The Terrence McNally play that depicts Christ having sex with the twelve apostles, “Corpus Christi,” was performed at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), March 28-31.

Research disclosed that FAU has programs aimed at students who are Thai, Haitian, Chinese, African American, women, gays and Jews. Indeed, the same week it hosted “Corpus Christi,” it featured several events celebrating Caribbean artists.

The school also lists faculty experts in such areas as Rastafari, multiculturalism, sexism/racism in language, and anti-Semitism. But it has no expert in anti-Catholicism and no Catholic studies program analogous to its Holocaust and Judaic Studies program.

In a statement to the press, William Donohue commented, “The commitment that the school has made to various segments of the population suggests that it would not dare offend these groups by putting on a play that assaulted their sensibilities.” However, he said, “that when it comes to Catholics, a different standard applies.” Donohue wrote to the school’s president, Dr. Anthony James Catanese, asking for an explanation. He didn’t stop there.

Donohue called attention to the fact that FAU is a state school. “There is little doubt that if Catholics requested that the school sponsor religious events during Holy Week,” he said, “cries of separation of church and state would be heard. Yet the school has no problem using state funds to sponsor bigotry.” That is why he wrote to the Florida House Committee on Education Appropriations and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education about the matter.

The response was so sharp that a headline in the Palm Beach Post read, “Lawmakers threaten FAU over gay Christ play.” Donohue was pleased to learn this and was also happy to learn that Dr. Catanese immediately ordered Provost Richard Osburn to convene a committee of senior scholars at FAU to review policies and procedures for such controversial events. The FAU president added that he would not go to see the play.

It was Charlie Crist, however, who issued the strongest condemnation of the play. Crist is the Commissioner of Education for the state of Florida. See page 2 for an excerpt of his letter.

It happened on a late Friday afternoon, March 30. Patrick Scully, the league’s director of communications, told William Donohue that an article had appeared that day in a Fort Lauderdale newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, claiming that when the play “Corpus Christi” opened in New York in 1998, “The league threatened violence….”

Donohue immediately called the Sun Sentinel making the following demand: either a retraction will be printed or the Catholic League will sue the newspaper. He told the “number two” person at the paper (the “number one” person wasn’t in that day) that she might as well fax over the evidence that the league threatened violence because she’s going to have to show it in court anyway. She asked for time to research the matter, pledging to call him at home that evening. Donohue said no and informed her to call him Monday morning letting him know her response.

On Monday morning, she called. She said that three of the four reporters on the story had been spoken to and that one more, the theater critic, had to be contacted. She asked if she could call in the afternoon after this person had been spoken to and Donohue agreed.

When she called back (rather sheepishly), she said the retraction would appear in the next morning’s newspaper, April 3. It did. We then demanded that the retraction also appear on the paper’s website. It was posted immediately. See page 2 for the actual wording.

On March 6, Brit Hume of Fox News Network reported that CNN founder Ted Turner stunned CNN employees in Washington when he made an anti-Catholic remark on Ash Wednesday. Seeing ashes on the foreheads of some workers, Turner said, “What are you? A bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox.”

The Catholic League immediately contacted the Corporate Affairs department of CNN in Atlanta seeking more information. Their first response was to refuse to confirm, or deny, the validity of the story. Declaring this position unpersuasive, William Donohue issued a statement to the press that recounted Turner’s previous remarks regarding Christians in general, and Catholics in particular.

Donohue pronounced Turner a recidivist. “Like all repeat offenders, he said, “Turner evinces an animus against a particular portion of the population. For him, it is Christians whom he despises.” Indeed, in 1999, Turner sent an apology to the Catholic League after we blasted him for insulting the pope.

The Catholic League president reminded the media that Turner was on record for a) branding Christianity a religion “for losers” b) labeling pro-life Christians as “Bozos” c) insulting the pope with one of his cheap jokes at a pro-abortion meeting and d) blasting Christianity for being “very intolerant.” Donohue then said, “Now he’s back, this time slamming those who wear ashes on Ash Wednesday.”

Both the print and electronic media picked up on the Catholic League’s response (it made the front page of the New York Post) and within 48 hours, Turner issued the following statement: “I apologize to all Christians for my comment about Catholics wearing ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday. I do not believe in any form of prejudice or discrimination, especially religious intolerance.”

In reply, Donohue released told the media that we are “torn by what has happened.” He explained “On the one hand, our religion teaches us the virtue of forgiveness and the necessity of penance. On the other hand, we don’t like being played for a fool. So let’s put it this way: we’ll bite our lip and drop the issue, skeptical though we are.” Donohue also requested a meeting with Turner to “find out what’s bugging him.” We are awaiting Turner’s decision.

We hope this is the last time we have to press Turner into an apology.

