The Scapegoating of the Catholic Church

T his past weekend was ugly in America. Protests erupted outside Catholic churches as pro-abortion hordes swarmed their precincts, angered by the leaked draft Dobbs decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Sunday services were drowned out by sloganeering, while those who couldn’t get inside chuntered around with even more extremity. “God killed his son, why can’t I kill mine,” screamed a protester outside a church in New York, as NR’s Kathryn Jean Lopez reported. Another accused Catholics of “2,000-year enslavement of women.” Stained glass was smashed, walls were tarred and graffitied — “F the Church” being the common line — and property was destroyed. Summing it up, one pro-life center with religious connections in Madison, Wis., had scrawled across its wall the ominous message: “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t, either.”

This was not entirely spontaneous. Over the past week, pro-abortion groups have been directing protesters to Catholic churches across the country. They’ve been singled out by the Left for backlash. As the leading group Ruth Sent Us wrote on Twitter: “Whether you’re a ‘Catholic for Choice,’ ex-Catholic, of other or no faith, recognize that six extremist Catholics set out to overturn Roe.” Rise Up 4 Abortion, meanwhile, called for nonstop, weeklong protests at churches — against what it calls “Christian fascism” in the draft Dobbs decision.

That these groups began their offensive on Mother’s Day — a celebration of motherhood, the veritable opposite of abortion — is ironic apart from being disrespectful. Moreover, it’s rather pointless. The Church, like any other religious outfit, has no legislative or judicial power in America (indeed, the history of Western Reformation involves its separation from state power). It can neither alter the Court’s verdict nor enact any political remedy. Only the Court and Congress can do so. Demanding “rights” to abortion outside a church, then, accomplishes nothing.

What’s puzzling, then, is the specific focus on Catholic churches. Yes, the Catholic Church has historically played a significant role in the pro-life cause. But it is one among many, and its role in Dobbs itself is marginal compared with the zealous activity of others on both sides of the case. It was not a party to the case. It did not play a role in drafting the Mississippi law. It did not lead the campaign to build support in Dobbs. Though the Church has long opposed abortion and filed several amicus briefs in the case, these actions were no different from the thousands of other parties that filed similarly and did so much more. Clearly, in this round of the fight against abortion, the Church joined millions of Americans in cheering from the sidelines rather than jumping into the arena. The idea that it is somehow singularly responsible for the Dobbs decision in any meaningful way, to merit such protests, is a stretch.

This makes one wonder why the activists are so obsessed with Catholics. Many faith groups, NGOs, and institutions across the country are pro-life, yet no systematic protests have been planned against them. Catholic churches are the establishments — apart from the homes of Supreme Court justices — that have been singled out for demonstrations.

­Ruth Sent Us reveals the purpose rather plainly. Read the group’s tweet again: “six extremist Catholics set out to overturn Roe.” Extremist Catholics. That slur is the only real connection between the Church and this case: the faiths of Catholic justices who would vote with the majority. Never mind that Justice Neil Gorsuch worships at an Episcopal church, that Chief Justice Roberts’s vote is yet to be determined, or that Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion relied on not a sliver of canon law, scripture, or religious quotation. It was, as Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote last week, a “brilliant and shrewd” opinion, heavily cited, and comprehensive in legally refuting all claims of a constitutional right to abortion. To the Left, none of this matters. Because five members of the purported majority are also members of the Church, Catholicism must be the source of their ruling, they believe. Hence, to them, America’s Catholics must suffer the indignity of their holy places being targeted. The Catholic Church is being scapegoated by the Left for the Dobbs decision.

This response is worse than ignorant. It continues a streak of anti-Catholic sentiment in American life, one that dates as far back as 1789. Even as the Founding Fathers wrote religious freedom into the U.S. Constitution, and proclaimed that “no religious test shall ever be required” for public office, the anti-Catholic bigotry of Georgian England persisted on the margins in the young country, with “Pope Nights” being held to burn effigies of the pontiff. Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. called it “the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” It reached an apogee in 1960, during John F. Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency, before receding once again.

Now, this old streak has returned with a new flavor as the political Left uses the Catholic faith as its straw man for fearmongering, leaning into old tropes about the Church as a puppeteer giving instructions to its followers (in this case, the justices). People said the same about Kennedy in 1960 — that he’d take instruction from the pope in Rome. In 2017, we saw this with the appalling statement of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) — “The dogma lives loudly in you, and that’s a concern” — at then-professor Amy Coney Barrett’s Court of Appeals confirmation hearing. Now, in 2022, it has returned in full swing, as pro-abortion activists nationwide misdirect their anger at Dobbs on the Church, premised on the lie that it’s the éminence grise to Catholic justices on abortion.

This lie must be called out, ridiculed, and returned to the ashes. The justices are not beholden to the Church in their rulings. The Church, wholly, is but one of many voices in America’s robust abortion debate. Catholics deserve to practice their faith without fear and harassment from angry mobs for a ruling they did not write. Democratic leaders — many of them Catholics, e.g., President Biden and Speaker Pelosi — must resoundingly condemn the bigotry of their side’s pro-abortion protests across the land. It’s a test of their own faith: not in the Church, but in America, itself.