It is with great sadness that I read, with depressing regularity, so much irrational and misinformed hate and invective directed toward the Catholic Church from liberal and left publications.

This lament is even more deeply felt when I read the posts of webloggers I consider allies and friends who have moved well beyond skepticism -- humanistic or otherwise -- to outright hostility toward Catholicism, the Catholic Church, and Catholics, much of it seemingly motivated by little more than a wholly misguided attempt to assert the writer’s demonstrably deficient moral and intellectual superiority.

And so, while I have not yet returned to publishing regularly, I could not leave unnoticed this article from today’s New York Times -- “Nuns Bring Hope to Mississippi Delta Towns,” by Peter T. Kilborn.

One need not agree with every tenet, nor even a single tenet, of the Catholic faith, nor admire nor respect the Church itself, nor ignore its many faults, to appreciate the enormous contributions the Church, including in particular its selfless religious, has made, and continues to make, for the betterment of the lives of our less fortunate.

How sad, how pathetic and depraved, that this good work so often goes unnoticed.