Chris Matthews: anti-Catholic catholic

NBC oaf Chris Matthews, yes, the guy who experienced a thrill up his leg when he saw Pres. Obama, has this to say about Catholics and probably also Anglican/Episcopalian converts.

From Newsbusters:

Chris Matthews appeared at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C., Monday, for a President’s Day panel and sneered that Catholics are attracting bigots. While talking about Richard Nixon, the so-called Southern Strategy and racism, the Hardball host berated, “If you’re really anti-gay, you become a Catholic now.”

[…]

Presidential Leadership Panel
02/20/12
7:30

SCOTT WHITLOCK: Hi, Mr. Matthews, my name is Scott Whitlock. I’m with the Media Research Center and-

CHRIS MATTHEWS: What’s the Media Research Center?

WHITLOCK: We write about liberal media bias.

[Matthews visibly sighs and looks irritated. Audience laughs.]

WHITLOCK: Earlier tonight, you were talking about Nixon and the Southern Strategy and bigotry and things like that you and you said, quote, “If you’re really anti-gay, you become a Catholic now.” [Audience laughs.] I was wondering if you were saying that bigots become Catholic now and if you wanted to expand or apologize for that? [Audience laughs.]

MATTHEWS: I think there are people who have chosen to convert to the Catholic faith because they don’t like the liberal positions taken by their sectarian groups. That’s a fact. So, you can write that down. No, you can write that down.

WHITLOCK: So, you’re saying Catholicism is drawing bigots? Is that what you’re saying?

MATTHEWS: I’m saying that some people who are bigoted against gay people have changed religions. Yes. You got it right.

[…]

There is a video.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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39 Comments

  1. johnmc162 says:

    That is straight out of the left wing handbook. If you believe marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman ordered to the procreation of offspring, you are a bigot.

  2. xsosdid says:

    Chris Matthews is a drone ….. HEY! PIGEON HUNTERS!!

  3. acardnal says:

    Unfortunately, the cable TV network MSNBC, where Chris Matthews works as an on-air personality, recently fired/terminated Patrick Buchanan’s employment. Buchanan was one of the only political conservatives and an orthodox Catholic on-the-air at MSNBC. (He regularly attends the EF Mass in Washington, DC area, too.)

  4. teomatteo says:

    Reporter: “So Mr. Matthews, if one chooses to remain a Catholic, accepting its teaching, are they also bigots?”
    Matthews: ?

  5. Gregg the Obscure says:

    Too bad that people who are bigoted against the historic Christian faith (not to mention the historic Jewish faith, the historic Moslem faith, the historic Hindu and Buddhist faiths and pretty much every civilization that has endured) aren’t called out on that fact to same the extent that normal people are wrongly maligned as bigots.

  6. RichR says:

    Matthews must be anti-God.

  7. rodin says:

    Matthews’ mouth is on automatic; it goes off before his brain is engaged.

  8. catholicmidwest says:

    So we’re attracting bigots, eh? Is this Chris Matthew’s not very subtle way of telling us he’s coming back to the Church?

  9. sejoga says:

    To be fair, I don’t think Matthews is saying that all Catholics are bigots who hate gays, he’s saying a lot of Christians join the Catholic Church for not much better reason than because they disapprove of homosexuality and now the Catholic Church is the only major denomination that still also disapproves. I think in that regard, he’s right. I’ve known people whose big epiphany regarding the Catholic Church came for reasons like that, and as a pretty traditional Catholic I consider it disheartening when someone says, “I joined the Church because my church started ordaining homosexuals” (or whatever) than to hear them say, “I joined the Church because I believe it to be true.”

    Just my thoughts.

  10. pm125 says:

    These self identified catholic people say catholic and sneer at brothers and sisters, find their comfort in one another, and are blaspheming God who said, Thou shalt not take my name in vain.
    Great role models of bigotry.

  11. Kerry says:

    An old Amos ‘n Andy (TV) dialogue. Amos was talking with (I think) Calhoun.

