On Monday, I posted on my blog a distinction which ought to be made between anti-Catholicism and counter-Catholicism. I ended on a kind note towards the counter-Catholics--many of whom are my friends--but before that had this to say about the anti-Catholic crowd:

Compare this to the anti-Catholic bigot and his line of argument. It relies as much on insult and mocking as anything. He'll blaspheme the Eucharist, hurl verses out of context trying to "prove" that the Church is the "Whore of Babylon," scoff at the clergy and any number of doctrines and practices. Often he will not wait for an answer. For him, any stick is fine so long as it can be used to beat the Church. His arguments are generally dilatory or sophistical in nature, with little interest in getting to the truth of the matter or seeing the Church as anything other than the tool of the anti-Christ.

He relies on Mr Jack Chick and Mr Lorraine Boettner to (mis)inform them about what the Church really teaches. He lives inside an impenetrable wall through which neither reason nor logic and facts concerning the Church can reach. Aside from Chick and Boettner, there are a few very good examples; Mr James White of alpha-omega ministries; really, any program which targets specifically active Catholics for "conversion to Christianity" is likely run by anti-Catholics; this website is another great example (which started the conversation). Charity may be extended to all of these folks--some believe (albeit falsely) that they are acting in charity--and God knows they need it, but they have made themselves outright enemies of the Church. The only other things which may be offered is prayer and witness in action.

I should address a few loose ends from these remarks. There is hope even for the anti-Catholic crowd, if only a glimmer. However, even the distinction between counter-Catholics and anti-Catholics doesn't go quite far enough, because there are two broad groups of folks who fit into the anti-Catholic crowd. I will call these two categories "hard anti-Catholicism" and "soft anti-Catholicism." There are myriad small distinctions between them, but I will be writing more broadly today.

Both hard and soft anti-Catholic types believe most or all of what I wrote above; the difference is largely in how they got there. The hard anti-Catholics have more-or-less willed themselves there; they are the James White, Jack Chick types who may know (if not actually understand) a bit about what the Church really teaches and who don't care. They generally hate the Church, loathe her, and want to see her destroyed soon; they do not accord to Catholics the title "Christian," and sometimes prowl the church parking lots or lurk in the alleys behind the cathedral in wait of another victim to steal from the fold.

A handful may have been hurt by members of the clergy (e.g. in the sexual abuse scandal), though I can't name any. From reading their tracts one would think that most of them were more directly hurt by the likes of Inquisitor Torquemada and not of Cardinal Law or Fr Hullermann (to name a few). Far more simply prey on those who have been hurt, or (as is often the case) by those who think they've been hurt by members of the church, a hurt which they can just as easily lay at the feet of the whole Church.

Many of these oppose the Church for love of something else. Some enjoy great material wealth (which is not by any means a bad thing) gained from their church--though this is by no means the majority. Others love the power. They are head of their own church, which in many cases means that they enjoy claiming a great deal more authority than the pope does as head of the universal Church. They fear giving that up, and hate challengers to this power.

Discussions with such as these are often entirely fruitless, and there is nothing to be done save to pray and act with charity. God moves in mysterious ways, ad road-to-Damascus conversions do sometimes happen. However, it is more realistic to hope for a conversion of heart in which they attack the real Enemy instead of the greatest bastion against that Enemy. The hard anti-Catholics are often quite set in their ways--truly they deserve the title "bigot"--and any form of conversion from these are very rare.

The second type of anti-Catholicism, which is "soft" anti-Catholicism is thankfully much more common. A great many of my friends were formerly of this sort (and a few unfortunately still are). These are often the types who have never met a faithful and orthodox Catholic, and so have been forced to form their opinions based on a) interactions with Catholycs, b) interactions with under-catechized Catholics, and c) the information passed on to them by their parents or pastors, which may or may not be a mixture of myth, legend, story, factual information, and propaganda.

For this latter type, it's almost always an effortless assumption--rather than a willed conclusion--that the Church is the "Whore of Babylon" (and all or most of the other baggage that goes along with anti-Catholicism). This has become a sort of Protestant Tradition--often (but not always) among evangelicals, non-denominationals, fundamentalists, and Pentecostals; occasionally amongst even the mainline Protestant denominations--which has been passed on from generation to generation amongst certain Protestant communities. They preserve this tradition in their schools and homes, and especially in the churches.

I mentioned before that I preferred this type of anti-Catholicism. It is still every bit as anti-Catholic as hard anti-Catholicism (at least on the surface). However, it tends to be less bigoted in that a great many of the people I've know who were "soft" anti-Catholics often have a sort of conversion to becoming counter-Catholics after they meet and become friends with real, living, flesh-and-blood Catholics. I know this, because I have a number of friends (and even some family) who were "raised slightly anti-Catholic" (would this be a cradle anti-Catholic?), as one of those friends put it, and almost all of whom have become either counter-Catholics (that is, "Catholic-friendly Protestants") or even Catholics. Sometimes these soft anti-Catholics will descend into becoming hard anti-Catholics, or will start hitting up the resources of the hard anti-Catholics should a friend or family member become Catholic, but I've found that this is often a phase which does not last.

This is probably the most distinguishing difference between soft and hard anti-Catholics: the likelihood of their becoming counter-Catholics, or indeed even converts to Catholicism. The response to both types is more-or-less the same, at least at first: prayer and charity; with the soft anti-Catholics, dialogue is generally eventually possible; rarely so with the hard ones. When this is done, the hard anti-Catholics often remain just as anti-Catholic as ever before, or sometimes even more so, the soft anti-Catholics come closer to the Church, becoming (at least) "Catholic-friendly" Protestants. The hard anti-Catholic often has a metaphorical "heart of stone" which cannot be converted in the least without divine intervention; the soft anti-Catholic often has a conversion of heart (if not a full conversion in to the Church), aided by the charity and prayers--indeed, the witness--of his Catholic friends.

This especially happens thanks to the contact which Catholics and evangelicals (among others) have with each other in the pro-life movement. Indeed, several different friends of mine who could lay claim to having been raised as cradle anti-Catholics have separately confided that, though they are not in the least interested in converting, they have gained a new respect for Catholics thanks to their exposure to actual Catholics in the pro-life group at my alma mater. They have become counter-Catholics, and may certainly tease on this or that doctrine or practice (some of our practices seem to make sense to only us and God), which they find strange. However, the respect is their, and the ability to share as a part of our friendship a common belief in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the inspiration of the Bible (plus or minus a few deuterocanonicals), of the Incarnation, the Life, Death, and Resurrection (and the divinity) of Christ. We are able to enjoy that "Mere Christianity" which we hold in common.