Anti-Catholicism is the last politically correct prejudice still unquestioned in America.

For fear of lawsuits and reprisals, Madisonians have stopped challenging most groups on exercising their freedom of choice – they do not challenge racial groups, non-Catholic religious groups, or ethnic groups for their choices and lifestyles.

Why do you expect Catholics to defend their choices and beliefs? We do not attack you demanding you to defend why you like to go to the Overture Center, the Chazen Museum, the Capitol Building, or to Taste of Madison.

Some of the criticisms of the Catholic Church in Wisconsin State Journal discussion are preposterous.

  • Madison’s Capitol building is very grand and imposing, as are numerous affluent banks around the Capitol Square and the Overture Center. Yet some suggest that Catholic Churches in Madison are too extravagant. Catholic Churches are very humble by comparison. Apparently you respect government, money and entertainment sufficiently to tolerate imposing accommodations for these activities, but you want to require people who hold God in high esteem to grovel in humble surroundings.
  • There is a similar double standard in the criticism of statues in Catholic Churches. The display of photos in one’s living room, of paintings in the Chazen Museum, and of portraits and statues in government buildings seems to be acceptable in Madison, yet when the Catholic Church honors the memory of important people with paintings and statues, suddenly you decide that this constitutes idolatry.
  • Finally, the portrayal of the Catholic Church as an institution laden with money is completely false. The Diocese does not receive one penny from Rome, nor is Rome wealthy (except for the value of her “Capitol building,” which requires maintenance, just as Madison’s does). Those who sue the Catholic Church are suing the Madison citizens in the pews today. When Diocesan coffers are depleted by lawsuits, the same critics attack the Church for insufficient charitable service to Madison (which still exceeds the charitable service provided by the City of Madison).

This double standard constitutes bigotry and generates false and vile urban myths about Catholicism.

“Not a hundred people in the United States hate the Roman Catholic Church, but millions hate what they mistakenly think the Roman Catholic Church is.”

-Bishop Fulton J Sheen