Catholics Hating Catholics

Apparently, it is fashionable, nowadays, to hate Catholics and to tweet it out loud. It happens a lot. Perhaps, this deserves a word or two.

Firstly, I do not hate any category of persons en bloc. Not Atheists. Not Democrats. Not Liberals. Not even Muslims. Yes, I admit to hating atheism, liberalism, Democrat ideology, and Islam. But I am not one of those “basket of deplorables”-types. I would actually even think it the mark of a bad person to think that way.

If I were such a person, I would, I think, at least have the taste to not tweet about it, or agree with such a tweet.

So, ask me: “Mundabor, do you hate Catholics?”

“Not as such, no”, would be my clear answer. However, after that I would proceed to make a further distinction and subdivide the aforementioned Catholics in true and fake Catholics.

Of the first, I would tell you that I like them a lot. I like them, in fact, even when they reproach me for, say, not upholding the standards, be that true or false in the specific case. I recognise, in those cases, that such Catholics strive to make the work of the Lord. If they err in that, or are deficient in prudence, or are even obnoxious as people, is, in the end, secondary to their main trait: that they are, flawed as we all are, soldiers of the Lord. A bad soldier of the Lord is still, in his own way, a beautiful person. I might ban him. I will not, repeat not, hate him.

Of the second, I would tell you that I dislike a number of them. Many, I am sure, are misled and simply confused, not educated enough in all things Catholics, or simply trying to do their best with the limited lights at their disposal. I was, in case you don’t know, one of them for too many years. But many others, who actually should know better, manage to anger me: not, mind, because they are flawed, obnoxious soldiers for Christ, but because they refuse to be such, and want to enrol me and everybody else in their fake army, fully infiltrated by the enemy.

Perhaps I should, on reflection, include in the second subcategory a third group of people: Catholic journalists who hate, or are tempted to hate, Catholics an bloc; who hate them qua Catholics.

Now, this category I would find really bad, and not Catholic at all.

I really hope they do not mean what they tweet, apologise, and reflect that the people they hate actually butter their very bread.