    Calhoun: “How does you know what party to vote for?”
    Amos: “Well, most people vote for whomever their parents voted for. My parents was Republicans, so’s I vote Republican. How did your parents vote?”
    Calhoun: “They was Democrats.”
    Amos: “Then I suspect you also should vote Republican.”
    Calhoun: “But they voted Democrat.”
    Amos: “Yeah, well I knowed your parents, and they wasn’t right ’bout one thing their whole life!”

    Chris M., the blind porcine exception that proves the rule.

  12. frjim4321 says:

    I suspect he’s referring to Anglicans or Episcopalians who have defected mainly on the basis of (1) ordination of women and (2) ordination of gay candidates who are open about their sexual orientation and in committed relationships. Further he might be perturbed over the fact that it seems that standards have been lowered such that priests defecting from the Anglican and Episcopal Churches have been welcomed with open arms and reduced standards by the Catholic Church, further that such are subject to a recklessly relaxed discipline.

  13. catholicmidwest says:

    frjim4321,

    I don’t think he should be worried about us getting a few Episcopalians. According to the Episcopalians I know, they’ve gotten some from us also, including some real troublemakers to go with their own troublemakers. They’re the interesting ones to watch, not us. It looks like it’s sorting itself out at long last to me.

    As for Chris Matthews, he’s irrelevant. He just doesn’t know it yet.

  14. pm125 says:

    With respect, I think he would make the Anglican/Espiscopalian distinction if that were his concern. He goes to Richard Nixon, Southern (with the word racists tossed in), and anti-gay for any who adhere to the Catholic Church teaching. If it weren’t for the marriage demand indicating that there’s no purpose of amendment, then there would be little for him to say against the teaching of his Church to win votes for his more important affiliation. Stirring the pot pay$, truth in journalism and the Church don’t.

  15. MaryW says:

    Well, where else are these disaffected people to go? To the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of course.

    When their churches pervert the Gospel of Jesus Christ they have no other recourse.

  16. JMody says:

    Fr. Z,
    I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that this rose to rate a post on your blog. You even said it yourself — the Oaf d’MSNBC, Chris Matthews (or is that “Oaffe”?). He said something vapid, half-baked, and mildly offensive — no kidding. I mean, his lips were moving, weren’t they?

    I am reminded of the late William F. Buckley’s description of a Horse’s Posterior, the greatest example of which he intended to prove was Senator Lowell Weicker.
    Just what is a Horse’s … ?

    “Oh, you know, the kind of person who says dull things dully”.

    How apropos for Mr. Matthews. Pray for him, I guess …

  17. heway says:

    I am also disappointed that you would give him the time of day, Father!
    My husband and I saw the great Chris on ‘Jeopardy’. He was the big loser!
    Knew nothing! His only claim to fame being the nephew of 2 religious women.
    Pray for him, is right!

  18. AnAmericanMother says:

    frjim4321,
    For somebody who sounds so much like an Episcopalian, you seem to know very little about it.
    I was a sixth-generation ‘high church’ Episcopalian, and I lived through it all. The exodus started in the 70s over the revision of the Book of Common Prayer (to something that sounded suspiciously like if not identical to the Lame Duck translation). The ordination of women was for some a turning point, though they certainly didn’t leave recently on that account because that was back in 1974 (and of course we see how well that’s worked out, what with Episcopal priestesses proclaiming that “abortion is a sacrament” and all.)
    We left when General Convention 2003 approved the consecration as bishop of a man who abandoned his wife and two daughters to live in sin (there’s your “committed relationship”). The fact that he decided to live in sin with a man was secondary. And we didn’t find out he was running a ‘service’ for ‘questioning’ teens until much later. If having standards of morality and right conduct makes me a bigot, Bring. It.
    Having endured all that nonsense once, I certainly do not want it imported to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. It has basically killed the Episcopal Church, which is hemorrhaging members and has an average Sunday attendance overall somewhere around 35.
    And while I can’t speak to every priest who has been accepted under the pastoral provision, I can tell you that the two that I know are learned and holy men. One of them speaks three languages fluently and reads the Early Church Fathers in the original, and preaches like a house on fire. Of course he was very ‘high church’ and had never abandoned the old standards of learning and decorum that were jettisoned by so many Catholics.
    But of course, if that suits you . . .

