Merrick Garland

Watching Republican (and Protestant) Josh Hawley attacking Attorney General Merrick Garland for supposedly being anti-Catholic because of the arrest of anti-abortion activist Mark Houck for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by assaulting a 72 year old Planned Parenthood volunteer outsie a clinic (Anti-Abortion Activist Accused of Pushing 72-Year-Old Volunteer Found Not Guilty).

Of course, neither Merrick Garland nor the DOJ are anti-Catholic. In fact, this situation isn't really about anti-Catholicism at all. It is about anti-abortion extremism/domestic terrorism.

Firsst, let's notice the silliness of accusing the Biden administration's DOJ of being anti-Catholic, when the president himself is a practicing Catholic, and when there are many Catholics in government, not to mention that the majority of Supreme Court Justices are Catholc. Catholicism isn't some persecuted powerless minority in the US.

But more to the point, Hawley is trying to conflate Catholicism and the anti-abortion stance, when actually, the majority of Catholics in the US are pro-choice ... 63% of Catholic adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 68% say Roe should be left as is - AP-NORC poll details rift between lay Catholics and bishops

It is just a small number of Catholics who are anti-abortion extremists, but when the DOJ and the FBI investigate them, they have good reasons to be concerned ... a history of violence on the part of those extremists, whether they are Catholics or not. The Southern Povery Law Center has a page on hate groups termed Radical Traditional Catholicism. The history of anti-abortion violence in the US... harassment, kidnappings, bombings, muders ... is appalling.

And it's not just history - read about Recent Cases on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers

Republican politicians and anti-abortion groups are trying to flip the script, but the facts show that in the past and in the present, the "pro-life" movement, often led by extremist Catholic groups, has been violent. It's not surprising that law enforcement would take that seriously. That doesn't make Merrick Garland anti-Catholic.