By Ashley McGuire and Andrea Picciotti-Bayer

US News and World Report

So much for the sisterhood.

In a confirmation hearing for Prof. Amy Barrett’s nomination to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., ripped into Barrett for her Roman Catholic beliefs.

“When you read your speeches,” Feinstein said, “the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.”

By “big issues,” Feinstein means abortion. She clarified this when she said, “You are controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems.” Feinstein’s choice of the word “dogma” was strangely sophisticated for a non-Catholic, though it was incorrect. (Technically speaking, “doctrine” is church teaching on faith and morals as it plays out in how we live in this world while “dogma” is divinely revealed truths of an intrinsically religious nature.)

Feinstein’s remark was widely mocked on social media, spawning multiples memes about loud-living dogmas. But more seriously, it was a chilling reminder that anti-Catholic bigotry is still alive and well, and that only the women who toe the liberal orthodoxy are spared its wrath.