Great books have been written about Protestant Crusades, distorted and lying and paranoiac accounts of the threats Catholicism meant to everyone else. The election of JFK, the papacy of John XXIII and successors, Catholic entrance into all mainstreams thanks to, e.g., the GI Bill through which they became best educated changed all that.

Of course this is cultural lag. Of course there are pockets of suspicion. Of course jejune and sophomoric artists do "Piss Christ" and obscene Virgin Mary's (which offend non-Catholic Christians as much as Catholics. Of course opponents to some Catholic positions on political issues get negative responses; everyone gets negative responses from someone in politics. Of course, identity groups find it valuable to describe themselves as besieged and persecuted.

But the historical perspective and comparisons lead one to say that these are but pimples on the body politic, religious style. Fundamentalists, Pentecostals, hillbillies, rednecks, snake handlers, many kinds of Muslims often have reason to complain (but don't always do).

I yearn for a day when religious forces can be in the rough and tumble of politics without being met with sacrilegious or debasing counterattacks. But any student of pluralism done wrong, diversity overheated, should just yawn and say "cool it" when these excrescences show up.

Jimmy Durante once said, "Why doesn't everyone leave everyone else alone for five minutes? Similarity, why doesn't everybody not whine about everybody else for five minutes. Good, good things are happening on the ecumenical and interfaith fronts; let's notice them!