  19. Amy Giglio says:

    Goodness. They’ll give anyone with a mouth and half a brain a TV show, won’t they?

  20. EXCHIEF says:

    Amy
    In his case they waived the half brain requirement

  21. Angie Mcs says:

    Historically, hatred and bigotry towards some group, has always been with us. Matthews obviously has his own agenda and revels in the attention he receives by expounding mean, belittling and potentially dangerous thinking, not caring if his comments might be hurtful or inaccurate. The dangerous thing is that people like this can become effective when nobody challenges them and/ or keeps silent. How courageous it would have been, especially considering the audience’s laughter, if even one of his fellow panelists, Catholic or not, would have had the moral strength to stand up to Matthews, stating that these comments are unacceptable and walked away. Michael Beschloss, my previous estimation of you has sunk into the mire you became part of during this incident.

  22. Justalurkingfool says:

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  23. frjim4321 says:

    AnAmericanMother, thanks for the chronology.

    I was only hazarding a guess as to what spurred Matthew’s comment.

  24. Supertradmum says:

    I wish I got paid his salary for being stupid. Oh, wait, not really….

    He is just one more liberal Catholic who is ruining the Church from the inside.

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  26. AnAmericanMother says:

    frjim4321,
    You may have hazarded a guess about what Matthews was frothing about . . . but your statements about the Episcopal Church were not qualified in any way.
    You seem to want all that turmoil and heresy for the Catholic Church. If you don’t even understand what happened when a denomination actually adopted each and every one of the practices and beliefs you are constantly advocating here . . . maybe you ought to rethink your position.

  27. Centristian says:

    History reminds us that those who decide to take shots in Ford’s Theatre end up on the wrong side of history.

  28. irishgirl says:

    Wow, Chris Matthews is certainly obnoxious, isn’t he? He’s also got a big mouth….which he constantly sticks his foot in….
    And bravo to Mr. Whitlock for taking him on!

  29. DisturbedMary says:

    This guy is on more than Kool-Aid. What did they teach him at Holy Cross?

  30. Toronto AU Catholic says:

    That comment from Chris Matthews does reflect (although poorly) an underlying reality: Protestant converts to Catholicism will be motivated, in no small measure, by a desire for an orthodoxy in faith, worship and discipline that they no longer see in their former denominations. And our increasingly secular society, and increasingly liberalized Protestant communities, will be at increasing odds with Catholics over this.

    My wife and I recently left the Anglican Church of Canada to join the Roman Catholic Church, in part because of multiple signs that the ACC was departing from the faith once delivered. Same-sex blessings (fully authorized in some Canadian Anglican dioceses) and ordination of homosexuals in active, partnered relationships were both introduced on theologically shallow grounds. If you google the ACC’s “Rothesay Report” and “St. Michael’s Report” and read various “pro” and “con” views of same-sex blessings, you will quickly realize how the promoters of these innovations failed to articulate any solid, theological grounds to support these new practices, other than some or all of the following arguments: (a) these developments are “Spirit-led” (i.e., at Synods of laypeople and liberal clergy, a majority of delegates proclaims for the novelty); (b) they have precedents in other recent theological trends within Anglicanism (ordination of women and allowing for divorced persons to receive communion); (c) they are being done out of a motive of charity towards those in same-sex unions; (d) Levitical prohibitions on same-sex behaviour should not apply to Christians and Paul was writing about “abusive” not loving same-sex relationships; and (e) broadly speaking, Christianity is a religion of love and so we should accept everyone at Christ’s banquet table of whatever sexual orientation. My wife and I spent several years earnestly grappling with what a church looks like that departs from orthodoxy, and in that light came to realize the Roman Catholic Church is the living manifestation of the Holy Spirit sent at Pentecost – that corporate body in which subsists fully the Bride of Christ incarnate through history down to our times.

    The month we left, a former Catholic educator and now self-declared lesbian and “progressive Christian” advocate left the RCC to become ordained in the Anglican Church in our former diocese. We knew of her, but didn’t see her pass by as we swapped places. The theological gulf continues to widen.

