To Anonymous:
Ummm, if I remember correctly, the Catholics in Italy saved over 200,000 Jews from the Nazis by hiding them in churches that were off limits to Nazi searches BECAUSE IT WAS CHURCH LAND AND PROPERTY!!!!....and Peter was the first Pope...he was crucified by the Romans...in Rome around 67 A.D. .... I don't know if you've ever picked up a Catholic Bible, but Jesus clealy states to Peter in the New Testament "Upon this rock you will build my Church"....Paul was beheaded by the Romans also around 67 A.D. ...To another subject, what part of the fifth commandment "Thou shalt not kill," stated in the Old Testament quite clearly, goes against what the recent Popes have said about abortion?.... also Jesus said that one of the two greatest commandments was to "Love your neighbor as yourself," how is killing a baby, who can not defend itself be okay, when it had no say in the matter of forming and came about because two teens or adults couldn't behave like humans and show some self-control.
For anyone else out there who is anti-Catholic--the Church is not political...it has a moral duty to teach what God has told us through divine revelation. Humans are not perfect...not even the Pope, so if humans are not perfect, who should we look to for guidance? To a God who Loves and Cares about every person he creates?... God Bless you all. And may God's will be done...

ezav tjdsohkwn jgqeczpw lsnz nfuvqr tqwsifv xqykfze

Gee Mary,

seems like you have posted a lot since deciding that you "cant post until after Easter".

Here's the agent Novak exposed speaking for herself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3epOuEZTfNM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efiredoglake%2Ecom%2F2007%2F03%2F16%2Fhead%2Dof%2Dcia%2Dsays%2Dvalerie%2Dwilson%2Dwas%2Da%2Dcovert%2Dofficer%2F

Sorry, can't post until after Easter. It'll just have to wait.

The swastika was actually an Indian (not AmerIndian) symbol reversed, the Indian continent is the origin of the Aryan race, although Hitler did not stop to consider that these people were brown not blonde.

Notice that the worst of the anti-Catholic screams have been deleted. Phew! For a minute I thought I was back in Northern Ireland during the worst of the Troubles.

Back Monday. Have some quotes on the relgion as an evolutionary adaptation present in *all* human cultures, its hereditability, genes associated with &tc.

Mr. Mark,
I watched the hearings...LOL
It has been such fun to have the Dems back in the majority.... there has been already more hearings in 7 weeks then in the past 6 years.

And the man in charge of the security for the White House did not fair too well either. I almost felt sorry for him. And Ms.Toensig was a shade too sure of herself...and the bigger you are the hardwer you fall.

Did you see the hearings for Walter Reed? I am betting there won't be another republican accuse a Democrat of not supporting the troops.

Any way...the man that talks to God and who the Fundies thought had a hot line to god kind of flubbed up. Goes to show that god might be talking to you, but you need to seperate your ego, from Her voice.

Blessings...

First off..Hitler cared nothing for Polytheism. He used the symbols of ancient Germany as a way to bring nationalism. I mean look what Bush did...Flag waving and freedom fries...be against their war= you are a traitor...I know because I was called one enough.

Useing ancient symbols does not equal polytheism. Why exactly would Hitler want many Gods..he was the only one he wanted worshiped. Hitler was a Christian; a Catholic, his Step father was Jewish. And I am not saying he was a monster because he was Christian or Catholic...BUT that being any religion does not make you less likely to be a fool, a knave or a monster.

Just what gods was he promoting besides himself,Goering, Goebbels...etc?

Hear, hear!!

Mr. Mark

RedLion wrote:
"Mr Mark wrote: Mr Novak played a large part in the illegal outing of a CIA operative. This outing destroyed more than a few careers, compromised and destroyed years of undercover work and undercover netwroks and most likely led to the deaths of people around the globe who were involved with said CIA operations."

Hyperventilating nonsense. If there was a smidgen of truth to any of it, the media, the Democrats, and the special prosecutor would have dug it up in short order and had a field day..."

You RW apologists are so predictable.

Fitzgerald got Scooter convicted on obstruction of justice charges. How did he obstruct justice? By not being truthful about his involvement in the CIA leak and in protecting others like Cheney. As Fitz stated, Scooter threw sand in the prosecution's eyes. Like the good little RW robot he is, he'll go to jail to defend our pathetic and cowardly president. Of course, Scooter also expects a pardon. Wait until the WH e-mails on THAT come to light.

The Dems couldn't investigate until they came to power. The do-no-oversight R Congress wouldn't allow investigations when they had the power. Maybe you missed today's CIA leak hearings. The Dems WERE having a field day today, espcially when Toensig got up there and made an ass of herself.

If you think the CIA leak case ended with Libby's fall guy routine, you're sadly mistaken. If there's any justice in this world, Novak will do time along with Rove and the other traitors that work for our law-breaking president.

Mary,

How nice to hear back from you.

First of all I cannot for the life of me imagine why you thought that I am attacking the members of the Catholic Church. I even said as much.

I was obviously writing about the employees of the Catholic Church that have power. Cardinals, priests, the Pope, you know the people who actually make these decisions. And sister, that most definately does not include you or your 1 billion plus coherts. But you knew that....c'mon you would have to be pretty dim to honestly believe that my criticism of the Church meant ALL Catholics everywhere equally. And I do not take you for a dim-wit.I just think you are exrapolating things from my posts that are not really there.

Also, when I initailly broached the subject of "bias" I was obviously not looking for the dictionary definition. Yes, I have a dictionary. I was referring to the way it was being used throughout this discussion board. My point being that many people seem to take offense at ANY criticism of the Church and take it personally. Not that you would ever do such a thing. ; )
A

At any rate upon further review I could have made that clearer, sorry for your deeply hurt feelings. I do hope that you find the strength to perservere in a world so obviously out to get you. Kidding.

On the other hand your silence on the issue of Cardinal Law being sheltered away in the Vatican speaks volumes. You wrote in great detail of selected bits of Catholic History, etc. (none of which pretained to my post, so far as I could tell),yet nothing about Law, who was my focus.

Right now the Vatican is hiding, giving aid and comfort to a criminal. A child-molester no less.

Call me a nut, but I think that is a big deal.

Your church is knowingly and willingly obstructing justice in Massachusetts and protecting a terrible criminal to protect the itself at the expense of the children and their families. All of the Cardinals know it as does the Pope and yet they do nothing. How you fail to see what a tremendous insult that situation is to it's parishoners is beyond me.

Again, that is not an opinion. It is indeed a very sad fact. And yes, that is why I find the Catholic Church contemptible.

Sorry but I AM biased against organizations that do that. No exceptions.

Spellcheck has been confirmed.........Polytheism

I liked Mary until that little comment there.

Yes, I believe Hitler applied some of Darwin's theories into his Nazi regime. Yes, it was a bad thing, but to say it was a result of an atheist agenda is misleading. Hitler wanted to bring back polythyism(need a spell check there) and make the world belive as he saw fit.

and as for religion being as natural as language......off balance there. Religion is not natural. Religion is the byproduct of a need to explain the way the world works. and unfortunately, religion has caused most of the problems in this world.

JSS, pt.II

But you say that is not enough for you. So what? Would anything *ever* be enough? You've already admitted bias. And hey! you're not even Catholic. Why do I suspect if it weren't for the paedophile priests you'd just fixate on something else?

I balance out the paedophile scandal with the shining record of the Church in my own parish: the East End of London. After Catholic Emancipation (Catholics were given freedom to worship about the same time slavery was abolished), the Church built its chapels in the East End, offering welfare to the poorest, mostly Irish labourers who had surged in to build the docks. I balance it out with the work of the Church in Britain today: continuing in its mission helping Eastern Europe migrants offering help, sanctuary & the sacraments to men and women very far from home. It's doing the same work for Latino migrants in the US. This is truly Christ's work for these are among society's poorest and most exploited.

I would contrast the above with the record of the two major 'scientific', atheist or secular faiths of the nineteenth century: Marxism and Social Darwinism. I happen to hold the full flowering of these, children of Robespierre and the French Revolution, as responsible for the worst evils of the 20th century: Social Darwinist Nazism and Marxist Communism. These two slaughtered tens of millions! Millions and millions of innocents, most of them their own people! And it was a campaign of secular atheism, make no mistake. Lenin's first act in power was to arrest ten of the Russian Orthodoxy heirarchs and execute them on the spot. (You're probably cheering...I can hear you.)

It would be good to have more discussion on the *need* for a religious faith as a balance to a secular world and many less charges from an elite that holds the religious in contempt.

Religion is as natural an instinct as language. We will always search for God in our attempt to understand the cosmos and our place in it, it's an innermost part of our very nature: "Thou hast formed us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee."

And Shakespeare's beautiful description of his (and my) faith always rings true: "Beauty, truth, and rarity/Grace in all simplicity.."

JSS

(Damn! Break a lenten fast and see where it gets you? Anyway, guess I'll have to go on.)

First you asked
---What does "bias" mean exactly? It seems pretty vague.---

My answer was to give a definition: an *unfair* preference or dislike of something.

So you admit a an unfair dislike of the Catholic Church or Southern Baptists. And you hold them in contempt for "many,many reasons". Now, forgive me, but the admission of both bias and contempt is close to an attack. And Catholics *are* the Catholic Church, they may differ from the heirarchy, but they are the formation of the Church. So when you say you hold the Church in contempt, you are thus holding me in contempt, Latin-Americans in contempt, Poles in contempt, Africans in contempt and on and on to all the billion or so other human beings comprising the Church. That's alot of people to hold in contempt...

But despite holding all those hundreds of millions of faithful in contempt, you say you don't discriminate. And I would ask how is that possible if you hold someone in contempt?

You gave your major reason as the paedophile scandal that Catholics have just "shrugged off" and forgotten. Well, I disagree. The offending priests were named and excommunicated. The worst ones have been delivered up to the authorities for prosecution. The Church sold off its lands and property to pay the claims of the abused. It closed and merged parishes as a result of the scandal. I would not say Catholics have "shrugged off" the closing of their parishes.

To Anonymous, who said:
"So now, perhaps we have cover for hating the savage, warmongerering predatory Israel, with the screems of anti-semitism that always result."

...First, let me help you with "screem" - it's "scream". Second, try and remember the screams of 6,000,000 Jews and 6,000,000 non-Jews killed by the Nazis. Third, don't forget to renew your membership in the Nazi party if you can put your copy of The Turner Diaries down.

And that is why you're Anonymous. Just use "Adolph"; it seems to work for you.

Bob,

Thank you.

No, of course we are not attacking or even belittling the members of the Catholic Church. I think that they are victims as well. Thier leaders failed them miserably and continue to in very serious and criminal ways. Yes, it is important to point out and acknowlege what is really going on.

Whoa, there, wait...

So you're telling me that anti-Catholic sentiments are fine because the Catholic Church is apparently the most powerful organization in the world. But I guess anti-Semitism is wrong, and bashing gays is definitely out of the question. Am I missing something here?

I mean, I'm looking at title bar for this page and it says, "Anti-Catholic Bias Still Accepted." And we're here saying that it isn't accepted? Are you kidding me? It seems that almost no one here has a problem with anti-Catholic bias...

JSS:
Thank you for your comments directly above. There is a difference between the institution of the Catholic Church and its members and many stood up against the horrific abuses of children perpetrated by parish priests and bishops. Anyone who thinks attacking the Church is happening when all of this abuse is mentioned exemplifies what Cardinal Law and Rome did. They put the institution of the Catholic Church above the suffering of the children they were supposed to protect. There is a special place in Hell for those priests and anyone else who knew of the abuses they perpetrated and did nothing to protect the innocent. We all know it's not likely to be the last time it happens as long as the institution comes before the children.

Bob: Novak is not worried his train won't get past the pearly gates. Integrist Catholics (that is Fascist Catholics) and Evangelicals, though they hate one another, agree that getting into heaven requires hating freethinkers, liberals, Jews, Masons, and probably most people who don't take religion overly serious.

Tonto: If you cannot despise those unwilling to be rational you leave yourself open to the tyranny of the ignorant. That is dangerous. Fools and knaves should not be in charge.

CANDIDE, the prolific...says that "hatred of an institution is not prejudice. It is rational thought...". Great. So now, perhaps we have cover for hating the savage, warmongerering predatory Israel, with the screems of anti-semitism that always result.
Which seems fair. A new BBC poll published by AP last week says only 17% of the world has a favorable impression of Israel, with the trend holding true in the US.
In any case, try this test: Among your acquaintance, large or small...let's say 500 coworkers, do you know which are Catholics? You don't. Do you know which are Jews?

Hey Ann O, I sure hope you check back in and get a chance to read this.

I appreciated your post and your openness to a discussion free of the infantile bile that marks so many of the posts above.

I was not dissing Catholics. Half my family is Catholic, after all. For the most part they're fine people who throw good parties and raise well-adjusted children and treat everyone with the respect they deserve.

My beef is with the church's leadership, and the many terrible things they have done in Jesus' name. I think they have wronged the faithful many times. I've tasted it myself and I've seen its effects on many others.

I am not about to criticize you for sticking with the church. I am glad, really, that you draw energy from the sacraments. I am merely saying, I was there once too, and it was beaten out of me by bullies and bureaucrats who claimed they were spiritually more advanced that me, and thus entitled.

I am aware of the testimony in various trials that says the clergy was following the advice of psychiatrists when they shuttled molesting priests around. I am also aware that when they realized this process was actually making things worse, some Catholic leaders deliberately covered it up to spare the church bad P.R., and thus became complicit in the rapes of thousands more innocents.

Again, these were crimes committed by flawed, evil men under the color of the church. It is not a rip on those who believe the Catholic doctrine and practice it.

Light a candle for me this Sunday. I'll think of you when I walk to the ocean this weekend and feel the wonder of what God has created.

Mary,

Where did I "attack" the Catholic Church? I merely pointed out that I hold that organization in contempt. I made no attack in any way shape or form. My opinions of the Catholic church and other very hypocritical institutions (the Southern Baptist Convention for example)are not unfair.

Among many historical reasons that I do have the time to get into now. The main reason right now is that the Vatican, the very Pope himself is giving shelter to Cardinal Law. Cardinal Law is an admitted child molester and used his position as Cardinal in Boston to shield other child molesters over the years. Thus putting the very children they were to protect in great harm.

