They gave this guy a Nobel Peace Prize, basically sight unseen. Everything he’s done since has made a mockery of that selection.

And now – trashing the freedom of religion in a place where persecution and strife among people of differing faiths has been endemic for centuries.

Just two days after Archbishop Gerhard Müller, Vatican Prefect, speaking in Glasgow, Scotland, touted Catholic education as “a critical component of the Church”, President Barack Obama stood before a crowd of 2,000 young people this morning and called for an end to Catholic education in Northern Ireland.

“If towns remain divided,” said the U.S. President, “if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden—that too encourages division and discourages cooperation.”

Obama, who arrived in Northern Ireland this morning to attend the two-day G-8 Summit at the Lough Erne resort in Enneskillen, made the disproved claim on Monday, speaking before an audience which included many Catholics.

It never occurred to Obama that what causes religious violence is the inability of one sect to tolerate the presence of another and the failure to respect the choice of individuals to align themselves with a different sect. This is, of course, the single driving characteristic of Islamic jihad, which is responsible for the majority of the religious violence on earth.

Along comes our president, who claims not to be a muslim, to spout inanities that would fit perfectly in Cairo or Medina. Northern Ireland is predominantly a Protestant place, so it “encourages division” and “discourages cooperation” for there to be Catholic schools in such a locale.

That’s a similar attitude to the one the Muslim Brotherhood tyrants in Egypt employ when they burn Coptic Christians out of their churches, is it not? Isn’t it also an attitude similar to the one which refuses to tolerate non-muslims in Mecca or Medina?

This is not to say Obama is sending secret muslim signals. It is to say that Obama hasn’t the faintest idea what the hell he’s talking about, and that the stupid statements he’s belching forth abroad, in perhaps the most sensitive place in Europe he could say them, could well bring about the “division” he says he wants to avoid.

All of this undoubtedly springs from Obama’s animus to private education in his home country, seeing as he believes people who don’t choose government schools or opt to home-school their kids are “divisive.” Or maybe a “threat to democracy” that must be watched.

How do you think the Sinn Fein and IRA alumni will take to Obama’s statements? Do you think they might be stirred up a little by his advocacy of the elimination of Catholic education in Northern Ireland?

Well, the Scottish Catholic Observer called the president’s remarks “alarming.” One can imagine a good deal more reaction is forthcoming.