Uses of anti-Catholicism

Locke is especially worried about Roman Catholicism, since Catholics hold “religious” opinions that are politically dangerous. But Protestants can help: “if restraint of the papists do not lessen the number of our enemies in bringing any of them over to us, yet it increases the number, and it strengthens the hands of our friends, and knots the Protestant party firmer to our assistance and defence . . . . The different parties will sooner unite in a common friendship with us, when they find we really separate from and set ourselves against the common enemy [Rome], both to our church and all Protestant professions.”

Is it any wonder that contemporary liberals are spooked by warming relations between Protestants and Catholics?