Australia’s highest court has given Cardinal George Pell a measure of justice by agreeing to hear his appeal. Convicted last December of molesting two choirboys in the 1990s, his case will now get a final hearing in the early part of 2020.

Pell has been defamed, wrongly convicted, and unjustly sentenced to solitary confinement. More than 20 witnesses took his side: they never saw anyone break ranks from a procession of choristers, altar servers and clerics to be with Pell in the back of a church, the supposed location of the abuse.

One of the two boys allegedly abused by Pell died of a drug overdose, but not before telling his mother—on two occasions—that Pell never molested him. So if he was not abused, neither was the complainant: they were allegedly abused at the same time and in the same place.

Keep Cardinal Pell in your prayers this Christmas season. There is still a glimmer of hope that justice will triumph in the end.

Joe Biden, a self-proclaimed Catholic, was denied Holy Communion by a South Carolina priest because of his pro-abortion convictions. “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade criticized the priest for doing so.

Kilmeade, who is Catholic, decried the decision by the priest, calling it “an extremely negative thing.” He also took issue with co-host Ainsley Earhardt, who is not Catholic, for suggesting that Biden was free to join some other church. “I think that’s very judgmental,” he said. He then ridiculed the idea that everyone who goes to Communion should have to get off the Communion line because he is guilty of some infraction of Church teachings. “Don’t try to get Communion because you missed church on Sunday.”

Kilmeade is right to say that denying Biden the Eucharist was “an extremely negative thing.” It can also be said that Biden’s persistent denial of Church teaching on abortion is “an extremely negative thing.” Kilmeade is also right to say that Earhardt’s suggestion that Biden is free to leave the Church was “very judgmental.” Indeed it was. It was just as judgmental as his criticism of the priest.

Kilmeade’s thesis—Catholics are going to get bounced off the Communion line—may play well in some circles, but he will not find one priest in the entire country who would ever equate skipping church with the intentional killing of innocents.

The key issue is whether the priest did the right thing.

Canon 915 of the Catholic Church says that those “who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” Archbishop William J. Levada, writing for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2004, cited Canon 915 in a statement he made on this issue. That certainly gives weight to the priest’s decision.

However, Levada also cited Canon 912, which says, “Any baptized person who is not prohibited by law can and must be admitted to Holy Communion.” His interpretation of this Canon is worth repeating. “The practice of the Church is to accept the conscientious self-appraisal of each person.”

So here’s the question. Did the priest who refused Biden Holy Communion have reason to believe that the former vice president has obstinately persisted in manifest grave sin by adopting the pro-abortion agenda?

It is incontrovertible that Biden is more pro-abortion today than he was in 2008. That was when vice president candidate Biden was told by the bishop of Scranton, Biden’s home town, that he would be refused Holy Communion because of his enthusiasm for abortion rights. Since running for president, Biden has become more enthusiastic, saying he is now in favor of federal funding of abortion; he has also pledged to enshrine into federal law the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.

Levada’s document for the bishops says that “the prudent practice for ministers of Holy Communion” would be to refer to the bishop of the diocese what to do about pro-abortion politicians. But he also offers support for what the South Carolina priest did. “Ministers of Holy Communion may find themselves in the situation where they must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone in rare cases, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, interdict, or an ‘obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.'”

In other words, Mr. Kilmeade, it’s a judgment call. Much could be resolved if the Fox host were to accept the Church’s teaching that abortion is not just another sin. That’s why it’s called “intrinsically evil.”

When it comes to education, there is no better way to punish the poor than to deny them the same opportunities the affluent have. Here’s the drill: Keep the poor away from charter schools and away from private schools, especially Catholic schools in the inner city. Make sure to defend the unions to the hilt, knowing full well they will always put the best interests of teachers and administrators ahead of the best interests of students. And, best of all, reward failing schools with more money.

This is what Elizabeth Warren is doing—in the name of helping the poor she is declaring war on them. Forget about her intentions, the effect of her plan is to consign black and brown kids to schools that no sane white person would ever choose for his own kids.

Warren wants to spend another $800 billion in federal dollars on elementary and secondary education, more than half of which would go to students from poor families. She offers no data that show how effective it is to spend more money on education, and that is because it doesn’t exist.

