Pro-life Democrats tried to persuade Joe Biden and the leadership of the Democratic Party to soften their language on abortion rights. But the 2020 Democratic Party Platform that passed on August 19 shows they lost. Indeed, they lost on every recommendation they made.

On May 12, Kirsten Day, executive director of Democrats For Life of America (DFLA), wrote a letter to the members of the Platform Committee. She made four recommendations, three of which were very specific.

• “Remove the language opposing the Hyde Amendment and Helms Amendment.” These amendments bar taxpayer-funded abortions.
• “Insert the following language committing to making abortion rare.” The paragraph begins by saying, “As Democrats, we support efforts to make abortions rare.” It then goes on to make the case for adoption.
• “Insert the following language on the diversity of opinion on abortion.” This calls on the Platform to “respect the conscience of each American” on issues like abortion.

The DFLA lost on all three.

There was a time, not too long ago, when Biden would have had no problem accepting all three recommendations. Indeed, he was never an extremist on abortion, until recently. Now he is.

On September 16, Newt Gingrich was cut off the air on a Fox News show, “Outnumbered,” for merely mentioning the role that George Soros is playing in fomenting the anti-cop agenda of the left. Here is what he said.

• “The number one problem in almost all these cities [where riots have taken place] is George Soros-elected left-wing anti-police pro-criminal district attorneys who refuse to keep people locked up.”
• “Progressive district attorneys are anti-police, pro-criminal, and [are] overwhelmingly elected with George Soros’ money.”

Gingrich was interrupted by one of the show’s regulars, Melissa Francis, who said, “I’m not sure we need to bring George Soros into this.” The former Speaker of the House replied, “He paid for it. Why can’t we discuss the fact that millions of dollars ….” Gingrich was then cut off again, this time by Marie Harf who took Francis’ side.

Why is Fox News protecting George Soros? Is there anyone who doubts that he is one of the biggest contributors to left-wing causes in the nation, if not the biggest? We at the Catholic League know the atheist billionaire as the nation’s most generous donor to anti-Catholic causes and organizations.

It seems plain that Francis was told by the show’s producers (in her earpiece) to cut Gingrich off at the knees. She dutifully obliged.

It didn’t take long before left-wing media outlets celebrated what happened. The Daily Beast explained that Soros is “often the focus of anti-Semitic tropes.” HuffPost said, “In some cases, his name has been used to evoke anti-Semitic tropes.”

Maybe Soros has been used this way, and if so, that would be despicable. But neither left-wing website provided any examples. Are we to assume, then, that because some bigots have attacked Soros that no one is allowed to cite his role in promoting the left-wing agenda without being called an anti-Semite? Does this justify trying to censor Newt Gingrich?

Where did Fox News, the Daily Beast, and HuffPost pick up on the talking point that negative comments about Soros can legitimately be construed as anti-Semitic? From the New York Times.

On October 30, 2018, in a front-page story in the New York Times, reporters noted that “baseless claims” that Soros financed illegal border crossings “carry a strong whiff of anti-Semitism.” Two days later, November 1, 2018, another front-page story commented that critics of Soros employ “barely coded anti-Semitism.” On March 11, 2019, reporters commented that critics of Soros have “skated up to the edge of racism and anti-Semitism with no consequences.”

Is it anti-Semitic to criticize George Soros? If so, then the ADL, which was founded to combat anti-Semitism, is anti-Semitic.

On December 5, 2003, ADL national director Abraham Foxman wrote that Soros blamed the current “upsurge of hatred” directed at Jews on Jews. “Not surprisingly,” he wrote, “many Jews are distressed by this tendency, now spilling over to our own community, of blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. That is why I have called Mr. Soros’ comments obscene.”

Would Fox News consider Foxman’s remarks anti-Semitic?

Last year, Fox News host Neil Cavuto interviewed Bill Donohue about the fire that engulfed Notre Dame Cathedral in France. Here is what he said. “Well, Neil, if it is an accident, it’s a monumental tragedy. But forgive me for being suspicious. Just last month, a 17th-century church was set on fire in Paris. We’ve seen tabernacles knocked down, crosses have been torn down, statues.”

That was it—Cavuto had a meltdown and cut Donohue off. “We don’t know that. So if we can avoid what your suspicions might be.”

In short, even speculating about the guilty—even though Donohue did not say a word about religious fanatics—was enough to set off the censors in the control room. So much for his free speech.

It is not just Big Tech that is stifling the free speech of conservatives. It’s executives at Fox News.

