Christopher Hitchens' Anti-Catholic Screed: "Quit Tiptoeing Around John Roberts' Faith"

Hat tip: The Mighty Barrister and Mirror of Justice

Christopher Hitchens proves once again just how big an anti-Catholic bigot he is:

Catholic Justice
Quit tiptoeing around John Roberts' faith.

By Christopher Hitchens

Everybody seems to have agreed to tiptoe around the report that Judge John G. Roberts said he would recuse himself in a case where the law required a ruling that the Catholic Church might consider immoral. According to Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, the judge gave this answer in a private meeting with Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., who is the Senate minority whip. Durbin told Turley that when asked the question, Roberts looked taken aback and paused for a long time before giving his reply.

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It is already being insinuated, by those who want this thorny question de-thorned, that there is an element of discrimination involved. Why should this question be asked only of Catholics? Well, that's easy. The Roman Catholic Church claims the right to legislate on morals for all its members and to excommunicate them if they don't conform. The church is also a foreign state, which has diplomatic relations with Washington. In the very recent past, this church and this state gave asylum to Cardinal Bernard Law, who should have been indicted for his role in the systematic rape and torture of thousands of American children. (Not that child abuse is condemned in the Ten Commandments, any more than slavery or genocide or rape.) More recently still, the newly installed Pope Benedict XVI (who will always be Ratzinger to me) has ruled that Catholic politicians who endorse the right to abortion should be denied the sacraments: no light matter for believers of the sincerity that Judge Roberts and his wife are said to exhibit. And just last month, one of Ratzinger's closest allies, Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna, wrote an essay in which he announced that evolution was "ideology, not science."

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If Roberts is confirmed there will be quite a bloc of Catholics on the court. Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas are strong in the faith. Is it kosher to mention these things? ...

My Comments
Hardly surprising coming from a man who hated both John Paul II and Mother Teresa with such visceral intensity. But it is shocking to me that Hitchens feels so comfortable placing his anti-Catholic bigotry on full display.

I'll say this much for him: at least Hitchens doesn't try to hide his antipathy for Catholics and Catholicism behind euphemisms like the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are wont to do.

UPDATE
Looks like Steve Dillard at Southern Appeal had the same thoughts I did re: Hitchens' candor about his anti-Catholic bigotry vs. the Senate Democrats' lack thereof.

Also, Ramesh Ponnuru takes on Hitchens over at the Corner on National Review Online.
(HT: Steve at Southern Appeal)