A researcher at the Cato Institute, Andrew J. Coulson, studied the results of national assessment tests and correlated academic performance with state funding. He found “there is essentially no link between state education spending (which has exploded) and the performance of students at the end of high school (which has generally stagnated or declined).”

If money mattered, then students in the District of Columbia would be at the top of the academic charts—more money is spent per capita on these students than is spent on students in any of the 50 states—yet they are always in last place. If the money=better academic achievement equation were true, states like New Hampshire and the Dakotas would be at the bottom, yet they are always near the top, notwithstanding meager funding per capita. Similarly, Alaska has one of the most well-funded school systems, yet ranks near the bottom in academic achievement.

Warren hates the one public school initiative that works, namely charter schools. She is now boasting that she will end more federal money for charter schools, and stop for-profit charters altogether. When confronted with evidence that charter schools in her home state of Massachusetts work well, she did not deny it. But data mean nothing to ideologues.

She also wants to make it easier for teachers to unionize, thus ensuring the poor will stay where they are (what is going on in Chicago is a textbook example). The public school establishment is opposed to every school choice program, yet the lack of competition—which works well in every other segment of the economy—effectively stops the poor from becoming upwardly mobile.

Someone needs to ask Warren why she wants to deny school choice to parents who live in D.C. when it is clear that this initiative works. For instance, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which helps students from poor families to attend private schools, experienced a 21 percentage point increase in graduation rates.

Bill Donohue taught in a Catholic school in Spanish Harlem and saw firsthand how well poor Puerto Rican and African American students could do when presented with structure and a curricula focused on basic educational skills. There was no money for frills, no room for experimental programs, and no excessive administrative costs. But there was plenty of homework and plenty of discipline in the classroom. These students did well not because of money, but because tried and true academic methods were the rule.

“With fully funded vouchers, parents of all income levels could send their children—and the accompanying financial support—to the schools of their choice.” So true. This is what Elizabeth Warren said in 2003.

She needs to explain what changed. What data made her the enemy of school choice? Absent empirical evidence, we are left with the impression that she is prepared to keep the poor in their place, just so she can win the support of the teachers’ unions.

Last spring, we called for the censure of Brian Sims, a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, for verbally assaulting an innocent woman. He remained defiant, refusing to apologize. But he finally relented in late October.

On May 5, totally unprovoked, Sims accosted an elderly Catholic woman who was praying the rosary outside a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Philadelphia. He badgered her for eight minutes, telling her to go pray at home. On a previous occasion he became equally aggressive with attempting to intimidate three teenage girls who were protesting abortion outside the clinic. He is known for his vicious anti-Catholic rants.

Two days later we contacted every member of the state House of Representatives. After being told by the House Ethics Committee of the Pennsylvania legislature that our request to censure Sims did not meet the House Rules and Legislative Code of Conduct (it deals mostly with conflict of interest violations), we changed course. We supported a resolution by Rep. Jerry Knowles, whom we had been working with, to censure Sims for his bigotry and bullying. Sims felt the pressure mounting, and when the lawmakers returned from summer break, he switched gears.

Knowles briefed us on the outcome shortly before Sims’ decision was made public. He thanked us for our support. We are grateful for his courage.

Sims got off easy. He does not belong in government. But at least he was forced to apologize.

USA Today is on a tear against the Catholic Church. Last month it published a 3700-word-story on efforts by the bishops to fight discriminatory legislation. Now it has unloaded again, this time indicting the Church in a 6226-word-story for not tracking former priests accused of sexual abuse.

The newspaper must be vying for a Pulitzer. Why else would it invest a ton of money employing 39 reporters to investigate alleged wrongdoing by the Catholic Church over the last nine months, “wrongdoing” that is routine for every organization? What it found is hardly startling.

USA Today says that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) does not track former priests accused of sexual abuse. That is correct. Neither does USA Today have a GPS tracking system to locate the whereabouts of former employees accused of sexual misconduct. That’s because no employer is required to do so by law. So why is it so stunning to learn that the USCCB plays by the same rules as everyone else? Unless, of course, the name of the game is to shame the Church?

The reporters found a priest who was accused of sexual abuse in the 1970s, and was later named in a settlement with the Miami Archdiocese. He is now 85. Is there more to this story? Nope, that’s it.

Philadelphia has a Child and Family Therapy Training Center which offers clinical programs, workshops and courses. One of the faculty members who worked there was a former priest accused of sexual abuse.

