This is the article that appeared in the June 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The Diocese of Brooklyn, ably led by Bishop Robert J. Brennan, has entered into an agreement with the Office of New York State Attorney General Letitia James regarding the diocese’s two-decade child protection policy. Both organizations have issued a press release on this matter. But there are instances where the Office of the Attorney General’s (OAG) account misrepresents the terms of the agreement that were reached with the Diocese of Brooklyn (DB); in some instances, existing Diocesan policies are not properly noted by OAG.

• OAG says the Diocese “failed to consistently comply with its own policies and procedures for responding to sexual abuse.”

DB notes that the agreement specified that the Diocese’s “policies and procedures were significant and improved the Diocese’s response to sexual abuse.”

• OAG claims “The Diocese did not have policies in place to ensure a prompt and thorough response to allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct.”

DB says the agreement admitted that “in most cases, the Diocese timely referred the Abuse Allegations to the Diocesan Review Board and hired an independent investigator to investigate the charges.”

• OAG argues that “the Diocese will also post online a confidential portal and telephone number for submitting complaints.”

Breaking News: The Diocese has had such a phone number for 20 years.

• OAG opines that “The Diocese will also refer all complaints it receives to law enforcement.”

Hello! Unlike other religious and secular institutions—which are never scrutinized—the Diocese has been doing this for a very long time.

• OAG contends that “The agreement requires the Diocese to take significant action to prevent and address allegations of clergy sexual abuse” and make reforms such as “Installing an independent, secular monitor who will oversee the Diocese’s compliance with policies and procedures….”
Fact Check: It was the Diocese which proposed the appointment of an independent third party to monitor compliance.

Why OAG misrepresented the Brooklyn Diocese’s response to these issues is unknown. But the public, and state lawmakers, need to know the truth. It is important for the state not to feed anti-Catholicism, and one way to avoid doing that is to accurately report interactions with Catholic officials.
As Bill Donohue recounts in his book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes, there is no institution in the nation that has a better record in combating the sexual abuse of minors today than the Catholic Church. This is not open to debate: the data are conclusive. And this has been true for decades.
The heyday of the scandal was between 1965 and 1985. Current reports are typically about old cases. The fact of the matter is that almost all the offending priests are either dead or have been kicked out of ministry. To suggest otherwise is egregiously unjust.

We contacted Attorney General Letitia James and all members of the New York State legislature.

This is the article that appeared in the June 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

President Biden showed his bigoted side on April 23 when he spoke in Tampa, Florida about the glory of abortion. It wasn’t abortion, per se, that got him going—it was those whom he identified as pro-life that set him off.

To be specific, he railed against Donald Trump’s pro-life stance, saying the former president made “a political deal” with “the evangelical base of the Republican Party to look past his moral and character flaws.”

Fifty percent of all the money raised by the Democrats comes from Jews. Yet no one is going to say that Biden made a “political deal” with “the Jewish base of the Democratic Party to look past his cognitive flaws.”

Biden refuses to condemn the anti-Jewish rhetoric stemming from Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan. Yet no one is going to say that he made a “political deal” with “the Muslim base of the Democratic Party to look past his cognitive flaws.”

Notice that Biden’s comment in Tampa wasn’t about Protestants in general. He focused exclusively on evangelicals, and that is because to take a swipe at all Protestants would be to slam the mainline denominations; they are mostly in the pro-abortion camp. He chose a subset of Protestants who are known for their pro-life convictions.

Biden intentionally red-flagged evangelicals, knowing it would appeal to his bigoted base (survey data also show that Democrats do not think highly of Catholics, either). This was a classic example of religious baiting, and it should be condemned by everyone.

As the election year progresses, look for Biden to continue with this demagogic strategy. The “devout Catholic” has no problem manipulating religion to serve his militantly secular agenda.

This is the article that appeared in the May 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Prior to Easter, some news stories claimed that the Biden administration said it would not tolerate any reference to the Christian roots of Easter at the annual “egg roll” party on Easter Monday. The White House pushed back saying that its ban on religious symbols and themes was no different than what previous administrations did. Predictably, the media parroted the same line.

The Biden administration was wrong. The media were wrong. The liberal “fact checkers” were wrong. As we proved, they were all guilty of misinformation: Religious Easter Eggs were allowed under President George W. Bush.

We posted online a photo of a religious-themed Easter Egg that was one of 51 that were on display in 2002. It represented the state of New Mexico; no one complained.

