For a country founded on the concept of religious tolerance, there's been precious little on display of late, particularly here in the bottom left-hand corner of the country.

Religious tolerance is obviously different from ethnic tolerance - it's about beliefs and ideas more than physical appearance. While you can tell by looking at my photo that I'm of European heritage (although the rapidly advancing gray probably helps disguise the Celtic influences that the formerly red hue betrayed), you can't tell what church I go to just by looking at me.

Not knowing my faith, would you be comfortable mocking one faith over another?

Obviously, many of us in this area are extremely comfortable mocking others' faiths, if we're to judge by comments posted on our Web site, nctimes.com. In the cross hairs the past few months has been the Catholic church. My Catholic church, in the interest of full disclosure.

From the Minutemen protesting a parish in Fallbrook to ongoing negotiations over the San Diego diocese's culpability in molestation by priests, the Catholic faith has been besieged by comments that reflect more the prejudices of those making them than they do the church itself.

Many - probably most - of the comments on our site criticizing the church have targeted things that are fair game, even in a free and open society that values freedom of conscience.

But a disturbing amount of the rhetoric directed at the Catholic church has betrayed a fundamental lack of respect for Catholic views and institutions.

One comment posted on a recent Times article about the protests against St. Peter's in Fallbrook (tinyurl.com/yrm39s) read, "The Catholic church helps itself by extorting money from the poor, protecting its pedophile priests and now breaking U.S. immigration laws." And in Tuesday's article about the ongoing hearings regarding the lawsuits against the local diocese for alleged molestations (tinyurl.com/33qjof), another reader commented, "The Catholic Church is a cult formed by the Pagan Constantine and always will be."

That surely isn't the Catholic church I was raised in, baptized my children in and will be buried by someday.

But if the Catholic church and tradition finds itself under withering, often hateful fire now, any faith could find itself similarly targeted in a culture that doesn't hold to a standard of mutual respect.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon faith has been subject to mocking questions for tenets of that church's teaching that outsiders find peculiar. Hollywood star Tom Cruise has been banned from filming on government property in Germany because of his religion, Scientology. And evangelical churches are often portrayed as peopled with ignorant, backwoods rednecks in movies and on TV.

Nor does the above even take in the sort of vile stereotypes applied to Jews, Muslims and others of non-Christian faiths - or the recent incident at the U.S. Capitol when a Hindu cleric giving a prayer before Congress was shouted down from the gallery.

No concept of religious freedom holds that we have to agree with other religious beliefs - in fact, it guarantees we won't.

But there's a world of difference between respectful disagreement and the sort of close-minded hostility that defines bigotry.

Want others to respect your faith, or lack thereof?

You might start by respecting theirs.

- Contact columnist Jim Trageser at (760) 631-6628 or jtrageser@nctimes.com.