Now whose fault is it that the Center didn’t know of accusations against him? Why did they employ him to give lectures on sexual abuse? When his former boss was asked about him in 2015, she said he told her about the accusations, denied they were true, and she believed him. She said he was a “terrific teacher.” He is currently a licensed marriage and family therapist. Why didn’t the newspaper contact his employer for an interview? It had more than three dozen reporters on the story.

The news story opens with John Dagwell. He is a former Catholic brother who plead guilty in a criminal case in 1988 for molesting a student. “Despite his past,” the news article says, “Dagwell was never required to register as a sex offender.” With good reason—he didn’t have to. Later in the story it is reported that there was no federal law requiring sex offenders to register at that time. So why the early drama about him not registering? In fact it wasn’t until 2006 that the Congress passed such a law; it wasn’t upheld by the Supreme Court until this past June.

Here’s another gem. A layman at a Catholic high school entered into a settlement agreement in 2013 with former students claiming abuse. The reporters quote a real estate agent who lives near him saying she can’t believe his name doesn’t show up in Florida’s sex registry. Maybe that’s because he was never found guilty. Didn’t this occur to the reporters? Do they know what the law says?

According to FindLaw, a trusted legal online source, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act makes it a federal crime “to knowingly fail to register with a state’s authorities, or to fail to update registration at specified times, in accordance with the law’s requirements.”

In other words, it is up to the convicted—not the accused or the former employer—to register. Knowing this to be true, why didn’t USA Today make this plain? Let me guess: To do so would have imploded its story.

The newspaper could have written a similar story on virtually any organization, but instead it chose only one. It needs to explain to Catholics why.

No organization does a better job of helping the homeless at Christmastime than the Salvation Army. This year it came under attack by homosexuals and the sexually confused, arguing that it is not supportive of their politics. It is not supposed to be. The Salvation Army is a Christian charity.

The attacks started two weeks before Thanksgiving when a singer, Ellie Goulding from England, threatened not to sing at a Dallas Cowboys halftime show on Thanksgiving Day: she demanded that the Salvation Army pledge to support the homosexual cause. Thus would she deprive the needy of support unless her ideological goals were met.

We encourage all Catholics to give more to the Salvation Army this year than ever before. Send a message to those who would deny the poor a decent Christmas, all in the name of their selfish agenda.

The New York City Council has banned the sale of foie gras, saying it involves animal cruelty; ducks are force-fed to ensure fattened livers. It joins California in making the sale illegal.

Carlina Rivera sponsored the legislation in New York. She says her legislation “tackles the most inhumane process”; she also called it “one of the most violent practices.”

In January, she celebrated a new law making New York City the first city to set aside funds strictly for abortion: the money pays for the transportation expenses of women coming to New York from other states to abort their children. She bragged how “This fund is just another signal, another example of how New York State and New York City has to be the leader on this issue.”

Rivera is right. In January, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill that allows abortion through term—right up to the moment of birth—while dropping all penalties against a doctor who intentionally allows a baby who survives a botched abortion to die. Cuomo was so happy with the legislation that he ordered the lights of the Freedom Tower to shine brightly over lower Manhattan.

California will not tolerate the sale of foie gras, but it represents more than 15 percent of all abortions in the nation. There is no waiting period, no parental consent, and no requirement that the abortionist be a trained physician.

Here’s a series of questions that deserve a serious response.

Why is it that the cities and states that are champions of animal rights are also the champions of abortion rights?

Why were many Nazi officials animal rights’ advocates? Himmler wanted to ban hunting, and Göring carried out Hitler’s decree to put Germans who violated animal welfare laws into concentration camps. Hitler, who was a vegetarian, planned to ban slaughterhouses following the end of World War II. Meanwhile, they put Jews in ovens.

When it comes to animal rights v. human rights, why do so many liberals in the 21st century have so much in common with Nazis in the 20th century?

No, it doesn’t mean that being an animal rights’ advocate today makes one a Nazi. But there is something eerie about persons like Carlina Rivera who find force-feeding ducks to be “inhumane” and “violent” while heralding a procedure that crushes the head of a baby who is 80 percent born. That kind of mentality is surely Nazi-like.

Racism, true racism, is being devalued, and nothing contributes to its dumbing-down more than its promiscuous invocation. Being called a racist is by now so common that it has lost its sting. Indeed, the very concept of racism is increasingly irrelevant. For example, Julian Castro, who is running for president, boasts he is opposed to “environmental racism.” Does anyone know what that is, including him?

