This article appeared in The American Spectator on Oct. 25

Bill Donohue

Vice President Kamala Harris occasionally attends a Baptist church, but she still has a problem with Christians. So does her boss. Biden attends Mass regularly, but his rejection of Catholic moral teachings—on abortion, marriage, the family and sexuality—makes practicing Catholics wonder about his bona fides.

When Harris was California’s attorney general, she bludgeoned pro-life activist David Daleiden. He used undercover videos to expose how abortion operatives harvest and sell aborted fetal organs. She authorized her office to raid his home: they seized his camera equipment and copies of revealing videos that implicated many of those who work in the abortion industry.

In her role as California AG she also sought to cripple crisis pregnancy centers with draconian regulations. Specifically, she supported a bill that would force these centers to inform clients where they could obtain an abortion. She was sued and lost in the Supreme Court three years later.

On February 25, 2020, Sen. Harris voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill that would “prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.” That’s called infanticide.

When she was in the senate, Harris co-sponsored the “Do No Harm Act,” as well as the “Equality Act.” Both bills would weaken, or nullify, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, thus mandating that Catholic doctors and hospitals perform abortions and sex-reassignment surgery.

Harris’ passion for abortion rights—she has never found one she couldn’t justify—impels her to attack Catholic candidates for the federal bench. She did so most famously in late 2018 when she questioned Brian C. Buescher about his suitability to be a federal district judge. His membership in the Knights of Columbus raised a red flag for her.

“Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?” Her real target, of course, was the Catholic Church. Should someone who accepts the Catholic Church’s teaching on abortion—child abuse begins in the womb—be allowed to sit on the federal bench? She knows the Constitution bars a religious test for holding public office, so this was her end-run around it.

Harris was also upset that the Knights ban women. But several Jewish women’s groups (e.g. Hadassah) ban men. So do the Catholic Daughters of the Americas. For that matter, so does the League of Women Voters. But it seems that for Harris, none of those organizations are a problem. Just Catholic fraternal ones.

Harris refused to attend the Al Smith Dinner, letting Catholics know what she thinks about them. But she never misses a Hollywood dinner. Those are her ideological next of kin, not Catholics.

When a couple of Christian young people shouted, “Christ is King” at a recent Wisconsin rally, Harris could have ignored them. After all, when left-wing pro-Hamas protesters shout her down, she simply says that she has the right to speak. But she couldn’t help berate the Christians, saying, “You guys are at the wrong rally.” She was right about that—Christians are not welcome at her events.

Harris is losing to Trump 52-47 among Catholics. And this was before she stiffed New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan by blowing off the Al Smith Dinner, and before she mocked Christian students.

No one truly believes that Trump is personally a deeply religious man. He admits as much. But his policies are clearly religion friendly. The same is not true for Harris. She is wedded to the Biden-Harris record, and it pales in significance to what Trump accomplished. It’s not even a close call.

Bill Donohue

When J.D. Vance sat down with Joe Rogan for a three-hour interview, the subject of abortion came up.

Rogan expressed concern about the different state laws on abortion, saying the issue “is essentially based on a religious idea.” He brought up religion again when discussing the Justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.

Abortion is fundamentally an issue of biology, not religion. To be sure, many religious organizations have teachings on this subject. They also have teachings on what constitutes a proper diet. But that doesn’t make dietary issues inherently religious. The heart of the abortion issue is when life begins. That is not a uniquely religious issue. Indeed, it is primarily a scientific one.

Biology 101 teaches that the DNA that makes us unique individuals is present at conception, and not a moment later. That’s when life begins. Rogan can disbelieve it, but he cannot disprove the scientific evidence.

Commenting on overturning Roe v. Wade, Rogan said, “you have these religious men who are trying to dictate what women can or cannot do with their bodies.” Before commenting on this remark, it is true that of the six Supreme Court Justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, all are Christian; five are Catholic and one is Protestant (one of the Catholics is a woman, and one of the dissenting Justices is also a Catholic woman).

