was a socialist and a heretical Baptist preacher... should traditionalist Catholics honor the "Reverend" Dr. King?
What if a socialist and heretical Baptist preacher had organized all Pro-Life Americans to convert the hearts of Americans and overturn Roe v. Wade? Should traditionalists honor that person?
Someone on the other thread asked what the traditionalist perspective is on race relations. Here is some pertinent information on Catholic social practices as it concerns race, if we are going to have a rational dialogue.
1). Segregation on the basis of race did not exist in traditionally Catholic nations, and ALL traditionally Catholic nations have had a larger percentage of multiracial people than Protestant nations, where they have been conquerors (Brazil, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Philippines) -- in short, in practice, they didn't believe that people are speciated. There was one Medici of Black ancestry, as well (it seems) as one Portuguese monarch.
2) Blacks and Whites interacted before slavery in America, and have never had a relationship has adversarial as here. Blacks participated in Medieval society, and throughout the history of Christendom -- many early saints were Black; there was no belief in the unsuitability of Blacks to receive the grace of God, on the basis of their race, and entire nations were converted and seen as fully included in the archaic Church (Egs: Ethiopia).
3) The most important point, I think is this one: wherever there has been de facto segregation in Protestant nations, it has been intimately linked to some economic motive (as much of Protestantism is). Those in the American South were dependent on slave labor, but were outnumbered by those slaves in some states. They had to guarantee that labor, and prevent rebellion, so they enacted extreme measures (de facto segregation). Another parallel would be South Africa, where the white settlers (not coincidentally Protestant), needed to guarantee their own social and economic systems on a land they were conquering. The result was apartheid.
I think traditionalists need to stop mingling politically conservative stances with traditional Catholic thought and culture, or using Catholicism to defend perspectives that aren't truly described as "Catholic". Part of the problem is that trads in America are living in a culture that is so heavily rooted in Protestantism, they aren't familiar with cultural Catholicism. None of this is doing us any good, in terms of our own conversion.