This Easter Egg was an image of El Santuario de Chimayo, a small shrine located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Chimayo, New Mexico. It has been a place of worship since 1813, and is one of the most important Catholic pilgrimage centers in the United States.

The New Mexico artist responsible for this submission is Stan Franklin, a resident of Bosque Farms, New Mexico. According to one news story, he “chose a church theme to portray the Land of Enchantment. In pen, ink and acrylic paint, the drawing depicted the destination of the Good Friday Pilgrimage to Chimayo.”

The Biden administration maintained that it was following the rules established by the American Egg Board (AEB), and officials there say they are following rules established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

On Easter Sunday, AEB released a statement saying that this event does not show “preference to any individual religious or political viewpoints as AEB is prohibited from doing….”

It makes sense that AEB cannot show “preference to any individual religious or political viewpoints.” It’s a government agency. But that hardly settles the issue.

As we pointed out, public school teachers cannot show preference to any religion. But they are also banned from stopping students from religious expression. If a student in a music or art class decides to sing a religious hymn or draw a religious symbol, the teacher has no legal right to stop him.

Similarly, it is one thing for AEB not to promote religion; it is quite another for it, or the USDA, to prohibit individuals from depicting a religious theme in a government-sponsored event.

The White House was wrong historically and constitutionally. And the media were just as corrupt for not reporting this story accurately. We are proud that we were the only organization in the nation which got this story right.

This is the article that appeared in the May 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The latest Pew Research Center poll on Catholics reveals that Pope Francis’ favorability rating is tanking.

In 2015, the pope’s favorability rating was 90 percent. In 2021, it was 83 percent. Today it is 75 percent. Those Catholics who attend Mass at least weekly are the least supportive of him: his favorability rating is 71 percent.

Why are Catholics who are the most practicing also the least happy with Pope Francis? We know from virtually every survey that these Catholics are mostly orthodox, and it is likely that they are also more attentive to what he has been doing. That may explain their relative dissatisfaction with him.

In the last few years, the pope has allowed the blessing of homosexual couples; the clergy pushback continues to be widespread. He has also failed to deal forthrightly with accused serial predators, Fr. Marko Rupnik and Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, two fellow Jesuits. Moreover, the on-going Synod has welcomed dissidents and has been a source of much controversy.

The pope has put severe restrictions on the Latin Mass, alienating millions of Catholics. After San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone publicly denied Communion to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the pope granted her a private audience. He dismissed one of his critics, Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, and stripped

Cardinal Raymond Burke of his salary and his subsidized apartment in Rome.

Whether it is too late to turn things around remains to be seen.

This is the article that appeared in the May 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

It was the day after Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election. I was smiling (I had run Reagan’s campaign in the North Hills of Pittsburgh), but most of the other professors at La Roche College (now a university) were sulking, and many appeared depressed. However, their mood was not uncharacteristic of the way they were most of the time: There are a lot of unhappy campers in the professoriate, especially in the liberal arts.

Nothing has changed.

In a new study by psychologists in Finland assessing the state of mind of radical social justice devotees, it was found that those who bought into progressive ideas are profoundly unhappy. Published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, the researchers started with a sample of 851 persons, mostly students and professors at the University of Turku, and then expanded it to 5,030 adults. They distinguished between those who hold to a traditional liberal perspective and those who identify with a radical one. They focused on the latter.

The researchers devised a Critical Social Justice Attitude Scale (CSJAS) that measured seven aspects of what they deemed as representative of “woke” politics. Most of the items dealt with race, though one tapped transgenderism (the idea that the sexes are interchangeable). For example, “University reading lists should include fewer white or European authors” was deemed reflective of the “woke” view.

Social justice attitudes, the study’s authors said, “perceive people foremost as members of identity groups and as being, witting or unwitting, perpetrators or victims of oppression based on the groups’ perceived power differentials; and advocate regulating how or how much people speak and how they act if there is a perceived power differential between speakers, and intervening in action or speech deemed oppressive.”

The conclusions were riveting.

Regarding the initial small sample, it was determined that high CSJAS scores were “linked to anxiety, depression, and a lack of happiness.” On the larger sample, “this lower mental well-being was mostly associated with being on the political left and not specifically with having a high CSJAS score.” Women were more likely than men to have high CSJAS scores, which explains why their happiness quotient was smaller.

