Commentary
Philosopher Peter Kreeft is credited with the observation that by the late 20th century, anti-Catholicism had become the fashionable bigotry of the white-collar and intellectual classes.
The point was at least two-fold. One was that in an era of inclusiveness rampant on a field of diversity, being Roman Catholic was among the few identities still considered fair game for sneers, slurs, contempt, and manifold other manifestations of intolerance. A more subtle point was that the contemporary prejudicial variant differed in form, though not function, from the unfashionable, flagrant, no-popery fanaticism of earlier times.
Gone were figures such as the inflammatory Protestant preacher Ian Paisley, who contributed to 30 years or murderous civil strife in Northern Ireland with rabid denunciations of the “Purrrrrrppppple Whooorrrre of Rome” for its alleged sins and wickedness. They were replaced by practitioners of subtler forms of detestation for the Church of about 1.3 billion adherents worldwide. Abhorrence of Catholicism became less hoi polloi, more highfalutin, and so more skillfully submerged in the murk of progressive shibboleths….