It is deeply ironic, is it not, that at the beginning of a new millennium the Catholic Church continues to adhere to its age-old policy of exclusionism and blatant religious bigotry, of the sort that throughout history has led to murderous crusades, inquisitions, and — under the sponsorship of Pius XII — to actual genocide.
I refer, of course, to the appointment by the current pope of 37 new cardinals of the church — NOT ONE OF WHOM IS A NON-CATHOLIC! In this way, John Paul II has brazenly proclaimed his benighted and reactionary view, that the great majority of the world’s people, who are after all Protestants, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, animists, atheists, practitioners of voodoo, Satanists, etc., etc., simply have NOTHING SPIRITUAL TO CONTRIBUTE. In other words, that they may be ruthlessly NEGATED and NULLIFIED as human beings, in much the same way as occurred at Auschwitz under John Paul II’s notorious predecessor.
This is the same church that continues to oppress women, to the point where it even frowns on nuns going out on an occasional date. It is the same church that insists on characterizing as sins various practices that are a matter of personal CHOICE and often even salutary, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association — thus carrying on the futile and absurd warfare against science itself that Catholicism has grimly waged for centuries. (It’s nothing short of a miracle, by the way, that modern science managed to emerge from a culture dominated by the Catholic Church.)
We must do all in our power to restrict and eventually extinguish this evil force in our compassionate new world order. INTOLERANCE CANNOT BE TOLERATED! John Ashcroft was, quite rightly, subjected to sharp questioning regarding his Christian faith. We must see to it that every Catholic seeking public office is subjected to an even sharper inquiry, to expose the hostility to pluralism and multiculturalism — the HATE — that festers in his/her heart.
January 23, 2001
Ralph Raico is a senior scholar of the Mises Institute.
© 2001 LewRockwell.com