What Rogan said would be disturbing—indeed it would be bigoted—if it were clear that what he said was his opinion. But the transcript suggests otherwise.

Rogan was discussing the decision to overturn Roe when he said, “the zeitgeist is that abortion had always been you know Roe v. Wade has always been the law of the land and then all of a sudden that was taken away and you have these religious men who are trying to dictate what women can and can’t do with their bodies.”

It is obvious to any fair-minded person that Rogan was simply noting what was commonly understood at the time—he did not commit himself one way or the other as to whether he shared this view. This is important because left-wing media outlets such as The New Republic made it appear that these were his views. In short, they took his comment out of context, thus turning what was a sociological observation into his personal opinion.

Still, it would have been helpful if Rogan challenged the view that “these religious men” were shoving their religion down everyone’s throat.

Not too long ago, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan served on the Supreme Court. All are Jewish. They often took a secular view on cultural issues. Were they imposing their secular ideological preferences on the rest of us? Or were they simply making decisions based on their interpretation of the law?

Ginsburg, in fact, said Roe was wrongly decided. She was personally in favor of legalized abortion, but she said it should never have been decided by the courts—it was an issue for the legislature. This is exactly what the “religious” Justices decided.

The Constitution prohibits a religious test for public office. Unfortunately, too many Americans seem to have a problem with that, especially when Catholics are overrepresented.

It is important to note that the way The New Republic framed Rogan’s comment is remarkably similar to the way Kamala Harris’ website framed it—making it appear that he personally objects to “these religious men” dictating to women.

This is not a gaffe. They know exactly what they are doing.

Bill Donohue

Our normally curious media are noticeably incurious regarding several serious matters involving Kamala Harris. Why the silence on issues that the voters have every right to know about?

Harris is rarely asked when she became aware of President Biden’s mental decline. When she is, she pretends not to have noticed.

For example, when asked by the New York Times if she has any regrets about defending his mental state, she said he has the “intelligence, the commitment and the judgment and disposition” to lead. Right after his disastrous debate performance in June—when everyone conceded he was mentally struggling—she said he is “so smart” and is “extraordinarily strong.”

Why, then, have so many of those who have been with Biden over the past few years found him to be mentally challenged?

In his new book, War, Bob Woodward recounts many stories about Biden’s apparent mental collapse. He can’t complete sentences, he repeats himself constantly, he rambles, he can’t focus when speaking (even when given notecards), he is unable to remember basic facts, he wanders aimlessly around the room, etc.

So if others knew he was mentally shot, why didn’t she? Didn’t her staffers notice his declining cognitive abilities, and didn’t they discuss this with her? Did she ever go to the president and ask him about it? Did she ever talk to his wife about it? Why are the media giving her a pass on this? After all, this is a matter of national security, among other things.

Harris’ mother came from Tamil Brahmin stock—the most privileged caste in India. The Brahmin reputation for looking down at those below them is legendary. Here’s why this matters.

The New York Times reported on October 30 that when her mother married a black man in the United States, her family was against it. But the news story doesn’t say why. Her husband, Donald, was not some low-life: he was studying for his doctorate in 1962 when they met (he teaches economics today at Stanford University).

So if she didn’t marry “down” economically, why would her Indian family oppose the marriage? Was it because they perceived her marrying “down” racially? In short, was it because he was black that they objected? If so, she would certainly want to keep this out of the media. She is the champion of racial equality, isn’t she? How would it look if the public learned that her Indian family wanted nothing to do with marrying a black man?

Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, no longer denies knocking up his nanny while married to his first wife. The nanny, Najen Naylor, also taught his children at a rich private school. When Emhoff’s wife found out about the affair, she filed for divorce.

The unanswered question is: Whatever happened to the baby? There are two stories about this that are worth probing.

One story has it that she miscarried after a disturbing encounter she had with him (the LAPD were called to intervene), causing her to miscarry. The other story, which is based on multiple friends of the nanny, say she never miscarried—she “kept” the baby.

