Much ink will be spilled and many column inches dedicated to his legacy in the weeks and months ahead.

But besides the list of Dan's accomplishments, needs to sit his record as the most anti-life, anti-religious and specifically anti-Catholic premier this country has seen in recent memory.

Let's start with euthanasia. Victoria was the first Australian state in the country to pass these extreme and barbaric laws.

The former premier's prediction that there would be "a dozen or so" euthanasia deaths in the first year of the law's operation was woefully and, dare I say, intentionally understated, with deaths in the first year ten times that prediction, and increasing year on year since.

Then there's his ban on so-called conversion practices, which was so extreme that the legislation passed specifically referenced the outlawing of "prayer-based practices," making Victoria the first jurisdiction in Australia—and perhaps the first of any jurisdiction, other than militant theocracies—to ban what someone can pray, and for whom they can pray.

Speaking of banning what someone can pray, Mr Andrews was also responsible for Victoria's "exclusion zones," punishing prayer outside abortion clinics with up to 12 months in prison.

He was also responsible for laws overriding legal protections for the seal of confession, threatening every priest who chose to uphold the sacramental seal with imprisonment.

Then there were the December 2022 laws that stripped religious freedoms from faith-based schools, health care and social services, greatly restricting the ability for a faith-based institution to require an employee to uphold the faith of that institution, and giving Victoria's judicial system the power to decide the circumstances in which religious faith and practice is important to a person's role.

While we are on the topic of Victoria's "judicial" system, who can forget the former premier's disgraceful reaction to the unanimous acquittal of Cardinal George Pell by the highest court in the land?

Mr Andrews would not comment on the fact that Victoria Police set their sights on an innocent man and even advertised for potential "victims" to come forward, even when no complaint had been made against him, nor that the full bench of the Victorian Supreme Court failed to overturn what even a first-year law student could see was a rubbish conviction.

He also publicly backed the sacking of Andrew Thorburn from Essendon Football Club, simply because Mr Thorburn attended a church that preached Christian views on life and marriage, clearly demonstrating that for all his talk of "tolerance," Mr Andrews refused to tolerate people of sincere, Christian faith.

Please God, his successor will not be so openly hostile to human life, marriage and family and to the Christian faith, and that the future will see the Andrews premiership as an aberration, not a baseline.

• Monica Doumit is the Director, Public Affairs and Engagement for the Archdiocese of Sydney and a columnist with The Catholic Weekly.
• Republished with permission.

Victoria University historian Grant Morris says that, although the Guy Fawkes celebration is now stripped of its original meaning, "it retains that anti-Catholic title."

He says it is a "bit odd" the celebration of Guy Fawkes continues because "Catholicism is now the largest Christian denomination in New Zealand."

Wellington's mayor is pulling the plug on the city's 22-year-old Guy Fawkes festival in favour of the Maori New Year festival, Matariki.

Justin Lester said Matariki ought to be a cornerstone celebration, rather than Guy Fawkes which marks "the anniversary of an attempt to blow up British parliament more than 400 years ago."

Morris says Guy Fawkes was once a significant sectarian celebration.

"In New Zealand early on there was that sectarian tension, so it would have meant more to those settlers, would have meant more to a Protestant settler what they were celebrating in relation to Guy Fawkes, but also to a Catholic settler what they weren't celebrating."

In the mid-to-late 19^th Century, the Freemasons and the Orange Order would have marched in recognition of the day.

And Catholics in New Zealand at the time would have been uncomfortable and wary, Morris says.

Writing in the Guardian about the residual prejudice against Catholics in the UK, Catherine Pepinster says it comes from those who are avowedly secular.

"It was apparent in protests during Pope Benedict XVI's state visit in 2010.

"Hideous caricatures of the pope appeared on the streets - of the German pope carrying a swastika rather than a crucifix. Catholicism seems fair game."

Source

• RNZ
• Wellington City Council
• Stuff
• The Guardian
• Image: HistoryGeek

But the subject of the article has nothing to do with Catholicism.

It is in fact about an Iowa school that expelled five students after discovering a photo of them wearing robes of the anti-Catholic Klu Klux Klan.