Anyone who follows the Catholic Left knows that it rejects the Church’s teachings on abortion, contraception, marriage, ordination and other issues. Some are quite open about it; others less so. The National Catholic Reporter is mostly in the former camp.

Recently, the Reporter published a slew of articles that in one way or another support abortion rights.

Over the summer it ran a piece titled, “Catholic Discourse on Black Lives Matter Must Amplify Women Founders.” Black Lives Matter is an enthusiastic supporter of abortion, despite the fact that a disproportionate number of black babies are aborted.

It also posted a piece by Sister Simone Campbell, who heads a dissident Catholic group, NETWORK. The “nuns on the bus” leader (only a few were ever along for the ride on her luxury bus) is encouraging Catholics not to vote for President Trump. In her article, she offered a rousing endorsement of Kamala Harris, despite the senator’s anti-Catholic track record and her radical support for abortion rights. The good sister believes that abortion should be legal (unlike, for example, racial discrimination).

There was another article the Reporter published on how dissident Catholic groups, which are abortion-rights activists, are urging Catholics to “vote their conscience.” That’s code for rejecting the teachings of the “male hierarchy” (as the author put it), also known as the Magisterium, or the pope in communion with the bishops.

On the same day the media outlet ran a positive article on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the pro-abortion congresswoman from New York. This was its second piece on her. The earlier one announced that “AOC is the Future of the Catholic Church.” No one believes this to be true, including the Reporter, but it made them feel good to say it. AOC has a 100% NARAL rating, meaning she has never found a pro-abortion bill she couldn’t support.

There was one article that was different from the others in one way: the author, lesbian activist Jamie Manson (she is a regular columnist), wrote an article called, “AOC Embraces Reproductive Justice, and Other Catholics Should, Too.” This was a full-throated endorsement of abortion.

The editors, however, knowing that there was nothing unequivocal about Manson’s lust for abortion rights, felt compelled to provide an introductory note.

“NCR does not expect its columnists to share completely the views of our editorial page, and this column is a case in point. NCR has for decades supported a nuanced view of the ‘seamless garment’ approach to abortion and other life issues, as spelled out in this editorial and others over the years.”

Other than Michael Sean Winters, and possibly one or two more, it is not clear who at the Reporter might not be in the abortion-rights camp. No matter, the real issue is why any publication which assumes a Catholic identity would print a column that is flagrantly pro-abortion. It sure wouldn’t publish an article that belittled climate change.

There is nothing nuanced about abortion: It kills. Trying to fudge a reason to support it—by relabeling it “reproductive justice”—is a sham. But this is where the Catholic Left is these days.

In 1973, in the year that abortion was legalized, an anti-Catholic group was founded to promote abortion rights. But it was not the usual anti-Catholic outfit. This one falsely assumed a Catholic identity. Initially called Catholics for a Free Choice, it would later shorten its name to Catholics for Choice. Having been around for almost a half century, it now looks like it is in disarray.

When it was founded in New York City, it did not set up shop in the New York Archdiocese (as did the Catholic League when it moved to the Big Apple in 1992). No, this “Catholic” pro-abortion outfit rented space from Planned Parenthood. Its first president was Father Joseph O’Rourke; he was expelled from the Jesuits in 1974. It now appears that its time is up: It has been curiously without a president this entire year.

Jon O’Brien was president of Catholics for Choice for 12 years, having succeeded Frances Kissling, the long-time champion of abortion-on-demand. On December 2, 2019, this well-funded letterhead (it has no members) announced that he resigned. In his place was named an acting president, Sara Hutchinson Ratcliffe. She is still acting president.

Ratcliffe honed her abortion-rights skills at Planned Parenthood. Under her tutelage, almost nothing has been done. Its quarterly magazine, “Conscience,” stopped publishing in the fall of 2019. In 2020, Catholics for Choice issued a mere seven press releases, and the last time it was cited in the news was March 31, 2020 (before that it was August 16, 2019). By contrast, the Catholic League generates news releases on a steady basis and is cited in the news almost daily.

Every presidential-election year, Catholics for Choice tries to convince the public that it is entirely acceptable for Catholics to be pro-abortion. It is not. From the Vatican to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, directives have repeatedly been issued making it clear there are not two legitimate Catholic positions on abortion. There is only one: pro-life.

The time has come for this phony Catholic group to fold. It was built on lies from the get-go.

