The assault on masculinity has been going on inside and outside of the Catholic Church for decades, but it is now at a fever pitch. To cite one recent example, in his February 21 article, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof blamed masculinity for the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic and Southern Baptist Churches. The Southern Baptist Convention was recently investigated by reporters.

Kristof quotes Serene Jones, president of the Union Theological Society: “They [the two Churches] both have very masculine understandings of God, and have a structure where men are considered the closest representatives of God.”

This remarkable comment deserves a serious rejoinder. But first a word on why the Southern Baptists were targeted and why Kristof interviewed Jones.

Why did the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News investigate the Southern Baptist Convention? There are several other Baptist denominations, so why the Southern Baptists? Alternatively, why didn’t they choose to probe the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, or Presbyterians?

Let’s take a wild guess. It’s for the same reason the media, until now, have focused exclusively on the Catholic Church: both Churches are known for their orthodox Christian teachings on sexuality. If they can be discredited, their moral voice will be compromised. One would have to be ideologically blind not to see what’s going on.

Why did Kristof tee it up for the president of the Union Theological Seminary? Because he knew she would feed his narrative. This New York-based institution has long been home to “progressive” thinkers, including dissident Catholic theologians (it has even employed those who have been banned from teaching at Catholic colleges due to their wholesale rejection of Catholicism).

More substantively, Kristof’s thesis—masculinity is related to sexual abuse—is so spurious that even he admits to its flaw.

For starters, he summarizes his argument by citing the Catholic Church’s male clergy and the “submissive” role occupied by females, but then a light goes off in his head. If this is the case, he wonders, then why haven’t most of the victims in the Catholic Church been women and girls?

Here is how he puts it. “It’s complicated, of course, for many of the Catholic victims were boys….” Actually, there is nothing complicated about it—he is simply wrong. Masculine priests, those who are naturally attracted to females, account for very little of the sexual abuse.

Kristof can’t even get this little bit right. The vast majority, 81 percent, of the victims were male. That’s not “many”—it’s most. And they were not boys: 78 percent were postpubescent; adolescents are properly regarded as young men. But to admit this is to admit that homosexual priests are responsible for the lion’s share of the abuse. And no one at the New York Times is going to admit to this verity.

The Catholic Church needs more masculine priests, not fewer. To put it differently, though matters are better today, for many years the Church had too many priests who were either effeminate or sexually immature. We’ve seen where that got us.

No one can fault the Washington Post for criticizing the Vatican summit on clergy abuse for being short on concrete prescriptions for reform. That much is true. But at the end of the February 27 editorial it made two accusations that are simply not true, and one that is misleading.

The editorial took the Church to task for its “steadfast opposition to changes in state laws that prohibit survivors of pedophile priests from filing lawsuits years after the abuse took place,” citing the Church’s “unique history as a haven for abusers.”

The misleading comment is the remark about the Church opposing changes in state laws that allow for prosecuting old cases. In virtually every instance where this has happened, those state laws have exempted the public sector.

In other words, state laws that allow for a “look back” provision almost never apply to students raped by public school teachers: those students have only 90 days to file a complaint. This is because of the antiquated doctrine of sovereign immunity. When the law applies equally to the public sector, there is no Catholic opposition, as recently evidenced in New York.

Thus, the editorial unfairly characterized the Church’s opposition. Would not the Washington Post condemn a state law that allowed for a “look back” provision for students abused in the public schools but did not apply to private [read: Catholic] ones? Moreover, would the editorial page blast the public school establishment for opposing such a law on the basis of selective enforcement?

One of the two errors in the editorial, “Fine Words, Flimsy Deeds,” was the reference to “pedophile priests.” It is a fiction to charge that the Catholic Church has a pedophile problem. More than 19 of 20 accused clergy members are not pedophiles. Most of them—8 in 10—are homosexuals. This cover up by the editorial page is unconscionable.

Finally, there is zero evidence that the Church has a “unique history as a haven for abusers.” No institution has a unique history of harboring abusers, but if there is one that leads the way it surely is the family—that’s where most of the abuse takes place—followed by the public schools.

The Washington Post needs to get up to speed with these issues before lecturing the Catholic Church. We don’t own this problem, and we never did. It’s about time they admitted this verity.

