On April 18, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the congressional ban on partial-birth abortion by a margin of 5-4; all five Catholics on the high court affirmed the ban. We predicted—accurately as it turned out—that the bigots would seize on the outcome. “The pushback from conservative Catholics was immediate—even pre-emptive,” the New York Times said on its website. “Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, declared, ‘We need more, not fewer, Catholics on the Supreme Court.'”

The Times was referring to our news release. “We are waiting for the anti-Catholic bigots to go bonkers over the fact that all five of the justices who voted against infanticide are Roman Catholic,” Donohue said. The bigots soon proved him right.

American Atheist bloggers called the ruling “very bad news for all women in the United States, all gays and lesbians in the United States, and of course, anyone else not Catholic, especially Freethinkers, Agnostics and Atheists.” Cartoonist Tony Auth painted a vile portrait of the judges. NPR screamer Julianne Malveaux exclaimed, “You’re taking us back to the Catholic days of you kill the mother to bring the baby into the world.” And University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone sounded positively insincere, as well as foolish, when he said that it was a “painfully awkward observation” to note that all five justices in the majority are Catholic.

On April 25, Rosie O’Donnell said on the ABC show, “The View,” that she was not coming back next season; she is quitting in June. We are proud that the New York Times credited the Catholic League for playing a major role in taking her down; it cited all the protesting e-mails we triggered.

In the week prior to her announcement, the Catholic League contacted officials at Disney/ABC twice about the show. For example, on April 19, we noted another O’Donnell hit—a rant about the Supreme Court having too many Catholics. In her mind, because five of the justices are Catholic, this constitutes a breach of separation of church and state. In our complaint, we also detailed seven other bigoted outbursts by O’Donnell that have occurred since last September.

O’Donnell has said there is no difference between radical Christians and radical Muslims (9-12-06); she has ridiculed the Eucharist (9-28-06); she has falsely claimed that the pope was in charge of policing miscreant priests since the 1980s and did nothing about them (10-2-06); she repeated the lie about the pope again (10-27-06); she has mocked priestly celibacy (2-7-07); she ridiculed the Eucharist again (2-27-07); and she has mocked Catholic teaching on the Bible and the Virgin Birth (3-26-07).

On April 23, O’Donnell struck for the ninth time. As we said in a news release, “Two angry ex-Catholics, Rosie O’Donnell and Joy Behar, teamed up with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a self-described ‘Christian,’ to mock the Catholic Church once again on a show run by a Jew, Barbara Walters.” The subject was Limbo, about which the co-hosts knew nothing.

We again registered a protest with Anne Sweeney, Co-Chair Disney Media Networks and President, Disney-ABC Television Group, demanding that she “rein in” O’Donnell. Two days later, O’Donnell called it quits.

As long as Walters remains co-producer and co-owner of the show, there will be a problem. Joy Behar is a bigot and she is not leaving, and O’Donnell is slated to make guest appearances. With this in mind, we contacted “The View’s” largest sponsor, Procter & Gamble, putting them on notice. In fairness, the company responded quickly and professionally.

When O’Donnell offended the Chinese, she apologized. When “Grey’s Anatomy” star Isaiah Washington made an anti-gay slur, ABC moved quickly to rectify the situation. Yet when it comes to Catholic bashing, ABC is slow to act.

Write to Anne Sweeney at 3800 W. Alameda Avenue, Burbank, CA 91505-4300.

From April 1 to April 7, the Roger Smith Lab Gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City was set to display a 6-foot tall anatomically correct sculpture of Jesus in milk chocolate; the figure was depicted as crucified.  But thanks to a protest led by the Catholic League, it never saw the light of day.

Artist Cosimo Cavallaro titled his work “My Sweet Lord”; a picture was available on the Internet.  The Roger Smith Hotel is located in the heart of New York City, and the gallery is located on street level, easily accessible to the public. Adding insult to injury, the public was invited to eat the Jesus-figure. All of this was to happen during Holy Week.

“All those involved are lucky that angry Christians don’t react the way extremist Muslims do when they’re offended—otherwise they may have more than their heads cut off,” said Bill Donohue. He also challenged James Knowles, the president and CEO of the Roger Smith Hotel (and artist-in-residence), to substitute Muhammad for Jesus and display him during Ramadan.

The Catholic League contacted approximately 500 organizations about this assault.  Our allied list contains scores of Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim Buddhist and Hindu organizations, as well as secular groups, that share our concerns about religious hate speech and the degradation of our culture. We called upon them to boycott the hotel. As Donohue said, “The Roger Smith Hotel is morally bankrupt. It is the goal of the Catholic League to make it financially bankrupt as well.”

The reaction of the public was heartening. The hotel was bombarded with angry phone calls and e-mails, and not just from Catholics. This, in turn, led to a surge in Catholic League membership. Unfortunately, it also led to a surge in hate mail against us.

Kiera McCaffrey appeared on several TV shows and granted many interviews to the press.  Donohue debated the artist three times, once on TV and twice on radio. The media were very fair to both of them.

