I wonder what the reaction to Sinead O'Connor's kind offer to help Jesus burn down the Vatican would have been if she had offered to help burn down Cairo's Grand Mosque instead, or attack Mecca? In the days and weeks and months following 9/11, anti-Muslim feelings were high, but every effort was made by the media not to fan the flames of those feelings.

This was understandable. It would have been extremely easy for a major media outlet at that time to stir up a mob and who knows what would have happened.

There is no such reticence with regard to the Catholic Church. Post-the-scandals, no rhetoric is considered too inflammatory to print, nothing is considered too extreme. The Catholic Church is now considered fair game for anything.

Sooner or later, ordinary Catholics are going to realise that this isn't really about the scandals anymore, it's about using those scandals to settle ideological scores with the Church. At some point we're going to have to stand up for ourselves.