The students stood next to a burning cross while waving a Confederate flag.

The photo in Yahoo's article shows Catholic penitents wearing long robes and pointed hats when celebrating Holy Week in Naples, Italy.

The author, obviously not bothered to find a photo of the real KKK, claimed that the robes worn by the Catholic faithful in the Easter procession were "reminiscent of the Klu Klux Klan".

He did, however, acknowledge the religious, Catholic nature of the procession.

The author's ignorant association of Catholics with the anti-Catholic KKK appears to try to connect Catholics' celebration of Easter with bigotry and white supremacy.

The ad, released on Youtube on Friday, shows a flamboyant dancing priest leading a congregation in a sing along.

The ad accuses the Catholic Church with its "sleazy priests" of "making the world less good".

The ad also shows a Jesus figure speaking from the cross, saying "Can I get down now?"

Sex Party officials say the ad is meant to highlight the party's policy of ensuring that religious institutions are transparent and accountable in Australia.

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1. Read only your bible.
2. Study the Church's detractors and their version of Catholic teaching.
3. Focus on the most egregious examples of Catholic hypocrisy, misdeeds and immorality. Read more

An analysis of 180 opinion polls among British adults from the 1950s to today shows a steady decline in esteem for the Church and its clergy.

This seems to have accelerated since 2000.

But the same study by academic Dr Clive Field shows latent and institutional anti-Catholicism has died away in the UK.

His findings show that Catholics are, on the whole, viewed positively.

While 24 per cent of Britons disagreed with marriages between Catholics and Protestants in 1968 this figure dropped to five per cent by 1993.

Findings also show that Catholics - and not just the general public - believe the Church is out of touch on moral and gender issues.

This, Dr Field argues, suggests that hostility to the Church is not a new form of anti-Catholicism.

While 48 per cent of Britons view Pope Francis's impact on the Church as positive, this is a much lower approval figure than in the United States and Canada.

Continue reading

New statistics released by the Scottish government revealed an increase of 26 per cent in religious hate crimes in 2011-2012. Anti-Catholic attacks made up 58 per cent of all religious hate crimes.

The president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Scotland, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, said: "I am saddened by the latest figures on religiously aggravated offending. While most Catholics are safe most of the time, these figures show a side of Scotland which is truly unfortunate.

"Sadly, it seems incontrovertible now that our problem is not so much sectarianism but anti-Catholicism. This is regrettable because popular culture is inventing all kinds of new reasons to marginalise and hate Catholics.

"In the face of this, the Catholic community of Scotland remains steadfast in faith, joyful in hope and fully committed to being part of Scottish society."

Of the 876 religious hate crimes analysed by the Justice Analytical Services, 509 were committed against Catholics. There were 19 attacks against Muslims and 14 against Jews.

Most areas of Scotland saw a rise in religiously aggravated charges since the previous year, with Glasgow being a notable exception.

The number of charges related to football rose from 231 to 267, although the number of hate crimes at football stadiums fell.

The Minister for Community Safety, Roseanna Cunningham, said the government had brought in new legislation to eradicate sectarianism.

"It is completely unacceptable for people to think that offensive religious or sectarian language, or verbal or physical attacks based purely on religious prejudice, have any place in 21st century Scotland," she said.

Sources:

Independent Catholic News

The Scottish Government

Image: STV News

The newspaper published an ad from Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation on March 9 which asked Catholics, "why send your children to parochial schools to be indoctrinated into the next generation of obedient donors and voters?" The ad went on to call loyalty to the faith misplaced "after two decades of sex scandals involving preying priests, church complicity, collusion and cover-up going all the way to the top."

But in a story first reported by The Daily Caller, when Pamela Geller, a blogger and executive director of Stop Islamization of America, offered the same $39,000 for the Old Gray Lady to run an ad making a similar appeal to Muslims, the newspaper passed.

"This shows the hypocrisy of The New York Times, the "gold standard" in journalism, and its willingness to kowtow to violent Islamic supremacist intimidation," Geller told FoxNews.com.