Bill Donohue

Theodore McCarrick died April 3 at the age of 94. The defrocked cardinal was known for decades as one of the most influential prelates in America. He was also a masterful fundraiser and a notorious homosexual whose predatory behavior is legendary.

Contrary to what the Washington Post editorialized in 2019, it was not the media that revealed McCarrick’s offenses—it was New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

Dolan’s Independent  Reconciliation and Compensation Program was responsible for outing McCarrick. Dolan went public after one of McCarrick’s victims came forward. As I said in my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse, “How many rapists who work in the media—think of CBS and NBC—have had one of their senior officials turn them in? None.”

McCarrick was not content to be a good priest. The report on him, known as “The McCarrick Report,” found that when he was Archbishop of Newark, he told two bishops of his quest to succeed Cardinal John O’Connor as the Archbishop of New York (he had been an auxiliary bishop there in the late 1970s-early 1980s). He “pounded the table and blurted out ‘I deserve New York.’”

In the mid-1990s, McCarrick called to congratulate me for fighting anti-Catholicism. I had been in the job for only a few years. I was struck when he told me of his desire to come across the Hudson and become the successor to Cardinal O’Connor. Why, I wondered, would he tell me? It was obvious that he was consumed with this issue.

None of this would have come as a surprise to those who knew him when he was a monsignor in the late 1960s. He was assessed by his superiors as being overly “ambitious.”

In the 1980s, McCarrick first served as the Bishop of Metuchen, and then as Archbishop of Newark. This is when he began his predatory behavior. It was at his beach house on the Jersey Shore where he would invite seminarians to stay with him. He would intentionally invite more men than he had beds for. This set the stage: he would invite one of them to sleep with him. He often succeeded. He also had sex with seminarians in the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan.

McCarrick justified his behavior by telling the seminarians that “priests engaging in sexual activity with each other was normal and accepted in the United States, especially in that diocese.” While this was an obvious rationalization, it was not altogether incorrect. The homosexual network at that time was extensive.

His sexual romps were known to many of the New Jersey bishops, but they did nothing about it. Nor did they say a word when McCarrick grabbed the crotch of a priest at the dinner table—they simply looked away.

Were there any good guys? Yes. Cardinal O’Connor was not afraid to act. After fielding several complaints, he reported McCarrick to Vatican officials. But McCarrick had friends everywhere, and those who surrounded Pope John Paul II took his side when he contested O’Connor’s account. It took Pope Benedict XVI to get beyond this. In 2006, he accepted McCarrick’s resignation, something he had to offer when he turned seventy-five.

Travel restrictions were placed on McCarrick but he ignored them. He ignored them under Benedict and even more so under Pope Francis. He  did exactly what he wanted to and no one stopped him.

Unfortunately, McCarrick’s death does not put to rest all concerns.

The person who is currently in charge of the Vatican’s administrative duties is also the person who lived with McCarrick in Washington, D.C. for six years (McCarrick consecrated him in 2001), yet he claims that he never heard of any wrongdoing. Indeed, he “never suspected or ever had reason to suspect, any inappropriate conduct in Washington.” As I said in my book, “That would make him unique.”

His name is Cardinal Kevin Farrell. He is now the Camerlengo, or Chamberlain, responsible for overseeing the daily operations of the Vatican. He is very close to Pope Francis, who has elevated him to several high posts. Pope Francis also says he never heard about McCarrick’s predatory conduct, though others say they told him.

Farrell admitted in 2019 that he received a $29,000 gift from Bishop Michael Bransfield to refurbish his Rome apartment. A probe found that he had been using diocesan funds for these gifts and his own personal spending. He then returned the money; Bransfield was removed from office.

A priest was recently quoted saying that Farrell is holding “the fort down until the conclave elects a new pope.” Now that McCarrick is dead, it would be helpful if he told us more about his interactions with him. It would also be instructive to know why he thinks he was held in the dark when so many others at least heard of McCarrick’s offenses.

January 22, 2025

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde
Episcopal Church House
Mount St. Alban
Washington, D.C. 20016

Dear Bishop Budde:

At the January 21 prayer service at Washington National Cathedral that featured President Trump, you mentioned that “people in our country are scared now.” You singled out people who “may not be citizens or have the proper documentation,” as well as LGBTQ persons. These people “fear for their lives.” You then made a plea to “find compassion.”

