Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez is under attack by left-wing Catholics and outside activists for his stellar speech given in Spain on November 4th. They are particularly angered over his comments on contemporary social justice movements, which he properly labeled as “pseudo-religions.”

The petition portrays Gomez as being somehow indifferent to racial injustice. That is a lie. He has been an outspoken champion of racial equality; it’s just that he doesn’t toe the line as set by those who have a larger agenda.

What is really getting to these activists is Gomez’s appreciation for how Marxist-inspired movements wreak havoc, without doing anything positive for the dispossessed.

Anyone is free to disagree with Gomez’s address, but there is something unseemly about left-wing organizations launching a petition drive against him. Gomez, who is president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, should be commended, not condemned, for his courage to speak the truth.

Those who started the petition, Faith in Public Life and Faithful America, have both received funding from George Soros, the atheist billionaire who hates the Catholic Church. The former is a front group for agenda-ridden zealots; the latter is run by a rogue Episcopalian priest who mettles in the Church’s affairs.

We rallied our email subscribers to support Archbishop Gomez.

Many Catholics were dismayed, if not furious, when they learned of news reports indicating that Pope Francis told President Biden on October 29 that he was “a good Catholic” and “should keep receiving Communion.” The Vatican has neither confirmed nor denied this account. As we said when the news broke, we have good reasons to be skeptical of Biden’s rendition.

After taking another look at this issue, examining the exact words used by Biden—not relying on media interpretations of what he said—our skepticism is growing. The president was asked about this matter at two press conferences: one on October 29, and the other on October 31.

On October 29, Biden was asked, “Mr. President, did the issue of abortion come up at all?” The first words out of his mouth were, “No, it didn’t.” Then he contradicted himself saying, “It came up.” So which account is true?

After Biden said, “It came up,” he then said what the media widely reported. “We just talked about the fact that he was happy I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion.”

If the first version is right—abortion never came up for discussion—then it seems peculiar, to say the least, for the pope to tell him he should “keep receiving Communion.” What would be the context for such a statement, if not abortion? After all, the entire controversy is about Biden’s pro-abortion record, so it is hard to imagine the pope imploring him to “keep receiving Communion” absent any discussion of abortion. Are we to believe he said this out of the blue?

If abortion did come up, what did the pope say to him about it? Just recently Pope Francis said that “abortion is murder. Those who carry out abortions kill.” Such an unequivocal remark suggests it is unlikely that the pope would discuss abortion without talking about it in such graphic terms. That would surely have made Biden uneasy, yet he did not appear to be that way when he spoke.

At the same press conference, Biden was asked, “Did you discuss the U.S. Conference of Bishops?” He answered, “That’s a private conversation.” This begs the question: Why would a discussion of the bishops’ conference be considered a private matter but not a conversation that affects him personally, namely his suitability to receive Communion?

It is entirely possible that Biden is lying.

After admitting that abortion never came up, he quickly pivoted. Why? Because he saw an opening, an opportunity to report to the press the most important thing he wanted from the pope—a chance to undercut those U.S. bishops who are deeply troubled about his pro-abortion record (they met from November 15-18 to discuss this subject). Having been denied the photo-op the White House desperately wanted, he needed to come away with something that served his interest. The Communion issue had to be in the forefront of his mind.

At the October 31st press conference, Biden was asked, “For these Catholics back home, what did it mean for you to hear Pope Francis, in the wake of this—in the middle of this debate, call you a good Catholic? And what did he tell you—should that put this debate to rest?”

“Look, I’m—I’m not going to—a lot of this is just personal,” Biden said.

But it wasn’t personal just two days earlier. In fact, he showed no hesitancy in getting the word out that the pope regarded him as such a good Catholic that he allegedly encouraged him to “keep receiving Communion.” What changed? Could it be that the Vatican contacted the Biden team and asked them to quash this issue, knowing that Biden’s account was not accurate?

Our incurious media are not asking these questions. That’s because they want to protect the pope and the president, both of whom they like.

