From The President’s Desk
STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCHCatalyst May Issue 2011, From The President's Desk
In place of the usual “President’s Desk” article on this page, and the review/essay section on pp. 8-9, we are instead running the Catholic League advertisement that I wrote which appeared in the April 11 edition of The New York Times. The same ad ran in the April 17 edition of the Chicago Tribune. This is an important statement, and it is one... [Read more...]
MEDIA MANTRASCatalyst April Issue 2011, From The President's Desk
FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK William Donohue One might think that in this day and age of multiple news sources—newspapers, broadcast TV, free tabloids, radio, cable, pay-per-view, magazines, the Internet—that it would be harder for faulty information to survive without being refuted by a reliable source. This has not been my experience. Quite frankly,... [Read more...]
IDEOLOGICAL BLINDERSCatalyst March Issue 2011, From The President's Desk
FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK William Donohue It is not easy to be objective, but it is not impossible. Judges in the courtroom, along with Olympic judges in diving and ice skating events, generally do a good job. While departures from objectivity can be expected, the expectation that professionals who sit in judgment ought to be held to standards of... [Read more...]
SMITHSONIAN MADNESSCatalyst January/February Issue 2011, From The President's Desk
FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK William Donohue By now, everyone knows that we objected to the video that showed large ants crawling all over Jesus on the Cross, but what is less well known is that this “contribution” to art was just one piece of a gay and lesbian exhibition. For the record, I did not know that gays were associated with this venture... [Read more...]
OBAMA, CATHOLICS AND ABORTIONCatalyst December Issue 2010, From The President's Desk
FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK William Donohue When Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the Republican Party was the pro-abortion party, and the Democrats were the party of life. There was a very strong WASP presence in the Republican Party at that time, and for many of them, abortion was seen as a way to fix the urban problem. No, they didn’t come right... [Read more...]
ARE THERE NO PRINCIPLES LEFT?Catalyst November Issue 2010, From The President's Desk
FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK William Donohue Catholic League members are not unfamiliar with the raging hypocrisy that governs our cultural elites. We know all about their unlimited tolerance for Catholic bashing, and their equally unlimited intolerance for bigotry aimed at the protected classes. But in the last month alone, the chasm has widened significantly.... [Read more...]
GROUND ZERO MOSQUE IS MORALLY WRONGCatalyst October Issue 2010, From The President's Desk
FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK William Donohue As president of the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization, and as a strong advocate of religious liberty, I am instinctively pulled towards support for building a mosque near Ground Zero. But I am also a veteran of the United States Air Force, as well as a first-hand witness to the destruction... [Read more...]
HOMOSEXUALITY AND SEXUAL ABUSECatalyst September Issue 2010, From The President's Desk
The conventional wisdom maintains there is a pedophilia crisis in the Catholic Church. Popular as this position is, it is empirically wrong: the data show it has been a homosexual crisis all along. The evidence is not ambiguous, though there is a reluctance to let the data drive the conclusion. But that is a function of politics, not scholarship. Alfred... [Read more...]
UNDERSTANDING ANTHONY MALKINCatalyst July/August Issue 2010, From The President's Desk
In New York, like all big cities, there are public notables, superstar athletes, entertainers, politicians, community leaders, businessmen, venture capitalists, clergymen, artists, media personalities, actors, musicians—celebrities of all kinds—persons who stand out and are well known. Not among them is Anthony Malkin. That, however, is changing. I... [Read more...]
CULTURAL TOXINSCatalyst June Issue 2010, From The President's Desk
There are times when it would be great to be a fly on the wall, listening to how an unseemly discussion unfolds. I felt this way recently when I learned that Mother Teresa was being denied the opportunity of being honored with her colors shining brightly atop the Empire State Building. It would have been quite a moment hearing all the reasons why they... [Read more...]