Orange Lodge Baptist Church in Pigeon Forge Openly Spreads Anti-Catholic Bigotry
Lent is a time of testing one's faith for many believers, but for one youth at Holy Cross Church in Pigeon Forge, it is a time to defend Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist after a fellow student at school gave her a Chick tract asserting that the Eucharist came from the devil:The pamphlet suggests the Roman Catholic church isn't Christian and the pope is an anti-Christ.While some people say the pamphlet expresses religious freedom, others say it's a hate crime.Father Jay Flaherty, of Holy Cross Catholic Church, said he first learned about the pamphlets when one of his youth brought one to him."There's two of them that really upset me because I knew it would upset the children," Father Flaherty said. "One's called the 'Death Cookie,' which claims that our communion is from the devil."The other pamphlet, titled "Last Rites," shows cartoon drawings of a Roman Catholic man who isn't saved because he didn't accept Christ.The pamphlets have been passed out before, but Father Flaherty says this is the first time a church's name has been printed on them.
I know Holy Cross and I know Father Jay quite well. Before Nicole and I were married, Holy Cross was her parish and Father Jay Flaherty was her pastor. We were married at Holy Cross and Father Jay said our Nuptial Mass. I feel sorry for that poor pastor at Connor Heights Baptist Church. Father Jay is a rarity in the Catholic Church in America in that he is both a humble and holy parish priest and a gifted and fiery preacher. So unafraid of controversy is Father Jay that people (mostly tourists visiting from up North, but sometimes locals as well) have been known to walk out of his Masses because they do not want to be confronted with the truth-Father Jay, he doesn't care. Thank you, Connor Heights for providing Father Jay with what will undoubtedly be weeks worth of hellfire and brimstone homiletics with which he will reinforce the Catholic faith to his parish and a whole lot of other people as well.
Jack Chick is the infamous author of the smut that was being distributed at the high school in Pigeon Forge. From Chick's so-called tracts, we learn such enlightening things about our faith:
"Jesuits worked closely with Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin" to create Communism, and it was "believed that soon . . . Communism would rise up as the new strong daughter of the Vatican." It was Rome that instigated the Bolshevik Revolution and the murder of the czar’s family. The Communist "liberation theology" movement also is a Vatican plot. [I suppose Communist persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland and Latin America was also part of a secret Vatican plot.]
The Nazi Holocaust of the 1940s was a Vatican-controlled attempt to exterminate Jews and heretics. Further, "Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were backed by the Vatican for the purpose of setting up a one-world government to usher in the ‘Millennial Kingdom’ under Pope Pius XII."
The Vatican conspiracy is so extensive that, through the Jesuits, Rome controls the Illuminati, the Council on Foreign Relations, international bankers, the Mafia, the Club of Rome, the Masons, and the New Age movement.
The Jesuits created the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Unity, Christian Science, and other religious groups.
"Pope John Paul II has been a good Communist for many years" and engineered a phony assassination attempt against himself in 1981 to shame Islam into warming relations with the Vatican, since the would-be killer was a Muslim.
Jack Chick doesn't just have it out for Catholics, either. He thinks Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, the late C.S. Lewis, Pat Boone, the Assemblies of God, and the Southern Baptist Convention are all a part of the elaborate "papist conspiracy" to rule the world.
Of course, if you are Catholic and you live in East Tennessee, you know we have a history of being persecuted for our faith here. There was a time when Irish Catholics who lived in what was then the frontier (and who built the first railroads into Tennessee) were reviled for their religious beliefs. The notorious Know-Nothing William "Parson" Brownlow was once said to be part of a riot which nearly caused Immaculate Conception Church on Knoxville's Summit Hill to be destroyed. Even as Catholics increased in numbers and became an integral part of life in Knoxville and East Tennessee, the reality that less than 2% of the population was Catholic made the Church and Catholics an easy target for ridicule.
We do not live on the frontier any longer, however. There are now enough Catholics in East Tennessee that we no longer have to take this kind of thing lying down, and the press and public reaction shows that we don't.
I would challenge my fellow Catholics not to be afraid to take a stand for what we know to be right and true...but do remember that not every Baptist, indeed the vast majority of Protestants, is out to "get" you. The best way to fight ignorance is with true and just reality-and a few of Father Jay's homilies certainly don't hurt.
Labels: Faith, Holy Mother Church, Miscellany, Political correctness
posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 3:56 PM
3 Comments:
Bigotry isn't much fun when it's directed at you is it?
I grew up Baptist churches and have many friends who became believers in a Catholic church. On behalf of Baptist, I apologize for the lack of understanding of some of our brothers in Christ. They are clearly operating outside of the love of Christ.
May the Protection of the Father surround you, the Love of Son enliven you and the comfort of Spirit give you peace
Debra
Jack Chick never ceases to amaze and irritate me. Have you seen the film which has nine adaptations of Jack Chick tracts? It's called "Hot Chicks" and it's great. My favorite is "Bewitched" done with puppets. There is also "Somebody Goofed" and "Doom Town" and a bunch more. I found my copy at www.316now.com. It seems like something you'd like.
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