Dec 1, 2004 / 22:00 pm
Despite efforts to root out racism and prejudice against various groups, anti-Catholicism persists in the United States, said William H. Cardinal Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore.
“We live in a culture in which anti-Semitism, homophobia and racism are rightly condemned. Yet anti-Catholicism is tolerated,” he said in a comment published in the Baltimore Sun, Nov. 28, adding, “most Catholics seem resigned to it.”
The cardinal summarized the long history of anti-Catholicism in Maryland, despite the fact that it was a colony founded by Catholics. Too few recall that it was “the first home of religious freedom in the English-speaking world,” he said, and that Marylanders were later denied this freedom for almost a century.
Religious freedom was reclaimed with American independence. However, said the cardinal, anti-Catholicism has persisted.