With Halloween just passing, many boys and girls dressed up, playing make believe. If some dressed as a priest or nun, they were looked upon with great amusement. But when grown women dress up like priests, and they really believe they have become one, it is cause for calling 911. They need help.

Those at the New York Times apparently never heard of 911. The paper recently ran a silly article about a woman suffering from priest envy suggesting that she is not the only one in need of help. The reader was introduced to an Italian woman who as a child pretended she was a priest, dispensing cookies and chips for communion. Sadly, the story recounts how she never grew up: she still thinks she is a priest. It did not say whether she still favors cookies and chips for communion, though it is possible she now favors meatballs.

After sounding positively delusional, the Times tried to get serious. It said that the Catholic Church recently equated the ordination of women to pedophilia, ascribing the same penalty. In actual fact, what the Church decreed was that sexual abuse and the profanation of any sacrament will not be tolerated. Does not the New York Times have the same penalty for those who sexually harass a colleague and those who intentionally misrepresent their credentials? In all four cases, the offenses are different but the penalty is the same.

What is going on, of course, is a game. The game is to manipulate public opinion against the Church. It’s a game because the Times never takes aim at Orthodox Jews or Muslims for not having women clergy. Just Catholics.

Recently, the website of Time magazine has featured articles on the absence of women clergy in the Catholic Church.

It is one thing for Time to be intoxicated with the fiction of women priests, quite another for it to enlist on an agenda. Many religions reserve the clergy for men, though Time has no interest in berating them on this subject. Instead, they focus solely on Roman Catholicism.

At the end of September, Dawn Reiss wrote on the website of Time about an old woman, Alta Jacko, who thinks she is a priest. Reiss even referred to her as “an ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church.” Bill Donohue responded by saying, “She knows full well that the 81-year-old lady is no more a priest than I am Cardinal Donohue.”

A week later, Tim Padgett wrote about yet another elderly woman who thinks she is a priest, saying that there are now “more than 100 other women who claim to be Catholic priests in the U.S. and abroad.” He did not say whether the senior citizens had seen Elvis lately.

They can dress up and play make-believe all they want, but at the end of the day, the octogenarians are neither priests nor Catholics: they’ve been excommunicated for their stunts. But not all is lost as they are now available to join the mainline Protestant denominations. They would make splendid ministers, though apparently no one has called.

On a recent episode of the Fox show “Glee,” the producers decided to address religion. A gay atheist was treated with sympathy for his victim status, the victimizer being Christianity, especially Catholicism. Judaism was treated with kid gloves and Islam got a pass. In other words, it was the usual Hollywood stuff.

The show revolved around a football player who sees an image of Jesus in his grilled cheese sandwich, labeling it “Grilled Cheesus.” Throughout the show the audience was treated to such lines as “I think God is kind of like Santa Claus for adults. Otherwise, God’s kind of a jerk, isn’t he?”; “Asking someone to believe in a fantasy [religion]…however comforting, isn’t a moral thing to do. It’s cruel.” References to Catholicism included mocking quips about “Sweet Holy Mother of God Academy.”

The pivotal remark, which set the tone, was made by the gay atheist: “The reason I don’t go to church is because most churches don’t think very much of gay people. Or women. Or science.”

The very next week, “Glee” followed up by bashing Christian sensibilities again. This time it featured the character Finn as a Catholic priest, and Rachel as a nun in provocative attire. They were shown singing “With You I’m Born Again.”

According to a review on tvsquad.com, this was another “emotional episode about religion,” one in which Finn and Rachel were in a duet competition “wearing a super inappropriate costume set.”

Actually, neither episode was about religion, in general: both were about Catholicism, and both were meant to mock. Why not admit it?

Why do the writers and producers of “Glee” loathe diversity? Why weren’t they more “inclusive” (as they love to say) and choose Muslim characters? Just think of all the fun they could have with an imam and a Muslim woman performing a silly duet “wearing a super inappropriate costume set”!