Aside from pro-abortion activists, everyone who has taken a serious look at the writings and speeches of Margaret Sanger admits that she was a racist. Indeed, she was as big a racist as any Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan ever was. The evidence is overwhelming. Yet there are those who are still trying to rescue her legacy. Worse, some are in total denial about her racism.

On July 21, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced it would remove Sanger’s name from its Manhattan clinic. It cited her “harmful connections to the eugenics movement,” as if that were breaking news; it has been known for a century. But it stopped short of calling her out for her racist agenda.

It is impossible to separate eugenics from racism: it was built on it. Angela Franks, who authored Margaret Sanger’s Eugenics Legacy, said “she believed that if you eliminated the poor, then there would be no more poverty. Instead of eliminating the problem, she would eliminate the people who had the problem.” That was the purpose of her birth control crusade.

The organization she launched continues to serve her goal of eliminating the poor, albeit with greater certainty: it facilitates killing them in utero. This means, of course, that a disproportionate number of black babies are killed every year. Even today, almost 8 in 10 Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are in minority neighborhoods.

Sanger opened her first birth control clinic in Brooklyn in 1916. After officials at the abortion giant recently admitted that her record was tainted, they adjusted the section on their website titled, “100 Years Strong.” In their concluding statement on “Margaret Sanger—Our Founder,” they said, “Like all leaders—Sanger had many flaws.”

In other words, Sanger’s targeting of African Americans for extinction was merely a “flaw.” This is the best Planned Parenthood can admit to today. If a white supremacist had her legacy, he would be condemned.

Sanger’s friends in Marxist circles continue to defend her. “People’s World,” which is the successor of the Communist Party USA organ, the “Daily Worker,” published a piece on August 6 saying, “While Sanger did have ideas we find intolerable today, bigotry and contempt for workers were not among them (our italic).”

Lying about Sanger’s racist past is commonplace.

Ellen Chesler wrote the most celebrated volume on Sanger, Women of Valor. After carefully documenting all of Sanger’s work that served racist causes, she concludes that while her subject was “rabidly anti-Catholic,” she was not a racist. This is what happens when feminist ideology discolors the mind. It poisons the ability to reason.

Edwin Black wrote an influential book about Sanger’s contribution to the eugenics movement, War Against the Weak. He admitted that “Sanger surrounded herself with some of the eugenics movement’s most outspoken racists and white supremacists.” He also wrote that “she openly welcomed” racists and anti-Semites into “the birth control movement.” Yet, like Chesler, he still concludes that she “was not a racist.”

The most recent defender of Sanger’s racist history is Katha Pollitt, a pro-abortion extremist who writes for the Nation, a publication that defended Joseph Stalin. “For the record,” she says, “Margaret Sanger was not a racist.” Why not? Because prominent blacks supported her. The “exoneration by association” gambit fails: They may have supported her birth control policies, but they certainly did not support abortion. As late as 1963, Planned Parenthood admitted that “An abortion kills the life of the baby after it has begun.”

It does not help Pollitt’s case to cite H.G. Wells’ support for Sanger (Planned Parenthood also notes that he was her ally). He made clear his goal. “We want fewer and better children…and we cannot make the social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict upon us.”

In case Pollitt doubts who Wells was referring to, consider what Sanger said in her book, Women, Morality, and Birth Control. “We don’t want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” Moreover, Sanger constantly called those in the lower class “weeds” and “human waste” that must be “exterminated.”

While Sanger did not campaign to make abortion legal, it is intellectually dishonest to say she was viscerally opposed to abortion. Indeed, she supported infanticide. “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” Her honesty was commendable, even if her goal was evil.

Racism is what animated Planned Parenthood from its inception, and it is what motivates it today.

Two months ago, 300 of its staffers signed a letter condemning the organization’s “climate of systemic racism.” That is an understatement. The workers were only referring to conditions in the workplace—they were not referring to the racist outcomes of their work.

The following article was written by Ronald J. Rychlak, Distinguished Professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on the role of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust. He serves on the board of advisors of the Catholic League.

For decades now, critics of the Catholic Church have insisted that no assessment of Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust would be valid until all of the archives were examined. That argument has always struck me as weak. There is plenty of evidence to show that Pius defied the Nazis, aided the Jews, and encouraged the rescuers. Still, the critics insisted that no judgment could be final until all the documents were examined.

Earlier this year, the final archives were made available to researchers. Unfortunately, the coronavirus outbreak forced them to close soon thereafter (preventing my own scheduled research trip this summer). They re-opened and again re-closed. The result is that only a handful of relevant documents have been discovered. Yet, the critics who long insisted that all of the evidence had to be evaluated wasted no time in claiming that these new documents condemn the Church and the pope.