  31. Traductora says:

    Sejoga…

    The moral position of a denomination (referring to Protestants) has always been a way people judge the denomination and are encouraged to become part of it (or not). I don’t see anything wrong with people coming into the Church because they are impressed by its moral position on this issue. Obviously, in the conversion process, which involves instruction, they’ll fill in the blanks on the rest of Catholic doctrine. So if they have gotten as far as reception into the Church, they know more than simply the Church’s opposition to gay marriage/gay ordination/gay whatever.

    This caught their attention, as it should, because once again it means the Church is standing firm and giving them a rock in a swirling current.

  32. Toronto AU Catholic says:

    In endorsement of Traductora’s comment, bear in mind that converts typically go through a fairly rigorous RCIA or other catechetical program, so they are aware of the full doctrine of the Church to which they are assenting. If they were merely “bigoted” (to use that phrase), I’d hardly see how and why they would spend months of religious instruction in joining the Church!

    In any event, these folks aren’t “bigoted” (or “homophobic”) as much as they are wanting to become more Theophilic, Christocentric and Pneumatic.

  33. robtbrown says:

    frjim4321 says

    I suspect he’s referring to Anglicans or Episcopalians who have defected mainly on the basis of (1) ordination of women and (2) ordination of gay candidates who are open about their sexual orientation and in committed relationships.

    As a convert myself and knowing a lot of converts, I know that almost no one converts having in mind a broad outline of Catholic faith and morals. Generally, there is the notion that “this is it, this is what I’ve been looking for”–it is an assent to the Church. Thus being in favor of a male priesthood and Catholic sexuality (cf. homosexuality) are more than sufficient beginnings to the journey.

  34. Deacon Jeff says:

    Bigotry
    noun, plural -ries.
    1. stubborn and complete intolerance of any CREED, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.

    Pot, meet kettle.

  35. robtbrown: “I know that almost no one converts having in mind a broad outline of Catholic faith and morals.”

    When I was received as a convert over a half-century ago, one could not gain acceptance to the Catholic Church without demonstrating both knowledge AND ACCEPTANCE of at least “a broad outline of Catholic faith and morals”.

    Whereas it appears that in recent decades many have been ordained to the priesthood without the knowledge that was required of converts then.

  36. Scott W. says:

    I consider it disheartening when someone says, “I joined the Church because my church started ordaining homosexuals” (or whatever) than to hear them say, “I joined the Church because I believe it to be true.”

    This shouldn’t be disheartening. I doubt anyone could come up with an example of someone who exclusively joined the Church for that reason. Rather, most mainstream denominations left the Christian farm years ago and the ordaining of homosexuals was merely the final straw that woke people up to that fact.

  37. wmeyer says:

    Henry Edwards: My own experience with RCIA suggests to me that not only is no demonstration required, but that little or no checking is done on what is taught. It would be all but impossible for anyone going through that class to demonstrate any real knowledge of the faith. Specific things which were taught:
    – the Rosary is not for everyone
    – about women’s ordination: “well… not yet”
    – reliable theologian: Fr. Richard Rohr (!!!!)
    Things which were not taught:
    – anything about the CCC
    – that without the priest there is and can be no Eucharist
    – that conscience is not reliable until well formed by Church teaching

  38. Supertradmum says:

    Henry Edwards, as an ex-RCIA Director, who attempted to stem the tide of anti-Catholic teaching which was rampant in two parishes where I worked, I can assure you that I was in a minority concerning the following: civil unions for gays, women’s ordination, contraception, New Age nonsense, etc. I finally gave up when I was up against permanent deacons who held these heretical ideas and I had to let them speak at some of the presentations because the priest said so. And, if you have never attended the required conferences for RCIA Directors to earn their certificates in order to teach and coordinate, you would be in for a shock. I actually walked out of the three day conference on the second day after discovering that women’s ordination was being taught as something which wwoul happen, and that the gay lifestyle must be accepted ad understood. This was in Chicago in 2008. Before that, I was teaching and directing without the horrid certification, which no real Catholic could endure.

  39. Supertradmum says:

    Apologies for typos and I worked in RCIA in five parishes and two chaplaincies, four in America and two in England, one in Canada. The rot is international.

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