Gerry Connolly: Former Seminarian-Democrat Congressman-Anti-Catholic Bigot

Hattip to Chris Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal.  Johnson is a non-Catholic who has taken up the cudgels so frequently for the Church that I have named him Defender of the Faith. 

Gerry Connolly, (D.VA.), graduated from Maryknoll Preparatory Seminary in Illinois in 1971.  Rather than becoming a priest, he, fortunately for the Church, became involved in politics.  In 2008 he was elected to the House.  In 2010 he was re-elected by fewer than a thousand votes.  (Better luck to the unfortunate constituents of Mr. Connolly this year.)  Although he purportedly is a Catholic, he has routinely engaged in Catholic bashing as a political tool.  In his race for the House in 2008 he played the anti-Catholic card against his Republican opponent:

House minority leader John Boehner is urging Democratic leaders to stop a vicious anti-Catholic smear campaign against Republican congressional candidate Keith Fimian, who is challenging Democrat Gerry Connolly for a rare open seat in Virginia’s 11th District. All 157 Catholics currently serving in the House, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, should join their 25 Catholic colleagues in the Senate to denounce this vile attempt to denigrate their fitness for office.

Postcards mailed to voters on behalf of Connolly by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) portray the Fairfax County businessman as anti-women because he sits on the board of Legatus, a group of traditional Catholic CEOs founded by Domino’s Pizza magnate Tom Monaghan and endorsed by the late Pope John Paul II. Catholic League president Bill Donohue condemned the scurrilous ads as blatant “Catholic bashing” and demanded that Connolly publicly denounce them. Instead, the Democrat repeated the smears on TV.

It goes without saying of course that the CINO (Catholic in Name Only) Connolly is a complete pro-abort and a big supporter of Planned Parenthood.  Connolly can always be relied upon as a tame Catholic to defend the Obama administration from critics pointing out obvious anti-Catholic bias.

Thus it was no surprise that Connolly, at yesterday’s hearing on the HHS Mandate, belittled the witnesses who appeared to protest the infringement of the Mandate on religious liberty: Continue reading →