Rum, Romanism, and Ridiculous

Something else I called attention to a while back (in mid-January) is the curious relationship developing on the US right between the Roman Catholic hierarchy and our ancient Know-Nothing community, which traditionally identified the Pope as Antichrist and Rome as the Scarlet Woman who rides that seven-headed beast in the book of Revelation.

The Whore of Bablylon. From Sacred Texts.

Now the Times religion columnist, Samuel G. Freedman, has caught onto the same thing, with a very interesting nuance that has apparently been showing up in the primaries: while Evangelical Protestants have adopted Rick "Sanctum" Santorum as the standard-bearer of "religious" conservatism, Catholics haven't—Catholic Republicans are mostly voting for Romney. Freedman comments, primly,

Through a critical reading of the data, Mr. Santorum’s base of evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics could be seen by cynics as a coalition of zealots, held together by intolerance. By another way of thinking, however, his candidacy offers proof of a growing tolerance on the part of evangelical Christians, a willingness to shed ancestral religious prejudices.

And then the Catholics who won't vote for Santorum are more tolerant still? (They are voting for somebody who believes God has plural wives, except, of course, for the Democrats, whose tolerance is not under discussion.) Forgive me, but if you think it's a big deal that evangelicals now recognize white Catholics as white people, I realize that wasn't always true, but color me less than impressed—I think Freedman's cynic idea works better.