These episodes were a reflection of what Hollywood scriptwriters and producers believe. Back in 1986, S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman and Linda Lichter wrote a landmark book, The Media Elite. The three social scientists, not affiliated with conservative causes, found that the media elite had nothing in common with most Americans on the subject of religion: while 94 percent of Americans identified themselves as religious, only 50 percent of the media elite did. Even more striking, while 86 percent of the public said religion was important to them, 86 percent of the media elite said they seldom or never attend church. Studies since have shown that nothing much has changed.

Homosexuality and atheism are all the rage these days with the cultural elite. And as “Glee” demonstrated, so is ripping on Christians.

On the September 23 season premiere of the NBC program “30 Rock,” there was an exchange between characters played by Matt Damon and Tina Fey; the two are romantically involved and are trying to get to know each other better:

Matt Damon: Alright, let’s each say one thing about ourselves that the other person doesn’t know on the count of three.

Tina Fey: Alright.

Damon: Ready? One, two, three.

(They speak at the same time)

Fey: I’m on a waiting list to adopt a kid.

Damon: I was touched by a priest—it’s fine.

The assault by Hollywood celebrities on homosexuals should be renounced by everyone. We all know that the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church—which largely ended a quarter century ago—was mostly the work of homosexuals. But that was yesterday. For Matt Damon to trot out homosexual priests one more time, slandering all of them in one swoop is despicable. He owes all Catholics, especially homosexual priests, an apology.

We asked our members to contact John Eck, president of NBC Network TV: john.eck@nbcuni.com

Recently, on the “Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” atheist author Sam Harris said, “The Catholic Church is more concerned about preventing contraception than protecting child rape. It’s more concerned about preventing gay marriage than genocide.”

In his previous book, Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris criticized the Bible for not containing a chapter on mathematics, and for not discussing electricity, DNA or a cure for cancer. Such remarks shine a bright light on his intellectual acumen, but his bigoted rant smacked of the kind of bile we used to expect from the Klan.

We could not help but notice that Stewart, who is ever so sensitive about anti-Semitism, allowed Harris to spew his hate-filled comments without a challenge. Unlike Rick Sanchez, Stewart gets away with this on a regular basis.

This wasn’t light humor, poking fun at Catholicism. This was bigotry, pure and simple.

Kudos to movie critic Roger Ebert, as well as to John Nolte at Breitbart.com, for lampooning Salon.com film reviewer Andrew O’Hehir’s feverish take on “Secretariat,” a movie about the famed horse that recently opened.

It wasn’t just the movie’s Christian overtones that upset O’Hehir, it’s the alleged racism—even Nazi-driven—aspects of this “honey-dipped fantasy vision of the American past” that gets his goat. Indeed, he said, “it’s legitimate to wonder exactly what Christian-friendly and ‘middle-American’ inspirational values are being conveyed here.” All this paranoia about a horse.

While O’Hehir’s review is the most apoplectic, there are others who at least share his uneasiness with all matters Christian. The Sarasota Heraldwas not happy with the movie’s “barely concealed religiosity” and “all the talk about ‘lifting up.’” The New York Times noted its “Bible-thumping” elements, while nj.com said, “the film is bookended by quotes from the book of Job, interrupted by mystical shots of clouds and sunbeams, and even has a scene where the horse gets a rubdown scored to a gospel song.” Newsday went so far as to claim that the director “insists on turning the horse into Christ himself,” and New York 1 opined “it’s a bit much” to endure “passages from the Bible and playing gospel music.” Similarly, Hollywood.com complained the film “reeks” of “grandiosity,” even to the extent of “using Old Testament quotations and gospel music.”

By contrast, CNN.com and the Los Angeles Times both noted the Christian aspects of the movie, but were wholly free of the condescending and scornful commentary that marked these other reviews.

No doubt about it, Christianity clearly spooks many of our elites.