There are too many unanswered questions to put this matter to rest. The unwillingness of the Vatican to either confirm or deny Biden’s account, and Biden’s inconsistent and implausible responses—only adds to the problem. Both sides do not look good.

In Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special “The Closer” he says “Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on earth. That is a fact.” Chappelle is twice wrong, but that should not distract us from what he meant.

[What he is describing is not gender, which refers to socially learned roles appropriate for males and females, but sex. Ergo, it would be more accurate to say, “sex is a fact.” Also, some babies are born of a Cesarean section.]

Leaving aside linguistic technicalities, what Chappelle said is not only inoffensive, it is pedestrian. But in today’s world, where certain protected classes of people demand that the rest of us walk on eggshells—making sure we don’t offend their hyperinflated sensibilities—what he said has been roundly condemned as hate speech by LGBTQ purists and their ilk.

In other words, Chappelle is right to stick to his guns and not bow to their twisted understanding of sex. Sex is determined by nature, and nature’s God, and not by some ideological guru who insists that nature does not exist. News flash: The entire world is not a social construction.
GLAAD, the homosexual organization, is very upset with Chappelle. It declared that his “brand has become synonymous with ridiculing trans people and other marginalized communities.” The Human Rights Campaign, another homosexual outfit, told Chappelle that “Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are non-binary.”

Netflix transgender staff members were so angered by what Chappelle said that they staged a walk out. They also drew up a list of demands they want the top brass to honor. Essentially, they want an end to any jokes that might offend them, which means they don’t ever want to be the butt of jokes again, not by Chappelle, not by anyone.

Netflix executive producer Jaclyn Moore quit her job after Chappelle’s special, “The Closer,” aired. “I won’t work for @netflix again as long as they keep promoting and profiting from dangerous transphobic content.” Meanwhile, the comedian Jaye McBride accused Chappelle of “punching down” with “mean” remarks. Additionally, Alyssa Milano said, “it is really important to hold people accountable.” and by that she meant that Netflix should discontinue Chappelle’s “hate speech” special.

None of these organizations and individuals should be taken seriously.

They’re all phonies. Their interest in objecting to bigotry never seems to include Catholics.

GLAAD has been bashing the Catholic Church for years. When Pope Francis came to the U.S. in 2015, it issued a “papal guidebook” advising the media on how to treat him and what words they should adopt, all of which were contentious. Whenever a parish or diocese seeks to operationalize Catholic teachings that it disapproves of, it slams the Church as bigoted. It has sought to cancel Bill Donohue on TV, and has given awards to patently anti-Catholic plays.

Human Rights Campaign has a “Catholic initiative” that, among other things, monitors Catholic schools that do not accept its idea of marriage. For example, when a Catholic teacher “marries” someone of the same sex, in clear violation of a contract he or she voluntarily signed, and is then terminated for doing so, it registers its outrage.

Moore likes to tweet about “pedo priests,” thus smearing all priests because of the behavior of a few miscreants. McBride has made many similar comments. Milano has overtly denounced her Catholic upbringing, explaining that her two abortions were “something that I needed.”

Netflix is also duplicitous. Its co-chief executive, Ted Sarandos, says the company is standing by its big investment in Chappelle—he is their long-time prize comedian—arguing that “The Closer” did not cross the line by inciting “hate or violence.” He is right about that, but there is more to this account.

In 2017, Netflix aired “F is for Family.” Episode One featured a husband who had just reconciled with his wife, thanks to Father Pat. He is shown pulling a crucifix out of his pocket, asking the Lord for strength while chanting, “vagina, vagina, vagina.” Episode Six showed their son masturbating while staring at a candle with an image of Our Blessed Mother. Further, Episode Nine depicted the priest—who of course is a homosexual—fondling Jesus’ body on a crucifix, saying, “Oh, you’ve got a swimmer’s body.”

Now Sarandos may not consider these scenes to be hate speech, however, many practicing Catholics would beg to differ.

Just last year Netflix aired “Cuties,” a soft-core child porn film. Critics hammered it for normalizing pedophilia. For instance, it showed a pre-teen girl taking pictures of her private parts before publishing them online.

