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As a frequent poster on Catholic threads, I have to take issue with your characterization. And I also seriously question the wisdom of turning this issue into a "holy war." FreeRepublic offers us an unparalleled opportunity to discuss issues and exchange ideas in an open forum. Biting the hand that feeds us is both bad policy and ingratitude.

Polycarp, this post is a good example of the sort of thing that should not be allowed. Why should Jim Robinson have to tolerate unfair personal attacks in exchange for the benefits that he has offered to us? Let me say that all Catholics are not so ungrateful. Nor do we all attribute evil motives where there is no evidence for them.

Personally, I agree with CatholicGuy's general premise that a proposed attack on Iraq does not rise to the qualifications of a just war. But that does not give me the right to cross over the line into personal assaults on the characters of everyone who disagrees with me.

Maybe we need a spell-checker that automatically flags words like "bigoted," letting us know that we are straying over the line from intelligent discussion into the realm of character assassination.

Personally, I agree with CatholicGuy's general premise that a proposed attack on Iraq does not rise to the qualifications of a just war. But that does not give me the right to cross over the line into personal assaults on the characters of everyone who disagrees with me.

Thank you for stating the obvious, sir! The sign says "NO personal attacks." If a person is in love with his or her own invective and decides not to follow the rules, well, there you go.

CatholicGuy could have expressed his opinion perfectly clearly in a civilized way. He chose not to. There's nothing Catholic or even Christian about nasty name-calling; there's nothing anti-Catholic about enforcing rules so that everyone can have a tolerable discussion.

For the record, I agree with the war, reluctantly, not that my opinion matters to anyone but me!