If the nanny “kept” the baby, whatever happened to it? Did she have an abortion? We know that when she left her job as a teacher, she allegedly received a settlement from Emhoff. What was the settlement for? We also know she bought a house in the Hamptons in 2021 for $885,000. Not many nannies can afford that. Some say there was a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Was there?

Both Kamala and her husband are big fans of abortion rights, so if the baby that he fathered with the nanny were aborted, that wouldn’t have mattered to them. But it matters to the public. Why haven’t the media probed this story? Is this another cover-up?

Also, Emhoff likes to say how “toxic” masculinity is. What is really “toxic” is beating your date for flirting with a parking valet. Three women have accused him of doing just that after the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 (he denies it). He allegedly smacked his girlfriend so hard that he spun her around, simply because she put her hand on the shoulder of the valet, leaving her in tears. He never apologized.

Emhoff is also accused by former female employees of being a “misogynist” who flirted with staff members, hired a “trophy secretary” on the basis of her youth and good looks, and held male-only cocktail parties on Friday evenings. Sounds like pretty toxic masculinity.

Why don’t we know whether Emhoff had his child aborted? Why don’t we know for sure whether he is a violent sexist? Why don’t we know if Kamala’s Indian family objected to her marrying Donald Harris because he is black? When did Kamala first know that Biden was mentally unfit to be president, and to whom did she speak, if anyone?

Whether she wins or loses, it is scandalous that the media are refusing to do their job. This is journalistic malfeasance.

Bill Donohue

As we have pointed out numerous times, Kamala Harris has not endeared herself to Catholics. Her policies on abortion, marriage, the family, sexuality, religious liberty and school choice are all contrary to Catholic teachings. Moreover, her recent decision to refuse an invitation to speak at the Al Smith Dinner, and to belittle Christian students at a rally, only add to her problems.

Despite all of this, there is a group called Catholics for Harris-Walz. Here’s a quick look at the most prominent among them.

Sr. Simone Campbell

Campbell is the former executive director of Network, a dissident Catholic entity. She spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in support of Obama’s Health and Human Services mandate: it required Catholic nonprofits to pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans. Campbell believes that abortion should not be illegal, and more recently she has thrown her support behind the Equality Act. It would force Catholic doctors and hospitals to perform abortions and sex-reassignment surgery.

Anthea Butler

Butler teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and is a regular guest on MSNBC. She is widely known for her promotion of critical race theory, which holds that white people are irredeemably racist. She has even called God a “white racist.” Moreover, she has accused the Church of operating “a pedophile ring.”

Joe Donnelly

Donnelly started out as a Catholic official who was mostly in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church. But he ended his career in government as a foe of the Church’s moral teachings. Donnelly abandoned the positions of the Catholic Church on abortion, LGBT issues, and religious liberty. He went on to serve as Biden’s ambassador to the Holy See.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro

DeLauro is a co-sponsor of the Equality Act and has a life-time rating of 100 percent from the pro-abortion behemoth NARAL.

In 2021, she issued a “Statement of Principles” criticizing the bishops for admonishing Catholic public figures who reject core moral teachings. DeLauro has a long history of telling the bishops what to do. In 2006, she issued a similar statement arguing that one can be a Catholic in good standing and promote abortion. In 2007, she was one of 18 self-identified Catholic Democrats to criticize Pope Benedict XVI on the same topic. In 2015, she led a contingent of 93 self-identified Catholic Democrats to tell Pope Francis that he needed to focus on climate change rather than abortion.

Christopher Hale

Hale administers Catholics for Harris. It is really a one-man social media account with “no organizational structure” or budget to speak of. Hale claims he serves “as a pipeline to the official Harris-Walz campaign,” saying he is part of the Harris campaign’s “Catholic kitchen cabinet.”

Previously, Hale ran Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. It was expressly founded to subvert the Catholic Church, provoking a “revolution within the Church.” Catholics in Alliance was funded by George Soros’ Open Society Institute and the Tides Foundation. However, both pulled their funding after it lost its IRS tax-exempt status.