The first claim was made by Fr. Hubert Wolf of the University of Münster. He found an internal memorandum cautioning the pope not to accept all of the claims being made about the Holocaust and tried to twist it into proof of Pius XII’s anti-Semitism. It did not hold up to close scrutiny. (See The First Outrage from the New Archives, Catalyst, June 2020).

The newest outrage comes from long-time papal critic David Kertzer. Writing in The Atlantic, he claims that he and his researchers have found documents that show the postwar Vatican supported the “kidnapping” of two Jewish boys whose parents perished in the Holocaust, the so-called Finaly affair.

This matter started on February 14, 1944, when Gestapo agents entered the village of Tronche, France. They arrested two Jewish refugees from Austria, Fritz and Annie Finaly (also sometimes spelled Finely). The Finalys were transported to Auschwitz, never to be seen again. Their children (Robert, aged three and Gerald, aged two) were left behind. A Catholic woman named Antoinette Brun took the two boys into the Grenoble founding home, which she ran. She soon came to love the boys and was named provisional guardian. In 1945, after learning of their parents’ death, she began the process to formally adopt them.

After the war, an aunt from New Zealand wrote a letter asking that the boys be sent to her. Brun resisted, and soon the family sent a representative (the boys’ aunt, a sister-in-law to their father) to plead with Brun in person. She still resisted, and in 1948 she had the boys baptized into the Catholic Church. That had serious implications within the Church; it meant that they were now Catholic, and the Church could not turn her back on them.

Unlike the Nazis, for whom Jewishness was a racial matter, once someone is baptized into the Church, they are Catholic, plain and simple. This helped many victims thwart the Nazis and avoid deportation, either with actual conversion or with falsified papers, but it complicated things here. The parents were no longer in the picture, and many in the Church assisted Brun as she resisted efforts to relocate the boys.

In 1949, the Finaly family filed suit to have the children sent to an aunt in Israel. The lawsuit went on for almost four years, and the evidence was conflicting. The boys’ late father had told friends that he wanted to have his sons brought up in France, but there was debate about his (and their mother’s) religious wishes. For their part, the boys were said to have wanted to stay in France with Brun.

Kertzer cites as his new evidence, a “Vatican document coming from Church sources in Grenoble.” Discussing Brun’s stance, it says “Her attitude, motivated by her conscience from the fact that the boys are Christian, is approved by His Excellency Cardinal Gerlier” (the archbishop who oversaw Grenoble). In addition to that memo about Gerlier, however, there is a January 1953 letter from him, that clearly indicates his strong discomfort with Brun’s position. (Kertzer attributes this to the fact that “the press had gotten hold of the story,” though it seems to have been in the news well before the date of the letter.)

Cardinal Gerlier’s letter asked for guidance on a particular matter. “In these conditions, should one be advised to refuse, come what may, to return the children, who belong to the Church by their baptism and whose faith, in all likelihood, would scarcely be able to resist the influence of the Jewish milieu were they to come back?”

After setting up his essay to discuss this difficult question, Kertzer lets it hang for a couple of pages while he goes over material that he covered in his earlier writings, including the false claim that Pius XII did nothing when Germans rounded up almost 2000 Roman Jews. (See New Books Attack Catholicism, Catalyst, October 23, 2001 and The Controversy Over Edgardo Mortara, Catalyst, May 25, 2018). When he returns to the question at hand, it is not advice from the pope that we see as his new evidence, but a memorandum from the Holy Office that said the health of the soul was a matter of divine right of children who had reached the age of reason, and the Church had the duty to defend them.

Note that this had nothing to do with their Jewishness. If the children had been from an atheist family, a Hindu family, or a Muslim family, the answer from the Holy Office would have been the same. As Kertzer quotes from Future Cardinal and Vicar General of Rome, Angelo Dell’Acqua, “The Catholic Church not only has rights with respect to [the Finaly boys], but duties that it must fulfill.” There was clear debate within the Church as to the correct avenue.

French courts ultimately sided with the Finaly relatives, but when authorities went to get the boys, they were missing. Friends and supporters of Ms. Brun (who was arrested and held for six weeks), including some Catholic priests and nuns, had spirited them off to Spain.

Several arrests were made, and the Church got some bad press. Contrary to what the critics claimed, however, the Catholics involved were not acting on behalf of the institutional Church.

