In this episode of “Catholic League Report” Catholic League President Bill Donohue, Director of Communications Mike McDonald, and Policy Analyst Sean Leigh discuss New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s decision to not march in this weekend’s Salute to Israel Parade and how this is yet another example of his hostility towards Jews.
To watch, click here.
For 61 straight years, every mayor of New York City has marched in the annual Israel Day Parade. But not this year. Zohran Mamdani, the Muslim Marxist Millionaire, told Jewish New Yorkers to take a hike.
“While I will not be attending the Israel Day Parade,” he said, “my lack of attendance should not be mistaken for a refusal to provide security or the necessary permits for its safety.” How magnanimous of him.
Had he tried to deny a permit, he would have gotten a licking in court. Ditto had he tried to prohibit a police presence.
As for safety concerns, it is ironic that this same man who fought a law providing a buffer zone around houses of worship (he yielded only when the vote was veto proof), and vetoed a similar law for schools, made sure that on Tuesday the streets near his mansion had a huge buffer zone—the police had barricades all over—keeping anti-Mamdani protesters away. I was proud to have spoken at the rally.
Quite frankly, the sight of Mamdani marching in a Jewish parade is on a par with the Imperial Wizard of the KKK marching in an African American parade. The mind boggles.
Mamdani is a particularly lousy fit to march in this year’s Israel Day Parade. Why? Because the theme is “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists.” He’s made it abundantly clear that he is not a proud American, and his hatred of Zionists is undeniable.
He has flatly said that Israel does not have the right to exist as a Jewish state. He has also said that “Israel is not a place. It is not a country.” That remarkable comment explains why people like Rabbi Marc Schneier recently said, “No one wants you at the Celebrate Israel Parade anyway. We don’t want you, your rhetoric, and your diatribe to ruin our proud day.”
I can sympathize with the rabbi.
For years Mamdani refused to march in New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade (he did so reluctantly at the last hour this year), and that is why many Irish Catholics like me didn’t want him to show up. He proved me right when he hosted a breakfast event on March 17 wherein he took the time not to honor St. Patrick, but to condemn what he said was the “genocide” in Palestine. He just can’t get Jew-hatred out of his head.
Let’s face it. There is no way Mamdani could march in a parade that celebrates Zionism without inflaming his radical Muslim fans.
Mamdani has long proven his anti-Zionist chops. Most recently, on his transition team he appointed Mohammad Karim Chowdhury, an extremist who has said that Zionists are worse than Nazis. He is not an anomaly. The ADL estimated that 20 percent of Mamdani’s transition team were tied to groups that are anti-Zionist.
Mamdani need not pout. After all, he will not feel unwelcome for long. The day after the parade marks the beginning of Gay Pride Month.
Happy Israel Day Parade!
In this episode of “Catholic League Report” Catholic League President Bill Donohue, Director of Communications Mike McDonald, and Policy Analyst Sean Leigh discuss comments made by Tex State Rep. and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico that appear to go against Christian teachings and beliefs.
To watch, click here.
Texas state representative James Talarico is running for a U.S. Senate seat in his home state. Bill Donohue wrote him a letter today about his strange brand of Christianity. To read it click here.
Contact him at: [email protected]
In this episode of “Catholic League Report” Catholic League President Bill Donohue, Director of Communications Mike McDonald, and Policy Analyst Sean Leigh discuss Bill’s participation in an interfaith rally protesting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. They talk about the rally’s highlights and how people of different faiths united together to speak out against Mamdani’s anti-religious policies and ideologies.
To watch, click here.
Last night’s Interfaith Rally Against Extremism was held near Gracie Mansion, home of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Organized by EndJewHatred and attorney Brooke Goldstein, upwards of 1,000 protesters jammed 87th Street between York and East End Avenue.
Aside from a few hecklers, the only visible protesters who opposed the rally were a few dozen ultra-Orthodox Jews; they believe the Jewish state should not exist until the Messiah comes.
Most of the speakers were young and middle-age Jews. Also speaking was an African activist, a Muslim woman from American Muslim & Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council, and a Hindu man representing Hindus for Universal Rights; I was the only Catholic who spoke. I am grateful to Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch for inviting me.