Australian Cardinal George Pell was convicted in December of molesting two choirboys in the 1990s, but it was not until February 25 that the details were disclosed; charges against Pell that would require a second trial over other allegations were dropped. Pell’s lawyers are appealing the conviction.

There are many holes in the story that led to Pell’s conviction. To begin with, one of the boys who was alleged to have registered a complaint overdosed on drugs and died. More important, the boy’s mother said her son admitted, on two occasions, that Pell never abused him. This does not matter to the boy’s father: He says he is going to sue the Church or Pell once the appeal is resolved. Let him. And let him sue his wife for libeling their son.

Regarding the other boy, the sole complainant, he said that Pell made him perform oral sex on him after saying Mass at Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral two decades ago. Donohue has already written extensively about this, so we will not repeat it here.

However, we will offer a good summary of what this one boy alleges to have happened. The quoted parts are taken from a well-researched news story published by Rod McGuirk of the Associated Press; he writes from Melbourne.

“The jury convicted Pell of abusing two boys whom he had caught swigging sacramental wine in a rear room of Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in late 1996, as hundreds of worshippers were streaming out of Sunday services.

“[Robert] Richter, his lawyer, had told the jury that only a ‘mad man’ would take the risk of abusing boys in such a public place. He said it was ‘laughable’ that Pell would have been able to expose his penis and force the victim to take it in his mouth, given the cumbersome robes he was wearing.

“The jury was handed the actual cumbersome robes Pell wore as archbishop. Over his regular clothes, Pell would wear a full-length white robe called an alb that was tied around his waist with a rope-like cincture. Over that, he would drape a 3-meter (10-foot) band of cloth called a stole around his neck. The outermost garment was the long poncho-like chasuble.

“More than 20 witnesses, including clerics, choristers and altar servers, testified during the trial. None recalled ever seeing the complainant and the other victim break from a procession of choristers, altar servers and clerics to go to the back room.

“The complainant testified that he and his friend had run from the procession and back into the cathedral through a side door to, as [Mark] Gibson, the prosecutor, said, ‘have some fun.’

“Monsignor Charles Portelli, who was the cathedral’s master of ceremonies in the 1990s, testified that he was always with Pell after Mass to help him disrobe in the sacristy.” He maintains the charges are totally false.

In other words, one of the alleged victims says he was never a victim, and the other can find no one—not one among over 20 who were with him that day—to support his story.

Keep Cardinal George Pell in your prayers. It is not easy for any priest, never mind a high-ranking one, to get a fair trial today. The hysteria and the animus that exist makes for a toxic environment.

A recent Gallup survey shows that news stories about clergy sexual abuse have Catholics questioning their affiliation with the Church. Before examining why, an analysis of the data is warranted; it reveals a nuanced portrait of Catholics.

The survey found that 37% of Catholics said they are questioning whether to remain in the Church; the figure in 2002 was 22%. Who are these Catholics? Most of them seldom or never go to church: 46% of these Catholics are questioning whether to remain versus 22% of those who attend church weekly. In other words, those with one foot out the door are more likely to consider exiting, which is precisely what we would expect.

A more interesting picture emerges when Catholics are asked how much confidence they have in the priests in their parish versus priests in general. Six in ten have confidence in their own priests (41% said “a great deal” and 18% said “quite a lot”) versus only a third for priests nationwide (20% said “a great deal” and 12% “quite a lot”). The figures for the bishops are similar to the latter.

Not surprisingly, Catholics who are regular attendees have a great deal of confidence in their priests, sporting a figure of 86%; but only 39% of those who seldom or never attend church feel this way. Most of the latter probably wouldn’t be able to name the priests in their parish.

The difference between Church-goers and lapsed Catholics is most revealing when considering the second bank of questions. There is a reason why Church-goers have a lot of confidence in their priests: though it was not mentioned in the survey or in the concluding analysis, almost all priests have never had an accusation made against them.

Thus, the everyday experience that Catholics who are regular church-goers have is a positive one—they and their priests are untouched by the scandal. But they read a lot about other priests, clergymen they do not know, and that explains the big drop in confidence for priests nationwide.

What Catholics are reading, of course, matters. For example, most of the news stories on the recent Vatican summit left the impression that the sexual abuse scandal is ongoing. It is not. It is certainly not true in the United States: most of the offenses that took place were in the last century.