Your commitment to compassion is noble, but it is misplaced.

I work in New York City, and I witness daily how many New Yorkers are “scared” and “fear for their lives.” They are afraid of being mugged, beaten, raped and killed, often by people who have crashed our borders, people you refer to as lacking “proper documentation.” They, and in some cases their surviving families, are deserving of compassion. More than that, they are deserving of justice, and that means that illegal alien criminals must be apprehended and deported.

You are right to call attention to violence against LGBTQ persons. They have every right to be “scared” and “fear for their lives.” What you don’t mention is that the people who are most likely to victimize them are people just like them. In other words, it is not heterosexual guys who are beating up on gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons—it is people in their own ranks. It is called “intimate partner violence,” and the studies show how prevalent it is among LGBTQ persons.

In 2022, Psycom Pro, a psychiatry resource for clinicians, concluded that “More than half of transgender individuals experience partner violence or gender identity abuse.”

In 2020, seven experts published a study in the American Journal of Public Health on this subject and concluded that “Transgender individuals experience a dramatically higher prevalence of IPV [intimate partner violence] victimization compared with cisgender individuals [those who accept their sex identity], regardless of sex assigned at birth.”

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reviewed the literature on this subject and found that “43.8% of lesbian women and 61.1% of bisexual women have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime, as opposed to 35% of cisgender women.” It also found that transgender individuals experienced the highest rate of intimate partner violence.

The Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA Law, reviewed a number of studies on this subject. One of them found that “31.1% of transgender people and 20.4% of cisgender people had ever experienced IPV or dating violence.” It also said that three studies concluded that the lifetime intimate partner sexual violence prevalence among transgender people ranged from “25.0% to 47.0%.”

Even in sympathetic pop culture magazines, such as Portland Monthly, it is acknowledged that “statistically speaking, the most common perpetrators of violence against trans women are domestic partners.”

In short, misdirected compassion is not virtuous. You need to make a public statement addressing the fallacies of your remarks.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President

On January 4, President Biden gave the Medal of Freedom to George Soros. It is the nation’s highest civilian award, given to “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.” The White House said those who received the award are “great leaders because they are good people who have made extraordinary contributions to their country and the world.”

The truth is that George Soros has done more to destroy western civilization and the United States, in particular, than any single person in the world. An inveterate anti-Catholic bigot, his anti-law enforcement policies have impoverished and punished legions of innocent black Americans. A self-hating Jew, he has been condemned by Jewish leaders in the United States and Israel.

Soros has sought to destabilize America by supporting open borders, welcoming those who have illegally entered the country. His embrace of Black Lives Matter, which has openly said it wants to destroy the nuclear family, is of a piece with his attacks on the criminal justice system. He funded the most radical district attorneys in the nation, the result of which has been a dramatic increase in crime by repeat offenders.

Soros’ Open Society Institute has waged war on Catholics for decades. It funds many dissident organizations, activist groups that falsely claim to be Catholic. They include Catholics for Choice, a pro-abortion, anti-Catholic letterhead funded by the likes of Soros. He was also the money behind Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United, two front-groups set up by

Clinton aide John Podesta to create a “Catholic Spring” revolution in the Church.

Though Soros is Jewish, he has been accused by the ADL of blaming anti-Semitism in Israel on the Israeli government, and the Jerusalem Post has accused him of weakening support for Israel in the Democratic Party. The editor of the New Republic, Martin Peretz, called him “a cog in the Hitlerite wheel.”

As a young man in Hungary, Soros became a Nazi collaborator. In a “60 Minutes” interview he admitted that he helped confiscate property from Jews. He told Steve Kroft that he never regretted doing so. When asked if this was difficult, Soros said, “Not, not at all.” Stunned, Kroft said, “No feeling of guilt?” “No” came the reply.

Biden has been telling us for four years how much he supports DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). His decision to honor George Soros, the world’s most influential anti-Catholic bigot, shows what a liar this “devout Catholic” really is.

