The Roman Catholic bishop who suggested that voting for Democratic candidates will doom a person to Hell recently sat down with the Washington Times, which is controlled by the Unification Church, to discuss how Catholics should respond to issues like same-sex marriage. Ignoring the advice of former Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams that Christians shouldn’t mistake unpopularity for persecution, Springfield, Illinois Bishop Thomas Paprocki said that the United States is now a “pagan” culture no different from the era of the Roman Empire when Christians were oppressed and martyred.

He was especially offended by a David Letterman joke about the Catholic Church child abuse scandal, which he reflected “anti-Catholic bigotry” and “profound ignorance.”

According to Paprocki, no institution in the world has handled sex abuse cases better than the Catholic Church: “Certainly, we have had our unfortunate share of scandals and sin and the church is dealing with that. I would venture to say that of any institution in the country – perhaps in the world – I don’t think anyone is dealing with it as responsibly as the Catholic Church has.”

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In other parts of the interview, Paprocki expressed resentment that his anti-gay stances could be viewed as bigotry and maintained that same-sex couples can never have a real marriage.