The Breitbart.com crew's promise to provide proper “vetting” of President Obama hasn't been going very well. But as mockable as their campaign has been so far, it is now becoming even more hilarious. Today, Breitbart.com features a post by Charles C. Johnson headlined “Obama's War On Catholic Church Began At His First Job.” What evidence does the post provide that Obama is anti-Catholic? In 1985, he worked for “Catholic leftists” and was paid by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the former Catholic archbishop of Chicago.

You read that correctly. Johnson's thesis is that Obama is anti-Catholic. And part of his evidence is that a Catholic archbishop paid him:

Obama's first job in Chicago began in 1985 with Jerry Kellman, a Saul Alinksy-trained community organizer who continues to work with the radical Catholic left in the Windy City.

[...]

He was paid by these radical Catholic leftists, who in turn had received their money from their parishioners or the larger Catholic church. Obama's travel documents and expenses were signed and approved by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin,a controversial figure in the Catholic church who supported nearly every left-wing movement within it.

Is this a delayed April Fool's joke?

Well, it turns out that, in the mind of the Breitbart.com's Johnson, “Bernardin's work undermined many Catholic teachings.” Bernardin was a bishop for about 30 years, and at one time served as the president the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference. So this seems a bit unlikely.

But let's not be too hasty. Maybe Johnson has some evidence of Bernardin's undermining the Catholic Church.

Johnson suggests that Bernardin insulted then-Pope John Paul II, writing: “At a dinner party, Bernardin famously credited Mikhail Gorbachev, not Reagan or John Paul II, with ending the Soviet Union.”

Was Bernardin an enemy of John Paul II and others in the Catholic hierarchy?

Decide for yourself: John Paul II named Bernardin the Archbishop of Chicago in 1982, and he elevated him to cardinal the very next year. In 1996, after announcing that his cancer had returned and was now terminal, Bernardin traveled to Rome to meet with the pope. Later that year, when Bernardin died, John Paul sent “Pro Nuncio Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan and Cardinal William Baum, his personal emissary. Eight other cardinals, including Bernardin's friend, Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who was the key celebrant of the funeral mass, stood behind the altar.”

Boy, the pope and Bernardin must have hated each other.

Johnson also claims that “perhaps most mischievously, Bernardin called for a 'consistent ethic of life,' which tied the anti-abortion cause to pacifism and redistributionism and therefore gave cover to liberal Democrats trying to claim they were Catholic.” But you know who else embraced Bernardin's vision on this issue? John Paul II.

It is April. And Johnson's post is foolish. But somehow, I don't think the Breitbart.com crew intended this to be a joke.