The fact is there are many foes of the Church, and Catholic dissidents, who don’t want the scandal to end. Their goal is to keep it alive so they can push for their secular reforms.

To read Bill Donohue’s letter to Oxford Union president Daniel Wilkinson, click here.

Is the Oxford Union committing suicide? It is one thing to lie to me after being disinvited from participating in a debate on February 28, quite another to knife itself by staging a phony debate on the Catholic Church.

“This House Believes That England Can Never Pay For Its Sins Against Irish Catholics.” Imagine a debate on this subject with representatives of the Irish Republican Army on one side and Sinn Fein (the political arm of the IRA) on the other. This is what the Oxford Union did by stacking the deck against the Catholic Church on the motion, “The House Believes The Catholic Church Can Never Pay For Its Sins.”

The three defending the House motion were Mitchell Garabedian, Elizabeth Coppin, and Thomas Reilly. I am familiar with the two American men.

Garabedian was a good choice. Last year he appeared on WGBH (PBS) in Boston arguing that the Catholic Church should be stripped of its tax-exempt status. In 2011, he was accused by a reporter for the Boston Globe (not exactly a Catholic-friendly source) of maligning the good name of an exonerated priest whom the attorney was hounding. When I called Garabedian to see if he had any regrets about trying to destroy Father Charles Murphy, he went berserk, screaming like a madman. He fits in with this circus like a glove.

Reilly was also a splendid choice. He showcased his contempt for separation of church and state when he was the Massachusetts Attorney General: He said he wanted his office to be involved in the recruitment, selection, training, and monitoring of priests.

If a Boston bishop, acting on reports of corruption in the state government, said he wanted the Church to police public officials and their staffs, he would be accused of trampling on the First Amendment. Indeed, he would be called a fascist. Perhaps Reilly could have been asked why he never returned a single indictment of a Boston priest in 2003, and why he thinks he was justified in wasting a colossal amount of public funds on a wild-goose chase (he knew the statute of limitations had long run out on miscreant priests).

The side that was selected to defend the Catholic Church was even better. It included only two persons, one of whom, Dr. Jay R. Feierman, is a former psychiatrist who treated offending priests. I am not familiar with him.

The big prize was Marci Hamilton. For the Oxford Union to treat her as a champion of the Catholic Church is analogous to selecting a supporter of the Klan to defend African Americans.

To begin with, Hamilton and Garabedian are one and the same. They have jointly sued the Holy See, unsuccessfully, and have served on the same panels at anti-Catholic conferences for years. She has quite a resume.

• Hamilton’s career attacking the Catholic Church began when she was sought out by Jeffrey Anderson, the most anti-Catholic, Church-suing lawyer in the U.S. His goal, he once said, is to “sue the s*** out of the Catholic Church.” He has made good on his promise.
• A few years back, Hamilton teamed up with Anderson to sue the Holy See. They lost.
• Hamilton is opposed to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the seminal bill protecting religious liberty that was overwhelmingly passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
• Hamilton falsely accused Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, of hiding $55 million from victims when he was the Bishop of Milwaukee. She has never apologized.
• In 2013, Hamilton said that the Catholic Church’s objections to having Catholic non-profits pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans was proof of its “all-out war on women.”
• Hamilton always seeks to rescind state laws on the statute of limitations so that she can sue the Catholic Church for decades-old offenses, while at the same time arguing that such legislation should not apply to the public schools. She made this case in her 2008 book, Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children, and worked to implement her ideas in Colorado and other states.
• In 2016, Hamilton told the press that the U.S. bishops pay my salary. I emailed her on May 5, 2016 calling her a liar. She had no response.
• When discussing the Muslim terrorists involved in the Danish cartoon issue, Hamilton said, “There is no meaningful difference between the reasoning of imams and the Catholic League on these issues,” thus maliciously claiming the Catholic League engages in, or promotes, violence against its critics.

There we have it. The Oxford Union is in free-fall. It hosted anti-Catholic bigots to defend the Catholic Church, making a mockery of its once stellar reputation.

If any of these haters would like to debate me, I will arrange it and pay for all the expenses. But I won’t hang by the phone. At least Christopher Hitchens, whom I debated many times, was honest, which is more than I can say for the Oxford Union and its stooges.