Denise Murphy McGraw

McGraw is one of the national co-chairs of Catholics Vote Common Good; it is a spin-off of Vote Common Good, a Soros-funded progressive Christian organization. In 2020, it issued a letter signed by 1,600 far-left faith leaders calling on Biden to run for president. It also attacked New York Archbishop Cardinal Dolan when he spoke positively about Trump.

Patrick Carolan

Carolan is one of the national co-chairs of Catholics Vote Common Good. Prior to this, he ran the Franciscan Action Network, a left-wing social justice entity. He opposes Catholic schools that enforce the teachings of the Church on several issues; similarly, he encourages Catholic lay groups to support gay marriage.

Rep. Madeleine Dean

Dean was part of a panel talk hosted by Catholics Vote Common Good at the 2024 DNC. She co-sponsored the Equality Act in 2023, and she has a 100 percent score from NARAL.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon

Scanlon was part of a panel talk hosted by Catholics Vote Common Good at the 2024 DNC. She co-sponsored the Equality Act in 2023, and has a 100 percent score from NARAL.

Miguel Diaz

Diaz was part of a panel talk hosted by Catholics Vote Common Good at the 2024 DNC.

Diaz previously served as the United States’ Ambassador to the Holy See under Obama. He was a tireless champion of Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services who tried to force Catholic nonprofits to pay for abortions.

Dr. Patrick Whelan

Whelan is the lead organizer of Catholics for Kamala. He is the founder of Catholic Democrats.

In 2010, Whelan authored a “study” claiming that pro-choice policies actually led to a decrease in abortions. Even the pro-abortion research giant, the Guttmacher Institute, contradicted his findings. His “study,” it became clear, was intended to discredit the bishops. He tried this trick again in 2021.

In 2011, he blamed Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput for not addressing social justice issues with the bishops. More recently, Whelan co-authored “The Catholic Case for Kamala,” an 80-page booklet that explores the alleged “Opus Dei roots” of Project 2025.

These are the kinds of Catholics who are championing the cause of Kamala Harris. Is anyone surprised?

Bill Donohue

Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, lives in the real world, but many of his readers and writers do not. He knows the media have lost their credibility but the others do not. They need a reality check.

Bezos put the squash on an editorial to endorse Kamala Harris. Now the sky is falling in Washington.

He took to the editorial page to defend his decision. Here’s what he said  about newspapers. “We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is [sic] biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose.”

He’s right. The data prove it. In the 1970s, when Gallup first started asking about the media’s credibility, trust ranged from 68 percent to 72 percent. Today it is at 31 percent. That’s a record low. And it may be worse than that. Another national survey, released last month by Populace, found that 24 percent publicly agree the media tell the truth, but only 7 percent privately believe they do.

Just recently, a Rasmussen survey found that 50 percent of likely voters believe the media are biased in favor of the Democrats. In fact, 49 percent agree that the media are “truly the enemy of the people.” The Washington Post has contributed mightily to this perception.

Here’s an example about the Post that shows its blatant bias against the Catholic Church (many more could be provided).

In a November 13, 2022 editorial, it was claimed that “high-level sexual misconduct and cover-up in France shattered illusions of progress by the church toward establishing a culture of transparency and accountability in its hierarchy.”

The evidence? A retired cardinal and archbishop in France admitted to sexual misconduct with a teenage girl 35 years earlier.

At the time I wrote, “There are over 5,000 bishops in the world and the Washington Post found two of them who were involved in sexual misconduct decades ago. The paper argues that this shatters ‘illusions of progress.’” I couldn’t help but say, “What is really shattered is the credibility of its editorial board.”

Those who write for the newspaper do not see themselves as biased. They see themselves as being right. Those who think otherwise are simply wrong. That is the liberal mentality, whether found in the media, education, or anywhere else.