On the October 14 episode of ABC’s, “The View,” Bill O’Reilly said that 70 percent of Americans are opposed to the Ground Zero Mosque. This quickly upset Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, so when O’Reilly was pressed to explain, he said, “Because Muslims killed us on 9/11.” Goldberg answered, “Extremists did that! What religion was McVeigh? There was an extremist as well and he killed people….” Behar then said, “I don’t want to sit here. I don’t. I’m outraged by that statement.” Behar and Goldberg then proceeded to walk off the set.

After the two exited, Barbara Walters, the co-producer of the show, admonished them for doing so. She also berated O’Reilly, saying, “You cannot take a whole religion and demean them because of what some….” O’Reilly quickly agreed that 9/11 was caused by Muslim extremists, and Behar and Goldberg returned to the set.

Bill Donohue responded saying, “For years, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg have been painting priests with a wide brush, labeling all of them as molesters (Behar has been pathologically relentless). But they were ‘outraged’ when an unqualified remark was made about Muslims.”

“The View” is so bigoted that the Catholic League took out an ad in theNew York Times in 2007 citing 15 of the most sweeping anti-Catholic comments made in the previous nine months. Never once did Walters lecture her co-hosts that it was wrong to “demean” Catholicism because of a handful of miscreant priests. While they changed their tune for a while, they have since gone back to the sewer, with more than a little help from Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Just recently, Walters said she was happy that Rick Sanchez was fired for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark. Now she is upset with O’Reilly for his allegedly anti-Muslim remark. Catholics are still waiting for her to discover anti-Catholicism. We’re also waiting for Walters to instruct Goldberg that McVeigh, though baptized a Catholic, became an agnostic.

In the July-August issue of Catalyst, we informed our members that we had filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Pacific Justice Institute appealing a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that denied standing to the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) in an important free speech and association case.

It was our hope that the U.S. Supreme Court would hear the case and overturn the decision that the University of California has the right to reject high school courses in its admission process that have a religious viewpoint. For example, a course taken at a Catholic high school was rejected because a course on Christian history was expected to include more than one Christian viewpoint.

Unfortunately, on October 12, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the case, which means the ruling made by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals—which did not honor Christian rights—stands.

Since Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would visit the United Kingdom in September, his critics have gone ballistic. The following is a sample of some of the commentary leading up to his visit. All comments appear in their original form:

The Independent, 4/2/2010: “The Pope, to put it baldly, is now too embattled and too damaged by the worldwide revelations of abuse and cover-up to be able to come to this country without controversy, protests and distaste.”

The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, New Scotsman, 6/10/2010: “A statement said they find it ‘offensive that this visit results from an invitation to the Pope as Head of State, giving him that recognition and pretended legitimacy which he claims in opposition to the principles of the Reformation.’”

“Describing the Papacy as ‘deceitful and unrighteous,’ the Free Presbyterians highlighted recent global exposure of child abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, and suggest the Pope has connived in a cover-up.”

Cristina Odone, Sunday Telegraph, 9/5/2010: “These are different times. Catholics have watched in horror as, almost daily and almost in every country, broken men and women have come forth to tell of their ordeal at the hands of abusive priests.” (Our italic.)

Sinead O’Connor, The Guardian, 9/5/2010: “‘Catholic’ has become a word associated with negativity, with abuse, with violence, but the essence of Catholicism is beautiful. The fact is, tragically, it’s been brought into disrepute by the people running it.”

“Benedict is in no position to call himself Christ’s representative. The pope should stand down, the Vatican should stand down, not only because of the cover-up, they’re incredibly arrogant, they’re anti-Christian. They don’t have the remotest relationship with God.”

Peter Tatchell, Telegraph, 9/8/2010: “Benedict XVI put the interests and image of the church before the welfare of children and young people. He is unfit to remain as Pope. He should resign.”

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, The Irish Post, 9/8/2010: “This anti-Catholicism of which Adamus complains is shared by most British Catholics, sickened by their church hierarchy’s dogma driven policies on contraception, homosexuality and even abortion. That is why Mass attendance here has halved in just 20 years and why only a quarter of Catholics agree with the official line on abortion—and fewer still on homosexuality and contraception.”