Sorry, I kind of think it is a big deal to give aid and comfort to child molesters. Cardinal Law should be facing trial in Boston. Not hiding out in the Vatican. If you cannot see how that is a big deal then you my friend are the one who is lost.

This is not my opinion. It is a very sad fact.

So yes I think that is serious crime (series of crimes really) commited by powerful people who run your Church and no I will not forget about any time soon. It seems as though most people (Catholics included) sadly have little trouble with this. They shrug and move on.

Yes, I find that contemptible.

Pointing out this uncomfortable truth is important and hardly constitutes an "attack".

Again the Catholic Church is one of the most powerful organizations in the world.

You guys will be just fine.

If you go back over Mr. Novak's writings and his actions you see a pattern of divisiveness, whining, partisan attacks against others, and, above all, hypocrisy. I'd like to think that Mr. Novak realizes that his train will pull into St. Peter's station one day and that he knows he's not about to get in those pearly gates. So, hence, an article to tell all of us what a non-elitist he is and that he's a fine, upstanding, Mass-attending Catholic. I've had the good fortune to attend Mass with my Catholic friends and it always struck me that the last words were "Peace Be Unto You", exchanged among the parishioners. Witness what Mr. Novak did to Valerie Plame on behalf of his masters at the Republican Party or just witness this article with its attempt to create divisions between people of different religious persuasions. St. Peter will laugh at you, Mr. Novak, just as I am. I suspect Rome is too and I think you can see that most folks here have little use for you and your elitist tactics. No peace be unto you, brother. Time to hit the confessional, Mr. Novak.

It's worth keeping in mind here that secularism was not invented by atheists or agnostics. It developed during the so-called Enlightenment because religious disputes made it increasingly difficult to govern. England had a civil war, in large part, because of conflicts between different Protestant sects.

The framers of the Constitution wisely chose to keep religion out of politcs because it tends to lead to religious persecution and/or civil strife.

Secularlism, in short, is not anti-religious. It's practical.

It's also, I believe, the best weapon the West has against Islamic extremism.

Let's keep the distinction clear; legitimate disagreement with and even denunciations of certain actions and policies of the Catholic Church as an institution are no more "anti-Catholic" than disagreement and denunciation of certain actions and policies of the State of Israel are "anti-Semitic."

Disagreement with and denunciation of corporatist tools like Bob Novak is the duty of anyone with a shred of human decency.

In the forum on religion in the schools, Catzie, fearing that "courses in religion [might] include the vicious, violent stories such as in Deuteronomy," wrote that "Catholics are discouraged from reading the Bible themselves for that very reason."

That's hardly the reason. Catholics who became acquainted with the Bible for themselves might come to realize how much of Church doctrine is contra scriptural. I once heard an obviously devoted but troubled Catholic woman struggling to get an explanation from a Catholic "apologist," on a late-night talk show, of why Church doctrine still professes the "perpetual virginity" of Mary--that she remained a virgin not only during the conception of Jesus, but also during his birth, and for the rest of her life--in view of the several Biblical references to Jesus' many brothers and sisters, in particular his brother James. The "apologist" finally cut her off.

There are many other examples. In Hosea 9:1-16, it is clear that the Lord, angry at the Israelites, clearly regards the slaughter of a born child as a more severe punishment that a forced abortion ("miscarrying womb")--which directly contradicts the position of recent popes, that abortion is not merely homicide, but an especially grievous, "aggravated" kind of homicide. There are two other passages (Ex 21:22-23, Num 5:11-13) that clearly show that abortion was not considered homicide at all in Old Testament times; and nothing to support the contrary position, in either the Old or New Testaments.

While popes have styled themselves as the successors of St Peter, the supposed first bishop of Rome, it is clear from the New Testament that if any apostolic figure could be called the first bishop of Rome, it was Paul, not Peter. There is not a shred of credible historical evidence (as distinct from myth) that Peter ever reached Rome; but even if he did, it would have after Paul, who for two years, in the early 60s, was the first known, identifiable head of the Roman Christians community. Peter, on a missionary journey in the eastern Mediterranean, was probably in Babylon (Iraq), from where he wrote 1 Peter.

Candide, I think it's wrong to call people fools or knaves based on their religious beliefs. That implies that the individual has no right to his or her own beliefs. No matter how strange a particular doctrine may sound to many people, there will always be some people for whom the doctrine fulfills a particular emotional need. As long as they don't use the doctrine to justify harming others, then it should be no one else's business. If they do use the doctrine that way, then I think it's valid to judge those people, because it's about the actions and not necessarily the beliefs.

Candide,

As a knave, I most humbly thank you for your rational accusation and pray that I may become rational and equipped with such copious verborum.

Phil,

It looks like I was too busy posting sarcasm at about the same time you posted a response to my inquiry. I missed it yestrday, shame on me.

Thank you for that response. It really gives me a good starting point for better understanding what you were saying.

I am only 37, but when I was a child we belonged to a parish that still had a Communion Rail, of all things. My cousins, from a different parish of course, thought this was old fashioned then.

I am not incapable of accepting change, but just like the first time I heard of Group Absolution, it is in my nature to immediately question these things because of the very fundamentalist parish and school in which I was raised. Communion to non-Catholics is new to me, even at a more progressive parish.

That parish, of which I am no longer a member, STILL has no girls as Mass Servers, women doing the readings or ushering...least of which administering the sacrament...STILL.

I find myself going to Mass when I visit my parents and just shaking my head in disbelief.

I also feel bad for Father, he is so rigid that he is losing his congregation over it.

Thanks again for the information.

Peace be with you.

Prejudice against anyone because of ignorance is wrong. Dislike of an institution because of its evil deeds is justified.

Hatred of the Catholic church and its doctrines is not prejudice. It is the result of rational thought and reflection. It is an evil institution. Those who follow it are either knaves or fools or both.

It is not a crime to be a fool. It is a crime to be a knave, which means a crook.

It must be a revelation to Novak how much he is despised by the public. I am gratified that so many of my fellow Americans detest this awful man.

Bias: preference: an *unfair* preference for or dislike of something
Synonyms: prejudice, partiality, preference, unfairness, favouritism, predisposition, preconception

Y’know JSS unlike you, many people would be ashamed to describe themselves with the above adjectives. But you seem proud. And you attack principally the Catholic religion, but also Baptists.. Why? All of these people have done far more charitable work than you, I’d reckon. And more than half the humanity on this planet is religious: billions of souls. Religion—defined as belief in a supernatural entity--is as natural an instinct as language.

I have always thought of my Catholicism as part of me, as my *real * skin, a permeable barrier between my inner essence—call it soul if that’s not too distasteful—the created World and its Creator. Knowing the horrible history of Catholics in these isles (Great Britain and Ireland) and what my own people suffered for their faith fills me with awe and respect, and with no small thanks that I should be able to freely worship in a way that was denied to them.

Hopefully you will be able to surmount some of your biases and feel the glory of creation & I will leave you with that wish.

Yours truly,

MC
London, 16 March 2007

Many of you get angry at Catholics. Many get mad at those on the right. Many get infuriated at secularism. Many are disgusted with the left.So many people in this world are anti-Semitic. Others just rail at newsmen and women in general and the Washington Post in particular.
But look at what the Post has done. It has given all of us a forum to reveal our hearts via our words. Thus the words you use on this forum are like a record of your heart. How we all profess to be part of the good yet our very words on the internet reveal something else entirely.
I have no idea why/how Mr Novak became a Catholic other than trying to find some sense in a world that has become more and more hateful to others as its 'scientific reason' has exponentially expanded. I myself have found myself reading more and more Jewish thinkers/teachers and as I ponder the events leading up to the Holocaust I have developed such a sadness about how lost the human race is becoming because it has eliminated the very idea of eternity from its dreams. Could Mr Novak have discovered what I have discovered, that quite often your own group often fails you if that is all you want to believe in? In order to really learn and to see wonder, you have to reach out to others, beyond your own little myopic group. I have learned so much from Jews, from African Americans, from non-westerners, even from atheists/agnostics. The part separated from the whole becomes lost. Even if the worst things come from a religious point of view, one needs to be careful before burying the whole idea of G-d. And pointing out others' errors/hypocrisies/failures does nothing about your own.
In consideration of this war on terror I went to Kuwait once in 1994. I realized their view of us came right from Hollywood. When I spoke of my parents and my family they were almost shocked that my view of American life was not what they saw in the movies. I was dumbfounded by their view of us. Yet maybe I am the naive one. Family ties are leaving us rapidly. In its place we get science, technology, and utter loneliness. I have no quarrel with invention but when it becomes the only thing that matters well what is left to do...except hate each other.
What is worse than Global warming is global hatred. None of us can belong to all religions. We are limited by our genetic makeup to some degree. Yet I believe that our spirits are both hidden and capable of goodness. If Catholicism has taught me to believe in that then I must believe in the hiddenness of the Eucharist and if I believe in that, then I must believe in the hiddenness of all. And that brings me to Jewish thought...is that not at the core of their beliefs and thoughts? Is that not what has sustained them for thousands of years.
And do you all who believe in the certainty of capitalism or of socialism or Darwinism or Intelligent design or of materialism, are you so certain that you can beat the very idea of hidden goodness? You all have forgotten the very lesson of Socrates who was neither Jewish or Christian or Muslim. He said those that concentrate on anything besides 'goodness' not as something that is measurable in scientific discovery or in human definition but as something that is beyond our ability to describe...will be failures. It is an act of the will to deny an essence that is undescribable...and...if we deny such things then we shall be 'good for nothing'. I am a man who lives with so many who believe in the religion of logic and science and I pity all those who have lost the very idea of wonder. I am a Catholic because I am limited and I was not born a Jew. But as anti-Semitism spreads even amidst people that should no better, I have come to believe in Abraham Heschel in the same way that my Jewish teachers taught me during my 24 years of education in primarily Catholic institutions. They all have been men of good will. Even the events of the Holocaust did not stop them from doing good and teaching truth. Catholics as well as everyone should realize that 'the last shall be first and the first shall be last'. In the end your reasoning- if it only sees images, numbers, and its own definitions... will fail you.Catholics need to realize that Jesus was a Jew and no matter how we try to chnage the story... all our teachers of G-d have a Jewish origin. I ponder what G-d wanted from Abraham, and what G-d wanted from Christ...and then what G-d wanted from 6 million of his chosen. And it creates within me a fear and trembling that we all have failed our G-d. That is what we need to ponder as our world gets closer and closer to annil-hating its ... very existence. You all should read Heschel. His warnings are plain and simple,,, they should put fear and trembling in all of us

Catholic Terp,

What does "bias" mean exactly? It seems pretty vague.
In all honesty one could argue that anyone could claim bias against him in America.

Bias and discrimination are two completely different things.

I am biased against the Catholic Church. I am also biased against the Southern Baptists. I hold both organizations in contempt for many many reasons.

It only means I am human. All humans judge and hold biased opinions. There is nothing wrong with that. I am not attracted to heavy women, for existance. We all hold opinions on a multitude of the differences in humanity. It's really no big deal.

My personal bias affords me no actual power, its just my opinion.

I do not however discriminate. I do business with people from all walks of life. I would never discriminate against anyone for their religion, skin color, sexual orientation, etc.

It seems that most Catholics that have complained on this board simply believe that anyone who expresses ANY negative opinion or belief about the Catholic Church proves some great anti-Catholic setiment in the world.

Please spare us.

The Catholic Church is one of the most powerful and wealthist organizations in the world.

You folks are doing just fine.

BTW, Robert Novak, your entry only makes you look like a dense, humorless fool and whiney dullard. But I guess you are used to that.

Catholics are as discriminated against as mormons -- if you mean by *discrimination* you mean a life of wealth and priviledge, and an old boy network that goes all the way up to the highest offices of the land. If you really want to make inroads into the power structure, I would become a Moonie. Consider it, Bob.

I have read a lot of the postings and discovered that there are a lot of different opinions on the matter at hand and of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church, Catholic meaning universal, welcomes everyone. After all it was founded by Christ who sought out the sinners to bring to salvation. The church can trace it's roots back to Peter and Jesus in an unbroken direct line of
decent. The Catholic Church teaches us to love the sinner and hate the sin. This explains it's stance on homosexual acts. As Catholics we profess our beliefs at every Mass which are open to everyone. We say it out loud. It is called the Nicene Creed. The only caveot is that you have to be Catholic to receive the Body and Blood of Christ that is given at Communion. As Catholics we believe in the real presence of Jesus in the consecrated host. At one time most of the civilized Christian world was Catholic. Currently one of the largest Christian groups is fallen away Catholics. You are welcome back anytime. The light is on for you.

"the elites". I love that. What is Bob, one of the common folk?

Sounds to me like Bob's got a classic case of Jewish self-hatred. Doesn't want to be identified with those media-controlling, world-finance conspiring, "mostly secular", semi-respectables.
So now he's a Catholic. Mozel tov!

You have got to be kidding me.

Firstly, the fact that you have no respect whatsoever for Robert Novak should have no bearing on this discussion. We aren't talking about whether he should be taken out back and shot for treason or not, we're talking about the presence of an anti-Catholic bias in this country.

Secondly, I dare anyone, ANYONE, after reading all of the above posts, to tell me that there isn't an anti-Catholic bias. "The Catholic Church is out of touch... The Catholic Church supports pedophiles... The Catholic Church wants to impose its views on all of society..." If that's not anti-Catholic bias, then please tell me, what IS it?

Thirdly, I can tell you that I have experienced anti-Catholic bias. It doesn't mean that I can't enter a theater or a restaurant because I'm wearing my "Catholic Terps" t-shirt. But it does mean that my Church is criticized, attacked, and disparaged. And I expect criticism and attacks because my beliefs often run counter to what our society promotes - "liberty", "freedom", "independence" - all in quotes because our society's understanding of them is flawed. Those values are good, but our society likes them without consequences, without responsibilities, and THAT is bad. Now, the fact that I expect criticism doesn't make the criticism right.

Reading through all of the above posts, I was shocked by the number of people saying that an anti-Catholic bias didn't exist. Funny, because there were also people saying that the Church deserved the bias. Ok... so the Church doesn't have any bias against it, but it still deserves it? Am I missing something here?

Just as a final note, let's please keep ad hominem attacks against Novak out of this discussion. Like I said, I really don't care what you think about him, let's discuss the issue at hand.