There were three parties to the dustup that occurred on January 18.

Catholic students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, who had participated in the March for Life, assembled on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial waiting for buses to take them home. In the same vicinity were Native Americans; they had come for the Indigenous Peoples Rally. Black Israelites, who believe that black Americans are God’s chosen people (they claim to be the real descendants of the Hebrews), were also there.

Initial news reports blamed the students. One of the students, Nick Sandmann, was shown smirking at a Native American man, Nathan Phillips—who was standing very close to the student beating a drum—and it quickly became a social media sensation. Much was made of the Donald Trump hat that Sandmann and other students wore, “Make America Great Again.” The students were shown in a short video laughing and chanting. They were accused of mocking the 64-year-old Phillips.

The Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School issued a joint statement apologizing for what happened and pledged to investigate the matter; they said sanctions would be forthcoming, possibly expulsion.

Politicians, pundits, and bloggers went wild. A second video emerged, one that was much longer, and it shows that the black Israelites were the real thugs. Moreover, interviews given by Phillips show him to be a liar.

Here is a selection of news reports on the second video that was published on January 21.

The following was taken from abc.net.au/news.
“The Black Israelites had a spot on the steps where they quoted from the Bible and yelled abuse, some of it racist.

“‘You got all these dirty-ass crackers behind you with a red Make America Great Again hat on,’ one of the Black Israelites said in the video of the event filmed by another of their members.

“Later, the man told another person: ‘I bet you’re a dumb-ass Puerto Rican.’

“He also abused African Americans nearby.

“As the abuse continued, the school students surrounded the Black Israelites and started to sing songs, dance and cheer each other on, drowning them out.

“At one point in the video one of the black men told the students around him, ‘You got on the back of the court system ‘In God we trust’, on the back of the dollar bill it says ‘In God we trust’, but you give faggots rights.'”

The news story also said “Footage does not show students seeking out Mr. Phillips, or ‘attacking’ him,” thus corroborating the statement by Sandmann that was released to the press. It was Phillips who approached the students.

The following was taken from CNN Wire.

“In the new video, another group taunts the students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky with disparaging and vulgar language. The group of black men, who identify as members of the Hebrew Israelites, also shout racist slurs at participants of the Indigenous Peoples Rally and other passersby.

“The men [black Israelites] repeatedly use the n-word to refer to the black teens in the group, prompting cries from the group. The men ask the students if the water they’re drinking ‘tastes like incest’ and call the students ‘young Klansmen.’

“The teens listen for a few minutes longer, accusing the men of being racist and booing when the main speaker uses the word ‘faggots’ when talking about equal rights.

“Then, the students get a signal from off camera to leave. They cheer and wave, chanting ‘let’s go home’ as they run off.

“The video continues for another 20 minutes as the men turn their focus to a prayer circle that formed while they were talking to the students. The lead speaker shouts denunciations of the Catholic church, calling its members ‘child molesters’ and quotes scripture.”

The following is from the New York Times.

Speaking of the first video, the paper notes that the students were widely criticized. “But on Sunday, Mr. Phillips clarified that it was he who had approached the crowd and that he had intervened because racial tensions—primarily between the white students and the black men—were ‘coming to a boiling point.’

“In his statement, Mr. Sandmann said he did not antagonize or try to block Mr. Phillips. ‘I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gesture or other aggressive moves,’ he said.

“I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation,” he said. ‘I am a faithful Christian and practicing Catholic, and I always try to live up to the ideals my faith teaches me—to remain respectful of others, and to take no action that would lead to conflict or violence.'”

The following is from the Washington Post:

“The Israelites and students exchanged taunts, videos show. The Native Americans and Hebrew Israelites say some students shouted, ‘Build the wall!’ although that chant is not heard on the widely circulated videos, and the Cincinnati Enquirer quoted a student at the center of the confrontation who said he did not hear anyone say it.

“At one point, the Hebrew Israelites began arguing with Native American activists, telling them the word ‘Indian’ means ‘savage,’ according to the video.”

Regarding Phillips, the Native American told the Washington Post that he sought to act as an intermediary between the white students and the black provocateurs. But peacemakers don’t taunt, and that is what he did: he taunted Sandmann by beating his drum in his face. More important, he told the Detroit News that the white boys provoked the black men, which is (a) not true and (b) does not square with what he told the Post.