Bernard Wynne, a spokesman for Catholic Voices for Reform,Telegraph, 9/8/2010: “The church, I think, is deeply misogynist and we have to change that.”

Julie Burchill, Independent, 9/8/2010: “How broad-minded this country is, when we consider that the British taxpayer will shortly be shelling out millions of pounds to protect a former member of the Hilter Youth who believes Anglicans will burn in Hell when the Pope visits this country next week—Just after we commemorate the beginning of the Nazi Blitz on this country! Tolerant or WHAT!”

“The behaviour of the Church during the Second World War, and to the Jews generally, was vile—and REALLY makes me wonder if it wouldn’t have been possible to pick a Pope who HADN’T been in the Hitler Youth? Closer to home, let alone legions of child-raping holy men, only last week a leading light in the Catholic Church defended its role in moving a priest believed to be involved in three bombings which killed nine people, including Catholics, in the village of Claudy, Co Londonderry, in 1972. The youngest was an eight-year-old girl: ‘suffer little children,’ indeed.”

Peter Tatchell, CNN.com, 9/16/2010: “We do not believe that the pope should be honored with a state visit, given his role in the cover up of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy. Even today, he is refusing to hand the Vatican’s secret sex abuse files to the police in countries worldwide. He is protecting the abusers. This makes him complicit with sex crimes against children. Such a person does not deserve the honor of a state visit.”

“Pius XII was no saint. The fact that Pope Benedict wants to makes him a saint shows how far he has strayed from the moral and ethical values of most Catholics and most of humanity.”

Reverend Ian Paisley, 9/16/2010: “We are here for a very solemn and serious reason today, the whole day is nonsense…. I have just seen the statement made today which says that if you pay £25 to be at the Mass in Scotland your sins will be forgiven. No man can forgive sins but Christ himself, it is misleading nonsense.”

Andrew Copson, British Humanist Association Chief Executive website: “The Protest the Pope campaign is calling on the British government to disassociate itself from the Pope’s intolerant teachings on issues such as women’s rights, gay equality and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV. On these and many other issues, Benedict is out of step with the majority of British people, including most Catholics.”

“The Pope’s attitude to lesbian and gay people is just one of the many stances that the Vatican State holds which are damaging to human dignity and human rights.”

Pepper Harow, Protest the Pope: “We really think that we got the message across that the Pope is not welcome on a State visit. His outspoken state policies on homosexuality, condoms, education and abortion, as well as the child abuse scandal, continue to affect the rights of millions of individuals across the world and mean that he should not be given the honour of a State visit.”

Atheism UK website: “This is yet another example of hypocrisy of the church. What we have here is an institution that claims moral superiority and preaches respect for life. That it is able to abandon its own teachings when it suits them is deplorable and dishonest. It seems the church does not care what crimes it commits, just so long as they do not get caught. It’s clear that the Catholic Church places the survival of the Institution above the welfare of ordinary men, women and children.”

“We do not wish to see a man who calls himself ‘God’s Vicar on Earth’ and is thereby purely deluded, coming to this country and spreading his poisonous and demonstrable false doctrine to the people of this country, not to mention that he is implicated in the cover up of child rape and that he is making British taxpayers pay for the privilege in these financially troubled times.”

Richard Dawkins, New Humanist Magazine: “Go home to your tinpot Mussolini-concocted principality, and don’t come back.”

Humanist Society of Scotland: “There are particular grounds in Northern Ireland for opposition to the visit. First of all, there is strong evidence that Pope Benedict was complicit in the cover-up of the abuse of children throughout the island by continuing to insist that accusations of paedophilia within the priesthood should be treated by the Church’s own exclusive jurisdiction. Secondly, the Pope’s insistence that the Catholic Church maintains its own schools is prolonging segregated education, which is detrimental to the future of peace.”