Daily Variety printed the following headline on March 8: “Catholic League prexy gives Turner a sermon.” It then quoted Donohue on Turner: “He may be just as dumb as John Rocker, but unlike the Atlanta pitcher, he occupies a position of significant influence in our culture.” Which is why Donohue floated the idea of shipping Turner off “for some sensitivity training.”

The lead article in the last issue of Catalyst was on the latest flap at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. It involved the Catholic League’s criticism of “Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” a photographic exhibit that featured artist Renee Cox appearing nude as Jesus in a rendition of the Last Supper. On February 20, Donohue debated Cox at the First Amendment Center in New York.

In front of an unsympathetic audience, Donohue branded Cox’s work “anti-Catholic propaganda.” He pointedly asked Cox, who is black, whether she would object to a picture of a white man urinating into the mouth of Martin Luther King and having it displayed in a public library during Black History Month. Cox got indignant but never answered him on whether she would simply regard this as art.

When the crowd showed sympathy for Cox, Donohue said he had another example for them to consider: imagine a picture of Hitler with a halo over his head sticking a dagger into the side of Jew. Once again, no one would say that they wouldn’t protest such a vulgar display. Thus did Donohue make his point.

Joining the debate was Edward Cardinal Egan of New York who called Cox “pathetic.” Mayor Rudolph Giuliani went further saying he would ask for a decency panel to screen art scheduled to be shown at public museums. Also condemning the art was the Orthodox Jewish Community of New York..

As soon as the media found out about the latest anti-Catholic exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, they contacted the Catholic League. We immediately launched a national protest that was enjoined by many notables on both sides. “The Today Show,” the New York Times, CNN and Fox News Channel were only a few of the media outlets that covered the league’s reaction.

It was in the fall of 1999 that the Brooklyn Museum of Art became famous for its “Sensation” exhibit that featured a dung-splattered Virgin Mary adorned with pornographic images. The current exhibit, “Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers,” is mostly quite good. But it does have one photo, “Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” that is despicable. It shows the artist, Renee Cox, appearing in full frontal nudity as Christ in the Last Supper. As it turns out, Cox has a record of Catholic bashing.

William Donohue sent a letter to Barbara Millstein, curator of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, stating the league’s objections. He began by pointing out that Renee Cox is no stranger to Catholic bashing.

For example, she has justified her attacks by blaming the Catholic Church for slavery-a scurrilous lie-and has on several occasions used Catholic imagery in ways that are patently offensive. To wit: she has portrayed Christ on the cross castrated; she has appeared half naked as Our Blessed Mother holding a Christ-like figure in her work, “The Pieta”; and she has dressed as a nun with a naked women kneeling before her in prayer.

Donohue also went after Millstein. He said, “you yourself treated criticisms of this display in a manner that was as cavalier as it was coarse (e.g. ‘There are images of this scene with dogs at the Last Supper’).”

He closed with this line: “I would love to know whether there is any portrayal of any aspect of history that you might personally find so offensive as to be excluded from an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. For starters, would you include a photograph of Jewish slave masters sodomizing their obsequious black slaves? And worry not, when contemplating your answer, just think of it as a work of high artistic merit.”

The story was still unfolding when we went to press. We’ll have more in the next Catalyst.

Time Out New York is a glossy magazine with a gay edge that covers New York social and cultural events. In its January 4-11 edition, it featured a discussion of the best and worst of 2000 in many categories. In the Gay & Lesbian section, the top listing for “The Best” of 2000 read as follows:

Cardinal John O’Connor
kicks the bucket
The press eulogized him as a saint,
when in fact, the pious creep was a
stuck-in-the-1950s, antigay menace.
Good riddance!

William Donohue told the press, “This is one of the most mean-spirited and vicious attacks that one could imagine.” He appeared on nearly every New York news channel blasting the magazine for bemoaning “deaths due to AIDS while simultaneously running articles and advice columns that encourage the very behaviors that are the proximate cause of the disease.” Donohue added, “This isn’t merely anti-Catholicism at work—it’s cultural fascism.”

The outcry from New Yorkers was overwhelmingly positive. So much so that Time Out New York issued an apology. Because it was so lame, we quickly rejected it. But we are happy to note that a resolution condemning the comment unanimously passed in the New York City Council. Councilman James S. Oddo introduced the resolution. Write to Time Out at 627 Broadway, NY, NY 10012.

Every Christmas season is a busy time for the Catholic League, but this past Christmas broke the record. Radical secularists across the nation went berserk trying to stamp out the religious significance of the holiday. Our response was equally unyielding.

Just as December began, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) wasted no time issuing a pamphlet, “The December Dilemma: Guidelines for Public Schools During the December Holiday.” Within 48 hours, the Catholic League posted on its website a parody of the ADL’s statement, making just enough changes to the ADL’s language to contradict its message.

