"Jesus himself, Kristof continued, " focused on the needy rather than dogma, and went out of his way to engage women and treat them with respect."

Citing history, he then observed how "...the church reverted to strong patriarchal attitudes, while also becoming increasingly uncomfortable with sexuality."

He further complained:  

The Catholic Church still seems stuck today in that patriarchal rut. The same faith that was so pioneering that it had Junia as a female apostle way back in the first century can't even have a woman as the lowliest parish priest. Female deacons, permitted for centuries, are banned today.

Then, Kristof went where few mainstream journalists have gone before:  

Yet there's another Catholic Church as well, one I admire intensely. This is the grass-roots Catholic Church that does far more good in the world than it ever gets credit for. This is the church that supports extraordinary aid organizations like Catholic Relief Services and Caritas, saving lives every day, and that operates superb schools that provide needy children an escalator out of poverty.
This is the church of the nuns and priests in Congo, toiling in obscurity to feed and educate children. This is the church of the Brazilian priest fighting AIDS who told me that if he were pope, he would build a condom factory in the Vatican to save lives.

He then added:

So when you read about the scandals, remember that the Vatican is not the same as the Catholic Church. Ordinary lepers, prostitutes and slum-dwellers may never see a cardinal, but they daily encounter a truly noble Catholic Church in the form of priests, nuns and lay workers toiling to make a difference.

Why is this refreshing? Simply because a mainstream journalist was finally able to distinguish between defining Catholicism in her entirety instead of being constituted of the hierarchy. Beyond that, Kristof highlighted the dissent on issues such as AIDS and birth control that exists even with the clergy let alone the rank-and-file.

Yet, what Kristof giveth, Kristof taketh away.

In his May 1, 2010 column , "Who Can Mock the Church?," Kristol states:

Yet the church leaders are right about one thing: there is often a liberal and secular snobbishness toward the church as a whole - and that is unfair.

He then uses stereotypical imagery to feed his frame:

It may be easy at a New York cocktail party to sniff derisively at a church whose apex is male chauvinist, homophobic and so out of touch that it bars the use of condoms even to curb AIDS.

That broad-brush conclusion is right out of Bill Donohue's playbook. In falling into the tired old trap of "liberals-as-Church-enemies" Kristof misses the thrust of his otherwise positive message.

Yes, there are some cranky neo-atheists such as Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris who are snobby, if not vicious in their view of Catholicism. But writers such as Hitchens and Harris are hostile to all faiths - hardly a liberal point of view. Beyond that, both of these neo-atheists often take foreign policy positions on par with the hardest neo-conservative, at least when it comes to the Muslim world (Hitchens strongly supported the 2003 Iraq invasion while Harris has lumped all Muslims as violent terrorists, perhaps worthy of preemptive nuclear annihilation).

But what Kristof incredibly fails to see is that many of the participants of the vibrant Catholic Church the op-ed columnist admires are mostly liberals. No, not the Potemkin-types such as his fellow Times op-ed columnist Frank Rich (Or perhaps Rich is Kristof's definition of a liberal? If so, a rather narrow definition indeed!), but instead, real folks who actually sweat and dirty their hands for progressive change.

Here is Exhibit "A" of what I mean:

In his May 1, 2010 column Kristof cites the example of Sister Cathy Arata who worked with battered women in Appalachia and now trains teachers and farmers in Sudan:
:

Sister Cathy would like to see more decentralization in the church, a greater role for women, and more emphasis on public service. She says she worries sometimes that if Jesus returned he would say, "Oh, they got it all wrong!"

That description would hardly suit the likes of religious and political conservative  Catholics such as Bill Donohue, Michael Novak or George Weigel. Remember, it was Weigel who denigrated Catholics of Sister Cathy's mindset as being part of "a culture of dissent."

I would bet that if there are New York cocktail parties where the guests are sniffing derisively at Catholicism it would be more likely directed at the view of the faith so valued by Nicholas Kristof.  And such gatherings would be attended by movement conservatives such as the abovementioned Donohue, Weigel, and Novak who wish to make Catholicism not decentralized or open-minded, but increasingly the prisoner of nationalism, buccaneer laissez-faire economics, unilateral empire - and dogma.