The year ended with a barrage of media stories on the Catholic Church, the likes of which we've not seen for some time. What made this flurry of negative stories so different is that they were mostly non-stories. In other words, the media ran articles about clergy sexual abuse that failed to uncover anything new. There [...]
The Christmas haters made their presence felt this past season; their antics varied considerably. Vandals struck Catholic churches throughout the country: arson, burglary and theft were among the most common offenses. Crosses were smashed, obscene inscriptions were left, and satanic displays were also featured. A third-grade enactment of the nativity scene was banned when atheists went [...]
A recent NBC poll of Catholics who work for the Church found that 64 percent do not believe the media have been fair in their coverage of the clergy sexual abuse scandal. If you want to know why, just read this issue of Catalyst. There are still good reporters and editors, but unfortunately there are too [...]
Bill Donohue The following is an excerpt from a longer piece that is posted on our website under Annual Reports/Year in Review. When the year began, I was anxiously awaiting an opportunity to defend the Catholic Church in one of those storied debates sponsored by the Oxford Union. The debate was scheduled for February. But in [...]
Church-suing lawyers celebrated the holidays with a boatload of new cases, all in the name of justice. In reality, more injustice than justice will be rendered. The steeple-chasers are jumping on the bandwagon effect of the Pennsylvania grand jury report that was issued in 2018. A comprehensive news story by the Associated Press details how 15 [...]
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Harvey Weinstein's bigotry: As the Catholic League has pointed out before, Harvey Weinstein has a long history of making anti-Catholic movies, but only recently have we learned that his bigotry is not reserved to his artistic endeavors. "Sopranos" star Annabella Sciorra has accused Weinstein of raping her. Some weeks [...]
In the more than 26 years Bill Donohue has spent at the Catholic League, never has he read a more irresponsible, and just plain dumb, report on clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church until he read the CNN Interactive report, "Pedophile Priests Operated at this California School for Decades." It was featured on the front [...]
The table has been set for grand jury reports in Pennsylvania to be abolished. That was the recommendation of the Investigating Grand Jury Task Force. The panel was established in 2017, a year before Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro issued his discredited grand jury report on Catholic priests in the state. While the task force recommendation [...]
The ABC affiliate in Cincinnati, WCPO, recently launched a three-month investigation into Ohio's Catholic dioceses and religious orders seeking to learn how they track priests and brothers who have been accused of sexually abusing minors. The "I-team" did not investigate any other religious body in the state, nor did it launch a probe of any secular [...]
There have been many polls of Catholics, but until now there has not been a survey of those who work for the Catholic Church. NBC has filled that void. Those who work for the Church are listed in the Official Catholic Directory. NBC Owned Television stations around the nation distributed the survey to more than 32,000 [...]