All the speakers, including non-Jews, were very well received. Most of them focused their remarks on Mamdani’s anti-Semitic statements and policies. It is clear that he has offended legions of New Yorkers.
Chants of “Zohran Mamdani’s got to go,” and “Zohran, Zohran, you can’t hide, we charge you with hate and lies,” were heard throughout the 90-minute demonstration. Pro-America remarks, and shout-outs to the NYPD, were also commonplace (there was a large police presence). The American flag and the Flag of Israel were everywhere. It was clearly a very patriotic assembly.
I felt it necessary to participate for two reasons.
Jews and Catholics make up the majority of New Yorkers, and over the past few decades I have joined with Jews in protesting attacks on our respective religions, so when asked to speak at this rally, I did not hesitate.
The Catholic League is also highly critical of Mamdani’s radical politics and his animus against people of faith. That is why we have on the front page of our website a section, “Mamdani Watch”; it details our objections to him.
I closed my comments with a plea to religious New Yorkers across faith communities. We need to take a NATO Article 5 approach—an attack on one religion is an attack on all religions. It would behoove Mamdani to heed this message.
In this episode of “Catholic League Report” Catholic League President Bill Donohue, Director of Communications Mike McDonald, and Policy Analyst Sean Leigh discuss the release of Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.” They have a conversation about the Pope’s views on AI as well as what reforms and safeguards need to be made in order for it to achieve the common good.
To watch, click here.
In 1891, Pope Leo XIII gave us the encyclical, Rerum Novarum (“new things”), which affirmed the dignity of work and the need for a fair wage. It was also a qualified endorsement of private property and a denunciation of socialism.
Now, on the 135th anniversary of that encyclical, Pope Leo XIV gives us “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.” He begins by nicely laying out the moral groundwork that must undergird AI, and then he addresses his subject in detail.
Leo draws on Saint John Paul II who welcomed “the rise of democracy and the market economy.” He picks up on that theme, emphasizing the right to private property, noting that “it is always subordinate” to the common good. That end presupposes that we are not just an aggregate of individuals; rather, we are “interconnected” and are jointly responsible for the commonwealth.
To facilitate the pursuit of the common good, the pope says we must abide by the principle of subsidiarity, meaning that, ideally, civic duties should be handled at the level closest to the individual. To achieve this end we must strengthen “the fabric of associations and communities while avoiding further centralization of power.”
Leo insists on coupling human rights with human dignity. Owing to our human dignity, human rights are “universal and inalienable,” and among those rights “the first is the right to life, from conception to its natural end.” He explicitly cites abortion and euthanasia as contrary to human dignity and a violation of human rights.
Thus does he set the stage for a discussion of AI. At bottom, he understands that AI is here to stay, like it or not.
Contrary to some media accounts, he is not opposed to it; rather, he is opposed to its manipulation in the hands of unscrupulous individuals and groups. Similarly, it has been misreported that when he says he would like to “disarm” AI, he does not mean he wants to extinguish it. “To disarm,” he writes, “does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity.”
Technology, he says, can be a force for good or ill. He implores us to guard against the “risk of dehumanization,” i.e., “building a future that excludes God and reduces others to a means.”
The digital revolution, the Holy Father says, has changed the principle of subsidiarity. No longer is the State the highest level—now it is those who command the technological expertise to radically transform society. This means we must protect against the monopolization of data and decision-making authority. We must resist technological actors who seek to impose on us their grand designs.
AI is not human. Leo offers this insightful nugget. “So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences.”
While AI has no moral conscience, the pope hastens to add that “we cannot consider AI to be morally neutral.” That is because “every technical tool embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations.” What worries him is the reality that “small but highly influential groups can shape information and consumption patterns,” and affect political and economic dynamics to suit themselves, not the common good.
One of the greatest dangers AI poses is the specter of transhumanism and posthumanism. It is undeniably true that the perfection of human beings is an obsession with some technocrats. Indeed, some think they can a create hybridization of human beings. “If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed,” Leo warns, “it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy.”