BOB:

YOU MAY BE A ROMAN CATHOLIC - IN YOUR MIND. BUT, REMEMBER THAT JEWS IN EUROPE, WHO CONVERTED TO ROMAN CATHOLICISM, WERE NOT SPARED FROM HITLER'S GAS CHAMBERS. SOME JEWS WERE EVEN ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY, INCLUDING THOSE OF HIGH RANK, AND THEY STILL ENDED UP IN AUSCHWITZ. I SEEM TO RECALL THAT YOU AND YOUR FORMER COLLEAGUE, ROLAND EVANS, WERE STRONGLY PRO-ARAB AND ANTI-ISRAEL. SO DREAM ON "PRINCE OF DARKNESS", AND BELIEVE THAT YOUR MUSLIM FRIENDS WILL TREAT YOU DIFFERENTLY THAN DANNY PEARL. I EXPECT YOUR NEW FAITH WILL NOT SPARE YOU FROM THE JIHADISTS GOAL TO MAKE THE WORLD "JUDEN FREI!"

When I was forming my opinions on these things - the 1960's - it seemed clear to me (a Jew) that there was more denial of opportunities to Jews than Catholics, but that this was passing. But there was also a sense that we were both minorities in danger of being discriminated against and, if the world was rational, ought to be allies. My impression now is that the discomfort with a Jewish political candidate is still a bit stronger than with a Catholic one, but that they are of similar (lack of) effective force.
My parents had among their friends a couple where the woman was Jewish and the man Catholic. They were sufficiently involved in synagogue affairs that in due course he was invited to serve on the synagogue board of directors. "But I'm a Catholic!", he expostulated to the committee. "That's OK," said the men calling on him. "We looked at the synagogue bylaws, and they don't seem to say anywhere that our board members have to be Jewish."

Chris,

--It seems to me that any priest should have no problem blessing any child period in order to communicate God's love and concern.--

I certainly agree with that! I can't imagine what all the rigamarole was about.

BTW...I did not mean to patronize. I hope it did not seem that way.

Peace

Danny B: thank you for your kind and thoughtful response.
I am actually well aware of the way the catholic church views communion and I can respect that. I have explained some of these differences to my daughter and she has completely come to terms with the fact that she will not be taking communion at school. I think what really got me, more than the whole communion issue, was the back and forth over several months between the teacher, the parish priest and higher ups in the archdiocese just for my daughter to be able to go up to the altar with her classmates and receive a blessing from the priest! It just seemed incredibly petty and unchristian. It seems to me that any priest should have no problem blessing any child period in order to communicate God's love and concern.

If I was intolerant, I would not send my daughter to a catholic school. I may be naive, but I keep hoping that catholics will learn to see themselves as christians first and catholics second.

Remember what Jesus said to the thief on the cross, after the thief told him: "remember me when you come into your kingdom" (therefore acknowledging Jesus' deity and role as savior)? Jesus's response was: "I tell you the truth, tonight you will be with me in Paradise". No baptism necessary, no communion, no last rites. Acknowledging Jesus as his Lord and Savior was enough. The sacraments can help deepen our faith and our relationship with God but only Jesus saves.

Taking Robert Novak seriously, especially after his role in the whole "Plame Affair", is something only Robert Novak himself does. A poster boy for the word "pompous." Mr. Novak accuses others of being elitist and that's just too funny considering what an elitist he is himself.

As a Jew, Mr. Novak, I'm glad you left our ranks. To my Catholic brethren my apologies that he joined yours. Working on that Opus Dei membership are you, Mr. Novak?

Novak is right!! The likes of Martin Sheen, Michael Moore and Sister Helen Prejean are constantly ridiculed because of their beliefs!

After all Catholic teaching is that the preferential option is for the poor and calls us to stand on their side; hardly a welcome idea in a land of laissez faire capitalism and Protestant predestination.

The Catholic Church also opposes most all war as immoral which is why the Pope himself opposed the Iraq invasion perhaps Novak should tell that to the Marine chaplains?

Of course a healthy dose of anti-clericalism is good for the Catholic soul but it’s bad enough to have to share a church with priestly pedophiles, the elevation of Opus Dei over the Jesuits without also having to put up with reactionary converts like Novak (and Neuhaus).

Mother of God grant me patience!

Robert

SKIMMING is not READING...look a little closer.

What a giant chip on some posters' shoulders! I'm reading comments and many remark, "see the nasty comments here prove Novak's point!" when scarcely a single negative comment was aimed at Catholicism. Vitriol against Novak is not the same as anti-Catholic prejudice, folks.

Chris,

Yours is an interesting story. I had the opposite experience as a child. I had always known that we were specifically Catholic. Everyone I knew said "Catholic". The only time I heard people say that they were Christian was when they were non-Catholic.

Once I was telling my mother that another kid thought I was a Christian and said, "But I told them I wasn't Christian, I am Catholic."

My mother looked at me and said, "You are most certainly a Christian. A Christian is a follower of Christ." She did not admonish me, I was young, but she clarified the point.

I'm at a loss to think that there are children today that would say a non-Catholic is not a Christian.

I was never taught such a thing in school or at home.

I imagine that this has a lot to do with the parents of these children. My parents were good about not over reacting, teaching me not to judge, and leading by example.

We had a neighbor when I was 4, maybe 5 years old, who was married to a Lebanese immigrant. Their daughter was my age. Her grandparents came for a visit and one day her grandfather took off his hat, put it on the ground and began praying to the east. Now this is HER grandfather, mind you. She took his hat and started tossing it around, then she smacked his butt that was up in the air, and we were laughing. He never moved. My mother, seeing this from the window called me home, sat me in a chair and said, "That man is saying his prayers. You never interrupt a person's prayers. Be respectful, that is how they pray where he is from." She was stern, but did not really overreact, and I think she made me apologize to him.

I digress, but I think it is an example of the impact a parent can have on a child. To this day I do not believe that the way another person worships is anything more than "different" from mine. I certainly don't presume an opinion about what I don't understand fully.

This can really be a positive experience for you and your child. It does hurt me to hear that she could be treated that way.

As far as what I was saying about the exclusion of non-Catholics from Holy Communion, I suspect that there has been a change since I was in school. I'm waiting to hear from Phil on that one.

Here is what I was taught, and why I say it is not just petty exclusion. Mind you, I realize that this is just what Catholics believe, I do not assert that any other faith is wrong.

Catholics beleive that a baby must be baptized immediately to remove the original sin handed down to all from Adam and Eve. This is because a soul must be without sin to go to Heaven.

A regular and sincere confession must be made to have your sins absolved and thus removed from your soul to put you in a state of grace.

Because Catholics also believe that Holy Communion is the ACTUAL body and blood of Christ, made so through consecration by the priest, you have to have a clean soul to partake.

So, it would be the belief that if you were not baptized by a priest you still have original sin. If you have not made a sincere confession and received absolution, your soul is not in a state of grace, and therefore you should not recieve the ACTUAL body of Christ.

This is why, for a Catholic child, making your "First Communion" is such an important event. My First Communion party was as big as my graduation party years later.

To think that the church would administer Communion to a non-Catholic, and accept the baptism of their own church is much more inclusive. I had never heard of this, but if it is acceptable practice I certainly agree. The parish I was raised in still does not let women on the altar for anything. It is a bone of contention between most parishoners and the parish priest. I know this because my parents are still parishoners there. I no longer live in the area.

Welcome to the Faith, brother Novak

ignore the degenerate fools on this blog.

LEROY tells us: It is beyond me how anyone can put money in a Catholic church collection plate, knowing how many millions are being paid out to its victims as a result of all the cases winding through the courts. And it's beyond me how anyone who calls himself a Catholic can't see why some people might find the church worthy of some criticism, maybe even some anger.

Hi, Leroy,

If you think you're angry at the Catholic clergy sex scandal, you should ask us Catholics how we feel about it. OUTRAGE is the typical reaction, and there is no disagreement between the conservative and liberal Catholics on this matter.
I myself gave hell to a former Archbishop after Mass one Sunday, so much so that afterwards I felt sorry for the old man.

Some Catholics have stopped giving money, but that only hurts the poor people to whom much would be given. And the vast majority priests are not sexual predators. What are the supposed to live on if we don't contribute?

What many of the bloggers here are doing is to imply that the Church approves of such behavior! Come on! I think most Catholics would grant you that before the 1980's the bishops showed bad judgment in reassigning such priests after psychiatric treatment. But they did so on the advice of psychiatrists who thought that the priests could learn to control themselves with therapy. That has proven false, false, false. It is also true that some bishops after the 80's should have known not to reassign those men. God help thtem when they meet their God! Some have NEVER sufficiently owned up to their horrendously bad judment, but man have. (If you haven't heard about it, possibly it's because the media aren't interested == that's not lurid.) But don't think that we lay people are satisfied. Never, never, never will we be satisfied with such poor judgment.

In fact, in my experience MOST Catholics are even angrier at the bishops for the cover-up than they are at the crazy predators. The bishops aren't psychologically impaired, and the predators are.

Why stay Catholic? First, you need to understand that to Catholics "the Church" is not identical with the hierarchy, the lower clergy and the nuns. They are only part of the Church. And most of us have known very, very fine priests and nuns, though I have also heard of a few horrors. Some are saints, but, like the rest of us, they're basically decent folks who are weak, but try.

"The Church" is all of us and, most important, includes the sacraments, which to most Catholics. The heart of the Church is the sacrament of the Mass. And, yes, we do believe that Christ Himself is present there. You can call it "magic", but the fact is that it works -- by that I mean that the Eucharist is a source of grace -- the spiritual energy that gives us the strength to face the trials of human existence. There's more to the Church than that, but that's the easiest part to explain. That spiritual energy is a kind of *evidence* for belief (something which we *experience* present within us) that you will not find under a microscope. So when atheists tell us we have no evidence for ra personal God, all we can say is -- you don't know what we have experienced. Telling me I haven't experienced the grace of God is like a blind man telling me that I haven't experienced color. It's there.

Also, I should note that the Roman Catholic Church does not teach that non-Catholics are going to Hell. (See the teachings of Vatican II which makes it very explicit.) In my 76 years as a Catholic in New Orleans I have known only one person who was taught that (around the 1930s). But I have to believe the many people who say they *were* taught that, and that the ones who taught that included many nuns. In my experience most of those people have been from the Northeastern U.S. (I had a roommate from Boston once and she had some really *weird* ideas of what "the Church" teaches.) I'm from the South, and I must say that I am also appalled by what some of the Northeastern Catholics were taught. But all this proves is that the Catholic Church includes a lot more disagreement than is commonly thought.

In sum, please don't blame me for the sins of other Catholics. On this blog there are people who *regularly* talk about the sins of the popes and bishops and priests -- as if we're all guilty of what those other people did. We're not. Most of us do not approve of the horrors of the Crusades and Inquisition, slavery, the sex scandal, etc., etc., etc. When you assume that we aree all guilty of all that or approve of all those horrors, you are misrepresenting us grossly. And that's bigotry. So cut it out

As for the Church trying to impose its beliefs on nonCatholics, what it does is try to persuade others that its ethics is the best ethics available, and its ethics appeals to the same sort of evidence that your ethics probably does -- I mean it appeals to the empirical facts of this world, to our common human experience and to *philosophy* (specifically natural law philosophy). You can disagree with the philosophy and disagree about what the facts are, but the Church in matters of morals appeals to the wider community only on the basis of our common human experience. This is NOT true of all the other Christian Churches, some of which will simply quote the Bible at you and expect to convince you thereby. Yes, Catholicism does appeal to the Bible, but in purely civil arguments it does not. (Maybe some individual Catholics do, but that it not the way the official Church does it -- or it's not supposed to.)

The Catholic Church does not try to impose on others its purely religious beliefs (e.g., the Trinity, the divinity of Christ), and in fact, since the Second Vatican Council the official part of the Church (the bishops in Council) has condemned trying to impose such beliefs on others.

You must also consider that the culture around people affect their beliefs. Here's one really weird example -- I have known Roman Catholic wives who said that in their wedding ceremony they promised "to love, honor and obey" their husbands. Guess what -- that "obey" is NOT part of the Catholic ritual!! It's part of the Protestant ritiual, and the phrase has made its way into the general culture. Memories do play tricks on us, and our cultural context has a lot to do with those tricks sometimes.

Sorry to go on at such lengths, Leroy, but you seemed to be willing to listen, and there is so very much to say. So thanks for listening, if not agreeing :-)

Complexity, complexity, complexity. And in these days and times life just gets more complex, not less. Sigh.

Ann O.

Also,

"If you took the time to actually read the bloggers comments you would find that they were not 'attacking the faithful.' They were criticizing some of the policies of the Church."

In the main thread, I said that criticism of a religion's doctrines or policies does not equate to hatred of the religion's adherents.

I consider myself a follower of Jesus although I'm not crazy about all of his fan club. The fact that you find it convenient to make someone's opinions the basis as a war on the Catholic church is typical of your journalistic integrity. You have an interesting way of creating stories and seemingly have no problem with how that happens. You wrote about Valerie Plame being a CIA agent before anyone else to suit your agenda. I'm certain this is no different. The Catholic church is more than capable of defending itself. If your such a good catholic try praying for those people you think are unjustly attacking the church, your credibility is lacking.

I believe your friend Al was telling a joke, not commenting on the state of anticatholic or antisemitic prejudic in 21st century America. Sorry you didn't get it.

Just because anti-Semitism is more taboo than anti-Catholicism, doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people who discriminate against Jews. Racism is taboo too, and yet racial discrimination is alive and well.

As far as Hollywood goes, if you're going to attack a movie for including a representation of a Catholic priest that was not so nice, also please attack the Passion of the Christ for representing cruel Jews. Or, you can realize that they are just stories, in some cases based in facts about people who were not so nice.

There are lots of people in this country who disrespect Catholicism, and I've experienced that. At the time, it only made my faith stronger. And I would never say I've been persecuted. Nobody has ever denied me a job, excluded me from a group, or made me feel unsafe because I was Catholic. I'm not going to pretend to be a victim, and I'm certainly not going to try to convince people that what I'm more of a victim than someone else.

Chill out Novak, I'm not gonna lie, I think your writing and opinions are worthless and you're just out there trying to get attention. Please keep in mind that just because the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, doesn't mean that you should always exercise that right.

