O'Connor and Powers were from an earlier generation than I, though I suppose in some regions — certainly the South back then — there were Protestants who looked down on Catholics. But I had Protestant friends as a kid.Interesting, I believe when I set up a panel in college to discuss our theology course, and invited a Protestant minister and rabble to join us, I became the first person to bring non-Catholic clergy to the campus. No one complained, though.
Thursday, July 08, 2021
Hmm …
… O’Connor and Powers: Catholics among Protestants.
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When I was born in Lowell, it was a city of parishes, very Catholic. The religion from my maternal side was Congregational, the religion of the Pilgrims. You didn't grow up in Lowell, without knowing the inside of the Catholic churches, and having friends who went to catechism, the Catholic parallel to our Sunday School, so the language translated into similar enough practices. But I also was 7 when Kennedy became the first Catholic president, which I was surprised about, and that it was a big deal. Learning history later, it was and still is odd that Catholics had just been horrifically persecuted by Nazis.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the worst aspect of the Catholic church is just how exclusionary it has been and can be still, to the point that like other Christian faiths, they teach that no one gets to heaven without being one, and we see that attitude in not sharing communion and other sacraments. It was so interesting growing up in that atmosphere, being a Protestant outsider, yet knowing just how foolish it is. Maybe second to that is how it makes its adherents believe in church decisions on mysteries, like it has to spoon feed a church of children with "noble" lies.
And yet, my undergraduate degree is from Rivier College, now a coed University. My Introduction to Religion course was taught by Rabbi Shenkerman. I should add that it was a women's college during the day that let men into evening degree programs. There I was, a Protestant man taking a religion course at a Catholic women's college from a Rabbi. Certainly, not all of my other teachers were Catholic, quite possibly not most. When I got there, the head of the psychology department was a nun. She retired and a young man then headed the department, a non-Catholic if memory serves.