Bill Donohue

Pew Research Center recently released its third Religious Landscape Study; previously ones were conducted in 2007 and 2014. Its latest study, which reports on findings from 2023-2024, covers a wide range of subjects, broken down by religious affiliation.

Seven-in-ten Americans belong to a religion, and all but seven percent are not Christians; three-in-ten are unaffiliated. One of the key aspects of this survey was the finding that the apparent decline in Christianity has stabilized.

More than eight-in-ten Americans believe in God or a universal spirit, and this includes the majority of the unaffiliated. This category consists of three groupings: atheists, agnostics and those who say they believe in “nothing in particular.” Seven-in-ten of the latter believe in God, as do 43 percent of agnostics and seven percent of atheists. Interestingly, only a thin majority of atheists (54 percent) are “absolutely certain” there is no God.

Eight-in-ten Americans believe “there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we can’t see it”; this is also true of nearly 60 percent of the religiously unaffiliated. This includes a majority of agnostics, two-in-three of those who believe in “nothing in particular,” and two-in-ten atheists.

This suggests that there are very few materialists in America (those who believe that nothing exists outside of matter).

Politically speaking, we have known for a long time that Republicans are much more likely to score high on religiosity (beliefs and practices) than Democrats. This survey shows once again that the Democratic Party is home to secularists, the only exception being black Democrats.

Most religiously affiliated Americans have come to terms with homosexuality, saying it should be accepted, not discouraged. The exceptions are Evangelicals, Mormons and Muslims. The same breakdown is evident on the subject of same-sex marriage.

When it comes to accepting transgender people, however, there is a big divide between those who are religiously affiliated and the unaffiliated (twice as many of the former say acceptance is a “change for the worse” compared to the unaffiliated.)

The issues of women in the workforce and family responsibilities depend largely on context. While most (73 percent) cheer women’s increased workforce participation, a majority (55 percent) say it is better for a child with two parents to have one stay at home. Context—marriage and the family—explains the apparent disparity. The religiously affiliated are more likely to say it is better to have one parent stay at home (59 percent) than the religiously unaffiliated (47 percent).

Context also matters in making judgments about right and wrong. A majority (55 percent) say it “often depends” on the situation, while 44 percent say there are “clear and absolute standards for what is right and wrong.” The problem with this line of questioning is that those who believe in the latter may also believe that there are times when no “clear and absolute standards” exist, hence the caveat that it “often depends.” Thus, such persons may not be holding contradictory positions.

More Americans believe religion does more good than harm. As expected, this varies widely when comparing the religiously affiliated to the unaffiliated. Unfortunately, there has been a dramatic decline in those who express mostly positive opinions about religious institutions—a drop of 12 percent from a decade ago (from 63 percent to 51 percent). Given the generally negative portrayals of religion in the media and in the entertainment industry, this is not surprising.

Social capital refers to the general wellbeing, or health, of society. We know from many studies that those who score high on religiosity possess more of the resources that service the public weal. It is not in the best interests of society, then, to discourage the responsible exercise of religious beliefs and practices. On that score, America can stand to improve.

Fr. MacRae ties a lot of loose ends together to offer a magnificent piece on what has happened to the rights of priests.

April 2, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae and William A. Donohue, PhD

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: This post may not move hearts, but it should move minds and consciences. It is of utmost importance to me, to the priesthood and to the whole Church. So we should not be silent in the face of injustice. So please share this post

On February 22, 2025, the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, the Vatican office responsible for issuing authoritative legal interpretations and directives for the universal Church, published online a long awaited guidance to bishops impacting the due process rights of “credibly accused” Catholic priests.

The announcement underscores the Dicastery’s decision that bishops considering publication of lists of priests deemed credibly accused of sexual abuse are prohibited under Canon Law from doing so. This guidance is for a multitude of reasons connected to long established civil and canonical rights of due process. I will describe below some examples of how these rights have been impacted.

From the point of view of official Church positions, the problem is, and has always been, the bishops’ collective interpretation and use of the term “credible” in their response to the crisis. It is a standard applied nowhere else in the world of civil or criminal jurisprudence. It means only that a claim of abuse cannot be immediately dismissed on its face. If a claimant alleges abuse in a specific community 30 or 40 years ago, for example, and the named priest had once been assigned there, the claim is “credible” unless and until it is disproven.

