Bishop Robert Barron on Anti-Catholic Prejudice — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:10last week there were two remarkably
3. 0:11anti-catholic outbursts in the public
4. 0:13forum the first one took place in the
5. 0:15pages of the US News and World Report it
6. 0:18was an article by columnist Jamie Stein
7. 0:22and um she claimed that the US Supreme
8. 0:25Court is dangerously packed now with
9. 0:28Catholics who have notor iously hard
10. 0:30time separating a church from State and
11. 0:33who can't seem to refrain themselves
12. 0:35from imposing their views on others this
13. 0:38was prompted of course by Justice Soto
14. 0:39mayor's decision she's a Catholic to
15. 0:43give the little sister of the poor a
16. 0:44little legal breathing space because the
17. 0:47little sisters were opposed to the
18. 0:48demands of the HHS mandate now here's
19. 0:52the thing about that uh assessment even
20. 0:55a moment's reflection would reveal that
21. 0:57um the HHS thing is not a question of
22. 0:59the Church asserting itself against the
23. 1:01state but just the contrary talk about
24. 1:04imposition not the imposition of the
25. 1:06church on state but just the contrary
26. 1:08more to it that American citizens who
27. 1:11happen to be Catholic nuns make a legal
28. 1:13appeal which is supported by a Justice
29. 1:15Supreme Court how any of that
30. 1:17constitutes an imposition uh she'll have
31. 1:20to explain to me well the very
32. 1:22irrationality of this position is what
33. 1:24led many including myself to say this is
34. 1:27a good example of an anti-catholic
35. 1:29Prejudice which is RAR far from the
36. 1:32surface in American Life the second
37. 1:35example of this anti-catholic Outburst
38. 1:38was even more startling and more
39. 1:39dramatic it was um Andrew Cuomo who's
40. 1:42the governor of New York on a radio
41. 1:44interview program saying that anyone
42. 1:46that holds to a pro-life position or is
43. 1:49opposed to um the legal support of gay
44. 1:52marriage is not welcome in the state of
45. 1:55New York now he didn't say they're wrong
46. 1:59he didn't say they're guided he didn't
47. 2:00say we should Mount good political
48. 2:02arguments against them or we should
49. 2:04organize ourselves politically against
50. 2:05them all the which are legitimate
51. 2:07positions within an open po like ours
52. 2:10what he said was they're not welcome
53. 2:12here they're they are to be excluded
54. 2:15from civil society as many pointed out
55. 2:18this uh automatically means about 48% of
56. 2:21America uh is not welcome in the state
57. 2:23of New York including presumably Andrew
58. 2:25Cuomo's Father Mario Cuomo who said
59. 2:28famously years ago that he's person
60. 2:30opposed to abortion so he's making a
61. 2:32very aggressive move against most of the
62. 2:34country or much of the country and
63. 2:36against his own father again the
64. 2:38irrationality of the position is what
65. 2:40leads us to suspect that what underlies
66. 2:43it is a deep anti-catholic Prejudice
67. 2:46even though of course Cuomo is is
68. 2:48nominally a Catholic that has little to
69. 2:49do with it there's still an
70. 2:50anti-catholicism in that Viewpoint now
71. 2:54as any historian of American culture
72. 2:56knows you don't have to go very far to
73. 2:58find this strain within the American uh
74. 3:00system go back to the founding fathers
75. 3:04and you'll find a lot of pretty strongly
76. 3:05worded anti-catholicism um John Adams
77. 3:09whom I deeply admire but there's a
78. 3:10famous reflection he has on going to
79. 3:13mass when he was in
80. 3:15Philadelphia and um just to kind of see
81. 3:17what was happening and he was enthralled
82. 3:20by the Catholic mass but he like oh it's
83. 3:22a miracle that we're able to to you know
84. 3:25wrench ourselves away from this this
85. 3:27display this medieval display then come
86. 3:30up into the 19th century of course you
87. 3:32have during the era of immigration when
88. 3:34so many Catholics were coming from from
89. 3:36Germany and from southern Europe and
90. 3:38Eastern Europe uh there was a very
91. 3:40strong reaction on the part of um a lot
92. 3:42of the American establishment against
93. 3:44this influx of Catholics and you have