Having addressed the events of January 18, Bill Donohue now wants to assess some of the most prominent critics of the Covington Catholic students. That the students were not the guilty party in the dustup is obvious to every fair-minded person who has seen, or learned about, the second video.

Donohue did not issue a statement on this incident immediately, and for good reason: the Catholic League defends wrongdoing committed against individual Catholics and the institutional Church; it does not defend wrongdoing done by either.

Those who weighed in on this story include some members of the Catholic clergy, Catholic lay leaders, and non-Catholics. Some were temperate in their remarks and some were vicious. Some have issued a full-throated apology, while others have offered less than a complete apology. Others are sticking to their guns. Two persons went off the cliff.

Erik Abriss was fired after he wished the students and their parents were dead. “I just want these people to die. Simple as that. And their parents.” The freelance writer for Vulture was terminated by INE Entertainment, a digital company. Comedian Kathy Griffin took second prize. She wants the students hunted down. “Names please. And stories from people who can identify them and vouch for their identity.” No wonder the students have received death threats.

It does not please us to say that the most irresponsible voices in this controversy have come from the Catholic clergy.

On the day of the incident, the Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School issued a joint statement saying, “We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general….We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips. This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect for the human person.” They promised to “take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion.”

What should be condemned is what the Diocese and the school said on January 22. It said that a “third-party investigation” is planned regarding what happened between “Covington Catholic students, Elder Nathan Phillips and Black Hebrew Israelites.” What part of the second video does it not find persuasive?

After condemning the students without knowing their side—they did not call for an investigation on Friday—they are now going to probe this “very serious matter that has already permanently altered the lives of many people.” It sure has—the students have been damaged. Sadly, the Diocese and the school have played a major part in this tragedy.

Three of the most pro-LGBT priests in the nation slammed the students. Father James Martin ripped the students for “sham[ing] and disrespect[ing] a man at the Indigenous People’s March,” saying that what they did was “not Catholic, not Christian and not acceptable.”

Martin later said, “I would like to apologize to them for my judgment of them.” He elaborates by saying that “we may never know what was going on inside the hearts of the students.” We certainly don’t know what they were thinking, and that is because the student at the center of the standoff, Nick Sandmann, never opened his mouth. Phillips was the one who walked over to the student and taunted him with his drum.

It is important to note that we have a very clear understanding of what was on the minds of the black Israelites—they bashed whites, blacks, Hispanics, and gays. One might have thought that the gay bashing would have gotten Martin’s back up, but apparently he was unfazed by it. He did not help himself by saying, “despite repeated viewings of all the videos, and reading all the participants’ statements, these actions remain unclear.” He does not disclose the source of his confusion.

Father Dan Horan, a Franciscan, went off the deep end. “I’m so deeply appalled and disgusted by the racist, shameful, disrespectful behavior of the Catholic high school students wearing MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) hats and harassing a Native American elder and Vietnam Vet. I’m so angry and yet not at all surprised at pervasive white supremacy exhibited.”

Donohue is appalled and disgusted that a priest would make such a totally unfounded condemnation of these Catholic students. He even admits in a later tweet that “even if a third party provoked, it doesn’t justify their behavior.” There it is. Even if the students didn’t provoke anything—and we know they did not—they are still guilty.

Father Edward Beck is a Passionist priest with a passion for liberal-left causes. The second video had zero effect on him. He said his “feelings” are “unchanged,” saying the “boys should not have been permitted to wear MAGA hats if they were representing the school.” Would Beck have objected if the students were wearing a pro-Hillary hat? Not on your life.

Among Catholic laypersons, no one did a better job of apologizing, without qualification, than Princeton’s Robert George and First Things’ Matthew Schmitz. Robbie said, “I apologize to the Covington Catholic boys.” He added, “I jumped the gun and that was stupid and unjust. It is I, not the boys, who needs to take a lesson from this.” Hard to beat that.

Matt Schmitz was also excellent. “It’s easy to find fault in others, difficult to admit our own. For what it’s worth, I believe that the boys acted in a more moral and Christian manner than those who condemned them and then refused to admit the error.” Honest and thoughtful.

