While the GOP right wing claims that there is no war on women, they are more than happy to support Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan's claim that there is a government war on religion. While the news cycle has moved on, Fox News, as the media mouthpiece for the GOP and the Catholic hierarchy, is still flogging the debatable claim that this war exists. Dolan and his fellow celibate (?!) men in black, who are silent on the potentially devastating socio-economic effects of the GOP budget, are still whining about how the HHS birth control mandate is tantamount to the persecution of Christians under Diocletian. Cardinal Dolan, who supported the Blunt Amendment which would have allowed all employers to deny birth control coverage to their female workers (war on women, Bueller, Bueller?), always has a warm and supporting place on Fox & Friends where the ovary free Catholics Steve Doocy and Peter Johnson (who also does legal work for Dolan) act as willing acolytes for Dolan's message. This morning was, I believe, the 11th piece of pure papist propaganda preaching. If Fox News had been available, way back when, the Inquisition would have been televised!

The chyron immediately set the propaganda message as a declarative statement: "Infringing on Religion, Dolan: Contraceptive Rule is an Intrusion." Doocy immediately articulated the message. He snarled, "Cardinal Timothy Dolan says that the left's war on religion isn't made up, it is very real." Video of the new church prince was shown in which Dolan said that "You've got a very radical intrusion of a government bureaucracy into the internal life of the church." (Yet, Dolan wants government bureaucracy to intrude into a woman's uterus!).

Doocy tossed to Maltese King and chief Fox propagandist for Dolan, Peter Johnson Jr. who immediately launched into an attack on the Obama administration. He credited Dolan with "pointing out the hypocrisy of Obama's embrace of constitutional rights; although the presidents wants to create new rights for some groups" (oh, right, the Catholic Church is also fighting against gay marriage)..."not enumerated by the constitution, the First Amendment is not respected." Video of Dolan performing a Catholic Mass was shown on the sidebar. Johnson continued with a comment about how "many" other religious leaders (he cited evangelicals Rick Warren and Franklin Graham) say "it's about government getting in the way of religion." He didn't note that many mainstream religious leaders, the Clergy Coalition for Choice, and the Catholic nun who heads up the Catholic Hospital Association support the mandate. More "framing" with the chyron: "Faith & Freedom, Can Government Force Citizens Values." (The anti-abortion folks would, I daresay, agree.)

Johnson continued to bray about constitutional rights "going by the boards to favor political rights, political expediency in an election year." Doocy said "sure." Doocy said that in a recent TV interview, Dolan is said that "religion has a place in politics" and "it's game on" when it comes to politics and religion." Johnson, again, provided more clarification with a comment about how Dolan is really saying that religion has a place in politics and people "shouldn't be excluded from the public square mainly because they have robust religious views" and that the White House should respect these.

But it just wasn't Dolan's message about the war on Catholics that was a topic. Another Dolan message was provided with video in which Dolan instructs Catholics to not use Mitt Romney's Mormonism as a reason to not vote for him. (Funny, he didn't say anything when, in 2008, Fox News attacked Obama for his membership in Rev. Wright's church!). He asserted that his liege lord, Cardinal Dolan, "speaks out for the Constitution and that has to be protected more than any individual religion." Fox/Dolan altar server, Steve Doocy, said that it's both a war on the Constitution and a war on religion. Johnson, not surprisingly, agreed.

So once again, the good, gullible Catholics in the Fox congregation were provided with more messaging from Dolan. No mention of the fact that these Catholic institutions get federal dollars. No mention of how a court ruled that California Catholic Charities (no different from other businesses) are obligated to provide contraceptive coverage. No mention of Dolan's support for the Blunt Amendment which goes beyond church concerns. As Andrea Marcotte states, in an excellent article about how the anti-choice war on birth control is being repackaged as a matter of religious liberty: "Religious liberty certainly doesn’t give you a right to tear down entire social systems because someone in them might differ from you on a matter of theology." I'd like to think that every time Cardinal Dolan's ample, rosy visage appears on Fox News, a woman voter gets her Democratic wings!