There is no court in America that admits such a standard of evidence but it is routinely applied now to accused Catholic priests. Courts have long recognized that older memories are highly malleable, and misidentification of the accused is a frequent risk.

Before delving further into this, I want to present a reaction to the Vatican news from William A. Donohue, Ph.D., President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who has consistently defended the due process rights of priests.

From Catholic League President Bill Donohue

Vatican Finally Does Right by Accused Priests

Six years after Pope Francis rejected the practice of publishing the names of accused priests, the Vatican has finally codified his plea. Henceforth, dioceses are discouraged from publishing such a list. Among the reasons cited was the inability of deceased accused priests to defend themselves.

This should never have been an issue in the first place. But in the panic that ensued following the 2002 series in The Boston Globe detailing clergy sexual abuse, the bishops convened in Dallas in 2004 to adopt a charter that listed comprehensive reforms, some of which substantially weakened the rights of the accused.

At the time, I was highly critical of the way some bishops allowed a gay subculture to flourish, one that resulted in a massive cover-up of the sexual abuse of minors (homosexual priests — not pedophiles — were responsible for 8 in 10 cases of abuse). But I also said of the Dallas reforms, “There is a problem regarding the rights of the accused. It appears that the charter may short-circuit some due process rights.”

One of the problems was the desire to publish the names of accused priests. Egging the bishops on was Judge Anne Burke, the first person to head the National Review Board commissioned by the bishops to deal with the problem.

She made it clear that priests — and only priests — should be denied their constitutionally prescribed right to due process. “We understand that it is a violation of the priest’s due process rights — you’re innocent until proven guilty — but we’re talking about the most vulnerable people in our society and those are children,” she said. Such thinking allowed the bishops to make public the names of accused priests.

In an interview I had in my office with a female reporter from CNN, she became quite critical of the Church for not posting the names of accused priests on its diocesan websites. I picked up the phone and, holding it in my hand, asked her for the name and phone number of her boss. When she asked why, I said I was going to accuse her of sexual harassment. I added that I wanted to see if CNN would post her name on its website. She said, “I get it.” I put the phone down. (For more on this see my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse).

No organization in the United States, religious or secular, publishes the names of accused employees. That there should be an exception for priests is obscene.

The rights of accused priests need to be safeguarded, and the penalties for those found guilty need to be severe. The Church failed on the latter, which is why the scandal took place, and it failed on the former, which is why Pope Francis, and now the entire Church, had to act.

The sexual abuse of minors in the Church in America has long been checked — almost all the cases in the media are about old cases, and most of the bad guys are dead or out of ministry. Now that the rights of the accused have been given a much needed shot in the arm, we can say with confidence that the problem has been ameliorated.

Now back to Father MacRae…………

But My Diocese Employs “Trauma-Informed” Consultants

On July 31, 2019, Bishop Peter A. Libasci, Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire proactively published a list of the names and assignment histories of 73 priests in his diocese who had been “credibly” accused of sexual abuse of minors and removed from ministry. Most of the claims deemed “credible” are decades old. The majority of the priests on Bishop Libasci’s list are long deceased. In most cases, the sole condition making the claims “credible” was the fact that money — lots of it — changed hands.

Bishop Libasci’s stated goal for publishing his list was “transparency.” In 2024, long after Pope Francis discouraged bishops from doing so, Bishop Libasci republished the list with the names of additional accused but deceased priests.

Weeks after Bishop Libasci’s original list was publicized in 2019, Ryan A. MacDonald penned and published a contentious objection: “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.” It was contentious because it represented well my disagreement with this action of the bishop of my diocese, something I otherwise hoped to avoid. Plaintiff attorneys and activist groups like SNAP pressured bishops to publish such lists for the purpose of “assuring victims they are not alone and that they are heard.”

The real reason for pushing for published lists, however, was to provide a forum and online database for false “copycat” claims, a lucrative business for contingency lawyers and claimants alike with little or no court oversight. In May 2024, Ryan A. MacDonald published a report on how and why this happens in “To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants.” Here is an excerpt from an official statement of my Diocese:

“The Diocese of Manchester provides financial assistance to those who have been harmed, regardless of when abuse occurred, through a process utilizing independent trauma-informed consultants.”