Phil, thank you for your thoughtful posts. However, I must tell you that though I am a baptized, believing (and human)christian, I have been denied communion several times at catholic churches when attending weddings or school related activies because the priest specifically said: only catholics were to come have communion. Are these priests ignorant about the teachings of their own church? I would certainly not want to commune with a community that rejects me. At my non denominational church, the pastor simply says: if you are not a believer, let the elements of communion pass. That's it.

Danny B: I agree with you that nothing beats what children learn at home about religion. So you must agree with me that those kids denigrating my daughter's faith most likely were repeating statements heard at home because no such statements were made by the teachers at school. I guess the question is: do you consider catholicism a separate religion or is it just another denomination within christianity? My daughter tells the other kids that she is a christian, that she takes communion at her church, etc. So I don't buy the fact that they don't understand. She has encountered kids that are episcopalians, lutheran etc. and has asked me what that means. My answer always is that as christians we all believe the same core things but that different churches may have different traditions, because I want her to be tolerant of other people's point of view. If the kids at her school were being given these kinds of answers at home, why do they tell her: if you are not catholic, you are not a christian?

Meacham and Quinn--

Congratulations on your splendid post.
And on your exceppent stewardship of it.
And for choosing...for a RELIGIOUS posting...Novak. Good (as they say) GOD!

Dear Mr. Novak:

I'm an agnostic jew who married an agnostic Catholic. The first thing my wife's mother - a perfectly sweet and devout Catholic - said to my wife out of my presence is, "He looks so . . . Jewish." Which I do.

That was 30 years ago. I thought it was funny and only the smallest bit sad. She got over it. I got over it.

More to the point, I won't generalize about that event to all Catholics and all Jews. Your anecdotage about anti-Catholic bias is merely that - anecdotes forwarded to support an unproved hypothesis: "While most Jews are secular, mass-attending Catholics are viewed by the elites in the media, the academy and in the entertainment world as superstitious plebeians."

Where is your rigorous evidence for this? How about a little survey research on attitudes to Catholics, Jews, Muslims, etc.? If you have it, show it. If you don't, you're intellectually lazy and you've done a grave disservice to thoughtful and serious Catholics - left, right, and center - and I know them in all three camps.

Build bridges, bud; don't bomb them. That might be hard for you to understand because you make your living as a bloviator. Despite being an old dog, maybe you can learn new tricks. Hope springs eternal.

I hope that most of the posters recognize that Novack is merely trying to generate some anti-Edwards momentum by attempting to stir-up a wedge issue of two. He was probably just following his marching orders when he raised the issue. I have been watching Bob for a long time. His handlers know that he is most effective when he uses his forum to sow seeds of dissent and suspicion. All of America will be better off when we realize that the elite power brokers that Bob Novak represents need people like Bob to keep us apart. Shame on the Novaks and David Brooks of this world.

He's ethnically a Semite but spiritually a Catholic. Why do people have trouble with that?

Without commenting upon the merits of your comments, I submi t the following: no matter what you say, you are a Jew. This is your tribe. An African American can not believably declare he (she) is no longer black. You may have embraced the Catholic religion -- this is your choice for reasons that are valid to you.
However, to suggest that you are no longer a Jew is not a matter of debate. How about acknowledging you are a Jew who has embraced the Catholic religion?

Without commenting upon the merits of your comments, I submi t the following: no matter what you say, you are a Jew. This is your tribe. An African American can not believably declare he (she) is no longer black. You may have embraced the Catholic religion -- this is your choice for reasons that are valid to you.
However, to suggest that you are no longer a Jew is not a matter of debate. How about acknowledging you are a Jew who has embraced the Catholic religion?

Mr. Novak,

The tenor of these replies to your article seem to lend support to your point. I don't know if it's pure ignorance or just stupidity, but it's pathetic regardless.

What's most disappointing is the inability of otherwise thoughtful and intelligent individuals to conduct a respectful but vigorous discussion. Everyone seems to try to one-up the previous writer in terms of sarcasm and "wit".

I have periodically read the so-called conversations about faith on this site and I think the Post should stop this activity immediately. I can't believe the ugliness of most of the people who post a comment in regards to religion and faith. I had hoped to gain some sense of the faith and struggles of people trying to lead a good life, people who are spiritual, people who try to participate in faith communities, imperfect though the communities can be. Instead there is name-calling and nastiness. What purpose does this exercise serve? Please end this section of the Post.

The comments against Mr Novak are really not well thought out and the notion that Nazism is secondary to Catholicism proves Mr Novak's point. Life, even with the best of scientific
reasoning skills, is a leap of faith. And if only one person learns the truth in any religion,and spreads that truth... is it not worth it? And the Nazis were really an offshoot from German philosophy.which touched all of Western thought, not just Catholicsm. They took a little Kant, added a lot of Hegel, with a touch of Neitzche, and an overiding social Darwinism, and voila.....
All of you should re-read William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich again and read the chapter on the mind of Hitler. Hitler just took the double minded-ness of all people and used it to his advantage against them. He used the leftists against the right and then the right against the left.But he destroyed them all. Hitler and his cohorts made a secular religion from a hatred underneath all their countrymen's double-minded beliefs. And we are doing the same thing today.
Even with all her warts, the Catholic Church still gives me hope because it was how my mother taught me to view G-d. Nothing else has ever penetrated into my heart as those teachings. And at the source of those teachings, one can sense what Socrates taught, what Kiekegaard taught, what Pascal taught, what Wittgestein taught, what the Kotzker Rebbe taught .... that...there is a soul, something hidden from view. And I think it was Abraham Heschel who taught us all that perhaps Christianity should acknowledge its roots in Judaism and I toally agree with Heschel. And Judaism must see that if Tikken Olam is to be a world wide phenomenon, it must be shared among people of faith including Catholics. We all must learn to be careful with words and actions. One must repair oneself before repairing the world . And could not the lesson be any more apparent in our politics today that we as a culture have lost all sense of community. We do not have the 'repair of hope' but the hatred of destruction.
So criticizing Bob Novak for being a Catholic only reflects the superficiality of the ones doing the accusing. It points out that what Heschel taught or what Martin Luther King taught simply does not matter. Hatred is dominant in this world and it will be the end of all of us.

Leroy,

To claim that Catholics are sheep who only do what they are told is to mis-represent the religion. Just like the media and liberal love to do and most of the "liberal" ideas of love and justice are simply stolen doctrine of the Church - they then turn and focus on the leftover doctrine that they don't like.

The Church claims that there is an OBJECTIVE right and wrong and spells it out in clear policy. This is what Catholics believe - Church on Sunday is simply a community of faithful who support each other in a world hostile to these ideals.

We each make our own way in the world - but have these UNCHANGING stances on the issues that are used as a guide. You sin, you recognize it and dust your self off and keep trying.

Other religions/ideas want to have their cake and eat it too.

Speaking of evil from leaders of religion, have you read the your jewish TALMUD??

Robert E. Martin, are you 15?

I don't think the Novak blog is ABOUT Catholics.
I think it's something about about trying to take the heat off Jews in America, as anti-semitism rears it's ugly head again, and trying to put the heat on Catholics. Have seen it several places lately. If you believe in coincidence. Watch for it.
As for the charge of
DUAL LOYALTY regarding Catholics and the Pope, (JFK campaign) is long and truly gone. But one hears that concept elsewhere... the neocons, which include Wolfowitz and Perle and
Frum, AND Irving 'Scotter' Libby, etc and those who wanted the Iraq war.
And what part did Novak play in the Libby story?
Does anyone think Novak gives a rats coat about religion?

As a recovering Catholic who was subjected to weekly indoctrination during every Sunday in my childhood, I'd respond that is only fair that Catholics should be subject to discrimination.

Who would not discriminate against individuals who celebrate a cannibalistic ritual, the Mass, as the center of their ritual worship?

Who would not discriminate against members of a cult that hates women to the point of claiming that they are too unclean to hold positions of leadership in the cult?

Who would not discriminate against the loyal followers of a Mafia-style church leadership which takes vows of omerta in defense of child abusers?

It's an open and shut case, Mr. Novak.

Candide is a fraud.

Anonymous: I didn't realize it was a Jew thing to hold people accountable. If so, well, then I guess you're right, I'm a Jew after all

Does that make it a Catholic thing, then, to close your eyes and ears and accept whatever evil your supposed betters inflict on you? Uh, no, not based on the self-described Catholics posting thoughtful comments above. I guess it's just an Anonymous thing.

"...and persecution besides."

Personally, I find the "Pastafarian movement" hilarious, and a point well taken from a logical standpoint. It doesn't affect my faith, though, because faith, by definition, transcends and is parallel to, logic.

Catholics/Christians who feel threatened by the Flying Spaghetti Monster need to lighten up a little.

The pastafarian thing is really not that clever. The joke is a bit overplayed and does not address religious debate in an intelligent manner (I'm not saying this for the reason that it is humorous and satirical). That being said, I wish I could eat some pasta right now.

Hey, Lonemule, you're the only clown around here. Other people are having a debate. Just because it's probably all going over your head doesn't mean you have to be so resentful.

Read a book, learn to love, and grow up.

You bet there's an anti-Catholic bias in the media, and unfortunately, in that part of the general population that is either too ignorant or too lazy to think for themselves. The media still "lives" in the world of the 1970s where personal responsibility, whether engendered through religious faith or some other means, was replaced by personal "freedom". The Catholic church does not impose its teachings on anyone, its faithful or otherwise. It does promote political points of view; however, to say that it "imposes" its politics on anyone is to be nieve at best and truculent at worst. Anyone in doubt of that just needs to ask 3 Catholics about their political views and they are likely to get three different opinions. In my mind the Catholic church is not too dissimilar from many large, well organized groups in that people are afraid of it because of its size, scope and wealth, and that fear manifests the kind of disgusting reaction to it that the media just loves to promote. After all, all the media does is produce what they believe will sell, and if they happen to agree with it, all the better.

Danny B,

I previously stated that the official Church doctrine on the Eucharist is that to receive communion, one must be 1. human 2. living and 3. baptized.

Per your request, direct from the New Advent:

(of course, it's jumbled with typical Catholic dogmatic verbiage)

"The two conditions of objective capacity (capacitas, aptitudo) and subjective worthiness (dignitas) must be carefully distinguished. Only the former is of dogmatic interest, while the latter is treated in moral theology (see COMMUNION and COMMUNION OF THE SICK). The first requisite of aptitude or capacity is that the recipient be a "human being", since it was for mankind only that Christ instituted this Eucharistic food of souls and commanded its reception. This condition excludes not only irrational animals, but angels also; for neither possess human souls, which alone can be nourished by this food unto eternal life. The expression "Bread of Angels" (Ps, lxxvii, 25) is a mere metaphor, which indicates that in the Beatific Vision where He is not concealed under the sacramental veils, the angels spiritually feast upon the God-man, this same prospect being held out to those who shall gloriously rise on the Last Day. The second requisite, the immediate deduction from the first, is that the recipient be still in the "state of pilgrimage" to the next life (status viatoris), since it is only in the present life that man can validly Communicate. Exaggerating the Eucharist's necessity as a means to salvation, Rosmini advanced the untenable opinion that at the moment of death this heavenly food is supplied in the next world to children who had just departed this life, and that Christ could have given Himself in Holy Communion to the holy souls in Limbo, in order to "render them apt for the vision of God". This evidently impossible view, together with other propositions of Rosmini, was condemned by Leo XIII (14 Dec., 1887). In the fourth century the Synod of Hippo (393) forbade the practice of giving Holy Communion to the dead as a gross abuse, and assigned as a reason, that "corpses were no longer capable of eating". Later synods, as those of Auxerre (578) and the Trullan (692), took very energetic measures to put a stop to a custom so difficult to eradicate. The third requisite, finally, is baptism, without which no other sacrament can be validly received; for in its very concept baptism is the "spiritual door" to the means of grace contained in the Church."

You're an evil do-er Novak and you belong in jail.

The reason there was no outrage is because the Catholics are forgiving people. They prayed for the bloggers and moved on.

With all due respect, NO ONE feels bias against a religion practiced privately in one*s family and home; more power to you. But when the Catholic church SUPPORTED demonstrations outside a hospice facility during the Terri Schiavo debacle, speaking to every media outlet they could, flaunting their influence on a Congress and a president to promote their OWN religious preferences and battering the very judicial system we all depend on, then the rest of the media and America have EVERY RIGHT to feel that their OWN religious privacy was invaded to promote Catholic choices instead.
THAT was deeply offensive, and 83% of Americans were appalled at the cheap political choices made by the sanctimonious tone of of Catholic bias. You make your own choices in private; you may NOT impose your choices on me, by tone or verbal attacks. Mr. Donahue does your faith a disservice by his radical rants on national TV. Log in your own eye, please.

Whew, yeah! It's sure tough being a catholic in this country. On top of that, I'm a white, middle-aged guy -- I'M OPPRESSED ON EVERY SIDE!!!!!

Political Catholics want to pretend that Catholics are discriminated against in order to justify the Catholic agenda on social issues. This is bunk. If anything Catholics have too much influence and power. All Christians have too much power. Christianity is a fraud.

As for a Jew going down scale by becoming a Catholic? Does Novak fool himself or seek to fool the rest of us? In what circles does he run. Novak's push-polling seeks to prove that there is now no anti-semitism-- when in fact it grows exponentially all over the world, and here. This new campaign is seen everywhere recently. Going after the Catholics must've seemed like a likely idea by someone...
I bet it's not.
Also, I just did a ceremoney and now I'm a kangaroo.

First off, I'm not a fan of Bob Novak. He is the model of an out-of-touch, corrupt, conservative and people like him are rightly reviled. That being said I can agree with him on his viewpoint that those who follow the teachings of the Catholic Church face a great deal of discrimination today. Seperately the institutional hierarchy of the Church is facing a great deal of criticism. With detractors of the Church one of the favorite methods is to take shots at the historical failings of members of the Catholic hierarchy, ie the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc. To add to this there is the current pedophile crisis, which also results in a vilification of the hierarchy. In these cases the actions of Catholic priests and bishops was indeed reprehensible, but to suggest that the corruption of some men indicates the corruption of the entire Church is naive. There are bad people and bad abuses in every human institution. Augustine himself divided the City of God from the City of Man, but he said that in the world we live in the two are mixed and the differences are not obvious. Meanwhile, will anyone come to the defense of the institutional Church by mentioning all the Good they're responsible for throughout history and to this current day? They were the sole peace keeping order in Europe for centuries (though they did occasionally incite violence especially against the muslim nations), they curbed the exploitation of Native Americans in Latin America, they've helped tend and care for the poor and destitute for centuries. They started the academic life that allows for liberal education today, they've provided a religion which has given meaning to the lives of billions of people and they've upheld traditions and values for a very, very long time.

