Bannon: Catholic Church needs lillegal aliens to fill the churches

[publicunofficial]

This theory only makes sense if there aren't any catholic churches in Mexico.

[ProudModerate2]

This theory only makes sense if there aren't any catholic churches in Mexico.

Very good point.
People's don't leave Mexico and come to the US because they want to attend a Catholic church.
Mexico has many, many of those.

[Adam Griffin]

Bannon's a proper idiot. As somebody who lives in a heavily-Latino area with relatively new waves of immigration responsible for the Latino community here, I can say that a very large percentage of these immigrants inevitably end up going to evangelical Protestant Spanish-speaking churches. It wouldn't surprise me if it were half once everything is said and done. There are a ton of evangelical Latino churches here.

[TheSaint250]

They teach the born agains/southern baptists that Catholics aren't Christians and they worship Mary as a god/Satan. Just ask Bushie, it's really creepy.

I'm a Southern Baptist, and my church has never once said that Catholics aren't Christians.  In fact, in any conversations I have had on the topic, it seems to be more of a situation of mutual respect, even if the churches do differ in some important ways.

When I was in junior high, I had a friend (well I thought he was a friend) who was Baptist, and he approached me one day with an official Baptist small pamphlet (it even had drawings in it, I recall), and it was nothing but Catholic bashing. The things in the pamphlet were very troubling (just evil).

I was so horrified that another "Christian" religion would do this. I mean, I was really a gasp and it mentally affected me for a short period of time. (That was many moons ago, but I still remember it).

Are you Catholic?
Also, if you remember, what kind of stuff was being said?

I was brought-up with the Roman Catholic faith, but much of that has now been lost.
It was quite some time ago, I don't remember much about the pamphlet. But I do recall some things. It was specifically designed to give to people of Catholic faith (the pamphlet was entirely "Catholic bashing"), to dissuade and/or convert one. But the way they worded items (with accompanying pictures) in it were just horrible. I recall some bashing on the Eucharist and something about how the Pope dresses or what he wears. Most of the "bashing" was descriptive language of how these "Catholic things" were really demonic/satanic, and that you should not believe or trust them. It was pretty bad stuff.

Geez that's horrible.

It seems like that kinda stuff is becoming less prevalent. I hope it goes away completely.

[publicunofficial]

They teach the born agains/southern baptists that Catholics aren't Christians and they worship Mary as a god/Satan. Just ask Bushie, it's really creepy.

I'm a Southern Baptist, and my church has never once said that Catholics aren't Christians.  In fact, in any conversations I have had on the topic, it seems to be more of a situation of mutual respect, even if the churches do differ in some important ways.

When I was in junior high, I had a friend (well I thought he was a friend) who was Baptist, and he approached me one day with an official Baptist small pamphlet (it even had drawings in it, I recall), and it was nothing but Catholic bashing. The things in the pamphlet were very troubling (just evil).

I was so horrified that another "Christian" religion would do this. I mean, I was really a gasp and it mentally affected me for a short period of time. (That was many moons ago, but I still remember it).

Are you Catholic?
Also, if you remember, what kind of stuff was being said?

I was brought-up with the Roman Catholic faith, but much of that has now been lost.
It was quite some time ago, I don't remember much about the pamphlet. But I do recall some things. It was specifically designed to give to people of Catholic faith (the pamphlet was entirely "Catholic bashing"), to dissuade and/or convert one. But the way they worded items (with accompanying pictures) in it were just horrible. I recall some bashing on the Eucharist and something about how the Pope dresses or what he wears. Most of the "bashing" was descriptive language of how these "Catholic things" were really demonic/satanic, and that you should not believe or trust them. It was pretty bad stuff.

Sounds like a Chick tract. Those are quite stupid though my response to them is more to laugh at them. I knew a guy in a progressive church plant group who collected them for laughs.

That said though I don't see what's so different from them and handing out pamphlets stating that a certain political stance or party is wrong and you should change that. Plus at my,college all sorts of student Christian groups handed out pamphlets about their activities and no one described that as "horrible".

I hope it was a Chick tract, his anti-Catholic stuff was some of his best material.

Dude blamed Catholicism for the creation and spread of Nazism, Communism, Free Masons, AND Islam, as well as the assassination of JFK and Lincoln.

[TheSaint250]

They teach the born agains/southern baptists that Catholics aren't Christians and they worship Mary as a god/Satan. Just ask Bushie, it's really creepy.