A basic problem with handling the matter of due process for the accused and outcomes for the Diocese by abdicating judgment to “trauma-informed consultants” is that the term is widely noted and critiqued by professionals as highly biased. It has a documented negative impact on judicial fairness and due process of law in claims of sexual abuse and assault.

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity (CPI ) is an organization that seeks to strengthen prosecutorial ethics, promote due process, and end wrongful convictions. Victim-centered investigations, also known in the sex abuse contingency lawyer industry as “trauma-informed,” presume the guilt of all accused and lead to wrongful convictions.

According to the Center’s website, “The most destructive types of victim-centered investigations are known as “Start by Believing,” and “Trauma-Informed.” The Center exhibits a professional bibliography documenting the “junk science” behind such investigations creating an epidemic of false witness and police and prosecutorial misconduct. Given the well-founded caution about false claims and financial scammers, it was alarming to read the following in a recent news article, “Diocese of Manchester Settles Sexual Abuse Claims from the 1970s.” Here’s an excerpt:

“No lawsuit was filed because the alleged abuse happened outside the statute of limitations, but the attorney representing the ‘John Doe’ who was involved said it’s important for survivors to come forward as part of the healing process, … thus announcing a six-figure settlement outside the Diocese of Manchester office.”

Has it never dawned on anyone in Church leadership that there are those in our midst who would find a “six-figure settlement” an enticement for false accusations? This is especially so when there is no court oversight for such claims. The process has been made very simple. A lawyer writes a letter and a bishop writes a check.

In addition to these trauma-informed consultants retained by the Diocese of Manchester and other dioceses,”it seems that civil lawyers and risk managers, not bishops, are often running the show.” So wrote prominent canon lawyer, Michael Mazza, JD, JCD, in a recent First Things article (February 24, 2025): “Who’s Really Calling the Shots at U.S. Diocesan Chanceries?” Mazza concludes:

“ln the wake of the clerical abuse crisis, church leaders may have surrendered too much authority to risk managers focused on eliminating every threat. Seasoned entrepreneurs understand that the moment lawyers run the show, adopting a zero-risk strategy as the business model, the company grinds to a halt. While the surest way for a car company to avoid getting sued is to stop making cars, that strategy is not an option for an institution that has received a divine call to preach the Gospel to all nations. Bishops must recognize this truth and seize the helm with the resolve their office demands.”

The Perspective of a Not-So-Credibly Convicted Priest

My name was on Bishop Libasci’s published list under the unique category, “convicted,” but that was not at all my point of contention with his list. Unlike most of the priests named on that ongoing list, I at least had public charges in a public forum — a 1994 criminal trial — no matter how jaded and unjust it was. The details of those charges and that trial have emerged over time and are also now in public view. They have raised awareness about the absence of truth and the aura of injustice in the forum in which I was condemned and sentenced.

As Ryan A. MacDonald’s article, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List” points out, Bishop Libasci’s predecessor, the late Bishop John B. McCormack, went on record in an unpublished media interview in the aftermath of my trial stating his informed belief that I was falsely accused, wrongly convicted, and should not be in prison. He insisted, however, that this information should never leave his office. These details were exposed in a 2021 post, “Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded.”

Going back even further in this history of neglected due process, Bishop McCormack’s predecessor, the late Bishop Leo O’Neil, chose not to wait for the outcome of a trial. Before my trial commenced, he published an official diocesan press release declaring that I victimized not only my accusers but the entire Catholic Church. After that, a trial seemed just a formality.

The most visible post-trial analysis of due process in the case, however, was that of Dorothy Rabinowitz, awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her courageous exposure of “accusation, false witness, and other terrors of our time.” Her series of articles in The Wall Street Journal  culminated in “The Trials of Father MacRae” in 2013, six years before Bishop Libasci published his list.

In a compelling five-minute video interview produced by The Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz saw through all the smoke and mirrors and got to the heart of the matter. It is a brief but bold exposé of unassailable truth that ties the two-decade outbreak of clergy abuse claims to the very unquestioned settlements money promised by my Diocese in its statements above.