The collective statements on this page, along with Novak's typical rant, reflect the base, ignorant nature of our species and illustrate why the world is such a mess. We are such a primitive species, which we fail to recognize and work to transcend, that all most can do is shout and scream from their own ignorant pearch unable to see that they are no different than those they bellow against.
We are fast becoming a failure.
Try to get a grip, people.....

What a preposterous post, even for Novak! Of course Catholics are not discriminated against. Muslims, Hindus and atheists have more claim to discrimination. What is the likelihood that an avowed atheist would be elected President? I would say 0%.

Leroy,

The second half your religious heritage is certainly coming out now!

i.e. criticism and the inablility to forgive or forget

Bob,

I am a Catholic and I read those "offending" blogs. I didn't find them offensive, I found them provacative and even faith-enlarging. Is not one of the bloggers a Catholic? So if you critize canon law you're discriminating against Catholics? Bob, I've been a Catholic for 49 years, far longer than you. So why don't you shut up and be quiet like a good Catholic boy and quit complaining and whining for about 30 years. And after that, maybe, maybe, we'll let you have an opinion.
Never in my life have I experienced any discrimination as a Catholic. Maybe I don't hang out with "elites," i just hang out with people too stupid to know they should be discriminating against me. BTW, if you hate "elites" so much, why don't you commit suicide?

I'm a lifelong Catholic who's been very troubled my many issues the Church has taken. I'm in disagreement with celebicy, women in the priesthood, birth control (against abortion in most cases, however), and the generally onerous rules, or traditions of the Church. I beleive many of these things just get in the way of Christ's teachings - remember he was sent, obstensibly, to free us from "the law". Over the years the Church has become inward-facing, and it's fastidious clinging to outmoded practices and teachings leaves me angry and disillusioned. The Church does many wonderful and socially conscious deeds in fighting poverty throughout the world, yet their belief system against all forms of birth control with it's attendant concept of life has only been to "serve" poverty in a sense.

All this being said, I still attend mass and pray for strength to live my life and raise my children in the best way possible.

Mr Novak - I'm sick and tired of you and your ilk railing about the "elites". Without these so-called elites, you wouldn't have your education, your job, or your ability (hopefully) to think clearly and intelligently about the subjects you write about. The world cannot just go in lockstep with someone whose whole purpose for being is to conform to his fears and uncertainties about life. We should all aspire to be "elites" and share our knowledge.

Did Ama really just blame Catholics for the Holocaust? I suppose the fact that the largest concentration of Catholic priests during that time was as prisoners in a concentration camp is of little relevance. I suppose also that the work of several groups, Jewish, Protestant and Catholic, to hide Jews from persecution figured little in her analysis. But I suppose hate figures more importantly in her response than reason.

Mr. Novak (assuming you actually read down this far):

My dad was a Conservative Jew and my mom was a bead-mumbling Catholic.

Before they could marry (in the 1950s) my dad had to swear, in writing, that the children of the union would be raised as Catholics. He stuck by his word, thus depriving me and my siblings of half our religious heritage.

When I was in catechism class in 3rd grade, a nun beat me with her fists and kicked me until I wet my pants, for the crime of touching a fire extinguisher in the school hallway. My mother's only advice: "Don't do it again." Even as an adult she could muster no more of a protective reaction than that against a nun.

When I was in confirmation class I asked the priest in charge if a good, devout Buddhist who had never harmed a soul and had never heard the word of Christ would go to hell, and he answered "yes" without a second's hesitation.

When I was 18 my mother died suddenly and I had to buy her grave, because the Holy Mother Church would not sell a plot in a Catholic cemetery to my Jewish father. He handed me the papers to sign while I sat in the back seat of the funeral limo, so that everything would be nice and legal and they'd let us go ahead and bury her. Good thing I was 18 and could sign a contract, huh?

As an adult I've traveled in Mexico and Latin America and seen firsthand the squalor and disease that has been spread, in part, by the church's refusal to permit even a reasonable discussion of birth control.

I've also seen women suffer horrendous guilt and persecution for daring to seek an abortion, even after being raped.

And I've watched scandal after scandal unfurl from the supposedly pious confines of the church, not the least of which is the systematic rape of countless young people by clergy who were then protected and spirited away to start raping all over again somewhere else.

The blog posts you refer to are not simply trashing Catholics for being Catholics, as you suggest. The bloggers were blasting the church for permitting this sort of 13th-century malfeasance to flourish, even abetting it. It's not prejudice. It's disgust.

Yeah, the bloggers were vulgar. So is pulling down a little boy's pants in a house of worship and telling him he'll go to hell if he complains.

It is beyond me how anyone can put money in a Catholic church collection plate, knowing how many millions are being paid out to its victims as a result of all the cases winding through the courts. And it's beyond me how anyone who calls himself a Catholic can't see why some people might find the church worthy of some criticism, maybe even some anger.

I'm Catholic, a Vet and Retired. As a former moderate Republican, I rarely have agreed with Mr. Novak in the past.His coments however only reflect the mood the polictical mood in the country by both extremist polictical groups. Vocal minorities, liberal and conservative, are once again trying to make the vast majority of ordinary Americans believe in only their bigoted way.

Several of the comments about Mr. Novak reveal a lack of respect for an individual expressing his views. Unfortunately he is right, I experienced this bias in business and in polictical sinarios. Only in the Military did my faith or lack of it not enter into my life professionally or privately. Grow up people. if you don't like what the church did, don't go to mass. Just remember that the kids in Iraq do because they need it more than you do apparently.

Phil,

You mentioned:

--The Church specifically invites non-Catholic Christians to celebrate the Eucharist alongside their Catholic brethren. The only dogmatic requirements are that the recipient of communion be 1. human 2. living and 3. baptized.--

I was educated in a parish with a very unbending, fundamentalist priest. Even in the late 70's he was adamantly against things like taking Communion in the hand, Guitar Masses, and the Glory and Praise Songbook...while I am not surprised that I missed this piece of information, could you elaborate or refer me to some more information.

I assure you that the Baltimore Chatechism based cirriculum used in our little school did not include this.

All of that being said, as a child my family spoke often about faith at the dinner table every night. My belief that people of other faiths have just as much chance of salvation as we do specifically comes from those conversations. I came home repeating an anti-semetic remark that one of the Sisters made in the classroom, and was immedieately corrected at dinner.

While I value my faith, even if I am a little behind on changes, I can tell you this; as a child, nothing beats having your parents filter and clarify what you are exposed to outside the home!

Novak is great at playing the victim. Your attempt to distract from real issues of discrimination have no power here Mr. Novak. Be gone.

Dear Bob,

Sorry that it took you so long to discover the joys of the RC experience ................ you missed out on all of that great boy/priest sex.

Are we all supposed to suddenly forget over one thousand years of European history wherein Roman Catholic Popes acted as intolerant totalitarian dictators, responsible for the torture and murder of millions of conscientious objectors (or just unfortunate sould accused of flying around on broomsticks?) Or are we supposed to ignore that, just recently, the entire Roman Catholic bureaucracy closed ranks around child molesting priests they knew to be pedophiles just for the sake of convenience? How much fact and history are we supposed to ignore in order to be open minded about Catholicicm?

SteveG,

--Can you name one atheist who has ever held a seat in Congress?--

Pete Stark, it was on the news the day before yesterday.

BRD,

Very well said.

Mike,

--This board is further evidence that liberals are by far the least tolerant members of our society.--

I'm turning blue in the face promoting tolerance. I am a Catholic by faith, and a FLAMING liberal as a voting, tax-paying American Citizen.

MC,

--To suggest that any type of Christians are more discriminated against in the US than blacks, gays, arabs, jews, athiests, etc is ridiculous --

Who said that?

ML,

Stop talking so much and listen. The discussion is about bias:

a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.

Not discrimination:

unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice.

I never claimed that Catholics are denied employment opportunities, housing, fair lending consideration, and neither does Mr. Novak.

You keep referring to "the church", which is the same as painting us all with the same brush. "The church" is made up of congregations of people who, like me, are outraged by the priest scandal.

Finally...

There are two posts here from people who either went to, or have a child in Catholic school and have commented on non-Catholics not being administered the sacrament of Holy Communion. How can you claim to have a unique "insider's view" when it is clear you don't understand why that is. It is not just petty exclusion, taking advantage of your unique viewpoint to learn what makes Catholicism different from your actual faith could really open your mind. For the individual with a child, what a lesson in tolerance, and how to deal with intolerance!

Whatever happened to the notion in this country that you could choose or not choose to worship the diety in your own way so long as it does not affect the freedom of others? I am of the belief that behaviors and attitudes regarding religion, sex and politics amongst adults are private matters best left in the religious meeting place, the bedroom and the voting booth respectively. Oops, I just discriminated against children. We all have been discriminated against in some form or fashion. We are particularly discriminated against when we make the decision to wear our religious beliefs "on our sleeves" or engage in sexual behavior in public or slap bumper stickers on our cars espousing a particular candidate or political movement. When you choose to be outspoken in a provocative way, you are going to be discriminated against. Is it fair? In many instances, probably not. But living in a free society requires some tolerance of discrimination. If Mr. Novak feels pity for himself that he is Catholic and discriminated against, I would suggest he talk to Mormons, or Wisconsin Synod Lutherans, or Presbyterians, or Southern Baptists, or Muslims, or Hindus, or Buddhists, or Pentecostals, or Jews, or "ad infinitum" (the list goes on forever). I bet they could share stories of discrimination too. The problem is complaining about life's unfairness is easy, doing something about it is hard. After reading all these comments, I have decided I am going to be more tolerant of all people and all religious beliefs and for me, that will not be easy.

I have never felt any anti-Catholic discrimination. For the past seven years I have lived in North Carolina, the state with the lowest number of Catholics in the whole of the Union.
I would hope that Mr. Novak spend less time exposing his superstitious "anti-Catholic" bias and spend more time investigating the sad trend of anti-Muslim bias in the media. Mr. Novak's "one small example" of anti-Catholic bias cannot compare to the anti-Islamic trend that has been prominent in this country over the past thirty years.

Hey BRD, I beg to differ re: the advancement of science by the Catholic Church. They tortured me real good for pointing out that we live in a heliocentric universe.

Seriously, though, if Novak and Donahue are so concerned about anti-Catholic bigotry, then why are they so willing to tolerate it from evangelical Christians? According to fundamentalists, Catholics aren't even Christians and are in fact "lost," to use one of their words.

Notice how the ol' lizard man immediately goes on the attack against Democrats and liberals, just like Donahue does. These guys are right wing hacks, nothing else. They don't care about the Church, except when it suits their reactionary purposes.

Like many others on this board have pointed out, reasonable people take umbrage with the way the Catholic church has turned away its head from its pedaristic clergy and the way it went after Kerry in 2004.

Why is it blowhards like Novak and Donahue get all in a snit over pro-choice candidates, but completely ignore the Church's opposition to the death penalty? Some consistency would help w/credibility.

"Mr Novak played a large part in the illegal outing of a CIA operative. This outing destroyed more than a few careers, compromised and destroyed years of undercover work and undercover netwroks and most likely led to the deaths of people around the globe who were involved with said CIA operations."

Hyperventilating nonsense. If there was a smidgen of truth to any of it, the media, the Democrats, and the special prosecutor would have dug it up in short order and had a field day, and the CIA, a leak-sieve that has been a bitter, knee-capping, opponent of the Bush Administration's assertive terror and foreign policy from Day One, would have happily cooperated.

What has been far more damaging have been the leaks from the Arabists, appeasers, and fashionably weak elitists in State and CIA to the New York Times, including about our financial and electronic eavesdropping on enemy communications and transactions with Americans, our detention of terrorists (LEGAL under the Geneva Conventions, which allow terrorists, spies, and saboteurs to be simply shot on sight without any trial at all), etc.

Misconceptions and ignorance are ruling the day, and history has blurred the basic elements of the true faith. When the Greeks and Protestants split from the Roman church, they did so because they felt it needed a reformation. They had to establish themselves as different. Unfortunately, the differences between protestant and catholic beliefs (communion, belief in the saints, devotion to Mary, etc.) as well as an unwillingness to accept scientific findings (sun as center of solar system, for one) - All of which were constructed by humans - have become the focus rather than the basic elements of Christ's message - LOVE.
If we are to call ourselves Christian we should focus on what brings us together rather than what makes us different(Chris, ask a Baptist if a Catholic is Christian). Additionally, if we truly are Christians -rather than simply calling ourselves such - we shouldn't be so quick to judge, build walls and throw darts.
If there was more of a focus on Jesus' message of loving God and each other as we do ourselves rather than speculating what Jesus would do, how he might vote, etc so that we can feel better about our points of view (read political), there probably wouldn't be the perception of bias Novak writes about here. And I did say perception of bias. Regardless of the so-called Jewish domination of the media, I remember 24-7 coverage of the Vatican when PJPII passed. In addition, most Americans receive a holiday at Easter and Christmas - not so for Jewish, Muslim, Tao, etc. feast and holidays. Remember that next time some pundit says there is a "war" on (insert Christian holiday, tradition, etc. here).

Amen. I think my soap box just crashed.

There seem to be an inordinate amount of misinformed non-Catholics (and Catholics) in regards to the Church. I am also saddened to hear of anybody being discriminated against by a Catholic; this is inherently not a part of our religion. Some responses to previous comments --

Omelas:
"that their religion is the one true Christian faith and that everyone not a Catholic is less of a person than a Catholic, whose sins without confession are unforgiven."

-This is a doctrine that was explicitly repudiated by Vatican II, and the repudiation was controversial at the time. The Catholic Church now officially recognizes that people of just character of the Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim faith, can all be admitted to the kingdom of heaven.

"If a group of mixed Christians and a Catholic priest washed up on a deserted island, the Catholic priest can give communion only to the Catholic survivors. If a group of mixed Christians and a Episcopal priest washed up on a deserted island, the Episcopal priest would give communion to all of them and love them equally."