The researchers noted that their findings were consistent with that of other studies on this subject. They are right about that.

“Liberals, especially liberal women, are significantly less likely to be happy with their lives and satisfied with their ‘mental health,’ compared to their conservative peers aged 18-55.” According to University of Virginia sociologist W. Brad Wilcox, this was “the big takeaway from the 2022 American Family Survey, a striking new poll from YouGov and the Deseret News.”

In 2023, Musa al-Gharbi, a sociologist at Columbia University, examined data from many studies on this subject and concluded that conservatives are indeed happier than liberals. He said this finding “is consistent across countries and extends back in time.”

The question remains: Why are those on the left so miserable?

For starters, consider this. Imagine waking up each day thinking the world is made up of oppressors, racists, sexists, homophobes and their victims. Is that likely to put a smile on your dial?

It’s actually worse than this. Left-wing professors, which is to say most of them in the social sciences and humanities, love to bask in their negativity. Smug as can be, they love thinking that those who don’t share their views are ignorant buffoons; they, of course, are the only really bright ones. Their darkness is their defining characteristic.

But why do these malcontents think this way?

It has much to do with what Catholicism calls the sin of pride, the belief that we are self-sufficient human beings and have no need for God. The big thinkers believe they are too smart to believe in God. Too bad they aren’t smart enough to know that boys who claim to be girls should not be allowed to compete against girls in sports and shower with them. There must be a cavity in their brain when it comes to sex.

It must be said that while those on the left are the most likely to be unhappy, it has been my experience that extremists on the right are just as likely to be despondent.

I have often said that when I encounter a highly educated person, or an activist, for the first time, I know within minutes if I am dealing with an extremist. The individual could be on the right or the left—it doesn’t matter. The common denominator is humorlessness. They rarely smile and their bouts of laughter usually come at someone else’s expense.

Smiling is important. Laughter is important. They are staples of mental health. Hanging around those who are habitually unhappy—for reasons wholly due to their cast of mind and their inflated idea of who they are—is a chore. It’s also a bore.

The Finnish psychologists learned that left-wing “woke” mavens find it hard to be happy. The deeper problem is that they actually like it that way.

This is the article that appeared in the May 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

No administration in American history has tried harder to promote thought control than the Biden administration. Orwellian at its finest, the goal is to induce the public to accept its highly politicized vocabulary as a means of controlling its thought patterns. Here are some examples of how this is being done. (Links to the evidence are available on the website version of this report.)

Gender Identity

“President Biden has long promised that he would be an advocate for the LGBTQ community should he be elected president. Now, just hours into his presidential term, Mr. Biden’s White House website allows users to choose their pronouns, a change that drew swift praise from advocates. As part of the website revamp that occurs during presidential transitions, the White House changed its contact form. The form now allows individuals to select from the following list: she/her, he/him, they/them, other, or prefer not to share. Those who select other also have the option to write-in what pronouns they use. People can also choose which prefix they use: Mr., Ms., Mrs., Dr., Mx., other, or none.”

“In August, the department rolled out new guidelines titled, ‘Updated Department Guidance Regarding Transgender Employees in the Workplace’ and mandates that all employees and applicants should be addressed ‘by the name, pronouns, and honorific (Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, Mx., etc.) that they themselves use in everyday interactions, and as they choose to communicate to their supervisor/manager and colleagues.’ ‘Continued intentional use of an incorrect name, pronoun, and/or honorific – also known as misgendering – could, depending on its severity and pervasiveness, contribute to a hostile work environment allegation, and constitute misconduct subject to disciplinary action, up to and including separation or removal,’ the guideline states.”

“The EEOC’s newly proposed guidance similarly includes ‘Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity’ as the basis for prohibited ‘sex-based discrimination’ under Title VII and asserts that ‘sex-based harassment includes harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, including how that identity is expressed.’ ‘Harassment,’ according to this guidance, includes epithets and physical assault as well as ‘intentional and repeated use of a name or pronoun inconsistent with the individual’s gender identity (misgendering).’ Also included as a form of harassment is ‘the denial of access to a bathroom or other sex-segregated facility consistent with the individual’s gender identity.'”

“‘All employees should be addressed [by] the names and pronouns they use to describe themselves,’ an HHS email sent to employees and shared with CNA read. The mandate is part of the department’s new Gender Identity and Non-Discrimination Guidance, which was established to outline ’employee rights and protections related to gender identity,’ according to the email.”

