Attacks on possible Trump court pick's Catholicism smack of bigotry, ignorance

In this era of heightened sensitivity to most forms of bigotry, it should be extraordinary, if not unthinkable, that a person's faith be cause for their pillory.

But it appears that some of the loudest voices in woke America will make exceptions, for Christians specifically and Catholics in particular.

Nowhere is this more obvious than the anachronistic and vicious attacks on probable Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Since 2017, when she was nominated and confirmed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett's Catholic beliefs have been the source of ridicule by lawmakers and political commentators. Some brazenly asserted that her identity as an orthodox Catholic — one who actually believes the teachings of the church — was somehow disqualifying for a position on the federal bench.

With Barrett under consideration for the Supreme Court, the assaults on her faith have devolved into decidedly false conspiracy theories that a charismatic Christian organization of which Barrett is a member was the inspiration for Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, "The Handmaid's Tale." Because it requires its members to participate in activities as extreme as praying for each other and reserving sexual activities for one's spouse, perhaps?

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Some of the attacks on Barrett's faith are not about faith at all, but politics. She's a conservative, a Trump appointee.

In the absence of any legitimate objections to her character (a favorite ground of attack for Democrats during judicial proceedings), her detractors have no better course than to accuse the mother of seven (including two adopted children and one with special needs) of trying to transform the U.S. into a theocracy.

"Amy Coney Barrett,is a Catholic extremist with 7 children who does not believe employers should be required to provide healthcare coverage for birth control," documentary filmmaker Arlen Parsa said in a now-deleted tweet. "She wants the rest of American women to be stuck with her extreme lifestyle," Parsa continued, because apparently assailing her abundant motherhood was the best she could muster.

Other assaults on Barrett are the result of widespread religious illiteracy in modern America.

In the course of a generation, cultural elites have successfully eschewed American ideas and institutions decisively shaped — in overwhelmingly positive ways — by biblical religion.

They have, as a result, condemned future generations to ignorance and denigrated Christian traditions and practices, even bastardizing words like "handmaid." It alludes not to the red-cloaked and white bonnet-clad women of Atwood's novel, but to the Virgin Mary responding to the angel Gabriel's announcement that she was to bear the child Jesus.

While ignorance plays a role, though, it's undeniable that much of the derision surrounding Barrett's likely nomination is borne out of pure and unadulterated anti-Catholic bigotry.

And sadly, that isn't novel to the American Catholic experience.

In 2017, when Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin interrogated Barrett over the nature of her faith and its impact on her judicial rulings, they were merely fomenting a distrust of Catholics that has been present since the earliest days of the nation's founding.

From the Blaine Amendments (punitive measures against families sending children to Catholic schools) to targeting by the Klu Klux Klan (priests and religious were assassinated during the Klan's ascendancy), to conspiracy theories that the election of Irish Catholic John F. Kennedy would usher in an era of "Catholic militias" and convert public schools to dogmatic religious institutions, Catholics have been regular targets of powerful American institutions.

It isn't a surprise that Barrett is the latest prominent Catholic to generate such contempt — especially as political animosity swells and religious literacy tanks.

But that doesn't make it any less appalling.

If so-called "woke American" leaders desire to maintain any credibility in the debate over Barrett's likely nomination, they might start judging her judicial record and not her faith.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Cynthia M. Allen
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
(TNS)

Cynthia M. Allen is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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