When someone says there is an “Hispanic invasion” going on, is that proof of racism, or is it an expression of concern about large numbers of people who are entering our country illegally from points south of our border?

When a reporter standing in front of an alley in Baltimore suggests that President Trump is a racist for saying the city is a “rodent-infested mess”—and a large rat is seen running in the alley behind the reporter—doesn’t that undercut the charge?

When actress Ellen Pompeo recently said that Kamala Harris was “overconfident,” was that evidence of Pompeo’s racism, as some said, or was it evidence of devaluing the meaning of racism?

Megyn Kelly was branded a racist for noting that when she was young it was okay for a white kid to put on blackface on Halloween. Her observation was undeniably true. Does that make her a racist for recalling it?

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently said on the radio that bigots used to called Sicilians (he is half Sicilian) “nigger wops.” Some black leaders condemned him for making a racist remark. Does that make Cuomo a racist or was he using the exact language used by racists to punctuate his point?

In 2016, comedian Larry Wilmore at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner turned to President Barack Obama (who went by Barry when he was younger) and said, “Yo, Barry, you did it, my nigger.” Is Wilmore a racist, or was he just joking around? Obama laughed at it. Does that make him a racist enabler, or someone who knows he’s being roasted?

When Republicans complained about IRS abuses against conservative organizations under President Obama, MSNBC host Martin Bashir called the GOP leaders racist, saying they are using the scandal “as their latest weapon in the war against the black man in the White House.” Was that what they were doing—dabbling in racism—or protesting corruption by IRS officials?

MSNBC host Chris Matthews said it was racist to talk about all the people on food stamps. Was he right about that, or was Newt Gingrich right when he said to him, “Why do you assume food stamps refers to blacks? What kind of racist thinking do you have?” [Note: the majority of people on food stamps are white.]

Daily Beast columnist Michael Tomasky once accused Mitt Romney of being a “spineless, disingenuous, supercilious, race-mongering pyromaniac” because he used a “heavily loaded word.” What was that racist word? Obamacare. If that makes Romney a racist, would that make the Obama White House racist for promoting what it called Obamacare?

About a decade ago, when Walmart sold white and black Barbie dolls, they were initially priced the same. But when the store had to prepare for inventory, it marked down certain items. Was it proof of racism, as some charged, that the black doll was reduced in price? Or was it simply a routine business practice?

The devaluing of racism began in the academy. Here are seven examples of “racial microaggressions” taught in our nation’s leading colleges and universities:

• Asking someone, “Where are you from?”
• Asking an Asian person to help with a math or science problem
• Observing that “America is a melting pot”
• Opining that “There is only one race, the human race”
• Saying, “I believe the most qualified person should get the job”
• Noting that “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough”
• Commenting, “We got gypped”

If the scales seem tipped against conservatives it is because they are. For example, Joe Biden recently said that “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” Does that make him a racist, or was it just a clumsy way of saying that low-income kids have the same potential to succeed as high-income kids?

When Biden once said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent,” was he making a racist remark, or was it simply a sociological observation?

When he said that one of the best things about Obama was that he was “clean” and “articulate,” was he voicing his racism, or his penchant for making gaffes?

When President Bill Clinton was being impeached, Biden, and many other Democrats (white and black alike) called it a “lynching.” Now President Donald Trump is calling attempts to impeach him a “lynching.” If Trump is a racist for using this term, in this context, wouldn’t that make Biden a racist as well?

Let’s be fair: Biden is no racist, and neither is Trump. But according to standards that Biden has now adopted as proof of Trump’s racism, he most certainly is.
When Harvard University hosts a separate graduation ceremony for black students, is it being sensitive or racist? Would it be sensitive or racist if it did the same for white students? To put it differently, are there no principles left? Or is this just a political game, frontloaded against conservatives?

Here’s something else to think about. On a scale of 1 to 10, what score should be given to someone who owns a restaurant, tells racist jokes, but does not discriminate against anyone? What score should be given to Harvard administrators who never tell racist jokes, but who discriminate against Asians—they put a cap on how many can get in?

The reason why accusations of racism are losing their sting has everything to do with the duplicity of the accusers, and their relentless invocations of it. When real racists are lumped in with those who are either innocent, or at worst guilty of inartful constructions, that’s a lose-lose, the biggest losers of which are those who are truly victimized.