I'm a Southern Baptist, and my church has never once said that Catholics aren't Christians.  In fact, in any conversations I have had on the topic, it seems to be more of a situation of mutual respect, even if the churches do differ in some important ways.

When I was in junior high, I had a friend (well I thought he was a friend) who was Baptist, and he approached me one day with an official Baptist small pamphlet (it even had drawings in it, I recall), and it was nothing but Catholic bashing. The things in the pamphlet were very troubling (just evil).

I was so horrified that another "Christian" religion would do this. I mean, I was really a gasp and it mentally affected me for a short period of time. (That was many moons ago, but I still remember it).

Are you Catholic?
Also, if you remember, what kind of stuff was being said?

I was brought-up with the Roman Catholic faith, but much of that has now been lost.
It was quite some time ago, I don't remember much about the pamphlet. But I do recall some things. It was specifically designed to give to people of Catholic faith (the pamphlet was entirely "Catholic bashing"), to dissuade and/or convert one. But the way they worded items (with accompanying pictures) in it were just horrible. I recall some bashing on the Eucharist and something about how the Pope dresses or what he wears. Most of the "bashing" was descriptive language of how these "Catholic things" were really demonic/satanic, and that you should not believe or trust them. It was pretty bad stuff.

Sounds like a Chick tract. Those are quite stupid though my response to them is more to laugh at them. I knew a guy in a progressive church plant group who collected them for laughs.

That said though I don't see what's so different from them and handing out pamphlets stating that a certain political stance or party is wrong and you should change that. Plus at my,college all sorts of student Christian groups handed out pamphlets about their activities and no one described that as "horrible".

I hope it was a Chick tract, his anti-Catholic stuff was some of his best material.

Dude blamed Catholicism for the creation and spread of Nazism, Communism, Free Masons, AND Islam, as well as the assassination of JFK and Lincoln.

Never heard of this guy but he sounds horrible.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Never heard of this guy but he sounds horrible.

Chick tracts are horrible if you take them seriously, but quite humorous if you don't, which is why I find them funny.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Bannon's a proper idiot. As somebody who lives in a heavily-Latino area with relatively new waves of immigration responsible for the Latino community here, I can say that a very large percentage of these immigrants inevitably end up going to evangelical Protestant Spanish-speaking churches. It wouldn't surprise me if it were half once everything is said and done. There are a ton of evangelical Latino churches here.

I was going to joke that the greater risk to the Church was Mexicans coming here, since this country seems to Protestantize them.

[7,052,770]

I my anecdotal evidence, most Southern Baptists in Mississippi, including in well-educated suburbs, do not believe that Catholics are Christian. At least they didn't in the late 90s/early 00s. I can remember Chick tracts being placed on all cars during mass on multiple occasions.

I would strongly disagree with an idea of a "mutual respect" between the denominations. I would say there is a strong dislike coming from both sides. I should point out, however, that the church I grew up in was disproportionately converts, so that might have colored the opinions of the Catholic parishioners if there was a strong contingent of ex-Baptists.

I'm not  a very religious person, but it definitely psychologically endeared me to the Catholic Church. I haven't been to mass in years, but I still mentally associate the Catholics as the "good guys"

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I my anecdotal evidence, most Southern Baptists in Mississippi, including in well-educated suburbs, do not believe that Catholics are Christian. At least they didn't in the late 90s/early 00s. I can remember Chick tracts being placed on all cars during mass on multiple occasions.

I would strongly disagree with an idea of a "mutual respect" between the denominations. I would say there is a strong dislike coming from both sides. I should point out, however, that the church I grew up in was disproportionately converts, so that might have colored the opinions of the Catholic parishioners if there was a strong contingent of ex-Baptists.

I'm not  a very religious person, but it definitely psychologically endeared me to the Catholic Church. I haven't been to mass in years, but I still mentally associate the Catholics as the "good guys"

Honestly, I think this might be a case where being politically aligned has made Evangelical Protestants and religious Catholics respect each other much more than they used to (against social liberalism).

[publicunofficial]

They teach the born agains/southern baptists that Catholics aren't Christians and they worship Mary as a god/Satan. Just ask Bushie, it's really creepy.

I'm a Southern Baptist, and my church has never once said that Catholics aren't Christians.  In fact, in any conversations I have had on the topic, it seems to be more of a situation of mutual respect, even if the churches do differ in some important ways.

