This move, engineered at the last minute by former wrestling coach J. Dennis Hastert, speaker of the House, was supposed to soothe Catholic voters who, it has been widely alleged, suffered multiple slurs during the recent primary campaign. You remember, George W. Bush going to the anti-Catholic hotbed of Bob Jones University and failing to drive the hatemongers from their temple. My Aunt Margaret, who died a few years ago at 105, had a shrewd eye for such chicanery. That is apparently what leaders of both political parties take their Catholic constituents for. Most Catholics feel that the scandal lies not in calling Bob Jones anti-Catholic but in calling it a university.
Catholics are accustomed to insults.
What is truly offensive is the condescension toward them shown by both Republicans and Democrats in this congressional maneuver. That is equal-opportunity bigotry. The plain truth is that Catholics really do not care much about who the chaplain of the House of Representatives is, or even if there is one. They have never sought pity, just a fair chance. Although there could be an Academy Award for the Most Gratuitous Insult to Catholics every year, Catholics ignore these, remaining adults and unprovoked by the childishness or adolescence of most of the bad taste in matters Catholic of filmmakers.