The paper’s readers feel the same way. In retaliation against Bezos’ decision not to endorse Harris, more than 200,000 of them have canceled their digital subscription. Editorial board members and reporters are also quitting.

Journalist David Hoffman has had it, saying, “I stand against silence in the face of dictatorship.” He didn’t call him Hitler, at least not in public, but he did say, “I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump.” His colleague, Mary Roberts, said she is quitting “because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is as morally clear as it gets.”

As Jonathan Turley and others have documented, the Biden-Harris years represent the most anti-free speech administration in the history of the United States, yet according to the Washington Post they do not pose a threat to democracy—Trump does. Is there any air in their bubble?

Even richer is former Washington Post executive director Marty Baron. “To declare a moment of high principle, only 11 days before the election that is just highly suspect that is just not to be believed that this was a matter of principle at this point.”

It takes gall for Baron to accuse Bezos of not being principled.

In 2018, 60 Minutes fired its executive producer, Jeff Fager, because he was a sexual predator. He would have been fired earlier had Baron not killed a story about his behavior. [See my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse, for more information on this story.]

Amy Brittain, the Washington Post’s investigative reporter, and Irin Carmon spent four months doing a story on Fager; it was a follow-up to an earlier piece on Charlie Rose, who was fired from CBS after sexual harassment claims were made. They spoke to several women who said Fager had sexually abused them. Baron, they said, kept delaying the  story and refused to speak with them. When the story finally ran, all the allegations against Fager were deleted; only additional allegations against Rose made it into the print.

Why did Baron kill the story on Fager? According to Carmon, “The  close relationship between the paper and 60 Minutes” had something to do with it.

Bezos needs to clean house, and he is not alone. As the Gallup poll showed, the media are “the least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic and political institutions involved in the democratic process.” Small wonder why.

Bill Donohue

We all possess several statuses. For example, Kamala Harris is Vice President of the United States, a woman, and a descendant of slavemasters. Furthermore, we all have a master status, the one that means the most to us. That may be our occupation. It may be our role as a father or mother. Those are our decisions. Problems occur when others define what our master status should be. That is none of their business. But increasingly it is.

When Kamala sees a man who happens to be black, she does not see him as a Baptist, or as a Texan, or as a police officer, or as a father, though he may be all of them. She sees him as being a black man. Period. Importantly, her observation is freighted with high expectations. It is not his individual characteristics that matter; it is his status as a black man. He is expected to think and act accordingly.

Following Barack Obama’s dehumanizing characterization of black men—he called out “the brothers” for not getting on board the Kamala train—she also called out black men for supporting Trump, labeling them  “misogynists.” As such, she took a page out of Hillary’s playbook.

Hillary Clinton does not see women as having multiple statuses—they have but one. Their sex. After she lost to Trump, she blamed them. She singled out “married white women” who supported Trump, branding them as cowards. They were too weak to stand up to “a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.” They had an obligation to vote for her—because of their sex.

Ironically, Kamala, who says she opposes racism, sees black men the way Klansmen do. She recently said that one of the most important policies she will pursue to help black men—she singled them out—is to legalize weed. “Legalizing recreational marijuana and creating opportunities for Black Americans to succeed in this industry.”

Now why, of all the things that could benefit black men, would she prioritize having more of them on dope? Is that how she thinks of them? Her father says it is.

Kamala doesn’t exactly get along very well with her dad. One reason for that is because she says his side of the family, which hails from Jamaica, are a bunch of potheads. In 2019, she was asked on a radio show if she supports legalizing marijuana. She responded, “Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding?”

Donald Harris wasted no time slamming her. He said his grandmothers and deceased parents “must be turning over in their graves right now to see their family name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in pursuit of identity politics. Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish  to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty.”

Why does Kamala see black men as misogynists who like to smoke weed? She doesn’t think that way about her husband. She is married to a rich white guy whose idea of masculinity expressed itself vividly when he knocked up his nanny while married to his first wife. But he is not a misogynist—the black guys who like Trump are. Also, since he is a white dude, he has no need to make a living selling grass.

