Monks as vermin, priests as sex offenders - those are only a few of the images that progressives, both liberals and democrats alike, have employed in their fight against Catholicism. Modern anti-Catholicism first arose during the Renaissance and developed over time into a conflict about the place and meaning of religion and church in general. Manuel Borutta illuminates the relationship between anti-Catholicism, cultural struggle and secularisation theory by comparing the situation in Germany and Italy. He shows how, in the time before 1800, anti-Catholicism joined with moderisation trends in bourgeois society, how it became widespread in the media in the 19th century, how it caused cultural struggles, and how it, after 1900, became part of self-image of modern Western liberal thought.