Catholics Start Campaigning

With all the hullabaloo about Mitt Romney's Mormonism (could we see the first ever magic underwear drawer in the White House?), it's easy too forget there's an oppressed religious minority in America. Catholics.

In a mail out from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the claim is made that "it's open season on Catholicism." How bad is it? Well, apparently, Barbara Walters let Rosie O'Donnell and Joy Behar "bash Catholicism 15 times in one session." There's Madonna, of course. And then there's the James Cameron "tomb of Christ" documentary. They really didn't like that at all. Apparently, this is "the most violent attack on the Catholic Church in the media and public life since the days of the Ku Klux Klan."

They then go head-on into O'Reilly/Colbert country by noting that "we'll be fighting the Christmas wars before too long."

Now far be it from us to say there could be some covert presidential primary lobbying going on (although the sentence "We are about to enter the presidential campaign full-throttle, and if the past is any guide, religion is bound to be an issue" may be a clue). Of course, the media is to blame, and the letter warns that "the new TV season is about to begin, and that always means trouble." By which we can only presume they've seen the pilot for the re-vamped version of The Bionic Woman too.

Chronic just has to wonder: When did the Roman Catholic church get so ... well, let's put it this way. It was founded against a background of Roman imperial oppression, and took as much of a pounding from Protestants as they doled out during the bloody religious wars of the Reformation. According to Amnesty International, in China, Catholic priests and nuns are still regularly arrested and abused, or just disappear. The same is true for Peru, Viet Nam, Sri Lanka and a host of other countries. And Rosie's got them worried?