The line is sooo thin between being a good anti-Catholic and a good Catholic.  Catholic-hating Archie Bunker would have made a great Irish-Catholic;  he sounded just like the reincarnation of good-Catholics Fr. Coughlin and Joe McCarthy.  

The historic tension between the Church and American Democracy is minimally discussed. And it's at the very core of so many current issues.  Most Catholics today are ignorant of the damning by the Church of freedom of the press,  freedom of expression, freedom of thought. The two enemies of the Church hierarchy in the 19th-20th centuries were "Modernism" and "Americanism." The Church, itself, was anti-American.

Indeed, "separation of church and state" is NOT a Catholic ideal at all. In fact, latter day cardinals have openly challenged JFK's famous speech to the Baptist ministers as NOT reflective of the Church! Inside the  hierarchy, we have found, the election of an Irish- American Catholic was no cause for celebration but for lament.