‘Catholics and Catholicism are at the receiving end of a great deal of startling vituperation in contemporary America, although generally those responsible never think of themselves as bigots.”

With these words, the historian Philip Jenkins opened his 2003 study entitled The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice. Mr. Jenkins might well consider it time to produce an updated edition. In it, he might ponder whether the recent renewal of anti-Catholic politicking is only an opening salvo in an unprecedented campaign to curb religious liberties in the United States. In which case, all of us — not just Catholics — stand to lose big.

Consider.

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On the national level, the Obama administration has not dallied in launching an assault on the pro-life convictions of millions of Americans. President Obama’s 60-day spree of Culture of Death accomplishments, as the Bioethics Defense Fund puts it, has been truly breathtaking. Nor has he shied away from what Catholic institutions must perceive as a direct assault on their exercise of religious freedom: the threat to rescind the “conscience clause” regulations instituted last December by the Department of Health and Human Services, which protect a health-care professional’s right to abstain from participation in what he or she would deem to be morally objectionable medical practices.

But beyond this animosity toward religious freedom on the federal level, a renewed barrage of jaw-dropping anti-Catholic mischief has been at work around the country.

In the spring of 2007, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a law forcing all hospitals to administer emergency contraception (“Plan B”) as part of their rape protocols. No exception was made for Catholic hospitals, whose standing protocols required the administration of an ovulation test (in addition to a pregnancy test) prior to making the oral contraceptive available. Rather than respecting legitimate differences of prudential judgment over whether both tests were necessary, the Connecticut legislature settled the matter with a law that forbids health-care professionals from using the results of an ovulation test in treating a rape victim.

In California, the Catholic Church is the target of venomous scorn for publicly supporting Proposition 8 (the measure that supports a traditional definition of marriage, as between a man and a woman), which was passed by California voters last November. In a recent instance, a Catholic church in San Francisco was vandalized with swastika symbols next to the names of the pope and the San Francisco archbishop.

In New York State, a proposed new law would lift the statute of limitations in cases of sexual abuse, allowing individuals to sue institutions for abuses alleged to have taken place decades ago. But there’s a catch: only if the alleged abuse occurred in a private institution. For abuse in government-run institutions, such as public schools, the current law gives victims only 90 days to file their claim (or, if the victim was a minor, 90 days after reaching the age of 18), and the proposed law would not change that. Never mind that accusations of sexual misconduct against New York City public-school employees are at an all-time high: 595 allegations were made last year alone, of which 105 have been substantiated, as reported by the New York Post. (It appears the New York Times did not deem that news “fit to print.”)

Even more over-the-top was the anti-Catholic bigotry on display in Hartford (again) three weeks ago in the form of proposed legislation that would remove control of church assets from bishops and pastors in the state of Connecticut.

On March 5, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly, co-chaired by Sen. Andrew McDonald of Stamford and Rep. Michael Lawlor of East Haven, introduced a bill (SB 1098) that would force a radical reorganization of the legal, financial, and administrative structure of Catholic parishes. Titled “An Act Modifying Corporate Laws Relating to Certain Religious Corporations,” the bill sought nothing less than to restructure the Catholic Church in Connecticut. According to the proposed legislation, each parish would be run by a lay board elected by the members of the parish, with the pastor and the bishop effectively excluded.

After an immediate and thundering cry of foul play by thousands of Catholic voices, reaching all the way to national media outlets and culminating in a rally at the state capitol on March 11, the bill was quietly withdrawn from consideration by the committee.

While SB 1098 is dead for the moment, its proponents have asked Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal to render a formal opinion on its constitutionality and on that of existing state laws concerning religious corporations, which differ from one major denomination to another. The different treatment in the withdrawn bill does in fact appear to be contrary to the Connecticut state constitution — but proponents of SB 1098 may solve this difficulty with a new version of the bill that would impose a congregational structure on all “religious corporations” in the state; since many already have that structure, the Catholic Church being the most notable exception, the force of the new bill would be the same.