This is not hate speech, but it is certainly irresponsible and exploitative, inviting sick men to practice their trade.

So what’s the answer? We need to lighten up, while also treating every segment of the population the same. Most of us know the difference between cracking a joke that stings and one that is patently offensive. No, not everything goes, but whatever the standard is must be uniformly applied.

Kudos to Chappelle for standing up to the sexually confused, especially the bullies among them.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who identifies as a Catholic, has yet to find an abortion he couldn’t justify. That is why his bishop, Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, recently said he will be denied Holy Communion in his diocese. Durbin was incensed.

He complained that “Other Catholics may share my point of view [on abortion]—statistics suggest they probably do—but they show up to Communion every week without any questions asked.” He added that “with very few exceptions, Communion is offered to anybody if the person believes that they [sic] are worthy of it.”

Durbin is right about the latter comment. Very few Catholics are denied Communion, but what he failed to say is that he is one of them. In 2004 he was denied Communion by Monsignor (now a bishop) Kevin Vann of Blessed Sacrament Church in Springfield.

So yes, Durbin is unique. Where he is wrong is in his assertion that he is just like those Catholics who voted for him and go to Communion without this being an issue.

Here is what the U.S. bishops have said about this matter. “A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who favors a policy promoting an intrinsically evil act, such as abortion…if the voter’s intent is to support that position.”

In other words, Catholics who vote for a pro-abortion politician because they like his pro-union record, or his position on other issues, are not “guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil.”

Durbin is wrong to conflate his status as a senator—someone who votes on pro-abortion bills—with those Catholics who vote for him for reasons other than his support for abortion rights. In fact, the Catholic Church is very specific about the difference.

On November 24, 2002, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political Life.” Part II, Sec. 4, reads, “John Paul II…has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life (italics in the original).”

Congress is a lawmaking body and Durbin is a member of it. He is not analogous to a blue-collar guy who votes for him despite his lust for abortion. Therefore, he merits disparate treatment.

The validity of a survey often turns on the precise wording of questions. Indeed, it is possible to construct two different sets of questions for the same respondents on the same subject and generate two different outcomes.

For instance, if the goal is to show how tolerant liberals are of diversity in education, it makes sense to ask questions about the demographic makeup of the faculty. If the goal is to show how intolerant liberals are of diversity in education, it makes sense to ask questions about the ideological makeup of the faculty.

If the survey was honest, it would include both sets of questions, then asking, which should matter more in higher education—the demographic or ideological diversity of the faculty?

The Pew survey, “In U.S., Far More Support Than Oppose Separation of Church and State,” is skewed to make liberals look more tolerant than conservatives.

For example, respondents were asked to choose between the following: “Cities and towns in the U.S. should be allowed to place religious symbols on public property OR Cities and towns in the U.S. should keep religious symbols off public property.”

The questions are disingenuous. It is illegal for cities or towns to place religious symbols on some public property venues, but not others, and it matters whether the municipality owns the symbols or whether some religious entity does. It may also matter whether the religious symbols have to be surrounded by secular symbols.

For instance, if the site of the religious symbol is near the seat of government, such as inside or outside city hall, they can only be erected if adorned by secular symbols. Why? Because otherwise the average person could conclude that the government is endorsing religion. If, however, the site is a public forum—a place such as a city park where freedom of speech is open to everyone—then no secular symbols need to be placed near the religious ones.

In other words, by asking whether a government agency can place religious symbols on public property, the question is skewed against doing so (even so, 39% said yes and 35% said no). It would have been more enlightening to ask whether private citizens should be allowed to place religious symbols on public property, especially in venues that are open to everyone.

Similarly, respondents were asked if teachers in public schools should be allowed to lead students in Christian prayers. This is a seriously skewed question.

By law, teachers cannot lead students in prayer, but it is legal for students to lead other students in prayer on school grounds. That, of course, was not what was asked. Also, there was no need to inject Christianity into the debate. Respondents could have been asked if they think teachers should allow students to open the day with a prayer (of their choosing). But that would get in the way of the narrative.

