Left-leaning journalists in 2024 are on a crusade against religious institutions in America, especially Catholic institutions.
Some, motivated by zealous secularism, are trying to drive religion out of the public square. Lying beneath this, though, is a totalizing and flattening mindset combined with social liberalism. They see that the government and the media have broadly rejected traditional morality — especially as it regards marriage, sex, sexuality, and family — and they are upset that some of us holdouts are not getting on board.
But, of course, it is bigoted to attack people for being Catholic, or Jewish, or Protestant, or Muslim, and so the journalists and activists on this crusade come up with excuses, dodges, and cover stories.
One excuse is, “Oh, we don’t object to their existence. It’s that they get public funding.” That excuse deserves its own treatment, but for now, let’s just say if you make that argument while also arguing for expanding government into all aspects of our lives, then you are simply arguing for the abolition of religious institutions.
Perhaps the most popular deployed by anti-religious crusaders is that they aren’t against religions or their adherents but only against the extremists.
These journalists’ definition of “extremists,” though, includes anyone who follows the central teachings of the faith.
Heidi Przybyla, a former Catholic and a reporter at Politico, provides an example. She argued on television that some Christians undermine the American system. Which Christians? Only those who believe our rights “come from God.”
That is, she isn’t trying to scare her readers and viewers about all Christians, just those who believe in the most basic Christian tenets — the same tenets that are in our Declaration of Independence.
The fallout from the graduation speech by NFL kicker Harrison Butker is similar. Butker gave the commencement address at Benedictine College, a Catholic school at which I have twice spoken (and they paid me both times).
The New Republic has an article that ties Benedictine into a “rise of trad Catholicism.” The evidence that Benedictine is some outlier and a part of some fringe movement includes the fact that the college has “promoted devotion to the Virgin Mary, which has become a hallmark of public piety among traditionalists.”
Imagine that! Catholics openly devoted to the Mother of God! What is this radical new strain of Catholicism!
This writer should travel down to Latin America, where he will be appalled to find thousands of shrines to Mary! How the heck did Harrison Butker spread his influence all over Mexico?
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So, the scary Catholics are those Catholics who love Mary, and the scary Christians are those Christians who believe they have God-given rights.
If you’re the other kind of Christian, these writers are fine with you.