94. 3:46for example the no nothing party and
95. 3:48others that were organized in an
96. 3:50explicitly anti-catholic way andless you
97. 3:54think it was only you know real
98. 3:55extremists and yahoos who held these
99. 3:57anti- Catholic views in the 19th century
100. 3:59look at people like ulyses Grant I mean
101. 4:01makes a very strong anti-catholic um set
102. 4:04of speeches then the early 20th century
103. 4:06someone like woodell Wilson these Great
104. 4:08American Statesmen but deliver
105. 4:10themselves of fiercely anti-catholic
106. 4:13rhetoric now come up to 1960s some will
107. 4:16say well that's when it all ended when
108. 4:17JFK the first Catholic was elected
109. 4:19president well I'd say yes and no uh JFK
110. 4:23as I've said many times before was much
111. 4:25more of a privatized Catholic his
112. 4:27Catholic faith was taken really out of
113. 4:30the public Arena and so his being
114. 4:31elected was like well that's all right
115. 4:33that's the kind of Catholic that we can
116. 4:35tolerate but I think you can find this
117. 4:38very deep anti-catholicism coming up on
118. 4:41a regular basis and you certainly saw it
119. 4:43last week here's what I find really
120. 4:46disturbing about it though is
121. 4:48increasingly how anti-catholicism is
122. 4:51being borne by and expressed through
123. 4:54that most fundamental of American
124. 4:55institutions namely the
125. 4:57law we are a very ous Society uh law
126. 5:01means a lot to Americans we are uh
127. 5:04shaped by the law the law sanctions
128. 5:07those things that we want to keep at Bay
129. 5:09the law structures in many ways our
130. 5:12sense of of our of our corporate
131. 5:14identity well watch increasingly today
132. 5:17how Catholics are finding themselves on
133. 5:19the wrong side of the law so obviously
134. 5:22the you know roie weade thing that's
135. 5:23been a long struggle but the HHS is a
136. 5:26very startling example of it we're now
137. 5:29Catholics will will find themselves
138. 5:31athwart this um you know very pervasive
139. 5:35legal requirement gay marriage is a
140. 5:37third example you know where those who
141. 5:39oppose a gay marriage not oppose gay
142. 5:42people but oppose gay marriage find
143. 5:44themselves on the wrong side of a legal
144. 5:48statute well that's dangerous in America
145. 5:51that's dangerous in a company where in a
146. 5:53country where law means so much and see
147. 5:56that's why the Andrew Cuomo uh Outburst
148. 5:59is particularly chilling because here
149. 6:02you have a governor of a major State
150. 6:04this is not a minor figure in our Poli
151. 6:06this is a governor of a major State a
152. 6:09legislator this is a lawmaker at a very
153. 6:11high level who's saying I want
154. 6:14essentially anyone that holds to the
155. 6:16Catholic view on these things to be
156. 6:17excluded from the Civil Society well see
157. 6:20that's a dangerous business because if
158. 6:22you can use the law to do that well you
159. 6:24can do so then in a very aggressive uh
160. 6:27way something else I find interesting in
161. 6:29regard to Cuomo of course his father as
162. 6:32I mentioned famously this is now 30
163. 6:34years ago you know said that I'm
164. 6:36personally opposed to abortion but it
165. 6:38doesn't affect my public decision-
166. 6:40making how quickly from father to son
167. 6:43how quickly we go from a privatizing of
168. 6:46Catholic values now to an aggressive
169. 6:49move against
170. 6:51them I'm I'm against it personally I'm
171. 6:53going to privatize my conviction we go
172. 6:55from that in one generation to I'm now
173. 6:58aggressively opposed to it I want those
174. 7:00people out of my state see that's a very
175. 7:03dangerous um scenario that's a very
176. 7:07dangerous trajectory but you can see it
177. 7:09very clearly in the movement from Mario
178. 7:11to Andrew Cuomo and see again I'm
179. 7:13addressing here not just Catholics this
180. 7:15should bother anybody in an open Society
181. 7:18such as ours supposedly open Society
182. 7:21should bother anybody when the law in
183. 7:24principle can be used
184. 7:26against Catholics because then things
185. 7:28shift around a little bit watch out the
186. 7:31law can be used against anybody
187. 7:36[Music]