I give the last word to “A Video Interview with Dorothy Rabinowitz.”

Bill Donohue

The Catholic League has filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of New Jersey defending the rights of priests. We are represented by the Pittsburgh office of Leech Tishman; our attorney is Russell Giancola. The lead attorneys for the case, representing the Diocese of Camden, are from Cooper Levenson in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

This case began almost seven years ago. Following the Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018, the Attorney General in New Jersey launched an investigation of the clergy who worked in the state’s dioceses. Prosecutors wanted a grand jury empanelled but the Diocese of Camden objected, saying they had no authority to do so. It is the Camden Diocese that we are defending.

The Diocese of Camden is on solid grounds. In New Jersey, grand jury investigations, or “presentments,” are designed only to investigate public officials and public agencies such as prisons and police departments. Targeting private individuals or private institutions are not permitted. Therefore, to go after the Catholic clergy—investigating alleged molestation of minors dating back to 1940—is unwarranted.

In May of 2023, Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw agreed with the Camden Diocese. He said that state law allows special grand juries to investigate public officials or government agencies, not a private entity like the Catholic Church or individual priests. He also questioned the fairness of the probe: the accused priests will not be given a chance to defend themselves. Judge Warshaw said this amounts to a “hit-and-run.”

More recently, New Jersey’s Appellate Division agreed, affirming Judge Warshaw’s decision. Now, the New Jersey Supreme Court will have the final say in whether this selective, invasive probe of the dioceses and clergy is permitted to go forward.

The grand jury process allows no cross examination so the accused have no legal recourse when their names are bandied about in reports or in the media. This is outrageous, and it is doubly outrageous when we note that, as always, it is the Catholic Church that is being targeted. It is never some other religion, and it sure isn’t the public schools, the source of sexual abuse today.

On a related note, we have complained for decades about the decision made by dioceses in the United States that post the names of accused priests on the internet or in some other public spot. No other institution does this—just the Catholic Church. In March, Pope Francis formally rejected this practice. Henceforth, dioceses are discouraged from publishing such a list.

Priests should have the same rights as every other American, but they do not. Due process demands that they are assumed innocent until proven guilty. Also, most of the bad apples are dead or are no longer in ministry. So New Jersey’s attempted grand jury investigation is a sham.

We will keep you posted.

Bill Donohue

March 31 is Trans Visibility Day, a day when trans people seek greater recognition. There is an underside, however, to this day, one that brings to mind the increasing intolerance exhibited by trans activists.

The espoused goal of the LGBTQ community is tolerance. Tolerance means “to put up with.” That may have been the initial goal, but after having achieved it, they upped the ante, seeking affirmation. Are they entitled to tolerance? Yes. But they are not entitled to affirmation—we are not obliged to affirm behavior we find offensive.

LGBTQ activists, seeking affirmation, have become among the most intolerant people in the nation. It is worth noting how vicious these zealots are in their quest for affirmation. The case in point is what they did to Jack Phillips.

Jack Phillips is a devout evangelical and the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver, Colorado. On July 19, 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins asked Phillips if he would make a cake to celebrate their “wedding.” He denied their request, saying he does not make cakes for same-sex weddings.

It should be noted that Phillips never refused to sell cakes to anyone, including gays. But for him to custom-make a cake for two men who say they want to marry is to make him complicit in that effort. That’s a bridge too far. He is under no obligation to sanction behavior he finds objectionable, however tacit his role may be. This takes on added significance when his reasoning is grounded in his religion.

Craig and Mullins could have shopped around to find a baker who would honor their request. Indeed, at that time same-sex marriage was not legal in Colorado. Surely they could have found a baker in Massachusetts, where they planned to go for their “wedding,” but their real interest was not in buying the cake. They wanted to force Phillips to violate his religious convictions. In short, they wanted to punish him.

The two men filed a complaint against Phillips with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC), just ahead of their “wedding” in September. At the end of 2013, an administrative judge ordered Phillips to make the requested cake, despite his religious beliefs, or face fines. He did not budge.

On May 30, 2014, the CCRC agreed with this finding, saying Phillips discriminated against the men. Two months later, Commissioner Diann Rice went on a Christian-bashing tirade. “Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust….And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religion to hurt others.” She was supported by some of her colleagues.

