Mastodawn

I'm going to start this post by reminding everyone that random british Jews are no more responsible for the politics of Israel than random british Catholics control the politics of Rome or Italy. The country frequently claims to speak on our behalf but it does not consult us before doing so.

The state of Israel has been doing targetted murder, abuse and torture of doctors and medical providers.

This is probably why arsonists decided to set fire to ambulances owned by a Jewish charity in London. In London. Not in Israel. Not linked to Israel. In London.

Those ambulances are volunteer and do not only serve Jews, but help people IN LONDON.

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Yza

@celesteh It actually makes some sense to hold Catholics to account for the Vatican's bullshit. They may not decide what the Vatican does, but the defining characteristic of Catholicism is the understanding that the pope is the head of their church and the belief that the pope is the one god directly speaks through.

If you don't believe that then why call yourself a Catholic? You'd be some non-Catholic Christian.

Conversely, Judaism doesn't require Israel by default.

Unfortunately, I went to 12 years of Catholic school. Catholics rely on priests for some of their rituals, so there is a hierarchy built in wrt to access to G-d and certainly there's a bureaucratic hierarchy in how the church is organised. However: Anyone can talk to G-d. Saints, especially. A few saints were popes but most weren't.

Popes can also be wildly wrong. A popular medieval sermon topic was popes in Hell.

The relatively new doctrine of infallibility, which is still controversial, does confer doctrinal correctness on to the pope, but only in very specific circumstances, which require a long process of other people agreeing with him.

Catholics around the world do _fund_ the Vatican, as paying dues to their churches also sends money up the chain.

But, like, there are a lot of Catholics who consider themselves to be extremely devout, who are, in church as a part of the service, praying for the pope's death! Right wing US Catholics hated the previous pope and are certainly not to keen on the current guy either.

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Yza 11h ago

@celesteh Absolutely. I just mean that the pope is meant to be the one who is most in tune with god. there are always politics around that, but the central idea that Catholics effectively endorse the Vatican by continuing to adhere to a heirarchical system that the Vatican rests atop of remains

But for Jewish people there is no such inherent obligation to Israel. A person being religiously Jewish doesn't mean they endorse, value or accept Israel as Catholics must the Vatican

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Yza 11h ago

@celesteh I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools from pre-school through sixth form. I remember the whole debacle with the Vatican protecting paedophile preists being exposed, but nobody around me talking about it. Because what do you do? Acknowlege it happened, condemn the head of your entire religion? Regard the whole system as rotten and a betrayal of what your god stands for?

How can you continue to be Catholic without endorsing that?

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Yza 11h ago

@celesteh Not trying to be shitty to christians here, but if you're going to judge people by their religion, catholics and jews are different in what fundamental political systems they inherently validate. People judging Jewish people like they're all zionists should be made to reckon with why they do that with jewish people and not catholics

People are (temporarily) not bigoted against Catholics, but I do expect that to change if the far right gets into power here.

Which is why this framing makes me a bit nervous.

I hear people saying 'why do Muslims get noise form the far right for praying public when Jews don't at Hanukka?' It's because we are temporarily a model minority, but that hate will definitely come if we don't defend Muslims. Like Catholics fought beside our ancestors at Brick Lane...

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Yza 11h ago

@celesteh fair enough

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Yza 11h ago

@celesteh sorry, this feels like a dismissive answer. i just don't know what else to say. i know catholics have been oppressed in the past, but my conceptualization of that has been of different branches of christianity taking turns wresting power from each other and trying to enforce state religions, both fighting to be the version of state christianity to oppress everyone else

but i am taking on board what you say and will let it inform how i think about this going forward

In the UK, Catholicism often stands in as a symbol for other forms of power relations. It represents class, ethnicity, foreignness and several forms of otherness.

I wasn't abused by anyone in the church, but my experience of Catholic "education" was an overall quite negative. Please don't take my point to be defending the institutions or the beliefs.

Like, idk, some of the people who have suffered the worst from the catholic church are Irish people, but they also face discrimination for being catholic.

Voltaire was a twit, so I don't have any high liberal ideals. I just think that all minority religions should have solidarity wrt to equal rights under the law, access to religious holiday time off, the right to visibility, the right to respect for ritual items, the right to wear symbols or pray in public, the right to be free from fear, etc.

I think it should be possible to do that while also protecting the rights of children.

Its ok if you disagree. I'm not, like, sanguine about the Catholic church…