Despite qualifiers like liberal and conservative, progressive and reactionary,
lapsed, collapsed and relapsed, the public at large still thinks that the word,
Catholic, has explanatory value in ways that words like Protestant or
Presbyterian or Episcopalian or Methodist or even Jewish do not. The word may
conjure stereotypes of the kind Andrew Greeley has mentioned, but at least
Catholics and their church get noticed. Put another way, when was the last
time--at least since the novels of Peter DeVries--you saw the rituals and
symbols of, say, Congregationalists burlesqued_ For the media,
"Catholic" means, in words said of Willy Loman after his suicide,
"attention must be paid."
The second deals with the church's noticeableness. It stands for
something--many things--and is not afraid of the public square. The Catholic
church is certainly is not alone in this regard, but it is not in the nature of
Catholicism to privatize religion in the ways that some others, especially
secularists would want. And when if fails, as its bishops most spectacularly
have, when it resorts to secrecy--as all religious institutions do--it's dirty
underwear is there for all to see.
For both these reasons, there will
always be anti-Catholicism, enduring but intermittent in its manifestation, as
McGreevy says. What we see today is not as virulent as it has been in the past.
Speaking for myself, I am always nervous when too many people agree with me,
which doesn't happen often. I think the church should be the same way, or else
it will cease to the church. Anti-Catholicism isn't always hatred and
prejudice; sometimes it's being liked for all the wrong reasons. The challenge
for any tradition that claims to be Christian to be disliked for all the right
reasons. On this view, some anti-Catholic prejudices are not only acceptable
but welcome.
back
to the top
|