Rice’s bigoted attack would come back to haunt her. When the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in 2018 in favor of Phillips, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the opinion, took note of what Rice, and her colleagues, said. “At several times during its meeting, commissioners endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, implying that religious beliefs and persons are less than fully welcome in Colorado’s business community.”

In the four years between the CCRC’s ruling in 2014 and the high court decision in 2018, the Phillips case bounced around the courts. The most dramatic moment came in June 2017 on the day the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. On that same day, Autumn Scardina, a man who falsely claims he is a woman, asked Phillips to create a cake designed pink on the inside and blue on the outside to celebrate his supposed transition from male to female. The request was denied, which is exactly what Scardina expected and desired.

This was another clear case of intolerance. To prove how utterly tyrannical this transgender activist is, he admitted that his goal was to “correct the errors of [Phillip’s] thinking.” This is thought control, the kind of practice perfected by the genocidal maniac, Mao Zedong.

In June 2019, Scardina filed a civil lawsuit against Phillips. Two years later, a district court ruled Phillips can be punished for declining to create the cake. But in 2024, the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed the case, bringing an end to these harassment lawsuits.

In 2021, the Alliance Defending Freedom, which courageously and successfully defended Phillips, said, “Radical activists and government officials are targeting artists like Jack because they won’t promote messages on marriage and sexuality that violate their core convictions. This case and others…represents a disturbing trend: the weaponization of our justice system to ruin those with whom the activists disagree. The harassment of people like Jack…has been occurring for nearly a decade and must stop.”

These LGBTQ zealots disdain tolerance: their goal is to shove their radical agenda down the throats of Americans, forcing everyone to bow to their demands. They are a threat to religious liberty and to democracy, in general. So, too, are organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and the ACLU which support these efforts.

No one should have to endure the kind of mean-spirited campaign that Jack Phillips was subjected to. Radical gay and transgender activists have no moral mantle to rest on—their vengeance and spite have overcome them.

Bill Donohue

I have decided to address a story that is developing in Anytown USA. The venue is a local gym for adult men and women.

Reporter: Why are teenage boys allowed to compete in pre-teen boy games in Anytown?

Mayor: They are not. The only boys who can compete in pre-teen sports are those who identify as pre-teen.

Reporter: But I just witnessed what is obviously a teenager competing in a pre-teen event.

Mayor: Your perception is not determinative. We spoke to the boy you are talking about, and he says he is pre-teen.

Reporter: But it is obvious that teenage boys are bigger and stronger than pre-teen boys.

Mayor: That may be true, but it is also true that there are pre-teen boys of various sizes.

Reporter: This is crazy. We already have sports for teenage boys, so why the need for them to compete with pre-teens?

Mayor: They are not. The real issue is who determines who a teenager is.

Reporter: That’s easy. Birth certificates settle this issue.

Mayor: Birth certificates simply prove the age that someone was assigned at birth.

Reporter: Are you implying that is not enough evidence?

Mayor: You don’t get it. There is a spectrum of age groupings. Quite frankly, it is entirely possible for someone to consider himself to be younger, or older, than the age assigned at birth.

Reporter: If this continues, there will be no pre-teen sports programs left.

Mayor: This misses the point. The government has no right to tell anyone what sex or age someone is. We live in a free country, and we need to respect the autonomy, and conscience rights, of everyone. We also believe in being inclusive, letting everyone compete according to the sex and age they identify with.

Reporter: Does this apply to occupations as well?

Mayor: What do you mean?

Reporter: Can someone claim to hold a certain job even if it appears to outside observers that he is lying?

Mayor: You are being argumentative.

Reporter: Not at all. I am simply following your logic. From this day forward I will consider myself to be Mayor of Anytown USA.

Mayor: But I am the mayor.

Reporter: Not anymore. You were elected. My self-identification matters more. And guess what? You’re fired.

Mayor: This is outrageous.

Reporter: By the way, I have also decided to identify as a woman. Can you tell me where the ladies shower room is? Your wife just entered.

