sa during Holy Communion was unconscionable. Princess Dianarnhad many detractors, yet none surfaced on television duringrnthe young woman’s funeral.rnCompare ABC’s actions with those of NBC. When the latter’srnMeet the Press invited Hitchens to comment on the Britishrnroyal family on September 7, it did not allow him to stay for thernnext segment on Mother Teresa; anchor Tim Russert handledrnthe situation with professionalism.rnBesides these more flagrant attempts to bash Catholicism,rnthere is an underground current of anti-Catholicism that findsrnits way into virtually every nook and cranny of our society; itsrnsubtlety may be its most demonic element. Filmmakers are especiallyrnculpable. The recent remake of The Smut does notrnovertly deal with Roman Catholicism, yet it opens with a viciousrnportrayal of a Catholic priest. The movie Face/Off alsornhas nothing to do with Catholicism, but it begins with a manrndressed as a priest who dances like a stripper and then gropes arnchoirgirl; the film ends with a huge shoot-out in a Catholicrnchurch.rnWe are often told that Jenny McCarthy went to Catholicrnschool. Why? Because her claim to fame is that she is a formerrnPlaymate of the Year and a host on MTV. hi a news story regardingrna wild night at a Nebraska nightclub, the reporter dutifullyrntells us that some of the young kids were Catholic. Norndoubt they were. A California newspaper was just as vigilantrnwhen it reported that a person involved in a car crash had “arnsticker of the Virgin Mar’ on the steering wheel.”rnA major newsweekly recently ran a piece on delinquentsrnwhich mentioned that, in one particular case, the kids went tornCatholic schools; we can only guess where the other thugsrnwent. An Oregon newspaper published a front-page story, completernwith color photos, of a young Hispanic girl in her firstrnCommunion dress. The text of the story claimed that HolyrnCommunion initiates Catholic children into “a culture of selflessnessrnand devotion that, in some children, discourages individualrnstriving,” and concludes that “the results can be disa.strousrnto education.” One might reply that results like this canrnbe disastrous to journalism, and to common sense as well.rnLast May, two 15-vear-olds, a boy and a girl, were arrested forrnthe Central Park murder of a Manhattan man. The boy was describedrnin the media as “an ex-altar boy,” and the girl as havingrnattended a Catholic school “run by the Jesuits.” At the time ofrntheir arrest, both attended expensive preppy nonsectarianrnschools, but that did not matter: what mattered was thernCatholic connection, however old. Had the boy been bar-mitzvahed,rnhis former status would never have been noted and revealed.rnJames Hamilton of the New York Observer took a picture ofrnBarbara Foster sitting on the lap of her husband, Michael.rnWhat was unusual about the picture was a) Mike’s sex-maternand girlfriend, Letha Hadady, was standing next to the Fo.sters;rnand b) in the midst of the happy threesome was a prominentrnpicture of the Madonna. The news stor made it clear thatrnthe lovers were all Jewish, and so I called Mr. Hamilton for anrnexplanation of the picture of Mary: he said it was just coincidentalrn.rnWlien an abortion clinic in Virginia was bombed last Februar}’,rnWJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., reported that the clinicrnwas “down the street from a Catholic church.” It was. It was alsornacross the street from a palm reader’s office, though that wasrnnot mentioned. Speaking of abortion clinics, why did the pressrnconstantl}’ tell us that John Salvi, the deranged young man whornwent on a killing spree in two abortion clinics, was “obsessed”rnwith Catholicism? How are these things measured, and why isrnJack Kevorkian never described as “obsessed” with atheism?rnThe co’er of the July issue of the Texas Monthly reads: “Abilene’srnHouse of Yahweh believes . . . Satan is a woman, thernPope is her puppet, and the world will end in three years.” Thernstory inside has nothing to do with any of this. Now, Catholicsrnexpect to be bashed in overtly anti-Catholic publications, suchrnas those of Jack Chick. But in dog magazines? Yet that is exactiyrnwhat happened when the American Cocker gave space tornJ. Michael Asbill. Mr. Asbill tells us that the reason the Churchrnis against contraception is because it limits “the creation ofrnmore Catholics”; he also reveals how filthy rich the CatholicrnChurch is. All this squeezed in between articles on dog breeding!rnMoving up a notch, the New Yorker published an inanernpiece bv Frank Gannon on “Pope Mobilitv.” His attempt atrnsatire is studded with such gems as “When you are infallible inrnthe area of faith, you know how to pick an automobile,” andrn”What does luxury mean to a man who decides what’s right andrnwrong for most of the civilized world?” A question for Mr. Gannon:rnWhat is the purpose of saying “most”? And who is he tornsay that the uncivilized world within which he lives is not alsornunder the tutelage of the Holy Father?rnThey were few, lamentably few. A half-century ago,rnwhile tiieir neighbors drew the shades and closed theirrnears, these few could not ignore what was happening to thernJews. They could not ignore the moral message of theirrnCatholic faith.” This is how the Washington Post opened a storyrnon the honors that the U.S. Holocaust Museum bestowed onrnCatholics who rescued Jews during the holocaust. Naturally,rnPius XII was noted for doing next to nothing to help the Jews,rnthough at the time he received kudos from the World JewishrnCongress, Golda Meir, Albert Einstein, Pinchas Lapide, thernNewYork Times, and scores of others in the Jewish communityrn(the chief rabbi in Rome even converted to Catholicism afterrnthe war and took the Pope’s name as his baptismal name).rnProfessor Alfie Kohn does not like character education. In arnpiece for the Phi Delta Kappan, Kohn opines that “it is of nornrelevance that almost all of the leading proponents of characterrneducation are devout Catholics.” Obviouslv this is not true,rnotherwise Kohn would not have mentioned it (and how does hernmeasure devoutness—couldn’t some of these guys be fakers?).rnThen he unloads with the clincher: “But it is entirely relevantrnthat, in the shadows of their writings, there lurks the assumptionrnthat only religion can serve as the foundation of good character.”rnGood going, Alfie, you nailed those Catholics and managedrnto keep your hands clean at the same time.rnPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is generallyrnknown for its insanit-, not its bigotr)’. But it proved itsrnmultiple skills when it took on Bo’s Town for experimentingrnwitii cats. Despite the fact that the National Institutes of Healthrnfound no merit whatsoever to the charge of animal abuse,rnPETA kept charging away. Worse, it alleged that FatherrnFlanagan’s famous home was also a den of pedophilia. AfterrnBoys Town and the Catholic League confronted PETA, itrnbacked away from those charges, though it never had the decencyrnto issue a public apologv’ or to admit the truth about BoysrnI’own’s good record.rnChicago has a new nightclub called the “Convent.” Therernare bartenders dressed as priests, waitresses dressed as CatholicrnDECEMBER 1997/17rnrnrn