My alma mater was wrong.

Villanova should have barred a young man from walking at graduation after filming a young woman being sexually assaulted. Instead, he basically skated. No arrest, no charges, no penalties.

It took an intrepid journalist with a solid moral compass to bring the story to the attention of the Villanova community, and then to a wider audience. Kudos to him, not to the school.

Ultimately, the budding porn director was forced to voluntarily withdraw from walking.

The Augustinians failed in their mission to live up to the standards of our faith. All of us should have been outspoken in our criticism, and most of us were.

But then I started seeing something troubling. The attacks on a university that failed its most vulnerable students turned into attacks against the Catholic church.

Like clockwork, people started saying things like “well of course Villanova acted that way, it’s a Catholic university after all” or “Big surprise, another Catholic coverup” or “Sex scandal, part 3.”

Of course, I wasn’t surprised. As my friend Jessica reminded me, anti-Catholicism really is the last acceptable prejudice.

But the idea that these holier-than-thou bigots decided to exploit a young victim’s sexual assault for some midweek Catholic bashing is as repellent as the idea that an abuser would be able to walk in the same ceremony as his victim.

I’m not sure of the political orientation of the Catholic bashers because I’ve seen them from all political extremes, including conservative evangelicals who have called us heretic Whores of Babylon — which I always say is a compliment to me, a woman who had her first date at 30 — as well as the usual progressives who think that the choice to kill a baby in utero is a sacrament.

I’m always shocked at the ease with which the haters seem to launch their insults, and crawl out of the poorly-hidden woodwork.

And as I said before, this is not limited to one side of the political aisle. Yes, there are a lot of progressive pro-abortion types who absolutely hate the church because of its unbending position on life.

There are even a lot of self-styled former Catholics who are embarrassed by the indisputable anti-abortion stance of the church, which makes them look so backwards to their woke, evolved friends at cocktail parties.

But it’s not just the liberals who hate us. I have recently come to the realization that there are some conservatives, and not just the Elmer Gantry types who think that Catholics are all cannibalistic papists, who have a problem with our church’s mission.

A few months ago I wrote about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to sue Catholic Social Services for “human trafficking.”

The crux of his accusation was that it ran a refugee center at the border for immigrants who had crossed over and were waiting to be processed for asylum, and then to join family members elsewhere in the country.

A lot of people I thought shared my world view expressed solidarity with Paxton because he was “getting rid of the gang members” who were pretending to file for asylum.

When I posted a photo I had taken at one of those centers a couple of years ago, standing beside two pony-tailed gang members from Venezuela, two little girls with wide smiles and big brown eyes, they balked.

“That’s not the kind of person we mean,” someone posted.

And my response was, “That’s the kind of person who is taking refuge under Catholic Social Service’s wing.”

As it turns out, the refugee shelters may have to close because of funding cuts.

But the idea that my government was suing my church because it was following our faith — and the First Amendment — was an appalling development.

To add to the whole “those Catholics are always causing trouble” theme, late last month was the 45th anniversary of the murder of a particularly troublesome Catholic, Archbishop Oscar Romero.

The Salvadoran prelate was gunned down at the altar because he was a strong voice against the dictatorial regime of the 1970s and ‘80s in his native country. Crazy papist should have probably kept his mouth shut.

Well guess what? That’s one thing Catholics don’t do well, at least the ones who understand the assignment, so to speak. If we see injustice, be it in the womb of a pregnant woman or behind the bars of a detention center, we speak out.

And to those who think it’s cool to mock us, we simply keep our heads up, adjust the imaginary halos, and move forward.

Copyright 2025 Christine Flowers