When I was in junior high, I had a friend (well I thought he was a friend) who was Baptist, and he approached me one day with an official Baptist small pamphlet (it even had drawings in it, I recall), and it was nothing but Catholic bashing. The things in the pamphlet were very troubling (just evil).

I was so horrified that another "Christian" religion would do this. I mean, I was really a gasp and it mentally affected me for a short period of time. (That was many moons ago, but I still remember it).

Are you Catholic?
Also, if you remember, what kind of stuff was being said?

I was brought-up with the Roman Catholic faith, but much of that has now been lost.
It was quite some time ago, I don't remember much about the pamphlet. But I do recall some things. It was specifically designed to give to people of Catholic faith (the pamphlet was entirely "Catholic bashing"), to dissuade and/or convert one. But the way they worded items (with accompanying pictures) in it were just horrible. I recall some bashing on the Eucharist and something about how the Pope dresses or what he wears. Most of the "bashing" was descriptive language of how these "Catholic things" were really demonic/satanic, and that you should not believe or trust them. It was pretty bad stuff.

Sounds like a Chick tract. Those are quite stupid though my response to them is more to laugh at them. I knew a guy in a progressive church plant group who collected them for laughs.

That said though I don't see what's so different from them and handing out pamphlets stating that a certain political stance or party is wrong and you should change that. Plus at my,college all sorts of student Christian groups handed out pamphlets about their activities and no one described that as "horrible".

I hope it was a Chick tract, his anti-Catholic stuff was some of his best material.

Dude blamed Catholicism for the creation and spread of Nazism, Communism, Free Masons, AND Islam, as well as the assassination of JFK and Lincoln.

Never heard of this guy but he sounds horrible.

He's dead now but his comics are legendary. They're meant to be left in coffee shops and park benches for people to find  (Some people give them out instead of tips for wait staff, annoyingly).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Usually they weren't quite that logically inept.  Usually you had to go several pages to find a logical contradiction., not the very next page.


There is no God.
Morality can come only from ourselves or God.
Therefore, we can be God.

Not only does the result not follow from the premises,  it directly contradicts one of them.

[Fuzzy Bear]

They teach the born agains/southern baptists that Catholics aren't Christians and they worship Mary as a god/Satan. Just ask Bushie, it's really creepy.

I'm a Southern Baptist, and my church has never once said that Catholics aren't Christians.  In fact, in any conversations I have had on the topic, it seems to be more of a situation of mutual respect, even if the churches do differ in some important ways.

I will say that Roman Catholics and Protestants have profound differences on the issue of just exactly how one is saved and gets to spend Eternity with God, and not apart from Him in Hell.  These differences are not trivial; they are the difference between Salvation by grace through faith (sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus, et soli Deo Gloria) and the works-based Salvation Catholicism presents.  We are a more secular nation than ever before, and there is less awareness of what is actually in the Bible now than at any time in our past history, but the differences that came forth and produced the Protestant reformation have never been resolved between Protestants and Catholics.  I can find much agreement with Catholics on social issues, but on religious doctrine, our differences, as I read them, have ETERNAL consequences. 

[Green Line]

More practicing Latinos need to start sending their children to parish schools.  It's killing the church.

[7,052,770]

More practicing Latinos need to start sending their children to parish schools.  It's killing the church.

No, Catholic schools should all disband and their students should go to public schools.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

More practicing Latinos need to start sending their children to parish schools.  It's killing the church.

No, Catholic schools should all disband and their students should go to public schools.

Disagree. That would be a grave violation of religious liberties.

[Green Line]

More practicing Latinos need to start sending their children to parish schools.  It's killing the church.

No, Catholic schools should all disband and their students should go to public schools.

You mad?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Chick tracts are awesome. A Minneapolis band even printed a band shirt that was nothing but the band name and underneath it an excerpt from one of the tracts, the one where he railed against all rock music including Christian rock and had panels where Satan disguised as a record executive asked this band to sign a contract in their own blood. Obvious copyright violation but I guess they figured they'd get away with it since it was so obscure.

More practicing Latinos need to start sending their children to parish schools.  It's killing the church.

No, Catholic schools should all disband and their students should go to public schools.

From my anecdotal experience at my school that results in them making Protestant friends, which in itself isn't a big deal, but some will then start attending Protestant youth groups and camps with their friends and convert before college. Meanwhile virtually no one in high school converts to Catholicism.

I even once met an old for the church's standards woman at my church once who said she was Catholic and her daughters went to Catholic school until high school...then they went to public school and ended up going to this church and they converted her as well.