As we’ve said before, not a Lenten season goes by without an attack on Christianity. This year was worse than most. From a teacher who wiped ashes off the forehead of a high school student, to the Jesus-tomb “Titanic Fraud” to “Chocolate Jesus,” it was open season on our religion. But the Catholic League fought back, and came out on top.

On April 4, the Comedy Central show “South Park” lampooned Bill Donohue.

Donohue appeared as one of the cartoon characters, along with a figure of Pope Benedict XVI.  The Easter script depicted Donohue chastising the pope for being “too soft.” Donohue then takes over as pope. When a Jesus figure appears, Donohue has both the pope and Jesus arrested. After Jesus is killed by Kyle (one of the regular cartoon characters), he resurrects and kills Donohue.

“I have no idea why ‘South Park’ creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker caricature me as a heartless thug,” Donohue said in a news release. He continued, “In any event, I stand convicted and have no defense. Now I have to get back to business—I hear someone just took some liberties with the Easter Bunny.”

On April 5, Donohue discussed this episode on the MSNBC show, “Scarborough Country,” and he went on the Fox News Network show “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on April 9 to explain his reaction. What surprised some people was Donohue’s humorous take on the show.

On April 7, “Page Six,” the celebrity page of the New York Post, ran a piece on this issue. It said Donohue “has been immortalized in a ‘South Park’ episode,” adding that the Catholic League president “showed his softer side recently when he went after schools Superintendent William Rearick in Tiverton, R.I. for banning the Easter Bunny….”  Click here for the story.

On March 4, “Titanic” director James Cameron and TV-director Simcha Jacobovici released what they called a documentary on the Discovery Channel claiming they have evidence of a Jerusalem tomb that allegedly houses the remains of Jesus and his family. In the week prior to the showing, Bill Donohue hit the air waves challenging what he dubbed a “Titanic Fraud.”

Not a Lenten season goes by without some author or TV program seeking to cast doubt on the divinity of Jesus and/or the Resurrection. Last April, NBC’s “Dateline” featured the wholly discredited and downright laughable claims of Michael Baigent, and two years ago ABC treated us to a special that questioned every aspect of the Resurrection. This year we have the Cameron-Jacobovici thesis.

Israeli archeologist Amos Kloner was in charge of the 1980 investigation of the tomb that Cameron-Jacobovici have seized on 27 years later to make their allegations. “The claim that the burial site has been found is not based on any proof, and is only an attempt to sell,” Kloner said. He added, “I refute all claims and efforts to waken a renewed interest in the findings. With all due respect, they are not archeologists.” Indeed, Kloner branded their claims “impossible” and “nonsense.” Moreover, he said there is “no likelihood” that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb. “It makes a great story for a TV film,” he concluded.

Joe Zias, who spent a quarter-century at Rockefeller University as an archeologist, said that “Simcha has no credibility whatsoever.” Zias wasn’t shooting from the hip: Jacobovici’s credibility explodes when one considers that he still believes the 2002 tale about an ossuary with the inscription, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” On June 18, 2003, an Israel Antiquities Authority committee unanimously condemned this claim as a modern forgery. Agreeing with this decision were Harvard’s Frank Cross and Tel Aviv University professor Edward Greenstein.

Cameron and Jacobovici not only were criticized by people like Donohue, but by Christian theologians and Jewish archeologists. Indeed, they received almost no support from anyone.

Fortunately, the media gave the league the opportunity to frame the issue as a seasonal attack on Christianity that occurs during Lent.

On February 28, Frances Kissling stepped down as president of Catholics for a Free Choice. For a quarter century, she misrepresented herself to the public, pretending to be the head of a bona-fide Catholic organization. It would be more accurate to say that she ran an anti-Catholic front group.

Twice condemned as a fraud by the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference, Kissling would have had to have found another job long ago had it not been for her friends in the establishment. Kissling counts among her donors such organizations as the Warren Buffet Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. Additionally, Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Foundation and the Packard Foundation provide financial support. Without them, she would have folded long ago as her organization has no members.

Bill Donohue offered her this parting shot: “I hope she takes her tapestries of Tibetan Buddhist deities with her when she exits her office, as well as any New Age paraphernalia she may have acquired over the years. It would also be a good idea to take her poster of Che Guevara with her. How fitting that a woman who spent most of her adult life promoting the killing of innocents in the womb would idolize a terrorist who killed innocent Latinos who made it to birth. In any event, I can’t wait to meet her successor, Jon O’Brien, on TV. I promise him a memorable encounter.”

Kissling recently said the Catholic Church “abuses…anyone who thinks.” It’s reassuring to know she can’t claim victim status.

CBS Outdoor, a division of the CBS Corporation, recently posted anti-Catholic billboards paid for by the Eternal Gospel Church, a breakaway sect of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, along Interstate 65 in Jeffersonville, Indiana. The town is located on the Indiana-Kentucky border across the river from Louisville. Our response caught them off-guard and ultimately led to a victory.

For years we have been battling the Eternal Gospel Church. It is an old-fashioned anti-Catholic group that accuses the pope of being the Antichrist, among other things. While not nearly as upsetting as what employees for John Edwards have said about Catholicism, it is disturbing enough.

