The latest ploy by the authoritarian faction now in ascendancy in the Roman Catholic church is to attribute dissent and criticism to "anti-Catholicism," a bias akin to anti-Semitism. The ploy is more an instrument of intolerance than a defense against it. The object is not protect Catholic expression, but to suppress expression that irritates the ultra-orthodox. It is hard to think of a more implausible victim than that proverbial "thug in a black dress," John Cardinal O'Connor, Wojtyla's American enforcer.
The complaint of anti-Catholic bigotry is all the odder because the worst of the anti-Catholic offenses--the film Dogma directed by Kevin Smith, the play Corpus Christi by Terrence McNally, Chris Ofili's painting "The Holy Virgin Mary," Andres Serrano's photograph "Piss Christ"--have been perpetrated by current or former Catholics. I recall that Jean-Luc Godard on being questioned why the Church hierarchy had campaigned so strenuously against Hail Mary, his unorthodox but reverent and moving film, replied that perhaps they thought they had a copyright on the story. The Church's first problem is control of dissent. If there is a problem of anti-Catholic bigotry, of sacrilege and blasphemy, it is first and principally a problem within the Church.
Blasphemous humor is characteristic of Catholic culture, and not just among the lapsed or apostatized. Indeed, Dogma has been rightly criticized for being too Catholic. The clumsy story line hinges on the premise that the Catholic hierarchy has the power to grant indulgences, binding dispensations from the "temporal punishment due to sin." Years ago, I heard or read an involved joke about a young priest who overcomes his nervousness by drinking, learning that his homily is riddled with various hilarities, mostly blasphemous and sacrilegious (e.g., the Holy Ghost becomes the "Holy Spook"). My point is not to repeat the joke---you can find it on Internet or get someone else to tell it---but to relay the report from sometimes-observant relatives that the joke is now being repeated in Catholic pulpits. Catholicism and Catholic culture are a comic mother lode. Witness the beloved status of nuns in American kitsch culture, for Catholic and non-Catholic alike. When the hierarchy failed to ground the "Flying Nun," it should have seen the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence farther down the runway. If Sister Boom Boom did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent her. More importantly, if they can't take a joke...
There is a parallel phenomenon with Mormonism. If you begin to search on Mormon subjects on the Internet, you will suddenly find a huge body of anti-Mormon material. This anti-Mormon "bigotry," in the loose version of the term, is nearly all the work of ex-Mormons. You can manage the material without a Mormon background, but you will have a lot of homework. Although lacking their cultural depth, Mormonism is as rich in self-parodying material as any of the traditional religions. The view is attributed to philosopher George Santayana that "There is no God, and Mary is His Mother." Perhaps there is a similar view for survivors of Mormon culture.
According to the Catholic League's 1998 Report on Anti-Catholicism, "When one thinks of activist organizations that are anti-Catholic, images of the Ku Klux Klan come to mind. But most of the bigotry that is heaped on the Church these days comes not from terrorists, but from well-respected men and women in establishment organizations." Exactly! Just the sort of give-and-take you would expect in a democratic society dealing with an authoritarian organization once again engaging in its traditional obsessions with censorship and the regulation of sex. Gay activists and others have indeed engaged the Church. Inexcusable ill manners crop up on both sides, as witness the disruption of wafer distribution at St. Patrick's Cathedral and the attempted defacement by a Catholic devotee of the Ofili painting. But it was the Church that picked the fight on homosexuality, just at it continues its campaign against abortion and birth control. The Catholic League goes as far as citing opposition to school vouchers as anti-Catholic. This does not mean "anti-Catholicism" in any trivial sense, but bigotry on the scale of the KKK's. This line of thought would juxtapose bearded nuns on roller skates with bodies strung out on fences and dragged on chains. Intolerance of dissent has a long history in the Church, and few arguments are too indecent for the League and the Church faction is supports.