It's mystifying that liberal Catholics like E.J. Dionne are unable to see that the plutocratic malevolence they deplore in the Citizens United case and the priestly absolutism they defend in the most recent dispute over birth control are one and the same.

In his Washington Post column this week Dionne marks the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's Citizens United abomination with a powerful condemnation of a ruling that opened the gates to the colonization of our democracy by super PACs, corporate donors and shadowy benefactors now able to achieve their private objectives with the stroke of a pen.

It is a world of "brute force" that "doesn't work" if you think "we are a democracy and not a plutocracy," says Dionne. 

Indeed, says Dionne, American politics has been turned into such a shopper's bazaar for the affluent and well-connected we ought to insist that candidates for office identify themselves the same way NASCAR drivers do -- by the corporate sponsorships they wear on their sleeve.

The most charitable reading of the Supreme Court's ruling is that the justices simply could not know the monster they were creating, says Dionne.  The "more troubling interpretation" is that the conservative majority knew exactly what it was doing, and just didn't care, since its aim all along was "to remake our political system by fiat in order to strengthen the hand of corporations and the wealthy."

How utterly Catholic of this Catholic majority to empower paternalistic elites at the expense of the masses.

The justice who best embodies this revanchist Catholic mindset is, of course, Antonin Scalia.  Raised a Roman Catholic when mass was said in Latin and congregations were seen and not heard, Scalia and his family still worship the old fashioned way -- pre-Vatican II-style -- in a church that still celebrates the mass in Latin, writes Jeffrey Rosen in his New York Times review of Joan Jiskupic's new Scalia biography, American Original.

Scalia says Vatican II's liberalizing reforms enacted a half century ago "are not on my hit parade" since his socially conservative sensibility was shaped at a  Jesuit academy in Manhattan where, as Rosen writes, students attended military drills after school and were told by their Jesuit instructors: "Do not separate your religious life from your intellectual life. They're not separate."

Indeed, though Scalia has long maintained judges are wrong to use their personal values to decide cases, "why is it," asks Rosen, "that on many of the issues he cares most passionately about, Scalia's constitutional conclusions seem to coincide precisely with his personal preferences regarding affirmative action, school prayer, abortion, gay rights and gun rights?"

Scalia makes no bones about the fact that his rulings, which he insists are based on the "original intent" of the Founding Fathers, also draw inspiration from the intentions of a Church that methodically works to shape our culture in ways compatible with long-standing Catholic natural law teachings.

"I am sometimes asked if my beliefs as a Catholic - I would rather say my nature or my identity as a Catholic - affects my legal decision. My response is 'I certainly hope not,'" Scalia has said.

Nevertheless, Scalia also told the conservative website, Newsmax, that his beliefs as a Catholic are still of upmost importance to him as a judge. Indeed, I would say more important, since when asked if he had to choose between his Church and the law Scalia said he would choose his Church.

Using his own support for capital punishment as an example, Scalia said: "If I thought that the Catholic doctrine held that the death penalty to be immoral, I would resign." And he meant from the Supreme Court, not the Catholic Church.

So, how does Scalia's distinctly Catholic worldview express itself in the real world?  Answer: in democracy-enfeebling, oligarchy-empowering rulings like Citizens United where, as professor Alan Wolfe notes, Scalia "uses his power on the court to impose on the country the classic conservative mantra: the world is falling apart, and so only the obedience to rules, no matter how seemingly arbitrary and unfair, can save it from doom."

In Citizens United, four justices who share Scalia's affinity for traditional hierarchy joined with the right wing Catholic jurist to give an out-sized voice to a narrow financial oligarchy with lots of money to spend.  In the controversy over birth control, a narrow Church hierarchy is demanding an out-sized voice to shape public policy by giving priority to the religious convictions of Catholic bishops over all other conceivable (as it were) opinions.

Just as the Supreme Court has enshrined the Golden Rule (they who have the gold make the rules) in the area of campaign finance, so too do the bishops hope to use the First Amendment to prioritize a religious sensibility in public policy by marginalizing those whose opinions derive more from science, public health or the interests of others outside the Church.

Either way, popular sovereignty and consent of the governed suffers.

The greater mystery here is why an astute critic of Scalia and the right wing Court, such as E.J. Dionne, is unable to see this larger dynamic at work when, just days after he attacked the Catholic Court's Citizens United ruling, he wrote how President Obama "utterly botched" his confrontation with the Catholic hierarchy over how contraceptive services should be treated under the new health-care law.

Dionne genuinely agonizes about these issues and wants what's best for all concerned.  But in the end, he still buys into the right wing talking point that this controversy is fundamentally about "religious liberty" and not women's rights, women's health or even birth control itself.