When she was asked by the press about her Catholicism, Brun said she “didn’t give a fig for the Pope.” Bishop Alexandre Calliot of Grenoble took to the radio airwaves to demand that anyone with information about the missing boys contact the authorities. One of the first to comply was a priest in Spain who reported on their whereabouts.

For his part, Pius XII approved an agreement that was negotiated between Cardinal Gerlier and the chief rabbi of Paris. It called for sending the children to their relatives in France, but provided for their free choice when it came to religion. Several of the pope’s top advisors advised him to reject any agreement that sent Catholic children to live in a Jewish household.

As the matter was unfolding, and the boys were still in hiding, the French ambassador presented the Vatican with a report that said, “The Governor of San Sebastián [in Spain’s Basque region] continues to think … that … ‘without a formal order from Rome, the boys will remain in the shadows.'” Soon thereafter, a representative of Cardinal Gerlier made the final trip into Spain to get the boys. They were waiting in the home of a Spanish provincial governor, and Church officials helped bring them back to France. As Time magazine explained (November 7, 1955): “the Roman Catholic hierarchy had helped in getting the Finaly brothers back” to their Jewish relatives.

After the family had taken custody, the boys were flown to Israel. Aware that this was an open breach of the agreement and meant they would be instructed in the Jewish faith. Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, noted that this affair, “had inflicted a serious blow to the Church’s … prestige in the world.” Some within the Vatican urged the pope to publish an article that would “unmask the Jews and accuse them of disloyalty.” Despite this advice, and despite having been presented with a draft article, Pius did not publish it.

While rushing to judgement on the basis of a couple of new archival documents, Kertzer completely overlooks the new evidence laid out in Mark Riebling’s book Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler (see When the Pope Tried to Kill Hitler, Catalyst, November 16, 2015) documenting Pius XII’s role in the plot to assassinate Hitler. Nor does he discuss the disinformation campaign against Pius conducted by the Soviets during the Cold War. He also fails to mention Pope Pius XII’s 1942 Christmas address or his open encouragement to Howard Wisla in 1941 that he must “Always be proud to be a Jew.” Ignoring elements like these render his conclusions simply invalid.

This whole event is reminiscent of another controversy that took place back in 2004, when the New York Times and other publications reported on the discovery of a document in a French archive, purportedly authorized by the Vatican, saying that Church authorities should not return “hidden” Jewish children (like the Finaly boys) to their families if they had been baptized. Long before any serious research could take place, critics were coming out from every rock to condemn kidnapping by Pius XII and the Catholic Church.

To those of us who had studied the work of Pius XII, the directive immediately seemed suspicious, and for good reason. The real directive, dated October 23, 1946, and authorized by Pope Pius XII, was quickly found in the Vatican archives. It was quite different from what had been reported in the news.

It seems that there were other Catholics who, like Ms. Brun, grew quite attached to Jewish children in their charge. The directive told the rescuers to return these children, baptized or not, to blood-related relatives who came to get them. Over and above that, if no relatives survived to reclaim the children, and if individuals or organizations unrelated to the children now wished to adopt them or transfer them to a new environment, each request was to be examined on a case-by-case basis, always with a sense of justice for the child, and with a sense of what their parents would have wanted for them. The children were not to be ‘dumped’ on the first agency that came along.

This directive is perfectly in line with Judeo-Christian compassion and responsibility. It is also very probative of Pius XII’s mindset on these issues. It is far more probative than the internal memoranda that Wolf and Kertzer have used to infer what Pius XII thought. Like any large entity, the Holy See has memoranda prepared on many issues. The advice found in one memo often conflicts with that of another. That is a good thing. What matters is the final decision. In the Finaly case, Pius—against the advice of some—returned children to their families. That’s because he was a good man and a good leader.

One of the greatest threats to the health and safety of black Americans today is not the police. It is Black Lives Matter. The facts are incontrovertible.

Crime is a serious problem in many black inner-city neighborhoods, and that is why a recent Gallup survey found that most blacks—81 percent—want the police to spend the same amount of time (61 percent) or more time (20 percent) in their area. If most blacks thought the cops were the enemy, they would not want a police presence where they live.

Why is Black Lives Matter such a threat to the health and safety of black people? Because it wants to eliminate the police force and empty the prisons. If this were to happen, blacks would suffer the most.

On the website of Black Lives Matter there is a petition calling for “a national defunding of police.” While others are also calling to defund the police, Black Lives Matter is front and center.