-Also untrue. The Church specifically invites non-Catholic Christians to celebrate the Eucharist alongside their Catholic brethren. The only dogmatic requirements are that the recipient of communion be 1. human 2. living and 3. baptized. The Church also dictates that Catholics should love all equally -- Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, or otherwise.

James:
"The reason that smarter people look down on you religious freaks is that you deserve it."

-Your plain and simple bigotry reveals you to be the self-righteous, small-minded, unenlightened fool that you are. You have no legitimate moral basis to criticize my very faith, just as I would never criticize you for being atheist. However, in our free society you have a right to express your opinions, even though prejudice has no place in 21st century America.

Dave:
"I wish people wouldn't get so upset at 'professional agitators."

-Good enough as an ad hominem attack, as many others have used, but doesn't address the issue at hand. For what it's worth I am a registered independent who usually votes Democrat and do not agree with Mr. Novak on most issues either.

Go Terps:
"Catholics are saved and everybody else will go to hell. That's what attracts people to your "beautiful religion." Rather than a "thick skin," you need only a bonehead to stay Catholic."

-Again, this hasn't been a Catholic teaching for over 40 years. The rest of your post just serves to prove Mr. Novak's point that anti-Catholicism is rampant.

Chris:
"Yet, she has been told several times by kids at her school that if she is not catholic, then she is not a christian."

-If this is being taught to your daughter's classmates, then it is clearly being taught wrongly and outside of Church doctrine. Children of 9, on the other hand, may not know the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. Your daughter also should have been allowed to celebrate the Eucharist as are all christians. Even as a Catholic, were my child to attend this school, and were I to hear about this going on to a Protestant child, I would consider pulling my child as well.

David Z:
"There are hunders of films and novels where rabbies are biten and torchered."(sic)

-That is exactly the point. If a film were to, say, show Jews mistreating and killing somebody just because of their religion, in a way that was certainly over dramatized but very likely historically correct, (even though the most anti-Semitic line of that gospel, "Let his blood be upon our hands and the hands of our children" was spoken but not translated) everyone would accuse said movie of being anti-Semitic. Of course, any Catholic/Christian who saw The Passion of the Christ and came away with a lesser view of Jews has missed the entire point.

Wade Tomlin:
"Catholics have clearly stated their bigotry towards that sub-culture and worse use God as a way to run awat from their own personal prejudice. Catholics therefore should be discriminated against because their current beleifs require them to do the same to a significant percentage of the population."(sic)

-If you disagree, as I do, with the Church's views on homosexuality, that's fine. But don't say "Catholics" when you mean "the Catholic Church hierarchy".

Lee:
"I personally know of protestant deacons who have molested children and faced no news media."

-In my hometown, an episcopal minister was arrested a couple months ago for molestation in one of his former churches in another part of the country. 5th page article.

I must admit, I find American anti-Catholicism somewhat incongruous, given that American Catholics are actually probably the most liberal Catholic group in the world. And guess what? We're just as furious or moreso about the molestation scandal as you all are. I believe a large part of the basis for anti-Catholicism in America stems from nativism and mistrust of immigrants -- Irish, Italian, Polish, and Latin American immigrant groups, among others, were (and in the Latin American case, are) all discriminated against, and all happened to be papist as well.

It should be telling that the Ku Klux Klan explicitly hates Jews, African-Americans and other non-whites, immigrants, homosexuals, AND Catholics. If this blog were about prejudice against any of the aforementioned groups, (add Muslims as well) 90% of the posters would be up in arms agreeing.

Say that the Catholic Church "imposes" its values on the greater society is mere stupidity on the part of the neo-liberal-facists on these chats (CANDIDE and NORRIE come to mind).

It is the Liberal "enlightened" revolution that is IMPOSING their philosophy on all parts of socitey and it is their attacks on religion and culture that are the real problem.

Get it straigh; the Church defends, it does not "impose" - it is the humanists fanatics that attack history and culture and impose their radical agenda.

If you defend tradition, culture and human dignity (as opposed to materialism, free-sex, ego-based modernism) then you are discriminated against by these fanatics that dominate the media and educational system in this and almost every western country.

What Door is closed to Catholics?
Some people might not want there kids to marry a Catholic, but the same is true of any religion or lack of it.

This supposed "War" against people of "faith" is getting a little tired, don't you think Bob?

Poor you! You feel marginalized because you are a church-going Catholic and you don't think you are getting any respect. Pardon me for not shedding any tears for you as you whine about "elitists" looking down on you even as you lurk and plot within the highest circles of Republican power in Washington. Those nasty bloggers are so hurtful, aren't they. How dare they even question the Church's arcane opinions on family planning and women's rights!

If you call yourself a religious man it is hard to understand how you continue to be a shill for an administration that has caused the deaths of so many innocents and that advances policies that are ruining the planet.

Wah, wah, wah.

I'm a womb-to-tomb Catholic and have no problem with people dissing the church. Maybe it'll keep the patriarchy humble...we can hope.

I lived in Boston and between 92-97 while I worked within the church, all the priests and bishops with whom I worked whined about "anti-church bias" by the Boston Globe because they kept nosing around rumors of serious abuse by priests. We were constantly told from the pulpuit that we were discriminated against.

But if something smells funny, there's probably rot and we know how that turned out.

And if your church gets in bed with politicians, they deserve to rise with fleas as our church has. I still attend daily mass but it isn't about the institution, it's about the Faith in one God, one Christ and the movement of the Holy Spirit through us. The church, as any human institution, is filled with flaws and foolishness. My husband converted to Catholicism from Judism, also, and thank God he has a realistic notion of what "church" means.

Bob, you are so closed minded, you might make a great priest some day!

Clearly the comments posted provide an affirmation of Mr. Novak's premise.

Lee -- Are Catholics and Protestants not part of the same religion?

As a black person in America I have some experience with discrimination. As a catholic I have noticed that like any minority there is a subtle bias against catholics. I would say that I have never be excluded or left out as a catholic but I am often verbally attacked for the beliefs (or misconceptions of the beliefs) of my church. In addition in the popular media there are always negative stories about the catholic church (i.e. sex scandal). I personally know of protestant deacons who have molested children and faced no news media. In general the religious origins of most of the people in this country is the protestant faith, which for better or worse is protesting the catholic church, even to this day.

(AMA in the US catholics are a minority religion compared to protestants)

Dear Mr. Novak,

I will be the first to admit that I discriminate against Catholics for one simple reason, there religion requires them to discriminate against others.

If you look at our soceity and gay marriage for example (or for that matter any gay issue) Catholics have clearly stated their bigotry towards that sub-culture and worse use God as a way to run awat from their own personal prejudice. Catholics therefore should be discriminated against because their current beleifs require them to do the same to a significant percentage of the population.

Catholics like yourself should take some responsibility for what many in your community are currently doing and not try to have your cake and eat it to.

What an odd essay and series of responses.

The Catholic Church is one of the most powerful organizations in the world. The Church is also one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the United States. What is the issue?

No, Catholics are not discriminated against.

I just like the school girl outfits.

This seems more a debate about anti-Novak bias than anything else. I do not believe in him as my personal savior nor I think he's necessarily the emissary of the Republican Devil. Let's stick to the issue. Is there a bias, really? John Kerry's religion was hardly ever mentioned. Five out of nine Supreme Court Justices are catholic, and seem very devout too. Twenty five senators are catholic, mirroring the percentage of catholics in the country (24%, according to the CIA World Factbook). In the Senate, Baptist and Lutherans are underrepresented, according to Wikipedia (http://tinyurl.com/2cu95u), and Jews are the most overrepresented group. Wherever I looked, I couldn't find a sign of bias, and in the case of the "jewish anomaly", this can be explained by their higher educational level.

If anything, this country discriminates against two very different groups of people in two different arenas. It is impossible to hold a public service while being a non-closeted atheist or agnostic. And the bias against evangelicals can be equally virulent in top-tier universities and intellectual circles. On the other side, Catholics manage to cross party boundaries, be senators and justices, be academics, artists and famous (or notorious) conservative journalists. And yes, in very rare occasions to have sex with children and get away scot-free.

You said "Can you imagine a rabbi treated that way by Hollywood?"

Dear Robert, you know better. There are hunders of films and novels where rabbies are biten and torchered. What is the matter with you?

You are apparently a living example of a Jew-hating christian convert. Those always were the worst anticemites bitting their heads against the stone steps more than anybody else just to prove alegence.

Personally I feel that the group most persecuted are the Pastafarians, worshipers of the flying spaghetti monster who created the universe with a touch of his noodley appendage!

HOW DARE PEOPLE ACCUSE US OF BEING SUPERSTITOUS OR MAKE FUN OF OUR BELIEFS!

Can you imagine that people say that those of us who truly believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster are crazy? How dare they! Wht isn't our cause on the cover of the Washington Post?

You are always branding the media or universities as "elite". This demagoguery is just another form of the elitism that you decrie.

Danny B.

I am sorry if it came off that my anger at the Catholic Church officials made it sound like I was criticizing all Catholic people. I actually thought my post was pretty clear and obvious about that.

In fact I really feel badly for the lay people who were so disillusioned by those criminals. I especially feel for all of those children and families needlesly victimized by the priests, cardinals and those in the hierarchy ab

That being said I dont not take back a word of what I wrote.

The Church's employees commited a series of very, very severe crimes against children and their bosses covered it up for decades. All the while allowing these priests to transfer and prey on a whole new batch of children.

Sorry again Danny, but: Yes that is evil.

No, I will not "forgive and forget" on the issue of organized sexual molesting of children.

Yes, call me crazy but most people, your fellow Americans included might just take issue with an organization that does such things.

Let me ask you: What if instead of the Catholic Church it was Wal-Mart or IBM whose employees sexually molested and raped children for decades all the while many of their bosses knew about it and attempted to covered it up?

Do you think the American people have an issue with these organizations?

Damn right they would. So why would you expect any different? If anything the Catholic Church got off easy.

So yeah, people might be a little upset with the Church right now, as well they should be. If you cannot (or will not) comprehend just how awful this is then I just feel sorry for you. I can not shrug off these crimes and I will not back down from pointing them out. I find it a pity that so many people from all wlks of life do back down and do shrug off such things.

The scandal is hardly over either. At this very moment Cardinal Law is being sheltered from trial for his role in child molesting and covering up for child molesting priests in Boston.

Pope JP II gave Law a job at the Vatican so he could flee prosecution in Massachusetts. Truly a cowardly act by the Vatican.

You belong to this organization. Not me. Sorry if pointing out uncomfortable truths strikes you as slurring or bigotry. I am just making clear as to why the Catholic Church is held in such low regard by so many people. The truth hurts some times.

So yes, the people might well be upset (to say the least) at the Catholic Church and for good reason.

Does that mean that all Catholics support child molesting priests? Does this mean that the Church is itself evil? Or are Catholic people are evil?Of course not and I did not write or imply so. A number of powerful employees of the Catholic church sure did some evil things though. And still do them today (when will Cardinal Law face trial?.

Does that mean that Catholics are discriminated against in the United States? No of course not.

When a member of the majority religion objects to "discrimination" against his/her religion, that individual is usually seeking a way to impose religious beliefs upon the rest of the community. For example, protecting abortion rights is offensive to Catholics. Therefore, it is considered a form of anti-Catholic discrimination.

To Jack: so are you saying that your unfortunate experience with the prostestant school in California makes what my daughter experiences at her catholic school right? Just because bigotry is not limited to one group does not make it right. Stuff like this is what gives all of us christians a bad name. And it is one of the reasons I go to a non denominational church where the focus is on Jesus, not on church rules or arcane theological debates.
St Augustine said: In essentials unity, in non essentials liberty but in all things charity. When it takes several month for a church hierarchy to decide that it is OK for a non catholic yet christian child to get blessed by a priest, forgive me if I fail to see the charity.

Heil Slaves:

How any of you could believe in any religion is beyond me. Nature is the only force worthy of reverence because it is the only thing that renders humans to be what they are, insignificant.

Wow. So much hate and bile in these comments. Don't you realize that you're making Novak's case for him?

To suggest that any type of Christians are more discriminated against in the US than blacks, gays, arabs, jews, athiests, etc is ridiculous - do you really think 'elitists' are running the country as opposed to the government and business leaders, who are probably 99% Christian?

Also, many of the people who speak out against the Catholic Church are ex-Catholics who feel they have legitimate gripes against priests, nuns, etc who mistreated them growing up.

Perhaps if Bob Novak became an acting Christian, following the dictates of the Sermon on the Mount and the other teachings of Jesus along the order of "Judge not, lest ye be judged.", "Whatsoever ye have done for the least of them this ye have done also for me.", he would not be so concerned with religious discrimination. He would be too busy being a true Christian.

Dear Chris
when I tried to register my catholic son into a protestant school in California that had a reputation for high academics in math the principle told me that it would be better that I take my son somewhere else. He sat down and told me that he believed that the catholic church was an evil organization, that it would be forbidden for my son to read the old testament books that Martin Luther condemned as the "forboden". And that they would try to save him and that he would constantly be challenged by other God fearing christian students in the school to give up his faith and accept Christ.
I am the great grandson of a baptist minister, and my own grandmother told me that the reason that she voted for Herbert Hoover was that Al Smith and his catholic boys all had guns and were going to take over the country if a catholic got elected. Before she died I asked if she still believed that - she said no - the terrible pain she suffered from cancer and her impending death
caused her to re-evaluation a lot her positions.

To the catholic haters:
As far as molestation of children yes - priests had done horrendous things - however what has never been reported is the molestation by protestant ministers - and why? Have they done less molestation - no! However, there are over 3300 protestant sects in this country and only 1 catholic church - so its a little bit easier to get your hands around the concept of the failings of the clergy of 1 church than that of 3300 + sects. And what about the pedophile activity done by non-religious people? Does anyone one believe that because one professes a certain ideology they are protected from wanting to perform heinous activities against children? If we are going to talk about these monstrous acts lets quit pretending that your particular group is exempt - that's simply not the case.

Are people's kids being taken away from them because their Catholic parents are "indoctrinating" them into a non-Christian religion?

Are non-Catholics going around invading Churches, interrupting Masses, and saying how "evil" their religion is and that they should convert to "true" Christianity?

Do people lose their jobs because their supervisor found out that they were Catholic?

Because this is REAL discrimination that happens to Wiccans, Moslems, etc. almost every day.

