Political implications of more Americans converting to Catholicism?
The American right was heavily associated with Evangelical idpol for the past 50 years. They became the cultural backbone of the GOP from the 80s to the late 2000s. Now it appears like a huge number of former Evangelicals are converting to Catholicism. I even know some ex-Mormons who are Catholic now.
At the same time, it seems like leftists are embracing Catholicism too. Remember when everyone was convinced Pope Francis was a secret socialist? Jacobin mag goes out of their way with appealing to Catholics as well (every other article of theirs is something along the lines of: “Move over pink-haired bipolar feminist queers, here’s why the Catholic Church are the REAL socialists!”). People like Dorothy Day are propped up even though her actual contributions to the American left were minimal and symbolic at best (the Catholic Worker also referred to the priests killed by /ourguys/ in Catalonia as “martyrs” which is disgusting). Not to mention, the Jacobin crowd seems very big on appealing to right-wing Catholic sentiments like complaining about birthrates being too low and proposing Bernie-style policies like universal healthcare to “fix” it, as if low birthrates are a problem to begin with.
But anyway, if Catholicism becomes a major cultural force in America in the next few years how do you see it affecting the political landscape?
213 posts and 34 image replies omitted.It seems the majority of people ITT are theologically illiterate. Not all Catholics (or even a plurality of them) are internet tradcats. Not all Evangelicals are right wingers.
>>2409326>it seems like leftists are embracing Catholicism too.There’s a more disturbing reason for this. After 9/11, there was a big shift in European intelligentsia to begin to appreciate Christianity again. Christianity, so the story goes, is a special religion that enabled Europe to become liberal and created the foundations for socialism, whereas Islam is a religion that’s just inherently reactionary and fanatical so it could never evolve. So Christianity makes “us” special and different from “them.” You Zizek extend this type of thinking to Buddhism, where he associates Buddhism with nihilism and fatalism. China is a despotic unfree country because of Buddhism. There’s a disturbing neo-imperial Christian exceptionalism going on here where a Christian heritage makes you superior to the rest of the world. Idpol at its worst.
This shift in attitude suddenly turned Christianity from a religion of the poor, to something cool and elite and trendy for the middle class and intellectuals. Ironically, the leftist embrace of Christianity comes at a time when Christianity has been taken up by the bourgeois elite.
>But anyway, if Catholicism becomes a major cultural force in America in the next few years how do you see it affecting the political landscape?My experience with Catholic clergy in the US is that most tend to be liberal or left wing, even if they have some positions libs wouldn’t like. Few are right wing. There are more right wingers going into right wing Catholicism but at the same time you have left wingers going into the mainstream of Catholicism which is lukewarm liberal.
The results can vary depending on the type of Christianity leftists embrace. I see two options 1. A left that’s less atheist and less fixated on extreme secular fundamentalism, more faith engaged, less abrasive and hostile for religious people, more interested in interfaith dialogue 2. The left becomes increasingly xenophobic, especially towards Muslims and Chinese because they are non-Christian and incapable of being socialists without being Westernized first. So the secular fundamentalism gets paired with a Christian exceptionalism to create a new paternalistic politics aimed at combatting the Chinese. This would just function as a futile left flank of imperialism and be impotent in the face of a rising new right.
>>2444834>It seems the majority of people ITT are theologically illiterate/leftypol/'s fanbase of MLfags and Haz Stalinist here constantly bitches about anarchofags, anything religious or Trotskyist.
It isn't being illiterate, it's the loudest bunch not wanting anything theologically related (as they are already biased against it), or learn anything theological.
>>2444834>>2445373It’s also not surprising that you’re starting to see people on the left use leftist tropes in order to justify social conservatism. Zizek stans and Jacobinbros are the worst with this. Every so often in Jacobin you’ll see an article arguing something along the lines of: “Bernie Sanders’ single-payer healthcare plan is the key to making women have babies again”. Or: “America needs to go back to the 1950s when the rich were taxed to hell and wealth inequality was at its all time lowest!”
Obviously, we’re not stupid and we see through these dogwhistles very easily.
>>2445189That's by design. Critical thinking skills are antithetical to the religious enterprise. This is precisely why the the only audience you can consistenly manipulate are the church-going right wingers. Take
>>2445439 for instance. There is zero substance to his argument from the first glance, and the combination of his post and the imagery tries to subconsciously nudge you to think that the leftist thought is something that is set in stone and unchanging and not informed from scientific progress. From his conveniently constructed strawman he argues that leftist policies (which were never implemented in the USA or in Europe) are the reason why birth rates are falling, and certainly not the economic crisis caused by printing trillions of dollars out of thin air during COVID. Do not ask him where all that money really went.
>>2445373Gaza is where you saw the mask slip and a lot of people got exposed. Zizek especially.
>>2445446I don’t know about the whole Western left, but there is this crypto-racist tendency among many European leftist intellectuals. These people buy into European Christian exceptionalism, not because they are Nazis or even Christian, but because they see Western culture and religion as the foundation for progress and socialism. Basically, Asians and Middle Easterners are reactionaries or despotic and that’s because of Islam or Buddhism or Chinese culture etc. so the decline of Western power and influence will lead to a decline in progressive values. You can already see how this has lots of parallels with Bush era imperialist ideology.
>>2445439Weird article even by Jacobin standards. I don’t think it’s social conservatism though. Similar to the far-right, they seem worried about population decline in the West and see Asia as a demographic threat.
>>2445373Jews
celebrate the genocides they committed in the past to this day, killing all the women, children and animals is considered a virtue and pleasing to God.
>>2445876Saying family is good or having kids is good and people should be secure enough to make a home is one thing. But saying we need high birth rates because it brings a bunch of technical benefits is speaking in the voice of the bourgeois state and the language of bourgeois instrumental rationality. Humans are not organisms in a petri dish. Marx would be horrified.
>>2445870Most of them are but not all of them. You see it in America. It’s pretty deeply rooted in Western philosophy thanks to Hegel. Guys like Zizek and Badiou have a huge following in America too.
Now I’m not saying Christianity is bad or that it doesn’t have strengths. But this Christian heritage idpol is kinda like Zionism, where you don’t believe in it but you think it makes you better than everyone else.
>>2445439How much longer before the Jacobin crowd leaves the DSA and starts joining the Solidarity Party (Catholic idpol party)?
>>2445958TBH Badiou’s book on St. Paul is arguably his worst.
You’re 110% correct about the Hegel shit. Every time I see a leftist get super invested in Hegel they either become a reformist social democrat or a full-blown crypto-fash like Haz. Both are simply forms of western chauvinism.
>>2446118Yes, LeftCaths unironically believe Pope Francis and now Pope Leo are/were socialists and that the Catholic Church can be a socialist institution.
Also, they really love Dorothy Day even though she renounced anarchism and was basically a liberal.
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