About 30 years ago, the Reagan administration was giving support to forces in Central America that ostensibly were fighting against Marxist takeovers, and a lot of people — and especially Liberal Democrats — protested this support because Catholic priests often were the targets of these “anti-communists.” The 1980 murder of a number of American Catholic nuns, the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador (also in 1980) and the targeting of other priests galvanized opposition to U.S. policy in that region.

That was then. Today, we see the Obama administration and its supporters cheering on the Syrian rebels, and approving the use of tax dollars to buy weapons and other aid for these violent killers. That these rebels are murdering Catholic priests seems to have no effect upon anyone in authority these days. What is more interesting is the lack of any U.S. media coverage of these atrocities, and especially from the NY Times, and from the religious press, including Sojourners, which 30 years ago made the violence in Central America front-and-center in its coverage, which decried U.S. support for the Nicaraguan “contra” rebels.