As the presidential race heated up last year, I decided to avoid writing about it as much as I could. That was a bad call; the candidates have given me oh so much material. But after the last batch of Hillary Clinton emails via WikiLeaks, I find this column just plain unavoidable.

Let me also say that I am not a Roman Catholic, I do not work for the Roman Catholic Church, and I do feel any need to defend them; the Roman Catholics are completely capable of defending themselves. Still, when any form of Christianity is attacked, perhaps we all ought to take it a bit personally.

Catholic groups are enraged, and rightfully so, over a series of anti-Catholic emails that have emerged from Hillary Clinton’s inner circle.

WikiLeaks’ documents show Hillary Clinton’s campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri joking with a confidant, John Halpin, about Catholics in emails sent to John Podesta, chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign. They were discussing News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch and Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson, who are raising their children Catholic.

John Halpin, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, questioned media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s motivation for raising his children in the Catholic faith: “…both Murdoch and Robert Thompson are raising their kids Catholic. Friggin’ Murdoch baptized his kids in Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the Supreme Court and think tanks to the media and social groups. It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”

Christian democracy? Oh yeah, that’s when we get to vote on the aspects of the Christian faith so we can keep the things we like and get rid of the things we don’t like.

Palmieri responded that she believes Murdoch, Thomson and many other conservatives are Catholic because they think it’s “the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion.” “Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals,” she wrote.

Another Clinton clone told Podesta, “There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic Church.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said Clinton and her staff have a basic prejudice against Christians who actually believe in Biblical truth. “These are people who think religion is just something you follow on the weekend; the rest of the week it’s something to be ignored.”

Let me just point to three things. First, when we describe someone as an “evangelical,” we are saying that they act or speak “in keeping with the gospel and its teachings.” I would doubt many Roman Catholics would not also see themselves as evangelical.

Second, the idea of a “Catholic Spring” implies a house-cleaning. It is not the position, the role, or the place of people in politics to pit one faithful person against another, to incite discord within the church body.

Finally, where is the media outrage about these clear insults to Christians? Have you seen it? I haven’t. Catholic League president Bill Donohue expressed disbelief that anti-Catholic sentiments like these have not been better reported: “This should be on the front page of every newspaper in America but the media has a lot of tolerance for intolerance against Christians.”

“Should be on the front page of every newspaper in America.” Yes, indeed. And yet, it isn’t, is it?

Now that is deplorable.