In the latest issue of The Weekly Standard , Joseph Bottum has an essay on anti-Catholicism and the obsession over the scandals raging in Europe:
The day the Antichrist is ripped from his papal throne, true religion will guide the world. Or perhaps its the day the last priest is gutted, and his entrails used to strangle the last king, as Voltaire demanded. Yes, thats when we will see at last the reign of bright, clean, enlightened reasonthe release of mankind from the shadows of medieval superstition. War will end. The proletariat will awaken from its opiate dream. The oppression of women will stop. And science at last will be free from the shackles of Rome.For almost 500 years now, Catholicism has been an available answer, a mystical key, to that deep, childish, and existentially compelling question: Why arent we there yet? Why is progress still unfinished? Why is promise still unfulfilled? Why arent we perfect? Why arent we changed?
Despite our rejection of the past, the future still hasnt arrived. Despite our advances, corruption continues. It needs an explanation. It requires a response. And in every modernizing movementfrom Protestant Reformers to French Revolutionaries, Communists to Freudians, Temperance Leaguers and suffragettes to biotechnologists and science-fiction futuristssomeone in despair eventually stumbles on the answer: We have been thwarted by the Catholic Church.