Instead of launching a formal protest, we decided we’d beat CBS at its own game. We told CBS Outdoor we wanted to post a billboard in the same area saying, “CBS Sponsors Anti-Catholicism.” All of a sudden we touched a nerve.

Their initial response was bewilderment. Then came their answer—we were denied. Fine, we said, now we’ll tell the whole world. We then posted the e-mail address of Wally Kelly, the CEO of CBS Outdoor in our news release. He was quickly bombarded with letters of protest. So guess what happened? They reversed course and said the offensive billboards would come down.

The people on our side are great. A week after we won, CBS Outdoor called to say they were still getting hit with angry letters. But it was too late to call off the dogs. (More on page 7.)

On February 6, the Catholic League demanded that presidential hopeful John Edwards fire two recently hired anti-Catholics who had joined his team: Amanda Marcotte as Blogmaster and Melissa McEwan as the Netroots Coordinator. He chose to fire them, then rehire them. After we exposed another anti-Christian screed by Marcotte—written only three days after Edwards had assured everyone that this would not happen again—she was forced to quit. She blamed Bill Donohue as she waltzed out the door. The next day, McEwan also resigned.

Writing on the Pandagon blogsite on December 26, 2006, Amanda Marcotte wrote that “the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.”

On October 9, 2006, she said that “the Pope’s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are cast into Satan’s maw.” On the same day she wrote that “it’s going to be bad PR for the church, so you can sort of see why the Pope is dragging ass.” And on June 14, 2006, Marcotte offered the following Q&A: “What if Mary had taken Plan B after [here she described the Virgin Birth with vulgar sexual terms],” to which she offered the reply, “You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.”

On November 21, 2006, Melissa McEwan wrote on the website AlterNet that “some of Christianity’s most prominent leaders—including the Pope—regularly speak out against gay tolerance.” On November 1, 2006, on her blog Shakespeare’s Sister, she referred to President Bush’s “wingnut Christofascist base” when lashing out against religious conservatives.

On February 21, 2006, she attacked religious conservatives again, this time saying, “What don’t you lousy [expletive] understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?” Currently, the very first entry under “Greatest Hits” on her website (where she brags about being appointed to Edwards’ campaign) is titled something so filthy we cannot in good conscience reprint it here.

Our initial news release was easy on Edwards: “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots. He has no choice but to fire them immediately.”

 After Marcotte resigned, we issued a news release demanding that McEwan either quit or be forced out. It didn’t take long.

As this issue of Catalyst details, the annual Christmas war with secularists continued in 2006. The good news is that our side fought back with greater determination this past Christmas season than ever before. Our ad in the New York Times (see the November Catalyst), got us off to a quick start.

The Christmas war impacts everyone. Battles were waged in the schools, parks, malls and workplace. In many cases there was clear discrimination: menorahs were often allowed where manger scenes were prohibited. Christians are supposed to be satisfied with Christmas trees, so they say.

But unlike other years, the Catholic League was called upon more for leadership than actual combat. That’s because so many Catholics sought our advice and then took the fight to the secularists in their own backyard. This is precisely the kind of energy that has been lacking in the past.

Some of the skirmishes were over the usual stuff—workers being told not to offend anyone by saying “Merry Christmas”—and some of it was downright obscene. But whether it was political correctness or malice at work, the bottom line is that the secularists will stop at nothing in their quest for supremacy.

The Christmas wars will not be resolved until two things happen: the Supreme Court deals with this issue in a more forthright fashion than it has previously done, and Christians continue to fight back. There is so much confusion in court rulings in this area that many government officials and school superintendents opt to play it safe each year by prohibiting nativity scenes from being displayed.

The Catholic League was happy to team up with Father Benedict Groeschel in 2006 by launching our “Christmas Watch” program. We are delighted that so many in the media cited our work in news stories. We made their jobs easier. Indeed, we received more coverage than any other organization.

The Thomas More Law Center, representing the Catholic League, is appealing a decision by a federal judge who declared that an anti-Catholic resolution passed last year by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors was constitutional.

The resolution, which was adopted last March, was one of the most vitriolic condemnations of the Catholic Church ever made by government officials. Without offering any evidence, the officials accused the Vatican of meddling in the affairs of San Francisco, and labeled Church teachings on sexuality “hateful,” “insulting” and “defamatory.” It also called on the local archbishop to “defy” Church teachings.

Our attorney, Robert Muise, said, “Our Constitution plainly forbids hostility toward any religion, including the Catholic faith. In total disregard for the Constitution, homosexual activists in positions of authority in San Francisco have abused their authority as government officials and misused the instruments of government to attack the Catholic Church.”

Thomas More Law Center president Richard Thompson said, “This judge totally ignored or attempted to rationalize the evocative rhetoric and venom of the resolution which are sad reminders of Catholic baiting by the Ku Klux Klan.”

Bill Donohue maintains that this lawsuit is necessary if only because it may make the bigots think twice before they lash out at the Catholic Church again.