The pope is also adept at noting how unsupervised children are being swallowed up by digital devices and how social media is affecting their psyches. Lower attention spans, sleep deprivation, inability to control emotions—all of this is well documented. Exposure to pornography, hypersexualized material, as well as cyberbullying, are threats to the wellbeing of young people.
He admonishes us not to allow AI to transform us into a new form of slavery. We are being reduced to “data” that allows us to be tracked and treated as “packages” to be moved around with abandon. It is not enough to “invoke efficiency,” especially if it results in a “chain of exploitation.”
Pope Leo ends with a plea not to allow AI to be entrusted with war-like powers. “No algorithm can make war morally acceptable.” Following Pope Francis, he says the “just war” theory is “outdated.” He did not proffer an alternative thesis.
Science tells us what we can do. It does not tell us what we should do. This powerful encyclical should reach an audience well beyond the Catholic community. Pope Leo XIV has given us much to weigh.
On Tuesday, May 26, Bill Donohue will participate in an interfaith rally to protest Mayor Zohran Mamdani. It will be held outside Gracie Mansion (E 88th Street and East End Avenue, New York, NY 10028) from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM.
The rally will bring together people of different faiths, including Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim leaders, to call out Mamdani for his callous indifference and tacit support for the radical mobs and Islamists who have flooded the streets to attack houses of worship.
This rally is being organized by End Jew Hatred and led by Brooke Goldstein of The Lawfare Project. Other organizations participating in the event include the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County, #WalkAway, Hindus for Universal Human Rights, and American Muslim & Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council.
If you have any availability and wish to send a strong message that these assaults on our religious liberty are unacceptable, we hope to see you there!
Media stories on the end of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” lament the decision by CBS to terminate the show, and some are heralding him as the great Catholic evangelizer. This cries out for a rebuttal.
Father James Martin, known for his ministry to gays and transpersons, declares that Colbert is “one of today’s best Catholic evangelists.” The first three reasons he gives for making this assessment are (1) “he is normal, or at least as normal as a famous late-night talk show host can be” (2) “people understand that he is not paid to promote the church,” and (3) “he does it all with a sense of humor.” Nice qualities but if that makes him “one of today’s best Catholic evangelists,” the bar is set pretty low.
Mark Kennedy writes for Crux and notes that Colbert is different from his competitors because he wears “his Catholic faith and his adoration of his wife and frequent guest, Evie McGee Colbert, on his sleeve.” He is also someone who allegedly “could quote Psalms by heart.” Let’s assume this is true. How does this justify Kennedy’s observation, “Many Catholics Mourning the Loss of Late-Night Host Stephen Colbert’s Show”?
Mary McNamara has a piece in the Los Angeles Times titled, “We Will Miss the Divine and Very Human Ministry of Stephen Colbert.” She explains her reasoning by noting that he is “the single greatest argument for married Catholic clergy.” Others may see it as “the single greatest argument” to maintain celibacy.
I like Colbert. He invited me twice to appear on his Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report.” But he is not St. Colbert. His commentary includes defending a Doritos commercial that substituted the snack for the Eucharist. One of his shows featured a close-up photo of a priest distributing condoms instead of the consecrated Host. Regarding the play, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” he said, “It is the least gay musical because it’s got Jesus in it. Just this one guy with great abs hanging out with 12 of his buddies for three years in the countryside. Absolutely. Nothing gay about that at all.”
Colbert’s joke about President Trump performing oral sex on Vladimir Putin—using an obscenity—did not come off as an evangelizing moment. Ditto for his comment heralding a bald British bisexual black actress for playing Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
Kennedy and McNamara, like so many in the media, are angry at CBS for firing Colbert. They smell politics. They should instead look at the bottom line.
Colbert’s CBS show had a budget of over $100 million annually, and he was earning $15 million a year. The show lost almost half its advertising revenue since 2018, and was losing $40 million a year.
CBS cannot make miracles. Indeed, not even the “greatest Catholic evangelizer in the world” can be expected to survive with numbers like that. It’s time the media stopped portraying him as a poor Catholic soul who was victimized by corporate greed.