“An internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) memo obtained by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and shared with Fox News Digital prohibits agents from using ‘he, him, she, her’ pronouns when initially interacting with members of the public. ‘DO NOT use ‘he, him, she, her’ pronouns until you have more information about, or provided by, the individual,’ reads the memo obtained by Heritage via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).”

“The transgender policy deployed by Interior leadership in September urges employees to ‘use gender-neutral language in broad communications to avoid assumptions about gender identity.’ Examples of ‘pronouns,’ according to the policy, are ‘they, them, theirs, ze/hir/hirs, ze/zir/zirs, xe/xem/xyrs.’ Bathroom use is up to personal discretion, it says, and those who refuse to abide by departmental policies are warned of retribution for ‘unlawful discrimination.’ ‘Repeated, intentional refusal to use the employee’s affirming name/gender/pronouns, and/or repeated reference to the employee’s dead name/gender/pronouns by supervisors/managers, or coworkers is contrary to the goal of treating all employees with dignity and respect,’ the policy states. ‘Such intentional conduct could constitute unlawful discrimination.'”

“The USDA issued a May 12, 2022, memo stating how it planned to comply with a Biden executive order issued on Jan. 30, 2021, to prevent discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. The May 2022 memo on Biden’s executive action also called for developing ‘gender-inclusive language in agency internal and external communications,’ to include ‘the proactive use of pronouns in the workplace.’ It also included a plan to ‘update USDA Style guide for email signatures and business cards to include and encourage pronoun use.'”

“The Federal Reserve conducted diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings in which staff members learned that ‘correct pronoun usage is a civil right’ and were told to acknowledge their ‘white privilege,’ documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. The Fed held at least four DEI training sessions in the spring and summer of 2021, the documents reveal. During the training sessions, staffers learned to use ‘inclusive language,’ like ‘Latinx,’ and were shown an illustration of a transgender gingerbread man that could have a woman’s brain and male reproductive organs. Staffers were also told to refer to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell as ‘chair,’ an example of ‘gender-inclusive language.'”

Illegal Immigration

“Acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) head Tracy Renaud reportedly directed officials to overhaul their language in all official documents, outreach efforts and other communications, in a memo first reported Tuesday by Axios and confirmed by BuzzFeed News. Suggested terminology swaps reportedly include using ‘noncitizen’ or ‘undocumented noncitizen’ instead of ‘alien’ or ‘illegal alien,’ and referring to the ‘integration’ of immigrants into society instead of ‘assimilation,’ which has been criticized as racist.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees must use gender-neutral language when addressing border crossers, according to documents obtained by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

At his 2024 State of the Union address, President Biden referred to an illegal alien accused of murdering a 22-year-old woman as an illegal alien. After being criticized by Democrats, he later said he regretted using this term.

Health

The Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health published a new style guide focusing on promoting “non-stigmatizing” language; it offered more “inclusive” alternatives. Below are several examples:

• “Convict/ex-convict” becomes “People who were formerly incarcerated”
• “Disabled” is replaced by “People with disabilities/a disability”
• “Drug-users/addicts/drug abusers” should now be called “Persons who use drugs/people who inject drugs”
• “Homeless people/the homeless” and “Transient populations” should be referred to as “People experiencing homelessness” or “Clients/guests who are accessing homeless services”
• “Poverty-stricken” now becomes “People with lower incomes”
• “Crazy” is replaced by “People with a pre-existing mental disorder”
• “Asylum” is changed to “Psychiatric hospital/facility”
• “Illegals” should be called “People with undocumented status”
• “Elderly” should be replaced with “Older Americans”
• “Afro-American” should now be referred to as “Black or African American persons; Black persons”
• “Rural people” are now “People who live in rural/sparsely populated areas”
• “Homosexuals” should be called “Queer”
• “Transgenders/transgendered/transsexual” is replaced by “LGBTQ (or LGBTQIA or LGBTQ+ or LGBTQIA2)”

Aviation

“The FAA has had much to say about the system under [Transportation Secretary Pete] Buttigieg’s watch, but not for matters relating to its functionality or upkeep. Rather, the agency announced in December 2021 that it had changed the system’s name from ‘Notice to Airmen’ to ‘Notice to Air Mission,’ a ‘more applicable term’ that the agency said is ‘inclusive of all aviators and missions.’ ‘The language we use in aerospace matters,’ the FAA tweeted from its official account. ‘We’ve begun to adopt gender-neutral and inclusive aviation terminology as part of our agency-wide initiative.'”

