Why I'm a Pagan

[Psychonaut]

There are regional/ethnic variants of Christianity (I can immediately see the differences between Irish Catholicism and Italian Catholicism) but Christianity/Catholicism in itself can never be of a sort that is bound to kinship. It's a universal religion.

Right, it has functioned as a de facto folk religion in the face of the extreme otherness of would be conquerors (Muslims in Martel's day) or masses of immigrants (the Irish in Bill the Butcher's day), but these seem to only end up being temporary bursts of folkishness that end up dispersing once the threat is either neutralized or absorbed. The reason for this would, as you indicate, be the inherent universalism of Christian theology.

[Electronic God-Man]

Right, it has functioned as a de facto folk religion in the face of the extreme otherness of would be conquerors (Muslims in Martel's day) or masses of immigrants (the Irish in Bill the Butcher's day), but these seem to only end up being temporary bursts of folkishness that end up dispersing once the threat is either neutralized or absorbed. The reason for this would, as you indicate, be the inherent universalism of Christian theology.

Yes, exactly. Irish and Italians used to fight in these Philadelphia streets...now everyone you meet here is half Irish half Italian, but 100% Catholic...lol.

[John in Denver]

There are regional/ethnic variants of Christianity (I can immediately see the differences between Irish Catholicism and Italian Catholicism) but Christianity/Catholicism in itself can never be of a sort that is bound to kinship. It's a universal religion.

Yes, there were ethnic variants but have been severely weakened by the success of "multiculturism" whose roots can be traced back to the counter-culture revolution which swept a greater breadth than most can imagine. The reforms of Vatican II was one of the major branches of the counter-culture whose influence is still going strong thanks to television and cinema where perversions are sold as virtues every waking day.

I clearly understand the corruption in the church didn't start yesterday, and history shows us it has been a struggle since her birth. We need to return to a organic-based religion, but if the majority are indifferent to the concept that the Gods reside within us and that we need to be united as a people through blood and soil then we will continue to decline, religiously, culturally, and civilly.

[Psychonaut]

Yes, there were ethnic variants but have been severely weakened by the success of "multiculturism" whose roots can be traced back to the counter-culture revolution

It goes back a helluva lot further than that. The whole history of Christianity (just like those of Islam and Buddhism) is one of enveloping more and more diverse groups of people into its fold. It has never truly been—nor can it—a religion particular to, or representative of a Folk because of the expansionary conversion theology that is at the core of the New Testament (Mark 8:34, John 3:3-5, and especially Matthew 28:19).

[Baron Samedi]

How about you stop being a bunch of fucking fence-straddlers?

[Hrimskegg]

[Nodens]

Good points guys-kinda funny how polytheists foam at the mouth and refuse to consider the Xtian god part of it.

I can understand the Xtians because of 'no other gods before me' but not the other way around

From a literalist interpretation, the (Judeo-)Christian god is an upstart who ate the rest of his pantheon and is now gunning for others.

From a folkish/racialist symbolic interpretation, said god is a legitimate symbol only for those among whom he originated (i.e. not us).

Other interpretations exist, but are too numerous to address here.

Only a purely universalist symbolic interpretation allows the type of syncretism your line of argumentation suggests.

[SuuT]

Yes, there were ethnic variants but have been severely weakened by the success of "multiculturism" ...

Those were/are not ethnic variations, but ethnic imprints upon the contra-folkish paradigm that serves as the substrate for the linear, proscriptive and jealous fidelity of the semitic ethos. Such a thing, of course, cannot preserve, sustain or advance an ethos - it can only consume it.

[Loddfafner]

Catholicism can never be ethnically based. That doesn't make a bit of sense.

I once heard a lecture about how the Catholic organization in terms of territorially-defined parishes made it harder for Catholics to move around without breaking crucial social networks. When whites vacated cities, Catholics were more likely to stay while Protestants and Jews were more likely to move to suburbs. The result is that you still find distinct Irish, Italian, and Polish neighborhoods in large American cities while the Scandinavian, Germans, and English dispersed.

There are regional/ethnic variants of Christianity (I can immediately see the differences between Irish Catholicism and Italian Catholicism) but Christianity/Catholicism in itself can never be of a sort that is bound to kinship. It's a universal religion.

I have some Irish Catholic ancestors who settled in California very early, though my grandmother's marriage to a (nominal) protestant did not help in maintaining contact with those relatives. One of the few things I know about them is that they were increasingly keen on their differences with Mexican Catholics as the English/Spanish distinction became more important than the Catholic/Protestant one.

[Aemma]

I once heard a lecture about how the Catholic organization in terms of territorially-defined parishes made it harder for Catholics to move around without breaking crucial social networks. When whites vacated cities, Catholics were more likely to stay while Protestants and Jews were more likely to move to suburbs. The result is that you still find distinct Irish, Italian, and Polish neighborhoods in large American cities while the Scandinavian, Germans, and English dispersed.



I have some Irish Catholic ancestors who settled in California very early, though my grandmother's marriage to a (nominal) protestant did not help in maintaining contact with those relatives. One of the few things I know about them is that they were increasingly keen on their differences with Mexican Catholics as the English/Spanish distinction became more important than the Catholic/Protestant one.

Interesting, the same thing has occurred here in my part of Canada where the French and the "English" have co-existed for such a long time. ["English" is in quotation marks to denote language differences only here...it's complicated....]. A long time ago, at the same intersection, you could have had a French Catholic Church and an Irish Catholic one, and further down the way an Italian Catholic one, and never would you have seen a person from one ethnic group go to the others' church--unless there was a mixed marriage of course. These days, some churches which have been around since dot are closing down, well the French and Irish ones. (The church in which my maternal grandparents and my very own parents were married has recently closed its doors.) I haven't seen this in the Italian nor Portuguese communities yet though; I doubt I will.

But I digress....

I think both parties are right here depending on the vantage point one wishes to take. Technically, the Roman Catholic Church cannot have any form of ethnic basis since its very raison d'etre has been to be the one holy, apostolic and universal church. The Roman Catholic Church used to take this universality business quite seriously up until the changes occurring with the Vatican II Council. With this latter council, in its attempt to bridge the gap between the Church and its flock by allowing masses to be spoken in the language of each culture, it has balkanised its own self in the process, placing its grander notion of universality in peril.

I truly wonder what today's Roman Catholic Church would look like had Vatican II not occurred.