As always, Democrats, Jews and those with no religious affiliation are the least likely to support the public expression of religion (atheists are the most hostile); Republicans and Christians are the most likely to support it. The survey authors, of course, do not use terms such as “the public expression of religion”; they prefer phrases such as “separation of church and state.”

The term “separation of church and state” is itself in need of explaining. Religious bodies are given federal funds to run their charities. Is that a violation of church and state lines, and should that be illegal?

Pew says it is grateful to Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry, the authors of Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, for their input. It certainly shows.
Bill Donohue wrote about their book in the October issue of Catalyst. He has something in common with these men: He’s also a sociologist. However, Donohue sees the world through an entirely different lens.

To cite one example, they argue that if someone believes the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are divinely inspired documents, that proves they are Christian nationalists. Tagging such people with this pernicious term is simply irresponsible. Indeed, it evinces an animus.

Pew has done very fine work, overall. This survey is not among its best.

The IRS has guidelines that tax-exempt organizations must follow regarding electoral politics. While those who work in the non-profit sector may address the issues, they are forbidden from endorsing candidates for public office.

No matter, Vice President Kamala Harris showed her contempt for these norms during the run-up to the November elections. She had videotaped a series of addresses endorsing Virginia gubernatorial Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, using 300 black churches as her platform. Thus did she technically put these churches in jeopardy of losing their tax-exempt status.

The vice president did not mince words. “I believe that my friend Terry McAuliffe is the leader Virginia needs at this moment.” After telling the congregations how to join his campaign, she said, “So please vote, Virginia. And elect Terry McAuliffe as your next governor.” It doesn’t get much more brazen than that.

Law professor Jonathan Turley also did not mince words. “If the White House participated in this plan to have direct politicking, they would have assisted in that violation. Now that puts them in a rather awkward position since their administration has to enforce this very rule.”

If Vice President Mike Pence had released videos to evangelical churches in the South last year urging voters to reelect Donald Trump, the Democrats would have gone crazy, no doubt launching another investigation, and the media would have been cheering them on from the get-go.

Though no one will say it, what Harris did was racist. Her choice of running the ads in black churches was exploitative—she knew she could get away with it—yet she cared not a whit if this triggered an IRS probe. She wasn’t going to get into trouble, and that is all that mattered to her.

In a study recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, six researchers from four universities concluded that there is no evidence to support the idea that LGBT progress comes at the expense of increasing bias against Christians. If this were true, it would undercut one of the more salient bases for opposing LGBT rights.

As will be seen, there are good reasons to question this conclusion. Moreover, a palpable bias on the part of the professors is evident.

If, as the study contends, that anti-Christian bias does not proceed from gains won by the LGBT community, then why do Christians believe there is an animus against them? “Christians’ beliefs about conflict with sexual minorities are shaped by understandings of Christian values, social change, interpretation of the Bible, and in response to religious institution.”

In other words, the notion that bias against Christians tends to increase as LGBT rights progress is not real—it’s in their heads. The study finds that the source of their faulty perception is due to their Christian beliefs, not to any real instances of anti-Christian sentiment or behavior. This, in turn, is a consequence of Christians being on the losing side of the culture wars. Having lost “their sway,” they now see themselves as victims of a “symbolic threat.”

The authors further claim that since Christians are “relatively privileged,” it suggests that their “desire to maintain group dominance may be driven by desires for cultural dominance.”

The study ends in a way that is customary for research papers, with a section titled, “Limitations and Future Directions.” It’s too bad that these psychologists didn’t list their own predilections as a limiting factor. In fairness, this hardly makes them unique. Though it ought to be done.

When they say that Christians are “privileged,” they are making a statement that is more political than scientific. Surely low-income and working class Christians are not members of some “privileged” segment of society. By what measure are middle class Americans, many of whom are struggling to pay their mortgage and saving for their children’s education, members of some “privileged” group?

In fact, if being “privileged” were defined by the number of hours worked per week, and the number of days off per year, professors would be the most privileged class in the world. In fact, once they get tenure they can slide and do practically nothing and still keep their job. (Bill Donohue was in the professoriate for 16 years, so he speaks with experience.)

