Bishop Daniel Jenky claims that Barack Obama is behaving like Hitler did. More precisely, he said that Obama is on the path that Hitler and Stalin took. He said this in a homily, given from the pulpit of the church.

Let us examine this statement.

Hitler wrote a book detailing his hatred for the Jewish people. Obama didn’t say anything slightly mean about the Catholics (or Jews, or Protestants, Or Muslims, or Buddhists, or even Wiccans) in his book. And why should he? There are far, far, far more voting Catholics than there are Jews in America. He’d be insane to intentionally antagonize them.

So, here’s Jenky, going to his pulpit last week to compare Obama to Hitler. In what way does Obama compare to Hitler?

There was no Kristallnacht for Jenky. No groups of Obama supporters went door to door destroying the businesses owned by American Catholics. No American Catholics were arrested. There is no censorship of American Catholics. Indeed, Jenky was quite free to link Obama with Hitler, when a truly Hitler-like president would have had Jenky arrested a long time ago.

No American Catholics’ books were burned. No works of art by American Catholics were destroyed. No American Catholics suddenly found themselves unemployable or shunned by non-Catholic society. No one is pillaging churches or the homes of American Catholics of all their paintings.

Now I might have missed this, as I do not regularly read the National Review, but I am unaware of any American Catholics being rounded up and sent off to camps. Likewise, I am unaware of any slave labor being performed by captured American Catholics. And I am equally unaware of the skin being taken off the bodies of murdered American Catholics and turned into lamp shades or book covers.

But them I don’t read WorldNetDaily. So I might have missed it. If anyone has a link to any article describing such atrocities, please send it to me.

So, exactly what did President Obama do that had Bishop Jenky comparing him to Hitler? Well, the Obama Administration proposed rules that would require all employers to cover the costs of birth control.  This wouldn’t have applied to churches, but it would have applied to businesses owned by churches, like hospitals or schools. So, if a church organist went on the pill, the church wouldn’t have to pay. But if a nurse at OSF Medical Center did, the church would have to pony up.

So, is THIS what had Jenky calling Obama Hitler?

No, because Obama caved when the religious right erupted into fury. Now the church organizations will not have to pay for the birth control. Now the insurance companies will have to pay.

And it is this — the idea that their insurer will have to pay for birth control for their possibly non-catholic employees — is what had Jenky comparing Obama to Hitler. Some people have suggested that Jenky has, well, wide-open standards for comparing presidents to Hitler. Some Jewish groups think Jenky is kinda premature with the Hitler comparison since Obama hasn’t actually started to oppress anybody yet.

And one group — Americans United for Separation of Church and State — has filed a request with the Internal Revenue Service to have the diocese’s tax exempt status yanked. It seems that there are some pesky rules in place that seemingly prevent electioneering from the pulpit.

I sympathize with Jenky. Oh, I don’t mean about Obama. I mean Peoria City Hall. They gave me a ticket for not having a parking permit. In front of my own house! It’s the first step to fascism, I’m telling you.

Yep, go with the Hitler comparison, first thing, right out of the box. Nothing silences a foe quicker than calling him Hitler.

Parking tickets? Call the cop Hitler. Cable company hiked your rates? Call the customer support guy Hitler. Electric company cutting down trees in your neighborhood? Hitler. The fast-food worker at the drive-thru give you medium fries when you clearly asked for onion rings? Hitler.

So what if church goers will suddenly lose the right to deduct donations? So what if the church suddenly had to pay taxes on its millions and millions of dollars worth of church property. So what if Catholics who like Obama (or who simply object to having him compared to Hitler) suddenly refuse to stop donating?

I’m pretty sure you can call them Hitler too.