As for Mr. Novakula - why are you still walking around a freeman? You should be in prison with your buddy Scooter Libby. JUSTICE FOR VALERIE PLAME!!!

Oh good grief. Every American belongs at least one of the following groups, every single one of which received some kind of verbal abuse:

-Men
-Women
-Christians (including but not limited to Mormons, Catholics, Evangelicals, etc.)
-Jews
-Muslims
-Polytheists
-Atheists
-Democrats
-Republicans
-Naderites
-Straights
-Gays
-Virgins
-Bisexuals
-

So pretty much everyone suffers from some kind of bias. When compared with some of these groups, Catholics have fared pretty well, I think.

That's Mr. Catholic Superstitious Plebeian to you, Mister.

I don't think I'm going to lose any sleep over what the elites think about me. But, it being Lent, I'll light a candle, say a rosary (with a special intention), and ask Saint Anthony for his intervention for the sake of their miserable souls.
Domini, Domini, Domini: you're all Catholics, now.

Mike:

"This board is further evidence that liberals are by far the least tolerant members of our society."

I don't remember any liberals burning crosses, lynching blacks, dragging gays down the road behind a pickup, or persecuting Jews. So how are these people more tolerant than liberals?

Having been raised a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, I always felt a certain chip on my shoulder from knowing of the heritage of descrimination against both Irish and Catholics. As boy, I was proud to stand up to protestants who claimed that "Catholics don't believe in the bible" or other bigoted remarks.

As an adult lapsed Catholic, however, my sympathy and my concern about anti-Catholic descrimination has waned substantially. I personally don't see much in the way of anti-catholic bigotry today. What I do see, however, is a large amount of much deserved criticism of the Roman Catholic Church for its aggressive entry into the political ring. While abortion and birth control have always been a sin in the Catholic church, that's a far cry from violent protests at abortion clinics or denying communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians or organizing boycotts against corporations who extend benefits to gay employees. It's not bigotry to oppose somebody's political beliefs. If Roman Cathoics want to play in the world of secular politics, they should be willing to take the criticism for doing so. Right wing clowns like Novak and Bill Donahue like to smear anybody who criticizes the Catholic Church's political stances as bigots. They're being intellectually dishonest.

We are Christians and had guests at our house for Thanksgiving 2006. One couple was homosexual. When we said a prayer over dinner they were offended and expressed as much. This confrontation kind of put a chill over things for a few minutes. While it would be totally unacceptable for us to question their homosexual behavior it was considered acceptable for them to question our beliefs and Christian practices at our house, at our dinner table, and on Thanksgiving Day. This is the double standard that Novak is talking about.

To those who proclaim anti-Catholic bias: how do you explain your church's active denial of holy communion to those who aren't Catholic? Are we not all children of God?

And don't try to use the words and actions of uneducated dolts on the left to justify your claims of discrimination when you have just as many uneducated dolts on your side rambling on about White Power, Kill the Gays, etc. You're only encouraging the negative and destructive dialogue that is exactly what we don't need.

We've all go biases and we've all got prejudices, the point is not to whine and point fingers but to engage each other in an intelligent and civil way about how to deal with said biases and prejudices.

--From a Democrat, a Lutheran, and a human.

Wow BRD, I've never seen a more conservative spin in my life. Good job on that.

My wife teaches at a Catholic school; I have no problem with Catholics. You want a fun party go out with a bunch of Catholic school teachers sometime!

I do have a problem with a wealthy, privileged white American male like Bob Novak whining about being discriminated against.

Disagreeing with someone's beliefs is not discrimination; objecting to the past (and present) misdeeds of the Church's leadership is not discrimination.

I'm not surprised that Mr. Novak doesn't understand this; I doubt he's ever had to face anything like real discrimination in his life.

Are you liberals ashamed of the disgraceful bigotry and low-minded attacks of your peers?

This board is further evidence that liberals are by far the least tolerant members of our society.

to all the anti-Catholics:

as a Catholic, I apologize for being part of an organization that laid the groundwork for basic human rights doctrine, built western civilization, funded science, united an entire continent, is the largest charitable organization on the face of earth, provided vernacular and better education for commoners, recognized human dignity in even the lowest of society, and many other horrible things.

I'm sure we would have been better off in a godless, athiestic society which worked so well for the russians, nazis, chinese, vietnamese, and other sucessful, non-genocidal governments.

If you take God from people, they loose their spirit. The Church is not flawless, but it was certainly founded on flawless principals, and only in the failing of men does it make mistakes. the object is to fail less.

Can you name one atheist who has ever held a seat in Congress?

Does the military refuse to acknowledge your religion as valid, as it does Wicca?

Give me a break. Sorry your thin skin is so easily offended by a few blog comments, but Christians in America have NOTHING to complain about it.

So Novak is saying that Mass attending Catholics are not members of the intellectual elite? Hmmm. Sounds like HE is the snob.

This kind of childish nonsensical generalization is embarrassing to read.

And yes, I am a Catholic and proud to aspire to the elite. It is what my parents worked themselves to the bone for - to provide money for school and books and advancement.

If Jesus came back to earth -- unlikely of course -- he would not find the Catholic Church or the Baptist Church something he could fathom. The Muslim mosque would probably be the closest thing to what he knew.

Mr. Novak:
As a practicing, Mass-attending Catholic for all of my 60 years, I do not feel that the media and entertainment elite (yes, I think you do mean the Jewish left) believe that I am a superstitious plebian. And I think that the fact that there was little outcry against the Edwards bloggers is evidence that Catholics are fully integrated into our society and are not the targets of bias that Jews, latinos, homosexuals, etc., etc. are. Is there an outcry when Republicans, Democrats, Episcopalians, politicians, lawyers, blonds, etc. are slurred? No, except by individuals in those groups who need to vent their personal insecurity. Give it a rest, Mr. N. Your rants on church issues are as wrong as those on national issues.

Mary Cunningham and others, Keep the Faith and remember it's not our Church, but it's HIS Church. Even today.

16:13. And Jesus came into the quarters of Cæsarea Philippi: and he asked his disciples, saying: Whom do men say that the Son of man is?

16:14. But they said: Some John the Baptist, and other some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

16:15. Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am?

16:16. Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.

16:17. And Jesus answering said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.

16:18. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Take some Thomas Merton, mix in some Thich Nhat Hahn, add a dash of compassion, the sermon on the Mount, finish with some Matthew 22:36-40.
Later and a hug to all.

Though we are not catholics, our 9 year old daughter is attending a catholic school in our area. We made the choice for a variety of reasons, one of which was that we wanted her to go to a christian school. We are commited christians and our daughter has a deep faith and prayer life. Yet, she has been told several times by kids at her school that if she is not catholic, then she is not a christian. How would these nine year olds get this notion and repeatit if that is not what the church and their parents are teaching them? Initially my daughter was upset but then shrugged it off saying: well they don't know what they are talking about, only God is the judge of what is in our hearts. We have given her the option of changing schools any time she wants but she likes where she is enough to put with this silliness.
Mind you, these kids who are telling my daughter that she is not a christian show disrespect to communion, don't like going to mass, and make up things for confession so they are not exactly a shining example of living the christian faith.
Meanwhile, at our non denominational church, nobody cares what your backgroung is. If you are a christian believer, you are welcome to come in, take communtion, etc.
The teacher had to get special permission from higher ups for my daughter to get a blessing from the priest instead of communion, which she is not allowed to take. It took months for that permission to come through! Where is the love of Christ that the church is supposed to be conveying to the children?
If catholics are so worried about discrimination, why don't they stop practicing it? I had very little anti-catholic bias until now but as a christian, seing the catholic church in action is really off putting.

P-SI am sure that some bloggers will question why we have not changed schools yet. Won't bore you all with the details. We are considering it though.

I think most of the comments on here simply validate Mr. Novak's claim.

Malicious anti-Catholic views are alive and well in America.

Since when in the reign of Elizabeth the second did a Catholic murder a Prodestant?????.

Elizabeth is about Queen Elizabeth the First (not Second) and the Catholic described is on a mission to assasinate her. Additionally, that movie came out 9 years ago. If this is really a problem, one would think a more recent example might be more appropriate.

Mr. Novak: The ugly, hateful comments from the posters reacting to your essay only serve to validate your position that anti-Catholic bigotry not only permeates so much of the left-wing political community, it actually feels quite welcome there. For the record, I am political independent that votes Democrat more often than not.

Mary Cunningham's post exhibits the primary benefit of adherence to Catholicism. It provides followers with an artificial sense of superiority over those who reject the religion. Catholics are saved and everybody else will go to hell. That's what attracts people to your "beautiful religion." Rather than a "thick skin," you need only a bonehead to stay Catholic.

Offended,

I had a similar experience once, where the whole table fell silent when they found out I was Catholic. Very uncomfortable. All I can say is don't let the ignorance of others shake your faith.

Omelas,

If you attended Catholic school why don't you understand the difference between Communion in a Catholic Church as opposed to an Episcopal church?

The priest on the deserted island would administer Holy Communion only to Catholics, but also has the power to make anyone else on the island Catholic.

Having attended Catholic school, surely you understand the the Catholic belief of transubstantiation and why that makes a difference.

Furthermore, Catholics are not the only Christians who believe that they follow the one true faith. They also don't believe that non-Catholics are less of a person (or at least shouldn't). They do beleieve that a person cannot maintain a state of grace outside the church...but what about those Christians who believe the Catholics are in spiritual jeopardy for not being Born Again, or "Saved"?

If the only thing keeping me from being friends with my neighbor is our difference on those points, it would be their fault not mine. I do not believe they are less of a person, and as an American who values our Constitution, I cannot deny myself a potentially good friend based on that.

Respecting and valuing our differences, while focusing on our likenesses is what makes us strong as a nation!

I agree with Robert Novak's conversion to catholicism. With all its' faults the Roman Catholic Church as a hierarchy is more than 2000 years old. Even if you don't agree with catholicism you have to respect how long its' hierarchy has survived. The concept of order is very ingrained in the catholic faith even if its' dogmas are outdated. I say hedge your bets on hierarchy and order when it has survived for so long.

No hidden message here or need to read between lines. Just supporting Robert Novak.

Regards,

Da Vinci code rules

Sorry Offended and Mr. Kenney,

Catholics are one of the largest and most powerful religious groups in the US. You are not restricted from owning property, going to school, eating in resturants, shopping in stores. You are not victems of discrimination. That was the topic of this page.

Offended you were right that hostess was very rude. Religion should not be brought up at a dinner party.

Mr. Kenney, so posters pointing out the short comings of the Catholic Church is not slurring. I am not Catholic but as a parent I could not have been any angrier at the Church for the ongoing cover-up and sheltering of the child-molesting priests. Those who knew and did nothing to help the children are just as bad as those rapists. Trully despicable.

Bob Novak - you're such a terrible example of the Catholic faith in your actions, I wish you'd not contributed to this discussion.

bloggers are clowns. "my fellow bloggers". thats a laugh. thats like saying, "my fellow air breathers". thanks to this handy washington post comment section on washington posts' handy little website, we can all become self important sophists and convince ourselves that from the comfort of our wi-fi hot spot we can fulfill our responsibility to be engaged citizens. i have a hunch that blogging is going to be the downfall of the republic. we'll be too busy being excited with ourselves to notice.

I wish people wouldn't get so upset at 'professional agitators.' Novak's business model, along with Anne Coulter, Hugh Hewitt, Sean Hannity and many others, is simply to stir the pot and get a rise out of people and unfortunately it works all too well. If they believe the garbage they spew, fine, but good grief everyone, it's a business and they're all paid well to follow guidlines.
d

Dear Offended,

Sometimes you need a thick skin to stay Catholic. However, other times people just behave like asses & you have to shake your head and then laugh...

Keep believing because it is such a beautiful religion:

Beauty,truth, and rarity
Grace in all simplicity
Here enclosed in cinders lie...

Truth may seem,
but cannot be
Beauty brag, but tis not she:
Truth and beauty buried be.

Shakespeare wrote that. Eulogizing at the burial mass of St Anne Line, hung at Tyburn for hiding a Catholic priest, he mourned the saint and his forbidden, lost religion at the same time. But the faith managed to survive somehow in these isles and we today can freely practice it.

That's all from me.

James sounds like an idiot. I'd like to know what he believes in? Anna Nicole Smith probably

Mr. Novak:

I am a Catholic. I have never had cause to like your work, what little I know of it. You seem to be a right wing reactionary, and I am what might be called a conservative liberal (I vote for democrats, but I disagree with most of them on abortion and affirmative action). I think your work on the Valeria Plame case was deplorable. And yet, I think you're on to something about anti-Catholic bias. The Church, especially since WWII, has begun to speak about what society ought to do, not just what individual Catholics should. This galls people, sometimes conservatives, sometimes liberals. On the other hand, the Church has a moral imperative to protect the innocent - all the innocents. It is our cross. We would not be doing what we need to do as followers of Jesus if we did not upset the apple cart. Slurring the Catholic Church instead of dealing with a particular issue on its merits is a temptation that too many people fall into. To my fellow bloggers who succum to this temptation, Mr. Novak and I pray for you.

people on this comment board horrify me with their self-interested hypocrisy. the gays, women, minorities, illegal immigrants all need to stop whinning. radical equality is un-american and against natural law. do something for yourself sometime instead of relying on affirmative action and special interest groups. you're just as bad as the oil companies and military industrial complex. you don't deserve anything other than what you've been given.

Hey, there's always room for Jello Omar.
By the way, that sounded like a racist comment.

Asim -- If a Jewish person pointed out facts that demonstrated the falsity of the "Israeli Apartheid" notion, would that response be another instance of hell breaking loose?

You Christians (Sorry, this stuff is not just limited to Catholics) believe in silly fairy tales about an invisible man in the sky who magically fathered a son with magic powers. As if that foolishness is not silly enough, there's more; the magic son died, magically came back to life, and then magically ascended to his fathers magic kingdom in the sky.

The reason that smarter people look down on you religious freaks is that you deserve it. You are grown men and women admitting that you believe in fairy tales simply because men in silly outfits tell you that a old book says you should! Your behavior is pathetic, and you should be ashamed of yourselves for not moving past the worthless, useless, pointless fairy tales of the ancient world.