While secularists in Lexington, Massachusetts were banning Nativity scenes, the censors in Eugene, Oregon were prohibiting the display of Christmas trees on public property. The gag order in Eugene was explained as a way of “practicing diversity.”

It got so absurd in Vancouver, Washington that they even banned bus drivers from wearing religious neckties, vests of hats. They tried to justify this on the basis of being faithful to the Constitution of the State of Washington. But this argument blew up in their face when the Catholic League provided evidence that the transit officials in Tacoma, Skagit County, Seattle, Leavenworth, Longview, Mercer Island and Port Angeles had no such ban, and all obviously abided by the same state constitution.

In Newton County, Georgia parents were informed that there would be no more “Christmas break” as pressure from secularists delivered a new holiday, “semester break.” Parents in Fishers County, Indiana were also surprised to learn that multiculuralism allows for explaining the religious roots of Hanukkah but not Christmas.

A review of what was being sold on the Internet disclosed that religious symbols such as the menorah and Star of David could easily be found, but not religious symbols such as the Nativity scene. Among the offenders were 1-800-FLOWERS, FTD.com, Hallmark, Bloomingdale’s and AltaVista.com. And from McDonalds to the local mall, signs of “Happy Hanukkah” and “Happy Holidays” abounded. Rarely was there a “Merry Christmas.”

Even worse, when we tapped into Yahoo.com under “Religious Holidays,” we found six religions posted, but only under one was there an “Opposing Viewpoints” listed. It wasn’t Islam or Judaism or Buddhism or Hinduism or Sikhism. It was Christianity. And, oh yes, it was replete with blasphemous and obscene commentary.

On Nov. 13, the News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware ran a story on a “nationally known Holocaust educator Jack P. McGough.” McGough had spoken the day before at the student center on the campus of the University of Delaware (UD) in Newark; he was identified as a professor at UD. The Jewish Federation of Delaware sponsored his talk, “Where Were the Churches?” McGough singled out the Catholic Church for being the worst denier of the Holocaust.

The first thing we did was investigate McGough’s credentials. What we found was a) he is not a nationally known expert on the Holocaust or on any other historical subject b) he is neither an author, historian nor social scientist and c) he is not a professor at the UD. In fact, McGough is a retired executive who teaches continuing education courses at UD’s Academy of Lifelong Learning.

We then blasted all three parties in a news release, singling out the newspaper as the worst offender. Subsequently, the News Journal did run a correction. As for McGough, he promised to send us his resume but then reneged when he discovered who we were. He told Patrick Scully “you’re Donohue’s group.” As if that matters.

This episode provides convincing evidence that there is a disturbing eagerness to believe the worst about Catholicism. It also shows that by quickly and firmly addressing these issues, we can get offending newspapers to print a retraction.

Following a protest by the Catholic League, a 24 year-old copy editor in Spokane, Washington was asked to resign after she labeled Gonzaga University president Rev. Robert Spitzer a “Nazi priest” in the pages of the Spokesman-Review.

On November 8, the Spokane daily ran a short piece entitled, “Nazi priest promotes his book.” The story was simply a blurb announcing a talk and book signing that Father Spitzer was doing at a local bookstore. Neither his talk nor book had anything to do with Nazism.

Upon learning of this story, William Donohue called the editor’s office at the Spokesman-Review. He was told that the “Nazi priest” label was an error and that there would be an apology in the next day’s newspaper. Donohue charged that it was not an error and instead argued that the guilty party had deliberately defamed Rev. Spitzer because he had banned a representative from Planned Parenthood from speaking on his campus last spring.

Donohue told the woman that according to her newspaper’s definition, the Democratic Party consists of Nazis: in 1992 at the Democratic National Convention, he said, pro-life leader Governor Robert Casey was banned from speaking. She had no comment.

Donohue demanded that the person responsible for the “Nazi priest” label be fired. The Catholic League then contacted all the major newspapers across the country and blanketed all the TV and radio stations in Spokane. Within 24 hours, Robin Moody was asked to resign by the newspaper’s editors.

What Donohue didn’t know when he made his phone call was that Moody was the president of the women’s studies club at Gonzaga who sought to bring a Planned Parenthood spokesperson to the campus. But his instincts were right: he knew the “Nazi priest” label was connected to the Planned Parenthood incident.

The Spokesman-Review put forth the line that this “error” got passed the editors because it happened the night of the election and things were busy. In his statement to the press, Donohue didn’t buy it. “On the contrary,” he said, “Ms. Moody’s decision was as deliberate as it was ideologically driven. She got what she deserved.”

A call to the Spokane media after the event gave evidence that the Catholic League’s complaint was not only the subject of talk radio, the league was the only organization that sought to can the culprit.