Being an atheist does not necessarily mean being anti-Christian, but being an atheist organization, especially these days, means exactly that. It’s how they survive—by bashing Christians. Their favorite target, of course, is the Catholic Church.

Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is one of the most Christian-hating atheist organizations in the nation. It advertises its hate speech on billboards, the internet, radio, television, and in newspapers. With rare exception, it chooses liberal-left venues. That is quite revealing. Of course, not all of those who are left-of-center are haters, but when it comes to those who harbor an animus against religion, they are found almost exclusively on the left.

In the recent presidential primary debate of Democratic contenders, FFRF ran two ads featuring “unabashed atheist” Ron Reagan. Choosing an audience of mostly Democrats was a smart move. A Pew poll that was recently released found that college-educated young Democrats were joining the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated faster than any other segment of the population; they would be the most likely to be attracted to an FFRF ad.

Ron Reagan said he was “alarmed by the intrusion of religion into our secular government.” He provided no examples (examples of the opposite—government encroaching on religion—are easily found on the Catholic League’s website). He also bragged how he is “not afraid of burning in hell.” Good luck with that.

The station that carried the ad, CNN, is no longer considered a moderate cable network, having moved decisively to the left. By contrast, CBS, ABC, and NBC, are more moderate: they will not run FFRF attack ads.

Rachel Maddow is the most popular left-wing talk-show anchor on television. It figures that FFRF would choose her MSNBC-TV show to advertise on more than any other. The atheist organization also likes to strut its hate speech on Comedy Central, especially Trevor Noah’s show. There is no network that attacks Catholics more than Comedy Central, and Noah has contributed mightily to it.

Stephen Colbert is host to late-night TV’s Trump-hating audience, a segment of the population that is not exactly known to be religion-friendly. Predictably, FFRF likes to advertise on his show. “Morning Joe” is another show that appeals to those on the left, and it is also home to FFRF ads.

The New York Times is known as the gold standard of liberal-left commentary, and is therefore a perfect spot for FFRF. We counted over a dozen full-page ads placed in the Times by FFRF. Other newspapers that it uses are the Washington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer, both of which attract a liberal-left readership.

The content of the ads is the best index of FFRF’s mind-set.

Religious liberty is something FFRF disdains. In 2014, when the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, affirming religious liberty, FFRF not only set off the alarms, it reverted back to its anti-Catholic bigotry by condemning the “all-Roman Catholic majority” on the high court. Its ads ran in several liberal newspapers, reserving its big bucks for a color ad in the New York Times.

Donald Trump is one of the most religion-friendly presidents in American history. To prove that he is, FFRF wasted no time attacking him. It did so over a month before he took office. “Washington, D.C. is about to be overrun by zealots. The Religious Wrong will soon control all three branches of government.” Why a theocracy has not taken root by now remains unexplained.

Whenever a pope visits the U.S., it’s a sure bet that FFRF will go bonkers. The visit by Pope Francis in 2015 was no exception. FFRF placed its demagogic ads in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Its “Global Warning” ad accused the pope of imposing Catholic doctrine on the nation. How did he manage to do this? By addressing a joint session of the Congress.

FFRF loves abortion. This is not an exaggeration. How else to characterize an organization whose co-founder, Anne Nicol Gaylor, wrote a book titled, Abortion Is A Blessing?

It was hardly surprising, then, to read a New York Times ad this past June that warned how “Emboldened Christian Nationalists are ramping up their relentless, religiously motivated war on reproductive rights.” Who are these people? The ad identifies them as “fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic zealots.” They are “ruthlessly trying to inflict their punitive religious views upon the rest of us.”

While FFRF despises evangelical Protestants, it saves it biggest guns for Catholics. “Value Children over Dogma: It’s Time to Leave the Catholic Church.” This ad is part of its “Quit the Catholic Church” campaign. Another ad reads, “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church,” beckoning “Liberal” and “Nominal” Catholics to seize “your moment of truth.” It sure knows its audience. In Times Square it also ran a billboard saying, “Quit the Church. Put Women’s Rights Over Bishops Wrongs.”

Loving abortion and hating Catholicism certainly go hand in hand, so we can’t argue with FFRF about that. It should know—it is Exhibit A.