The secular world despises Catholics because the Catholic Church is the largest and strongest institution to stand up for the sanctity of human life and against the grave sin of homosexual activity. Any time they can point fingers to sinners in the church they will, simply in an attempt to dilute the moral authority of the Church.
Catholics have allowed this to happen for the past 30 years, and we have only ourselves to blame. Many Catholics don't believe that contraception is really a sin, some church leaders tell their parishioners contraception is a matter of "conscience"; many Catholics basically lead secular lives and go to church because they "have" to.
Jesus never said that it would be easy to follow Him. All Christians, Catholic and non-Catholic, should understand this. Conservative Christians have been vilified in the press for our pro-life views, our feelings about homosexuals, sex education in schools, you name it.
And yet we fight among each other rather than banding together where we can to fight the secular influence on our Churches.
I'm all for a good theological debate between Catholics and Protestants on a variety of issues, but we all need to realize that if we fight among each other, secular society wins.
God bless.