Geoffrey Robertson, Human Rights Lawyer: “For 30 years, as Cardinal Ratzinger, from 1981 on, he was in charge of what to do about paedophile priests and he declined on the whole to even defrock them. It’s been many centuries since a Pope has resigned but it would be a very dignified and honourable action….  We’ve got to see that tens of thousands of children who have been raped by priests…as a human rights atrocity. It’s gone on throughout the world. Wherever the church is, there have been abusers.”

National Secular Society Website: “You can show your disapproval of Ratzinger by protesting against the legal bans that the Vatican has fought for on abortion and stem cell research. And also for his obdurate, and breathtakingly irresponsible, opposition to contraception. It fuels a population growth that is unsustainable. Women in poverty-stricken circumstances in countries with dwindling resources are doomed to have large families that they cannot support and who frequently starve. And his using all means, even dishonest ones, to prevent condom use causing untold numbers to die unnecessarily of AIDS because the only known barrier against the disease, condoms, is denied to them.”

“Gay people from around the country will also be coming to put two fingers up to Benedict’s constant defamation and insults. He calls gay relationships—however loving and committed they may be—‘intrinsically disordered’ and ‘morally evil’. He even says that sympathising with gay people who are being persecuted is a sin. Make no mistake, the Vatican has declared war on gay people and this is the time to start the fightback.”

“Ratzinger is, without doubt, guilty of enabling this culture of secrecy and betrayal to continue throughout the thirty years he has been at the top of the Vatican hierarchy both as a Cardinal and as Pope. He has done little to correct it because he still considers that the reputation of the church is more important than the future lives of children who are mercilessly abused, indeed raped, by his priests.”

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society: “I cannot believe that we are lauding the head of an organisation that not only insults and denigrates homosexuals, tries to restrict the rights of women by banning contraception and abortion, but deliberately lies about the effectiveness of condoms in the fight against AIDS. This invitation is a rebuke to all those Britons who are incensed by the horrific revelations that are emerging daily about the Vatican’s activities. The Government should be sharply criticising rather than welcoming this man.”

“We are not going to try to arrest the pope, but we do want him to know that his teachings are profoundly inhumane and damaging to so many people.”

“Protest the Pope started as a protest about the cost of this visit, but others have joined that have different issues with Ratzinger – women who want to take their rightful place in the churches life, priests who want to see an end to the celibacy rules, gay people who are— when they are indentified—driven from the seminaries and the priesthood.”

Leading up to September 11, the media was buzzing about a Florida pastor that was planning on burning a copy of the Koran on the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. When we heard what his plans were, we fully condemned them.

Minister Terry Jones wanted to show his anger at radical Muslims by burning a copy of the Koran but he was wrong morally, and he was literally endangering innocent lives.

The Koran is embraced by Muslims who are law-abiding men and women, as well as by terrorists. Jones knew this to be true, but somehow in his twisted understanding of Christianity, he thought he had the right to insult and smear all Muslims.

Furthermore, he was endangering innocent lives—including Americans—as Gen. David Petraeus warned. Jones’ threat alone led Muslims to take to the streets in Afghanistan and Indonesia.

While it would be wrong to sustain the “heckler’s veto” by giving in to those who seek to veto free speech by heckling, in this instance the “heckler’s veto” was moot: no one was in jeopardy of losing his free speech rights. What was being requested was a plea not to inflame passions needlessly by assaulting the sensibilities of Muslims worldwide.

In 1998, Bill Donohue criticized gay radicals who burned a copy of the Bible at Syracuse University to protest an appearance by Pat Buchanan. In Jones, we had an extremist on the right seeking to stoke the flames of bigotry against Muslims. It, too, had to be criticized.

Minister Jones was acting in a disgraceful manner by engaging inagitprop and needed to be unequivocally condemned.

Thankfully, in the end he seemed to come to his senses and decided to call of the Koran burning. Hopefully he realized that there are plenty of legitimate ways to protest the wrongdoing that took place on September 11, 2001. But burning the Koran is certainly not one of them.