Slate.com, the online magazine, recently published a piece that justified anti-Catholicism. In reply to an article by Andrew Sullivan in the New York Times Magazine on March 12, Jack Shafer of Slate wrote a piece the same day on anti-Catholicism. “If anti-Catholic bigotry exists in America, it might have something to do with the Catholic Church’s past conduct. Just this weekend, His Holiness John Paul II conceded as much when he finally got around to apologizing to the world for 2000 years of Catholic wickedness.”
Shafer also compared the pope to Louis Farrakhan: “But tap-dancing away from accountability more beautifully than Farrakhan, the pope absolved the Catholic Church of blame because it is ‘holy and immaculate.’”
Catholic League president William Donohue addressed this issue today:
“Shafer is not alone in using the pope’s apology as a club to beat up on the Catholic Church, but he is the most brazen. His position is that anti-Catholicism is a function of Catholic wickedness.
“Some blacks today feel it is okay to be anti-Semitic given the past wickedness they experienced at the hands of Jews. Some heterosexuals justify their gay bashing by citing the wicked results of gay sex. Some Jews think it is okay to be anti-Catholic because they want to get even with Catholics for not doing enough to stop Hitler. Some Catholics are anti-Semitic, anti-gay and anti-black—for equally irresponsible reasons. But the difference is that the only bigotry that will be promoted by well-educated people in influential outlets is anti-Catholicism.
“When the movie Dogma came out, Slate writer David Edelstein took great delight in describing how outrageously irreverent it was towards Catholicism. Now Shafer takes delight in justifying anti-Catholicism. It would be good to hear from the editor, Michael Kinsley, about this.”