So yes, I would strongly endorse this suggestion.

[Green Line]

Chick tracts are awesome. A Minneapolis band even printed a band shirt that was nothing but the band name and underneath it an excerpt from one of the tracts, the one where he railed against all rock music including Christian rock and had panels where Satan disguised as a record executive asked this band to sign a contract in their own blood. Obvious copyright violation but I guess they figured they'd get away with it since it was so obscure.

More practicing Latinos need to start sending their children to parish schools.  It's killing the church.

No, Catholic schools should all disband and their students should go to public schools.

From my anecdotal experience at my school that results in them making Protestant friends, which in itself isn't a big deal, but some will then start attending Protestant youth groups and camps with their friends and convert before college. Meanwhile virtually no one in high school converts to Catholicism.

I even once met an old for the church's standards woman at my church once who said she was Catholic and her daughters went to Catholic school until high school...then they went to public school and ended up going to this church and they converted her as well.

So yes, I would strongly endorse this suggestion.

Reported for hate speech.  You know hardly any Catholics, and your words border on genocide.

[libertpaulian]

Bannon is correct.  If we were to deport every single undocumented immigrant who's Catholic and those migrants never came back to the USA, the Catholic Church's numbers in the United States would be as abysmal as those of Mainline Protestants.

[HisGrace]

He's been through every other nativist cliche, so why not revive the anti-Catholic conspiracy theory.

Immigration will hamper secularism in America, which is a good thing.

If Republicans were smart they'd be courting all the devout Catholics coming in from Latin America as a future replacement for their aging evangelical base. They're not interested in brown people, though.

[Badger]

Bannon's a proper idiot. As somebody who lives in a heavily-Latino area with relatively new waves of immigration responsible for the Latino community here, I can say that a very large percentage of these immigrants inevitably end up going to evangelical Protestant Spanish-speaking churches. It wouldn't surprise me if it were half once everything is said and done. There are a ton of evangelical Latino churches here.

I was going to joke that the greater risk to the Church was Mexicans coming here, since this country seems to Protestantize them.

An interesting observation, but how sure are you of that? I asked because the growth of Evangel Protestant denominations in Mexico itself is skyrocketing just as it is in the United States. Perhaps the growth in such Protestant denominations among Mexicans has to do with much deeper root causes then the effect on immigrating to the United States? Genuinely interested in your thoughts here.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He's been through every other nativist cliche, so why not revive the anti-Catholic conspiracy theory.

Immigration will hamper secularism in America, which is a good thing.

If Republicans were smart they'd be courting all the devout Catholics coming in from Latin America as a future replacement for their aging evangelical base. They're not interested in brown people, though.

What? Evangelicals skew much younger than most religious groups. The Republican evangelical base who voted for Cruz (and also Rubio to a large extent) is mostly middle aged, and is going to be around for quite some time.

Chick tracts are awesome. A Minneapolis band even printed a band shirt that was nothing but the band name and underneath it an excerpt from one of the tracts, the one where he railed against all rock music including Christian rock and had panels where Satan disguised as a record executive asked this band to sign a contract in their own blood. Obvious copyright violation but I guess they figured they'd get away with it since it was so obscure.

More practicing Latinos need to start sending their children to parish schools.  It's killing the church.

No, Catholic schools should all disband and their students should go to public schools.

From my anecdotal experience at my school that results in them making Protestant friends, which in itself isn't a big deal, but some will then start attending Protestant youth groups and camps with their friends and convert before college. Meanwhile virtually no one in high school converts to Catholicism.

I even once met an old for the church's standards woman at my church once who said she was Catholic and her daughters went to Catholic school until high school...then they went to public school and ended up going to this church and they converted her as well.

So yes, I would strongly endorse this suggestion.

Reported for hate speech.  You know hardly any Catholics, and your words border on genocide.

LOL. For one you didn't report it, two your first half of the next sentence is wrong and the second half is pretty absurd. Conversion !=mass systematic killing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Bannon is correct.  If we were to deport every single undocumented immigrant who's Catholic and those migrants never came back to the USA, the Catholic Church's numbers in the United States would be as abysmal as those of Mainline Protestants.

Indeed. There's actually some truth to what Bannon said if you read "Catholic Church" as "Catholic leaders in the US" (in regards to the point that there's no net gain in immigration as without it they're just Catholics in Mexico.)