Patrisse Cullors is one of the three founders of Black Lives Matter; she is also its most prominent spokesperson. She recently told Newsweek that “Policing and incarceration are part of a continuum,” and that her organization is committed to “getting rid of both systems.” She added that “When we’re thinking about defunding police, we need to be thinking about defunding the mass incarceration state.”

On its website, Black Lives Matter lists “prison abolition” as one of its objectives. In June, Black Lives Matter Chicago said this goal was urgent. “We say #Defund The Police and #Defund Dep Of Corrections because they work in tandem. The rise of mass incarceration occurred alongside the rise of militarized and mass policing. They must be abolished as a system.”

Chicago, of course, is where black lives matter the least: black-on-black shootings are routine, especially on weekends. Most Chicagoan blacks, like blacks everywhere, are peaceful, which explains why they want more arrests and more incarcerations, not less. So why is Black Lives Matter doing everything it can to subvert the aspirations of black people?

One reason why we have gotten to this absurd stage is because of the white “allies” of Black Lives Matter. To be specific, legions of young affluent white men and women have been intellectually seduced by their ideologically corrupt professors. They sincerely believe that the cops are the enemy and the prisons are evil. They need a reality check.

In truth, it is they, along with Black Lives Matter, who are the greatest threat to the health and safety of black people.

If we get rid of the police and the prisons, Black Lives Matter officials will be unaffected, as will their white allies; they live in comfortable neighborhoods. It will be innocent black men, women and children who will pay the price for their insanity. It doesn’t get any more perverse than this. Indeed, the Klan could not improve on their agenda.

If someone were running for president and said he was committed to destroying the nuclear family, we wouldn’t expect any practicing Catholic to support him. What if the same candidate said he was pro-abortion? What if he said he was against school choice? What if he said he wants to defund the police? No Catholic who follows Church teachings could ever support such a person.

These questions must be raised because an article endorsing a group that supports these four policy positions, Black Lives Matter, was just published by a man who used to work at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and now works for Faith in Public Life, a left-wing outfit. Moreover, it was published in a Catholic left-wing media outlet, Commonweal.

Worse, the author, John Gehring, slams the “white hierarchy” of the Catholic Church, and some Catholic organizations (including the Catholic League), for not supporting this agenda. Gehring is funded by George Soros, the atheist billionaire who funded the “Catholic spring,” a movement aimed at taking down the Catholic Church.

The bishops need to know who their foes are, as well as their friends. Gehring is working against them, and Commonweal is egging him on. Such is the state of Church politics in 2020.

Bill Donohue wrote the following letter to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) on August 3.

Hon. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
229 Cannon HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Rep. Ocasio-Cortez:

Without provocation, you recently exploded in a fit of rage when you condemned Father Damien, the 19th century priest who gave his life to serving lepers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Referring to a statue of him in the U.S. Capitol, you said, “This is what patriarchy and white supremacist culture looks like!”

Your remarks evince an offensive ethnocentrism. You disrespected the people of Hawaii: It is they who hold Father Damien in high regard. You should be careful not to judge a people’s culture and history through your own provincial lens.

Here is what the Britannica Online Encyclopedia says about Father Damien.

“Damien, known for his compassion, provided spiritual, physical, and emotional comfort to those suffering from the debilitating and incurable disease. He served as both pastor and physician to the [leper] colony and undertook many projects to better the conditions there. He improved water and food supplies and housing and founded two orphanages, receiving help from other priests for only 6 of his 16 years on Molokai.”

Even after Father Damien learned that he had contracted leprosy, he continued his charitable work. He died in 1889.

You expressed anger at the failure of the U.S. Capitol not to recognize a contemporary of Father Damien, Queen Liliuokalani. It is obvious that you know no more about the queen than the priest.

Queen Liliuokalani adored Father Damien, heralding his yeoman work. Indeed, she made the “white supremacist” a knight commander of the Royal Order of Kalākaua for his legendary work with lepers. In fact, as a public tribute to his efforts, she convinced government officials to build a hospital for lepers.

Your appalling ethnocentrism makes it impossible for you to appreciate why Father Damien is regarded as a hero by Hawaiians. That is why they made sure to have three statues of him: one in front of the State Capitol in downtown Honolulu; one in front of St. Joseph’s Church in Molokai; and one in National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C.

You need to apologize to the people of Hawaii for disrespecting their history and culture. You also need to apologize to Catholics for demonizing Father Damien (it matters not a whit that you identify as a Catholic—you have offended Catholics and that is all that counts).

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President