Slavemasters did not see blacks as individuals; they were chattel. Kamala does not see blacks, especially black men, as individuals—they are defined by their race. She also entertains some patently racist ideas about them.

Bill Donohue

When Trump was in office, the average year-over-year inflation rate was 1.9 percent. It has soared under Biden-Harris, making it the number-one issue for voters. Under Trump, illegal immigration was tamed, but under Biden-Harris it has quadrupled, making it the number-two issue for voters. Crime has increased dramatically under Biden (and the figures don’t include the growing number of crimes that are going  unapprehended), making it the number-three issue for voters.

Kamala Harris disagrees. She will be in Texas today, assisted by Beyonce, and all she will talk about is abortion. She’s obsessed with it.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a staunch champion of abortion rights, is advising against this approach. “She has to start talking more to the needs of working-class people.” But she won’t, and that is why blue-collar workers have abandoned the Democrats in favor of Trump.

Every honest person knows that abortion kills the innocent. Are not gender-reveal parties and baby showers tacit proof of this? After all, what are they celebrating? In a backhanded way, Harris recently appeared to acknowledge this verity.

A few weeks ago, in a Town Hall event, she said, “I’ll tell you, there are probably many here and watching who, rightly, have made a decision that they do not believe in abortion. The point that I am making is not about changing their mind about what’s right for them or their family.”

It’s quite a concession to say that those who are pro-life have “rightly” made their decision. No one, including her, would say that those who believe in racial discrimination have “rightly” made that decision. That’s because there is no moral justification for it. But to concede that there is a moral justification to oppose abortion begs the question: What is it that pro-life Americans are objecting to?

However, Harris’ conviction that it is okay for Americans to “rightly” oppose abortion doesn’t matter much to her. In her interview with NBC this week, she was asked if she would make religious exemptions for those who in good conscience cannot ascribe to her pro-abortion policies. She said no.

“I don’t think that we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body.”  But there is a fundamental freedom, enshrined in the First Amendment,  that guarantees religious liberty, and conscience rights are at the heart of it. Nonetheless, that doesn’t seem to matter. She is so thoroughly secular in her views that religious liberty means little. Indeed, those who believe in it are told to find another rally.

Inflation, illegal immigration, crime—none of them matter to those who are fixated on abortion. And no one is more fixated than Kamala Harris. If she loses the election, this will be one of the major reasons why. She is not only acting immorally, she is acting irrationally.

Mike in the News (National Catholic Register): Arriving on moviegoers’ screens this Friday, the new movie Conclave bills itself as a star-studded mystery-thriller centered on the selection of a new pope for the Catholic Church. The film, which opens Oct. 25 in the U.S., is poised to make a splash at the box office and is already generating awards-season buzz.

In the weeks leading up to its release, however, the film has already garnered considerable controversy [https://www.catholicleague.org/new-catholic-film-conclave-to-debut/] and biting criticism — with much of the ire from Catholics centered on the film’s twist ending. READ MORE HERE

Bill Donohue

In the last six months, four Catholic churches in New York City have been vandalized, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral was invaded during Mass for the second time this year. Here are the data.

June 11, 2024—St. Dominic’s Church (Bensonhurst, Brooklyn)

• Incident: A hammer-wielding man attacked the statues of Mother Teresa and St. John XXIII outside of the church, destroying both their faces. He proceeded to damage the glass doors of the church.
• Result: Randy Maldonado Avila was arrested for this incident. Maldonado Avila has “a history of mental health issues.”
• Hate Crime: Not charged as a hate crime

June 30, 2024—Holy Family Church (Flushing, Queens)

• Incident: At around 5:00 A.M., a man stopped his taxi on the other side of the street from the church. He then ran across the street and struck a statue of the baby Jesus multiple times leaving it headless.
• Result: Jamshaid Choudhry was arrested for this incident.
• Hate Crime: Choudhry was charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime and other related crimes.