All religion is good for is holding humanity back. Thanks to the internet your betters finally have a platform to denounce your pigheadedness and stupidity without being relegated to dusty corners of independent bookstores. More and more atheists are going to be coming out, and eventually the tide will turn in favor of a real enlightenment, and man will finally live in a world where people have outgrown foolish old notions like the divinity of Christ.

I find it highly amusing that Mr. Novak forgets to admit that it is the doctrine of the Catholic Church that their religion is the one true Christian faith and that everyone not a Catholic is less of a person than a Catholic, whose sins without confession are unforgiven. A point that I, as a protestant child, had made very clear to me in the years I attended a private Catholic school. Beyond that, I have never in 27 years in America witnessed a Catholic discriminated against in any form or by any means. If a group of mixed Christians and a Catholic priest washed up on a deserted island, the Catholic priest can give communion only to the Catholic survivors. If a group of mixed Christians and a Episcopal priest washed up on a deserted island, the Episcopal priest would give communion to all of them and love them equally. That says something about the measure of one's faith.

Thanks, Mr. Novak, for writing on this subject. I'm still sorting through my own anger and frustration after being forced into a corner again. I was at someone's house for dinner this past weekend. The polite conversation slowly turned into a discussion of Catholicism. The hostess ended up high-fiving the other non-Catholics at the table and declared the Church "is a cult!". I was busy with my child up until that point so she wasn't reacting to something I said but to the general conversation which was pretty polite on the subject. The other guests seemed to find that comment acceptable. If she had said this about another church, I wonder if the general reaction would have been different. In any case, I am more and more concerned about how to raise my Catholic family in this increasingly anti-Catholic culture. I joined the Church in 2000 and have never regretted my decision to leave the Protestant faith and I hope to continue to find support among other faithful practicing Catholics.

hey,
i have a question. how is it that white people love christianity or monotheism so much? i mean the religion came from the middle east, but growing up i swore ya'll created it.

i mean should ya'll be on your knees praying to odin or thor. i mean just how in your history did you come to love jesus so much that it was worth you thumpping around the planet killing and converting. it just doesn't add up. oh!!! you love jesus like you love bill cosby!!!!

I disagree with Mr. Novak on many issues. However, no one deserves many of the uncivil remarks on this page. Mr. Novak makes a valid point about about bias. I wonder if there is a single group in the US that there is not some bias against.

Mr Novak played a large part in the illegal outing of a CIA operative. This outing destroyed more than a few careers, compromised and destroyed years of undercover work and undercover netwroks and most likely led to the deaths of people around the globe who were involved with said CIA operations.

The CIA agent Mr Novak outed was working directly on tracking WMDs and to averting their being used against the USA and its allies.

Why Mr Novak is not in jail is a mystery.

That the WP gives a forum to a discredited, American-security-compromising GOP hack is shameful.

I won't forget what you've done, Bobby Boy. I detest what you are and what you stand for...and it has nothing to do with your religion, past or present.

Hey, he better not be downin Mel Brooks!! Spaceballs ruled

"elites in the media, the academy and in the entertainment world"

I would caution Novak against using language like that. The phrase sounds a LOT like anti-Semitic code, evoking ugly stereotypes and myths about the supposed cabalistic nature of Jews. Fundamentalist leaders like Pat Robertson and Donald Wildmon have used those myths for years in their rhetoric.

Let me emphasize that I doubt that Novak intended his phrase as an anti-Semitic slur - I know that he was raised Jewish. If anything, I suspect he was simply using a convenient buzz phrase without thinking about its implications.

Please let me just add, regarding my statements above about the acquiescence of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust, I am not saying that was right...at all!

Mr. Novaks,

I don't always agree with your views, but this time I do. Except I don't think that religious discrimination is just aimed at the catholics. I think they all get their "fair share of abuse." Granted the Politically Correct Police are not as harsh on some religions as other. Its kinda like "What religion shall we hate more today flavor". Just read some of the post on this site or other sites. Some of these post are filled with hate. Many of the post use the same old arguements. Lets look at WW11 for example. Yes the catholic church overlooked many cases where the jews and others could have been helped. Saved from the SS, and Nazis. But then again its a know fact that our own government hired many of these so called war criminals to further our nations advancements in the atomic bomb, the cold war, and other areas. You can now read the declassified documents. They were protected by our own government. Of course the politicians at the time all claim ignorance. Their favorite excuse for just about everything. Only one small example of many other examples. I really don't think it matters what any church/religion does do or does not do. You will still have people who want to hate religion, and those who practice it. And of course you will have other religions who always think that their religion is the only right one. I personally don't ever see that changing. Jesus whom I don't believe in could appear tommorrow in the sky, and some people would claim that it is a vast right/left wing conspiracy, or a charade of the church. Granted, I myself would have to do some serious reconsiderations of some of my positions on certain issues.

First off..Mr. Novak...
You are a bombastic, over paid, narrow minded moron.But that is you persoanally, not anything about your Church.

Now about the Church...a beautiful, meaningful religion...it's a shame that man has instituded their bigotries and narrowness into it. They love power over others...how much power can you get then to (nazi-like) force women to procreate...but with the Catholic Church it is not for the Father land but for Father God.

The bloggers were talking about the down right lies that were being taught to those in a marriage class. Not about the Church. Though that same church propagates those lies, hopeing to keep their believers in line.

But those believers have a mind and a will, and if they put up with having their lives proscribed...then that is up to them. Just like those who followed Jim Jones into the jungle and ended up drinking the kool aid...

But I hate kool aid...I don't drink it. I drink water...unvarnished with what I do not want in me.Do not try to make the rules of any Church the laws over me. I have my own laws that my religion calls for and I quietly follow them, not calling to make them the law of the land.

What I do not understand Mr. Novak...why are you not in jail? What kind of bargain did you make? I am sure Skooter Libby can have a bunk mate. What is it with a grown man being called Skooter?

This has absolutly nothing to do with the Catholic Church...but it has alot to do with your ethics and honor...which does reflect on the way you as a free, mindful person practice you're religion.

See? that's why I wanna move back to England!!!!!!! More tolerance!!!!!

Mr.Novak says "Imagine the explosion had the bloggers administered this treatment to African-Americans, Jews, Latinos, homosexuals, feminists or even Muslims," thus nearly negating the discrimination against Muslims in America."

To really know what discrimination is: Try to be a Muslim in America post 9/11-especially when when you take a flight any where and treated as a potential hijaker-where every Muslim is accused of being a terrorist-forgetting how many Muslims perished in the World Trade Center on that horrendous day, or the victimized Palestinians knuckling under the brutal Israeli Apartheid, or the Genocide of Bosnian Muslims or the several hundred thousand dead Iraqis..."

The only vociferous group that can not be touched without a heavy price is the Jewish Community-if and when it's touched-that is when hell breaks loose due to the highly powerful and effectively organized and mobilized Jewish Community...as the heavy artillery of AIPAC,ADL and now a powerful presence of 43/forty three jewish members of congress...

It's perfectly legitimate to criticize the abuse of children by Catholic priests and the attempted cover up by the Catholic Church-But it's truly grossly unfair to condemn the Catholics Whole Sale...that is real discrimination and it should stop.

Dear Mr Novak,

I've been Catholic in the West of Ireland, in Boston, Mass., and in England (where some diehards still call me a *Roman* Catholic) and, believe me, England was the worst! The fact that the IRA had brought bombing to the mainland a few years before I arrived--timing was never my strong point-- compounded the genuine distaste many English felt for the faith, associated as they felt it was with the poor, disloyal and often outright rebellious Irish.

That said, I must add that *English* Roman Catholicism (and my husband is a genuine English Catholic)has an immensely distinguished history and is associated with some of the greatest nobility and (even more important) the greatest writers of the land: More, Shakespeare,Newman, Manley Hopkins, Greene, Waugh, Chesterton, Sassoon,Tolkien, Muriel Spark...Sassoon and Spark converts from Judaism, like yourself.

It's a lot better now and for that I would have to thank the efforts of Cardinal Basil Hume, a holy man, a saint really. As well, there is the Good Friday agreement and peace in Northern Ireland (please God that it holds!). The great prosperity of the Republic has rendered the old prejudice of the poor Irishman defunct and they have a good rugby team too. As well, there has been a great influx of Eastern Europeans into Britain; as well as being hard-working, they are very devout.

It's funny then, that just as Britain seems to be turning the corner re anti-Catholicism you have in America the kind of regular prejudice like the outpourings seen above. And yet the US Church, at some 60 million strong, is the most important Catholic Church in the developed world, no question.

I am breaking my Lenten promise of contemplation of--not posting on--religion but I had to respond to this one.

Best Wishes,

Mary Cunningham

PS I liked your mother-in-law joke...hope she has a sense of humour!

Whew! It took five posts to get a civil word posted in response to "Anti-Catholic Bias Still Accepted".

How right you are, Mr. Novak.

I am outraged by the handling of the sexual abuse by priests. I am also Catholic. That does not make me a)The molestor b)The cover-up conspirator or c)In support of such actions.

Making all Catholics the object of scorn is just plain ignorant bigotry.

So far it abounds here, only serving to prove Mr. Novak's point. Reading comprehension skills and other educational short-comings abound here.

The acquiescence of Catholic leaders during the Holocaust was not at all helpful, but to claim "the doctrines of the Catholic Church were...at the core of Nazi ideology" is rather ignorant. The Nazis, and the majority of the German citizenry were not even Catholic.

--Which clubs are Catholics being kept out of these days?--

Mr. Novak states, "During my youth, many more doors were closed to Jews than to Catholics."

He is not talking about clubs today, he is talking about more general bias that would be unacceptable were it directed at Jews:

--The bigoted bloggers had to resign, but where was the outrage—from the Democratic political community or the news media (not even from Edwards)?--

ML disapppoints me the most:

--Call me crazy but most Americans find this to be oh, I don't know...EVIL is a word that comes to mind. Yeah, evil sums the situation up nicely.

Sorry, Bob, you were saying something about how Catholics were treated unfairly in America?--

The sarcastic implication that Catholics, not just the GUILTY church officials, somehow deserve the treatment Mr. Novak speaks of is...well...just the most telling.

Furthermore, being Catholic does not negate my American citizenship. "(M)ost Americans find this to be oh, I don't know...EVIL", and that includes me. What is the difference between Americans, and Catholic-Americans?

Mr. Novak:

Despite the Catholic Church's rather ignomineous record of human rights abuses, and crimes against reason itself, I agree that this does not justify anti-Catholic bias. However, when it comes to "Catholicism," as a system of beliefs and ordained ritual, then why should anyone spare it the scrutiny of any other such assertions to "truth?" The facts are, that Catholicism teaches many things that violate everything we know about how the world actually works, proscribes practices that would help to alleviate suffering, & prescribes practices that increase human suffering.

So, denigrate catholics as human beings, no. But denigrate a 15th century set of beliefs and practices that flies in the face of basic scientific understanding and real-world human rights concerns? Absolutely.

Great comment, Norrie. Thank you!

Bob Novak,

I've been called "anti-Catholic", "intolerant", "prejudiced", and so on in these threads, because I oppose many items on the Catholic hierarchy's political agenda. In particular, I'm against those items that would constrict my and other people's liberties and freedoms.

I don't see that the adjectives above apply to me - I'm acting in self defense against a powerful organization that aims to destroy liberties that are now enjoyed in this country.

My opposition to this political agenda has nothing to do with anyone's religious beliefs or personal characteristics.

A few years ago I spent three weeks at Duke's Diet and Fitness Center (it worked - I lost some weight and kept it off for three years). There were four priests there at the same as my wife and I. Also present was a legal advisor to the Vatican.

I love to give books to people and I gave a book to each of them. We ate many meals together and had a great time. One 78-year-old priest (since deceased, PBUH) told a very funny joke about JPII's Polishness (the priest was Italian-American).

So I don't believe I'm prejudiced ab initio against any individual. Jihadist, the sparkling commentator in these threads, wrote that under traditional and historic Islam, the prohibitions against alcohol, pork, homosexual acts, etc. did not apply to non-Muslims, even in majority-Muslim countries.

If that were the situation here in the United States, so that the Catholic proscription of contraception, abortion, gay sex acts, etc., applied only to Catholics, I'd say those proscriptions were unenlightened, but I wouldn't be personally upset because they wouldn't apply to me.

I do get upset, and speak out against the Catholic church when it tries to use political and governmental power to constrict my life and destroy my freedoms.

Again, that's not intolerance - it's the natural law right of self defense.

Catholics are no better than Baptist rednecks. They however do have a church with beautiful music, liturgies, and art. The Baptists have nothing but saccharine hymns and bombastic preaching. But both Catholics and Baptists share belief in moronic theories about god and man, unhistorical and irrational nonsense about sin and redemption; neither groups knows the real Jesus, an apocalyptic prophet who gambled on God and lost.

Neither has any class. Episcopalians have class but not much else.

Christianity was originally and still is a religon for slaves, plebes, fools, and knaves.

Beth,

People who believe in God and say so are not discriminated against in the United States.

Religious people do quite well actually.

Do you understand what the word discriminate means?

Gee Bob,

Maybe people are not so hot for the Catholic Church because for decades some of your organization employees (mainly priests and cardinals) raped and molested children in their care. The Catholic Church not only did not turn these criminals in to the authorities, they assisted these rapists by coninually transferring them to other parishes where they could begin molesting/raping children anew. Then they would deny this practice time and time again....for decades.

The Catholic Church knowingly and wittingly assisted and cover-up child molesters. Putting the needs of these criminals above the safety of their children. Nice.

Call me crazy but most Americans find this to be oh, I don't know...EVIL is a word that comes to mind. Yeah, evil sums the situation up nicely.

Sorry, Bob, you were saying something about how Catholics were treated unfairly in America?

Come again?

Beth:

You seem to be really angry about this. It's not so much that people who believe in God are hated, its the fact that some of those said people choose to constantly preach to people and try to convert them. That is what ticks me off. Leave us alone, if we want to convert or listen, then we will listen. Spreading the Word is not shoving it in my face.

The doctrines of the Catholic Church were a cause of the anti-Semitism at the core of Nazi ideology, and the actions and acquiescence of Catholic leaders, including the Pope, enabled the Holocaust. Now the Catholic Church can celebrate (privately, of course) the extermination and expulsion of the Jewish people from the Church's center of power, Europe. Do you think that there are sufficient reasons for having a negative reaction to the Catholic Church?

You are superstitious plebeians.