Where is there evidence that Christians want “group dominance”? This is an assertion, not an empirical finding. Reclaiming, or maintaining, rights that are being diminished is hardly proof that “dominance” is the goal. The end that is sought may be nothing more than equity.

At the beginning of the article, the Masterpiece Cakeshop case is cited. The authors never mention that it was the anti-Christian statements made by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission that persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to side with the Christian baker. Surely evidentiary findings of bigotry would matter if the victims were LGBT persons. Why should anti-Christian bigotry count for less?

The way the authors see it, this case was about “being obligated to serve sexual minorities,” something which “violated Christians’ religious freedom.” Similarly, at the end of the article they maintain that “same-sex couples continue to experience more discrimination from wedding industry professionals than heterosexual couples.”

The truth is that the owner of the bakeshop never refused anyone, including gays, from buying one of his goods. What he refused to do was custom-make a wedding cake for two men, a request that would force him to sanction a ceremony that violates the tenets of his Christian faith. That is not a small difference.

The authors have found that “Perceptions of anti-Christian bias seem to be particularly acute for conservative Christians.” It would be shocking if they found otherwise.

As any survey research findings show, liberal Christians and secular Americans on moral issues are virtually identical these days. To put it differently, if a Christian is okay with gay marriage, he is not likely to spot anti-Christian bias in anything the parties to it might request.

One of the main conclusions of this study holds that while LGBT individuals “bear the brunt of discrimination,” there is “less evidence of widespread bias against Christians.” They take it a step further by arguing that “there is no evidence, to our knowledge, connecting the experience of LGBT individuals to bias against Christians.”

If bias against Christians is measured by discrimination in school and in the workplace, then it is true that much progress has been made. But if bias is measured by Christian bashing, there is a big problem.

Those who work in the media, education, the entertainment industry, the arts, and government have said the most vile things about conservative Christians, comments that would never be counseled if said about gays or transgender persons. If anything, the ruling class has locked arms with the gay community, and that often pits them against Christians.

To say that there is no evidence “connecting the experience of LGBT individuals to bias against Christians” is fatuous. There are scores of cases involving Catholic schools which have been sued by deceitful gay teachers.

None was fired because he was a homosexual: every case involved gay teachers who claimed to be married to a person of the same sex, in direct defiance to the norms they voluntarily accepted as a condition of employment. In many cases, these teachers deliberately went public with their status, hoping to force a confrontation in the courts.

The federal government has been sued for allowing orthodox religious schools to receive federal funds, schools which maintain that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, not people of the same sex. Colleges have been sued for denying biological men to live in women’s dorms.

Speech codes have been adopted in the workplace, ordering employees to use pronouns for transgender persons that violate their free speech rights and deny common sense. Catholic adoption agencies have been sued for following Catholic teachings on marriage and the family. Catholic hospitals have been sued for not agreeing to perform transgender surgery. Pro-life activists have been harassed by LGBT store owners.

The collision between LGBT rights and religious liberty is at a fever pitch. LGBT rights are not mentioned in the Constitution, but religious liberty is enshrined in the First Amendment.

It’s time to stop floating the fiction that LGBT advances have not resulted in a diminution of rights for Christians, or in a bias directed at them. The elites have laid anchor, and it is not in the Christian camp.

[Note: This article contains graphic language.]

According to the organizers of this year’s Women’s March on Washington, there is nothing dangerous, scary or harmful about a pregnant woman inserting a wire hanger into her vagina to kill her child. That’s why those who show up with a hanger, or hanger imagery, would get booted, even if their purpose was to protest abortion-law restrictions.

On the website of this event, it lists items that should and should not be brought. Among the latter, it says: “Coat-hanger imagery: We do not want to accidentally reinforce the right wing talking points that self-managed abortions are dangerous, scary and harmful.”

Liberals, they suggest, are fine with women using a hanger to abort their child. It’s a safe instrument. Thus have they made the case to shut down Planned Parenthood. We don’t need more abortion clinics—we need more coat hangers.

