Religious Bigotry

Thomas Doherty fails to make a crucial distinction in “The Acceptable Bigotry” (Commentary, Oct. 12). It isn’t Catholics who are the target of pop culture’s continuous ridicule, it’s the bloated bureaucracy of the Holy See. Like the proverbial emperor, the papacy dresses in the invisible rags of medieval doctrine.

The bigot is the church itself, which makes second-class citizens of Catholic women, gays and anyone with the temerity to question the pontiff’s lack of attire.

DANIEL SULLIVAN

San Diego

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As a Pentecostal Protestant, I would like to publicly stand in defense of my brothers and sisters in Christ, even if I don’t always agree with the church’s positions. Catholicism, in spite of its many failings and abuses, has been a force for more good--schools, hospitals and universities, as well as enlightened individuals--in the last 1,700 years than perhaps any other group on planet Earth, and Catholics deserve better than the perverse slander that a small group of writers and producers regularly heap upon them in film and TV.

MARK JAMES CHRISTIAN

Los Angeles