Proof that this is not really about religious freedom was provided by Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan of New York in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter when he defined "religious worship" so broadly as to include the prejudices of his religiously-devoted brother-in-law - a butcher.

"Is he going to have to pay for services that he, as a convinced Catholic, considers to be morally objectionable?" asks the Archbishop, inviting the perfectly sensible reply: "Yes!"

But Dolan's Republican allies were quick to kiss His Eminence's ring. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) has introduced an amendment to the Affordable Health Care Act allowing any employer or healthcare provider to refuse coverage for any medical service deemed "contrary to the provider's religious beliefs or moral convictions"

Archbishop Dolan announced himself "pleased" with this bill and "very, very enthusiastic" about another one - the so-called "Respect for Rights of Conscience Act," introduced by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, (R-Neb.) that would produce an "ironclad law simply saying that no administrative decrees of the federal government can ever violate the conscience of a religious believer individually or religious institutions."

Since these measures prioritize "religious" beliefs over all other kinds, Kevin Drum of Mother Jones says bosses who regard obesity and smoking with moral disgust might be given an out from covering health plans that address those "sins." Scientologists might also be able to deny their employees coverage for depression screening, since Scientologists think psychiatry is morally repugnant.  Those who think gays bring HIV on themselves might get a waiver as conscientious objectors.  In short, says Drum, under the bills supported by the Catholic hierarchy, "your boss' personal prejudices, not science or medical expertise, would determine which procedures your insurance would cover for you and your kids."

And, let me just add, this is a recipe for anarchy.

As for more progressive Catholics like Sister Carol Keehan, who heads the Catholic Health Association and publicly supports President Obama's compromise on birth control, Archbishop Dolan contacted the sister and told her, basically, to butt out.  

Shortly after Sister Keehan issued her own public statement praising the President for protecting "religious liberty and conscience rights of Catholic institutions," Dolan let her know by way of email he was "disappointed that she had acted unilaterally, not in concert with the bishops."

Ascribing base political motives to Sister Keehan's principled position, Dolan said of her: "She's in a bind. When she's talking to (HHS Secretary Kathleen) Sebelius and the President of the United States, in some ways, these are people who are signing the checks for a good chunk of stuff that goes on in Catholic hospitals. It's tough for her to stand firm. Understandably, she's trying to make sure that anything possible, any compromise possible, that would allow the magnificent work of Catholic health care to continue, she's probably going to be innately more open to than we would."

For this slap in the face, Dionne thinks Archbishop Dolan owes Sister Keehan an apology, and fast. But why should Dionne expect anything else from a conservative mentality that routinely exposes its condescending contempt for the needs and contributions of women -- or demands women sit in the back of the bus when they're not being thrown under it entirely?

This is a conservative movement, remember, where a much younger Justice Scalia could "lash out" at the older and more experienced Justice Sandra Day O'Connor when the latter failed to provide Scalia's all-important fifth vote in a Webster case that might have "left Roe v. Wade a hollow shell," writes Linda Greenhouse, legal correspondent for the New York Times.

Once that result slipped from his grasp, Greenhouse says a "furious" Scalia deemed O'Connor's position 'irrational' and said it "cannot be taken seriously."  It was the sort of ill-tempered outburst that Greenhouse was quick to point out Scalia has unleashed against his male colleagues many times in the past.  "But in the innocence of 1989, the insults he delivered to Justice O'Connor appeared shocking," she says.

This is also a conservative mentality, remember, whose victims get most of their information from a Fox News Network that employs contributors like Liz Trotta, who just recently accused the military of "political correctness" when it tried to crack down on the epidemic of sexual abuse against female soldiers.

"We have women once more -- the feminists -- wanting to be warriors and victims at the same time," says Trotta.

Since 2006, the military has reported a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults against women in the military - mostly at the hands of other military personnel.

"Now, what did they expect?" asks Trotta. "These people are in close contact, the whole airing of this issue has never been done by Congress, it's strictly been a question of pressure from the feminists."

Worse, says Trotta, these "feminists" are also forcing the military to spend money it does not have on this sexual abuse thing.  

"They have sexual counselors all over the place," says Trotta, "victims' advocates, sexual response coordinators. So, you have this whole bureaucracy upon bureaucracy being built up with all kinds of levels of people to support women in the military who are now being raped too much. I thought the mission of the Army, and the Navy and four services was to defend and protect us -- not the people who were fighting the war."

So, just why exactly was E.J. Dionne surprised when Archbishop Dolan told Sister Keehan to mind her own business?