During the 2000 Republican primaries, John McCain criticized then-governor Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University, an organization that banned interracial dating and had a lengthy detailed history of anti-Catholicism. Now that we're entering the earliest stages of the 2008 presidential primaries, McCain, who had stated previously "Look, what your doing in this ban on interracial dating is stupid, it's idiotic, and it is incredibly cruel to many people," now believes the folks at Bob Jones "have made considerable progress." Stephen Jones, a direct descendant of the Jones line, would beg to differ. He has advised that "we haven't changed our position at all" on Catholicism. Jones then goes on to state "We don't hate Catholics. We certainly disagree with Catholicism, but I think it's going a bit far to say it's anti-Catholic." Let's delve into what, in Stephen Jones' mind, goes a bit far to call "anti-Catholic." From Catholic Answers: Not long after Pope Paul VI died in 1978, Bob Jones, chancellor of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, wrote an ill-tempered article in his school’s magazine, Faith for the Family (not to be confused with Dr. James Dobson’s magazine, Focus on the Family). The article was republished by the Fundamentalist organization Mission to Catholics, International (run by an ex-Carmelite priest-turned-Fundamentalist minister) as a tract entitled The Church of Rome in Perspective. No effort is made to be conciliatory, as the first line demonstrates: "Pope Paul VI, archpriest of Satan, a deceiver and an anti-Christ, has, like Judas, gone to his own place." It goes downhill from there. At one point, Jones attempts to raise the level of discussion, if only momentarily, by citing a diary kept by Bernard Berenson, the famous art collector and critic (who was, by the way, an Episcopalian). Here is what Jones says: "A pope must be an opportunist, a tyrant, a hypocrite, and a deceiver or he cannot be a pope." I swear, the only entry under "panderer" in the dictionary should be the political career of John McCain. Update (Same Day): From the Wikipedia: The three Bob Joneses, especially the late Bob Jones, Jr., sharply criticized the Roman Catholic Church. For instance, Jones, Jr. once said that Catholicism was "not another Christian denomination. It is a satanic counterfeit, an ecclesiastic tyranny over the souls of men....It is the old harlot of the book of the Revelation -- 'the Mother of Harlots.'" All popes, Jones asserted, "are demon possessed." In 2000, then-president Bob Jones III referred, on the University's web page, to Mormons and Catholics as "cults which call themselves Christian." Furthermore, in 1966, BJU awarded an honorary doctorate to the Rev. Ian Paisley, future Northern Irish MP, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, and Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, who has referred to the Pope as a "Roman anti-Christ." But they're not anti-Catholic! That's going a bit far, doncha think?