Sobrab Ahmari, a convert to Catholicism and op-ed editor of the New York Post, made a commendable statement to the students. “I also failed you. I rebuked you, though more mildly than others did, because I too can sometimes be credulous in the face of a media consensus; lesson learned.” Well said.

Jeannie Mancini, who leads the March for Life, dived into this mess with both feet by condemning the students for their “reprehensible behavior.” Now that she has had time to reconsider her remarks, she refuses to do so. But she did find time to delete her accusatory tweet.

Talking-head Hugh Hewitt has also taken down his offensive tweet about the students. He lectured the students on their need for “respect, forgiveness, courtesy.” It is he who needs to do so, beginning with an apology to the students whom he has maligned.

CNN’s Kirsten Powers is looking more foolish by the minute indicting the students for their “white privilege,” a subject that she should know very well. She owns it.

Among non-Catholics, Rod Dreher began walking back two of his harsh tweets, though without offering an apology. But he mostly took the side of the students, noting how irresponsible the media have been. He took them to task for “conveniently ignor[ing] the provocative, racist, foul-mouthed attacks on the boys by one of Phillips’s Native American companions.” Exactly.

National Review has been on both sides of this issue. Rich Lowry criticized the boys but then took down his tweet. He also took down the incendiary tweet by his colleague, Nick Frankovich. “The Covington Students Might as Well Have Just Spit on the Cross. They mock a serious frail-looking older man and gloat in their momentary role as Roman soldiers to his Christ.”

With a comment like that, it is clear that Lowry has a loose cannon on his hands. A more recent article by Kyle Smith, which was quite good, was posted on the website of the magazine, suggesting that Lowry got the message.

New York Times columnist David Brooks had a mostly fair take on the controversy in the paper’s January 22 edition, but it was marred by one key omission. He admited that “The Covington case was such a blatant rush to judgment—it was powered by crude prejudice and social stereotyping—I’m hoping it will be an important pivot point.” It would have been helpful had he said that it was Catholic males who were the victims of prejudice and stereotyping. It would have been even better had he told the readers that his first statement on this issue was to criticize the boys.

Author Reza Aslan seemed to invite violence against Sandmann by saying he never saw a more “punchable face” than his. Aslan took down his vile tweet though he left up some despicable comments he found worthy of retweeting.

Bill Kristol, who has finally found a home with the Never Trumpers at CNN, blasted the students and then took down his tweets. What a class act. He offered no apology.

Howard Dean said he wants the school to close because it is a “hate factory.” He has offered no retraction or an apology for his jackass remarks.

The Catholic League fights anti-Catholicism and, like every organization, we make mistakes as well. But when we do we own up, which is why we are not at the least bit bothered by those who have apologized to the students. For them, it’s over, at least as far as we’re concerned.

Why did some really good people make a mistake? Donohue contacted Robbie George about this, and he was frank as always. When he saw the first video clip, it looked like the students were taunting the Native American man. A staunch pro-life intellectual, he said, “I was extremely concerned about how such behavior could give our great movement a bad name. So, much too hastily I issued a condemnation. When I saw the full video the next day, I realized I had been misled by the short clip. I immediately apologized, no ifs, ands, or buts.”

Robbie did exactly that and his reasoning was sound.

What accounts for the most hateful comments? As an organization that fights anti-Catholicism, it would be tempting to conclude that it is old-fashioned anti-Catholic bigotry. This is certainly true of the Indians—they tried to crash a Mass the following day—and of the black thugs who attacked virtually everyone, but it does not explain everything.

Surely the Diocese of Covington and the school are not driven by bigotry, so what explains their lame response? Their statement focuses much on Native Americans. It is sad but true that there are some in the Catholic Church today who are more sensitive to the rights of minorities than they are their own people. This is Exhibit A.

What else is in play? Politics. The politics of hate, made manifest in the delirious hatred of President Trump. It is the pro-Trump hat—cited by many—that drove them over the top. They need help.

Will anything be learned from this? For some, the answer is yes, but regrettably such persons are likely to be in a minority.

