Contarini:
Are you saying that these particular non-Catholics are extremely hostile to Catholicism? If not, then aren’t you guilty of the worst kind of stereotyping?
Anti-Catholicism does not give Catholics a lifelong license to be rude to non-Catholics. Unfortunately many here seem to think that it does. Of coruse this kind of thinking will simply perpetuate religious animosity ad infinitum. Protestant anti-Catholicism usually rests on the Protestant perception (right or wrong) of Catholic hostility to Protestants. It just goes round and round and never ends, unless we choose to end it here and now.
Edwin
Thank you for your thread although I think that your anger is misdirected. I suppose that if you visit any number of non-Catholic Web sites you will read hostility exhibited toward Catholicism that far exceeds what you will read here toward non-Catholics. Also, let us remember what historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. said (paraphrase): “Anti-Catholic sentiment is the most deeply rooted bias in America.” Let us also remember that Catholic schools were outlawed in the colonies in the 18th century. Men like Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, had to study in a Catholic school in France. Although the US Constitution protected religions, states did not universally support this creed. In 1833, the union between Church and State in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was dissolved (up until then, Catholics had to pay for the support of the state’s Protestant Church), New Jersey retained its anti-Catholic Constitution until 1844, and New Hampshire eliminated its “no Catholic may hold public office” matter in 1877. The Tory element in the colonies, mostly associated with the Church of England, evolved in the Federalist Party and worked to assure Protestantism prominence.
John Jay, a Tory who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, created in the State of New York’s Constitution a provision which denied the privilege of citizenship to every foreign-born Catholic unless he would first renounce all allegiance to the pope in matters ecclesiastical. This provision remained in force until 1821. From this Federalist perspective rose, in the early 19th century, nativists, specifically Protestant Americans (who had endorsed the Aliens Act in the late 18th century to eliminate the rights of immigrants, focused their attention toward Catholics). Rising from this Protestant American nativism was the American Party, better know as the Know-Nothing Party with Samuel Morse as its leader. The nativists complained that the Catholic immigrants were “superstitious, ignorant, and dominated by their priests.” Anti-Catholicism sentiment and the evils of the Popery were promoted mostly from the pulpit. Catholicism was ridiculed and misrepresented. There were riots in Philadelphia (1844) where Catholic churches were burned and Irish Catholic homes burned and hostile demonstrations, attacks, and violence in Providence, RI (1851),and Boston, Wheeling, WV, St. Louis, and Cincinnati (1853). The Know-Nothings (formed from the “American Republicans”, the “Order of United Americans”, “Sons of America”, and “United American Mechanics of the United States” and adopted the title of “National Council of the United States of North America” and among the initiate it was called the “Supreme Order of the Star-spangled Banner”) declare in Article II: “the purpose of the organization to be “to protect every American citizen in the legal and proper exercise of all his civil and religious rights and privileges; to resist the insidious policy of the Church of Rome and all other foreign influence against our republican institutions in all lawful ways; to place in all offices of honor, trust or profit in the gift of the people or by appointment none but Native American Protestant citizens.” Article III declared “that a member must be a native-born citizen, a Protestant either born of Protestant parents or reared under Protestant influence, and not united in marriage with a Roman Catholic. . .no member who has a Roman Catholic wife shall be eligible to office in this order”, etc.
Thankfully, the Know-Nothings split over the slavery issue, but the Klu Klux Klan added anti-Catholicism to their hate list and it carried through into the 20th century. Why was John Kennedy’s religious affiliation big deal in 1960? Why is it a big deal that there are 4 Catholics on the US Supreme Court with a 5th Catholic nominee before the Senate?
To deny the anti-Catholic sentiment that has run rampant in the country, beginning with the Puritans who left England to escape the Romanish trappings, is to ignore that it continues to this day.
Funny thing was, I learned it from my then boyfriend, now husband’s brother and sister in law who were brought up Catholic and left for a Fundie Christian church. I hadn’t ever known anyone to leave the church for another one… What a small world I knew as a child. Now I live in a largely populated Mormon area, what an experience it has been 