They further instructed women wearing Handmaid’s costumes that they can take a hike.

Why? Even though these outfits are being worn by women to protest abortion restrictions, the organizers contend that they are used “primarily by white women across the country.” That sends a bad message to “Black women, undocumented women, incarcerated women, poor women and disabled women.”

Pro-abortion activists have changed a lot. In 1969, four years before Roe v. Wade, 300,000 protesters marched in Washington demanding the legalization of abortion. According to the Los Angeles Times, “marchers wore coat hangers around their necks and held signs reading, ‘Never again.'”

But not everyone is convinced that hangers are safe. Dr. Jen Gunter is a Canadian-American gynecologist and pro-abortion activist.

She describes what happens when a woman or girl “thrusts it [the coat hanger] blindly upwards into the vagina.” She may not know, Gunter says, that “to get into the uterus the coat hanger has to navigate the small opening in the cervix called the os.” The problem with that is the end of the hanger is “sharp not tapered so it can lacerate and perforate.”

Let’s say the woman gets through this stage. “The uterine wall is soft and easily perforated,” and if this happens “there is a high risk of lacerating a uterine artery.” This, in turn, means that the woman could “easily bleed to death.”

That’s not all. “The other dangers with uterine perforation is the bowel. If it is punctured, it will “most certainly kill her unless she gets appropriate medical care.” This means “major surgery to drain abscesses, remove necrotic bowel, and possibly even a colostomy. The uterus will also be infected and may be damaged beyond repair.”

Even if the woman gets this far, “it is unlikely she will induce an abortion immediately.” She risks infection, and “bacteria from septic abortions often disseminates and each hour the condition remains untreated death takes a step closer.”

If the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington are right, that would make Dr. Gunter a right-wing misogynist nut. But if she is right, that would make them monsters.

“The Administration strongly supports House passage of H.R. 3755, the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021.” That is the statement released by the White House on September 20. In actual fact, the proposed law has nothing to do with women’s health—it is a pro-abortion bill.

This is true notwithstanding the bill’s contention that “Abortion is essential health care and one of the safest medical procedures in the United States.” Essential health care would be things like heart surgery and treatment for Covid, not elective abortion. And it is fatuous to say that it is safe. Safe for whom?

The bill maintains that abortion restrictions are “a tool of gender oppression.” If this were true, why were America’s first feminists staunch opponents of abortion? In 1858, Elizabeth Cady Stanton spoke about “the murder of children, either before or after birth.” She branded it “evil.” Similarly, Susan B. Anthony called abortion “child murder” and “infanticide.”

So if the first feminists were strongly opposed to abortion—they said it was analogous to treating women as property—when did abortion restrictions become “a tool of gender oppression”? In the 1960s.

That was when two men, Lawrence Lader and Dr. Bernard Nathanson (who later became a Catholic and a pro-life activist), convinced feminists such as Betty Friedan that abortion should be seen as an example of women’s liberation. In other words, it took the boys to teach the girls about their own “emancipation.”

As for this bill, it is anything but “women friendly.” To be explicit, it would abolish the requirement that abortion can only be performed by a physician, thus allowing mid-wives, nurses and doctor’s assistants to do the job. The bill also eliminates health and safety regulations that are specific to abortion facilities.

Now ask yourself this: If a bill were passed that would allow dental hygienists to pull your tooth, and that it could be done in a facility without customary health and safety regulations, would anyone in his right mind consider this to be progress?

The bill also talks about “reproductive justice” and the necessity of opposing “restrictions on reproductive health, including abortion, that perpetuate systems of oppression, lack of bodily autonomy, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism.”

This is the mindset of those who are positively obsessed with race, the kind of people who find discussions about chocolate and vanilla to have racial undertones. Just as some who were obsessed about communism in the 1950s found communism under every pillow, those who work in the Biden administration find racism under every blanket.

The bill insists that “Access to equitable reproductive health care, including abortion, has always been deficient” for blacks and other minorities. In actual fact, thanks to Planned Parenthood, this is a lie: access to abortion services have been fantastic for blacks.