September 24, 2024—Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church (Jamaica, Queens)

• Incident: A bearded man in a red t-shirt and baseball jumped over the fence and repeatedly struck the statue of the Virgin Mary outside of the rectory. The man proceeded to break the hands of the statue.
• Result: Suspect at large
• Hate Crime: NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.

October 6, 2024—St. Frances Cabrini Shrine (Washington Heights, Manhattan)

• Incident: A man used black spray paint to deface the statue of Christ with profanity and strange markings. He proceeded to spray paint more profanity on the wall of the church and covered the face of the statue of St. Frances Cabrini with more black spray paint.
• Result: Suspect at large
• Hate Crime: NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.

October 22, 2024—St. Therese of Lisieux Church (East Flatbush, Brooklyn)

• Incident: A man wearing an orange headscarf used a brick to smash the hands of the Virgin Mary and break the cross from the hand of St. Therese.
• Result: Suspect at large
• Hate Crime: NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.

On Easter Sunday, a group of protesters invaded St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the Saturday night Easter Mass. Standing front and center, they unfurled a banner with a depiction of an olive tree and the inscription, SILENCE = DEATH. They were screaming, “Free Palestine”; their allies were heard shouting similar chants from the street.

In February, at a funeral service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, men dressed as women and women dressed as men. They turned out to honor Cecilia Gentili. He was a man who falsely claimed to be a woman. He was an illegal alien, a drug addict, a prostitute, trans activist and an atheist. At the service, many of these activists dressed as hookers, danced in the aisles, sang “Ave Cecilia” when “Ave Maria” was sung, and shouted, “St. Cecilia, Mother of All Whores.”

With the exception of the first incident, all of these crimes are the work of hate-filled anti-Catholic bigots. They are sending a message to Catholics. Regrettably, too many Catholics—clergy, religious and lay alike—continue to treat such attacks as if they were merely unfortunate episodes. They are not. Those who resort to violence and desecration know exactly what they are doing.

This is the article that appeared in the October 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

During the presidential debate on ABC in September, former president Donald Trump took issue with vice president Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, on the subject of abortion.

While he engaged in some hyperbole, Trump’s basic points were unassailable. Yet the media “fact checkers” took issue with him—they claimed that what he said was false. They are the ones who got it wrong, not Trump.

The media found fault with Trump for his claim that former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, find “execution after birth” to be acceptable.

As Bill Donohue said in his defense of Trump (see p. 3), what he said was “basically true.” In discussing Northam, Donohue pointed out that “while the baby would not be ‘executed,’ per se, he could be put down, or left to die, after he was ‘kept comfortable.'” That is true.

Intentionally allowing a baby to die—it does not matter if the physician and the mother want that to happen—is to effectively kill the child. As governor of Minnesota, Walz revoked legislation that requires lifesaving care for newborns. In practice, this is a backhanded way of permitting infanticide.

Similarly, the media argued that Trump cannot be right because infanticide is illegal in every state. Infanticide may be proscribed in law, but as just pointed out, Northam and Walz allowed it to happen.

Factcheck and ctinsider noted that abortions in the ninth month are “exceedingly rare.” But Trump never contested how frequent they are—he simply said that Harris and Walz defend late-term abortions. They do and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise.

USA Today tried to rescue Walz by saying Trump was wrong to say the vice presidential candidate “says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine.” It claimed that “There is no evidence that Walz said this, though he signed a bill that removed limits to abortion based on gestational duration.” So who cares if Walz didn’t say he was “absolutely fine” with his decision? He indisputably favors no limits on abortion through term.

Poynter contended that when Northam said it was okay for a physician and the mother to decide not to resuscitate a baby who survived a late-term abortion, “Northam declined to say what that discussion would entail.” So what? It does not change the fact that they may decide not to treat the child, thus passively allowing infanticide to take place.

The media, in general, are so rabid in their defense of abortion rights that they are incapable of accurately reporting on this subject. Either that or they are lying in service to their cause.