Come now, bashing the papists is a good old southron tradition. The Klan disapproved of Catholics almost as much as they disapproved of blacks, so I would think that taking after the mackeral-snappers would fit in with your respect for your southron heritage.
Nothing like wearing YOUR biases on your sleeve. I'll bet you have lots of Catholic friends </sarcasm>
Actually, that would be in large part a tactic adopted from the northern wing of the Klan...which is to be expected, because yankee puritans have always hated catholics.
As for real southerners their relations with Rome have always exceeded their northern counterparts. During the war for example Bishop Lynch of Charleston became a strong advocate of the southern cause, and CSA-Vatican relations, as you have been shown, were exemplary. Pope Pius IX also looked admirably upon Jefferson Davis and the two corresponded for years after the end of the war. I don't recall Abe Lincoln ever getting any letters from the pope though, which would be expected since "Mr. Lincoln was not a Christian in any normal sense"
Not, as I recall, in the 1860's, but in the 1920's that was certainly true, as my Irish Catholic grandfather learned when he lost his business to Klan extortion in .....rural Indiana.
Killed a man to get what they wanted, too. If I want to find the guilty party, all I'd need to do is drive up there and see who got Grandfather's Ford agency.
Old family story.
Oh, and in case you were wondering where I got my Jeffersonian streak.....it was from him. He was a "lunchbucket Democrat" in the old 19th-century, Jacksonian, National Democracy mold, heard William Jennings Bryan give the "Cross of Gold" speech at the convention, was hog-wild for Al Smith, who was Catholic. He voted for Franklin Roosevelt....exactly once, in 1932, despite being one of the regulars in the "courthouse crowd", as a former assistant prosecutor.