Planned Parenthood erects 86 percent of its abortion facilities in or near minority neighborhoods in the 25 counties with the most abortions. Although these 25 counties make up just 1 percent of all U.S. counties, they accounted for 30 percent of all the abortions in the U.S. in 2014.

Is it any surprise that although blacks comprise roughly 13 percent of the population, they account for at least a third of all the abortions? It is therefore dishonest to claim that they lack access to abortion mills.

Another novelty found in this bill is the linguistic game of pretending that males and females can change their sex. For example, it says that abortion services “are used primarily by women (our italic).” This is factually wrong. Only women can get pregnant and only women can abort their child. A man can identify as a woman (or as a gorilla for that matter), but he can never get pregnant.

Similarly, the geniuses who wrote this bill make more than two dozen references to “pregnant people”; this is roughly twice as often as they speak of “pregnant women.” Now if a man can get pregnant, in what orifice does his baby exit? His ear?

If this isn’t nutty enough, the bill’s authors add that it is their intention “to protect all people with the capacity of becoming pregnant—cisgender women [meaning real women] transgender men [meaning delusional women who think they are a man], non-binary individuals [there is no such breed], those who identify with a different gender [the mentally challenged], and others.” Who the “others” are remains a mystery.

There are many media reports on the release of a report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France that are misleading, incomplete or simply wrong.

The Report found that over a 70-year period, from 1950 to 2020, approximately 3,000 molesters allegedly abused an estimated 216,000 minors. Contrary to some news stories, not all were priests: one-third of the offenses were committed by those who worked in Catholic schools, youth programs, and other agencies.

No one would know anything about this had it not been for French bishops asking the French government to conduct such a probe. That was three years ago. The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church was launched to do the investigation with no strings attached. There was no budget—the Church paid for everything—and full access to Church archives was allowed.

Before proceeding, there is no institution in France, or anywhere else, that has asked the government to probe sexual misconduct among its employees. None.
The Report found that 2.5 percent of the French clergy and lay Catholics working for the Church since 1950 were accused of sexually abusing minors; this makes up less than four percent of all such abuse in France. Most of the abuse took place between 1950 and 1968; the 1960s was the heyday of the sexual revolution.

The Report found that 80 percent of the victims were boys, so this rules out heterosexual priests. At one point it says that most of the victims were “pre-adolescent boys,” but nowhere does it define when adolescence begins.

This is not unimportant. The Report’s finding that 8 in 10 cases of abuse were male-on-male sex cannot escape the conclusion that homosexuals were the offenders.

Indeed, Jean-Marc Sauvé, president of the Commission, admitted as much when he said, “we can say with a high degree of certainty that within the Catholic Church, the abuses mainly concerned men and not women, unlike society.” His use of the word “men” is telling.

The Report contains pages of recommendations. Some are quite good; others are banal. The authors should have been more careful not to intrude into the internal affairs of the Church, such as making suggestions on how to deal with Confession. Just as clueless, the Report concludes that “the paradoxical obsession with Catholic morality on issues of sexuality could be counterproductive in the fight against sex abuse.”

It is not the Church that is obsessed with sex—it is those who work in the media and education that have sex on their brain. No matter, the Commission just does not get it. To wit, if Catholic sexual ethics had been exercised by those who abused minors, there would have been no scandal.

The real paradox is the sight of French authorities and elites lecturing the Catholic Church on the sexual abuse of minors. No country in the world harbors more intellectuals who have justified man-boy sex than in France. Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir were not only sexually promiscuous in their own lives, they, and many other left-wing writers, have long advocated eliminating laws barring sex between adults and children.

Author Gabriel Matzneff is a hero to French intellectuals. He is a well-known sexual predator who molested boys and girls as young as 8-years-old, and he did so for decades, garnering the applause of the literati.

In short, the French need to clean up their own house before pointing fingers at anyone else. As even the Report notes, the Church has made great progress handling this problem. It is now time for French intellectuals to take their cues from the Catholic Church and stop idolizing molesters in their midst.