“The air safety system’s name change came months after an FAA advisory committee issued a report in June 2021 recommending the agency replace a wide swath of words and phrases with gender-neutral terms. The updated language, the advisory committee said, would help combat unintentional bias and reflect a ‘more modern recognition that gender can be binary.’ Recommendations included replacing ‘airman’ with ‘aircrew,’ ‘manned aviation’ with ‘traditional aviation,’ and ‘cockpit’ with ‘flight deck.'”

Government Accountability Office

“Leaked internal memos obtained by DailyMail.com show the Government Accountability Office (GAO) forbids employees from using male and female terms.”
“The ‘style guide’ demands an end to ‘non-inclusive terminology’ and said the GAO’s 3,100-strong army of bureaucrats should avoid ‘wording that diminishes anyone’s dignity.’ It was posted on the GAO site, bans staff from using words such as ‘man-made’ or ‘manpower’ in official communications. The document suggests alternatives such as ‘artificial’ or ‘workforce’ instead.”

State

Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a memo instructing State Department employees to refrain from using what he deemed to be “problematic” language. Blinken’s memo notes that gender is a social construct and a person’s gender identity “may or may not correspond with one’s sex assigned at birth.” He goes on to say that assuming someone’s gender identity based on their appearance or name is not only “problematic” but also could convey a “harmful, exclusionary message.” Blinken further instructs staffers not to “pressure someone to state their pronouns.” Instead, he offers a list of commonly used pronouns including “she/her, he/him, they/them, and ze/zir” explaining that people use a variety of pronouns. Regardless of what pronouns someone chooses to use, he states that “is a personal decision that should be respected.”

Additionally, Blinken identified other common terms that State Department employees should avoid using. Instead of saying “manpower,” he suggests substituting “labor force.” “You guys” and “ladies and gentlemen” should be replaced by “everyone,” “folks,” or “you all.” Rather than saying “mother/father,” staffers should say “parent” instead. Likewise, “son/daughter” should be replaced with “child.” Meanwhile, “spouse” or “partner” should be used in place of “husband/wife.”

Finally, Blinken tells staff they should “use more specific language” to “avoid using phrases like ‘brave men and women on the frontlines.'” He recommends more precise wording such as “brave first responders,” “brave soldiers,” or “brave DS agents.”

This is the article that appeared in the May 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

In January, Fr. Jerome Kaywell, a priest at Sacred Heart Punta Gorda, in the Diocese of Venice, Florida, was accused of sexual misconduct dating back to the winter of 2013-2014. The accused, whose name has not been made public, was a minor at the time, but is now an adult. When the diocese learned of the accusations, Kaywell was removed from ministry pending an internal review. The authorities were immediately notified.

On February 13, the diocese received a letter from the law firm representing the alleged victim. The accuser withdrew the charges, apologized and blamed the accusation on a “false memory.” On March 14, the diocesan review board concluded that there was no evidence of wrongdoing, and Fr. Kaywell was allowed to resume his ministry.

There are a lot of problems with what happened.

• Why do we know the name of the accused but not the accuser?
• Why did it take a month before the priest was restored to ministry when it is plain that the accuser said the offense never happened?
• Why did the diocesan review board not conduct its own investigation of the charges before removing the priest from ministry, choosing instead to accept the validity of the allegation?
• What is the difference between a “false memory” and lying?
• Why are “false memories” treated as a variant of “repressed memories”?
• How did the media react to the accusation and the exoneration?

Regarding the latter question, we did a probe of how the media handled this issue. Here is what we found.

The print media and the online media coverage was mostly fair; they covered both the accusation and the exoneration. TV coverage in Fort Myers was also pretty good, though CBS, NBC and Fox ran slightly more stories on the accusation than on the exoneration. ABC actually ran one more story on the exoneration than the accusation. Now to the other issues.

It is outrageous that adults who make public accusations can remain anonymous while the accused can be smeared all over the place.

Why aren’t review boards—not just in the Diocese of Venice—immediately summoned to meet, virtually or in person, when the accuser withdraws his claims? If there are many people on the panel, there should be an executive committee that can quickly step in so that accused priests in Fr. Kaywell’s situation can return to ministry ASAP.