Bill in the News (TribLIVE): The ACLU of Massachusetts is challenging a decision by the city of Quincy to erect two statues of Catholic saints outside the public safety building. The saints are Florian and Michael the Archangel, the patron saints of firefighters and police officers, respectively.

As Donohue notes, the ACLU knows religious statues adorn buildings in the nation’s capital, including the Capitol, Supreme Court and Library of Congress, as well as public buildings throughout Massachusetts.

So why object to these statues? The ACLU explains in a letter to the Quincy city council: “the contemplated statue of Saint Michael … depicts a figure stepping on the neck of a demon. Such violent imagery is particularly abhorrent in light of the murder of George Floyd and other acts of police brutality throughout the country.” READ MORE HERE

The following letter explains why there is a problem at Northwestern.

March 27, 2025

Dean Adrian Randolph
Northwestern University
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
1918 Sheridan Road
Evanston, Illinois 60208

Dear Dean Randolph:

It has been brought to my attention that a faculty member in the Department of Religious Studies at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Lily Stewart, is using her class, “Introduction to Christianity,” to engage in a frontal assault on the Catholic Church. How do I know this? The syllabus is a screed designed to distort and denigrate Christianity, thus feeding the appetite of anti-Christian bigots.

Having spent many years in higher education, and having served on the board of directors of the National Association of Scholars, I am well aware that academic freedom must be given great latitude. I am also aware that there is a difference between academic freedom and academic malpractice. What Stewart is doing is representative of the latter.

To illustrate my objections, simply compare the course outline of “Introduction to Christianity” to that of “Introduction to Islam.”

Would not Muslim scholars object if the outline for the introductory class were to ask, “How many ways are there to be a Muslim? What counts as Islam, what doesn’t, and who ultimately gets to decide?” Just substitute Christian for Muslim, and Christianity for Islam, and that is what the introductory class outline says about Christianity.

It should be noted that the introductory course outline on Islam is exemplary.

When we consider the syllabus, this issue gets much worse.

The syllabus for “Introduction to Christianity” says the class “will explore histories of Christian colonialism, bigotry, liberation, and dissent.” Indeed, it says, Jesus “has been at the forefront of projects of colonialism, violence, and subjugation, but also peace, liberation, and revolution.”

If this were the way Islam and Muhammad were treated in the introductory course, would not Muslims find this objectionable?

Students are also put on notice. “Much of the material and topics that we are working with in this class include racist, ableist, Islamophobic, anti-semitic, transphobic, misogynist, homophobic, self-harm, murder, and sexual assault.”

In other words, brace yourself in class when I discuss the historical contributions of the Catholic Church.

Imagine again, if the course on Islam were to portray the religion and its adherents as an evil force. What would Northwestern do when students and Muslim scholars complained?

I have written many books, one of which is Why Catholicism Matters. It details the role the Catholic Church has played in maintaining the manuscripts from Antiquity, the founding of the first universities, the pivotal role it played in the Scientific Revolution, and the seminal role it played in virtually every technological breakthrough in history.

The Church’s contributions to art, architecture, and music are legendary. Moreover, its promotion of natural law and natural rights made possible the eventual abolition of slavery; St. Patrick was the first person in history to publicly condemn slavery. The work of nuns founding schools, foster care homes, asylums, hospitals, hospices, and the like, is historic.

It is to be expected that professors will develop an approach to their discipline that differs from that of others in their field. That is how it should be. But we are not talking about legitimate avenues of discourse or research. We are talking about a frontal assault on a world religion.

Those who engage in vitriolic caricatures of demographic groups, be they religious, ethnic, racial, or sexual, may find expression in social media, but they have no business in academia.

If there are some who read this letter who are not convinced that Professor Stewart has crossed the line, consider that there is a depiction of Jesus in the syllabus, with the following inscription:

Hey girl.

How about I turn that water into wine,
we put on some slow jams and just cuddle?

#Hot.Jesus

This is not scholarship. It is hate speech with a scholarly veneer.

I look forward to hearing from you about this matter.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.

President

cc: Michael H. Schill, President
Peter M. Barris, Chair, Board of Trustees
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Chair, Department of Religious Studies
Lily Stewart, Professor Religious Studies
Barbara Gellman-Danley, President, Higher Education Commission