The Catholic white boys from Covington Catholic High School—hated because they are Catholic, white, male, and Trump supporters (some of them)—have been indicted by lots of pundits, politicians, reporters, and celebrities, both liberal and conservative. Yet the record shows that the students were the only innocent party to this fracas. None of them said or did anything bigoted, but this is not true of the Indians and the black Israelites.

A group of about 20 Indians, led by activist Nathan Phillips, tried to storm a Mass on January 19 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. They were stopped by security who had to lock the doors. This is what the Nazis did to the Jews in Hitler’s Germany—they crashed the synagogues during services.

It is against the law in D.C. to disturb a religious service. Had Phillips succeeded, it would have been a hate crime. If the Catholic students had barged into a crowd of Indians while they were praying, they would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country and it would be the lead story on the broadcast and cable news outlets.

However, this unprovoked attack by Phillips and company—on innocent persons exercising their First Amendment right to religious liberty—was ignored by most of the mainstream media. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, CNN and MSNBC never said a word about it. Only Fox News did.

Phillips also made disparaging remarks about Catholicism, saying the students are not being told the truth about their religion. Yet not one student made a disparaging remark about Indians. But the black thugs did—they called the Indians “savages.” That being the case, why didn’t Phillips and his merry band of church busters confront them? Why did they seek to crash a Mass instead? They are the bigots, not the kids.

The black Israelites bashed white people, black people, Christians (especially Catholics), Puerto Ricans, and homosexuals. Where were the gay rights groups? If the kids called gays “faggots”—which is what these thugs did—the media would have been up in arms. So it is not the content of an insult that matters, it is the identity of who says it.

The mainstream media picked up a few of the anti-Catholic statements by the black activists, but overall they did a lousy job. We watched the video and here are some of the most anti-Catholic statements that were made.

• [Black Israelite responding to a question] “You want to see hate in the Bible? Let’s see hate in the Bible. Let’s see what the Christians and the Catholics don’t go into.” [He then reads a verse from Ecclesiastes]
• [Black Israelite pointing out a Catholic priest standing nearby] “And like this, child molesting faggot priest right there… the Catholics are a bunch of child molesters.”
• [Black Israelite speaking to crowd] “You want to talk about R. Kelly. Why we don’t talk about the Catholic Church? Why we don’t talk about the Roman Catholic Church, and especially you so-called Hispanics and Negroes, you got no business calling yourself a Roman Catholic. When’s the last time you’ve been a Roman?”
• [Black Israelite speaking to Covington students] “And Jesus Christ is not a white man. This ain’t Jesus Christ…the truth matters. This is a faggot child molester. This is not Jesus Christ. If you look in the Bible, you will see he is a man of color.” [man referring to a Catholic/Christian depiction of Jesus]
• [Black Israelite speaking to a Catholic prayer circle nearby] “The child molesting Catholic Church here. This is what we’ve come to. How long are we going stay in the Catholic Church? How long are we going to continue worshipping idols in the Catholic Church? Where is Hail Mary in the Bible? There’s no Hail Mary in the Bible. You can’t worship Mary. You’re supposed to worship the Lord.”
• [Black Israelite speaking to prayer group] “You have your reward. Your reward is your Catholic Church being tax exempt, being child molesters and getting away with it. You’ve been raping children since 1492 in the Catholic Church. You’ve been raping children in Rome before you got here.”
• [Black Israelite speaking to separate group of students] “When you walk in a Catholic Church, it is filled with idols. When you worship and kiss and bow down to a statue, you’re breaking the commandments of God. So the Catholic Church is totally against God, not even speaking about the child molestation. We’ll leave that one alone. But against God’s laws and commandments, yes. You say ‘Hail Mary, full of grace’. You say that prayer. Where is that prayer in the psalms? Where is that prayer in the Bible?”

No white student responded in kind to either the Indian or black activists. They, and they alone, were innocent.

What happened on January 18 has been nicely captured by Bill Donohue’s good friend, Rabbi Aryeh Spero. Here is what he told him.

“This is a contrived and false episode pounced on by people who hate religious white Catholics and are always on the look-out to demonize Catholics. These people are bigots. It is all part of the anti-Christianism by many segments in today’s leftist America and media collaborators. If they could, they would physically beat up Catholics and take away their jobs and livelihood simply because they are white, conservative, and people of biblical faith. They are consumed by hate. Who taught these people to SO hate white, religious Americans?”