When the US was founded, only an estimated 1-2% of Americans were Catholic, but that number has increased probably every decade since its foundation...except the last one. According to ARDA the Catholic population from 2000 to 2010 dropped by over 3 million. That's a pretty significant loss, but it's also a rather manageable one, it's only a net loss of 5% of their membership. The truth is though, the Catholic Church has probably been having a net loss of members born in the US since the 80s at least as in the amount of new Catholics via conversion and parents having kids baptized is less than the loss of members due to conversion out and death, the problem of course being that the in conversion rate to Catholicism is quite low and ~40% of those kids being baptized aren't staying once they hit adulthood. The only thing keeping the numbers up then was Hispanic immigration.

Now of course even the Hispanics are leaving in significant numbers. That was no doubt one of the big factors in the net loss last decade, but immigration still shielded them from a bigger and far more devastating loss. As has been noted yes, at this point they're only retaining about half of Hispanics but that's still better than nothing and still a needed cushion. Their loss will probably be even bigger in 2020 thanks to that reason, but even a 10% or so loss is preferable to the 20% or even higher it could be without immigration. For example see here, in my home state of North Dakota, not known for a high Hispanic population, the Catholic percentage dropped from 27.4% in 1985 to 18% in 2015. That's almost the loss of a third.

For an anecdotal bit, the Twin Cities diocese had to close a bunch of churches in the last few years, including my grandfather's*, which is one on the fringe of the metro in a rural when my mother grew up but now exurbanizing area, so not really due to depopulation. Meanwhile the sole Catholic church in my neighborhood survives...but as a mostly Hispanic one with according to the sign two Spanish language masses and only one English one every Sunday. I'm pretty confident though that far more non-Hispanic and hell for that matter English-fluent Hispanics in my neighborhood were raised Catholic than first language Hispanic ones, so why is that?

*And he was quite angry over their refusal to sell the building to a Lutheran church that was interested in buying and converting it, which resulted in it being demolished. It was a notable historic site too, so that was a travesty.

[Badger]

Bannon is correct.  If we were to deport every single undocumented immigrant who's Catholic and those migrants never came back to the USA, the Catholic Church's numbers in the United States would be as abysmal as those of Mainline Protestants.

Indeed. There's actually some truth to what Bannon said if you read "Catholic Church" as "Catholic leaders in the US" (in regards to the point that there's no net gain in immigration as without it they're just Catholics in Mexico.)

When the US was founded, only an estimated 1-2% of Americans were Catholic, but that number has increased probably every decade since its foundation...except the last one. According to ARDA the Catholic population from 2000 to 2010 dropped by over 3 million. That's a pretty significant loss, but it's also a rather manageable one, it's only a net loss of 5% of their membership. The truth is though, the Catholic Church has probably been having a net loss of members born in the US since the 80s at least as in the amount of new Catholics via conversion and parents having kids baptized is less than the loss of members due to conversion out and death, the problem of course being that the in conversion rate to Catholicism is quite low and ~40% of those kids being baptized aren't staying once they hit adulthood. The only thing keeping the numbers up then was Hispanic immigration.

Now of course even the Hispanics are leaving in significant numbers. That was no doubt one of the big factors in the net loss last decade, but immigration still shielded them from a bigger and far more devastating loss. As has been noted yes, at this point they're only retaining about half of Hispanics but that's still better than nothing and still a needed cushion. Their loss will probably be even bigger in 2020 thanks to that reason, but even a 10% or so loss is preferable to the 20% or even higher it could be without immigration. For example see here, in my home state of North Dakota, not known for a high Hispanic population, the Catholic percentage dropped from 27.4% in 1985 to 18% in 2015. That's almost the loss of a third.

For an anecdotal bit, the Twin Cities diocese had to close a bunch of churches in the last few years, including my grandfather's*, which is one on the fringe of the metro in a rural when my mother grew up but now exurbanizing area, so not really due to depopulation. Meanwhile the sole Catholic church in my neighborhood survives...but as a mostly Hispanic one with according to the sign two Spanish language masses and only one English one every Sunday. I'm pretty confident though that far more non-Hispanic and hell for that matter English-fluent Hispanics in my neighborhood were raised Catholic than first language Hispanic ones, so why is that?

*And he was quite angry over their refusal to sell the building to a Lutheran church that was interested in buying and converting it, which resulted in it being demolished. It was a notable historic site too, so that was a travesty.

Was it the Catholic church that refused to sell it I assume? Was it because the Bishop's referred to see it destroyed rather than become a Lutheran place of worship?