Why do review boards remove a priest from ministry, based on an allegation, without first assessing the veracity of the accusation? No other organization acts this way.

When an accuser later claims to have suffered a “false memory,” this should be the beginning of a new chapter in this case, and not treated as if everything has been resolved.

A close cousin to “false memory” is “repressed memory,” the condition whereby someone who says he was violated in the past only now claims to remember what happened.

What follows is taken from Bill Donohue’s book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes.

“Repressed memory” is a fiction. It doesn’t exist. Sociologist Richard Ofshe and journalist Ethan Watters studied this notion and concluded that it “has never been more than unsubstantiated speculation tied to Freudian concepts and speculative mechanisms.”

Dr. Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has long dismissed it as a dangerous idea that literally manufacturers victims.

The American Psychological Association rendered its judgment and concluded that “repressed memory” is a “cultural creation having no basis in science.”

Clinical psychologists from the University of Nevada, Reno, led by William O’Donohue, studied the literature on this subject and concluded that “there is a large amount of scientific evidence that clearly shows that repressed memories simply do not exist.”

It cannot be said too strongly that the rights of priests in the United States cry out for reforms. The scale of justice is tipped against them. They should have the same guarantees and protections afforded every other American. That is not the case now, and it hasn’t been for decades.

Fr. Gordon MacRae was sent to prison in Manchester, New Hampshire in 1994 for offenses that he allegedly committed between 1979 and 1983. The accuser, Thomas Grover, said he periodically repressed his memory of the assault. He had prior convictions for fraud, forgery, theft, assault, and drug charges.

When MacRae was offered a plea deal, he turned it down, insisting on his innocence, even knowing that he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. He was sentenced to 67 years in prison. Worse, more recent evidence shows that he was railroaded by the authorities.

It’s time the bishops revisit the issue of due process for priests. It can begin by asking for the input of people like Msgr. Thomas Guarino, a Seton Hall professor who has written authoritatively on this subject.

Note: We sent this article to diocesan officials across the country.

This is the article that appeared in the May 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

On April 8, the Vatican released a Declaration on Human Dignity, Dignitas Infinita. It showed, once again, that the teachings of the Catholic Church are at one with science. Ironically, this comes at a time when many elites in the scientific community are out of step with well-established scientific truths. To be specific, the conviction that the sexes are interchangeable and not fixed by nature is not based on science. It is based on politics.

The document affirms that “Every human person possesses an infinite dignity, inalienably grounded in his or her very being, which prevails in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter.”

The saliency of this principal finds expression in the Church’s rejection of ideological colonization. Gender theory not only plays a central role, it “is extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal.” Similarly, gender theory “intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”

To deny sexual differences, the Vatican says, is to eliminate “the anthropological basis of the family.” This can lead to a situation where it becomes acceptable to dictate “how children should be raised.” It needs to be emphasized that “biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated.”

Pope Francis’ exhortation on this issue, Amoris Laetitia (2016), is cited in the document. “We cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore.” Importantly, the Vatican statement also says that “sex-change intervention” is problematic because it “risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”

To the average person, especially Catholics, this document makes perfect sense. But unfortunately we live in a world where many elites are in a massive state of denial.

Within a week of the publication of the Vatican document, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota announced—to great fanfare—that puberty blockers have harmful effects, including cancer, and that it is not at all certain that they can be reversed (as the “gender-affirming” cheerleaders in medicine have claimed). This was hardly breaking news to most people, but to the anti-science crowd, it was bad news.

A few days earlier, the Associated Press’ latest style book was released. It advises journalists not to use the term “female” anymore because it “can be seen as emphasizing biology and reproductive capacity over gender ideology.” Another triumph of politics over science.

And the day before the statement was published, the female coach of the South Carolina women’s basketball team, which won the championship, said that men should be allowed to compete against women in women’s sports. “If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, or vice versa, you should be able to play.” Let’s see how everyone reacts if a flood of men want to play on her team next year.

The Catholic Church is not at war with science. But many of the elites in the scientific community are. Worse, they have influenced legions of others in elite positions. The biggest losers are women, or what journalists used to call females.

This is the article that appeared in the May 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

On his April 12 HBO show, “Real Time,” Bill Maher justified the killing of innocent children. Speaking of pro-life Americans, he said, “They think it’s murder, and it kind of is. I’m just okay with that. I am. There [are] 8 billion people in the world, I’m sorry, we won’t miss you. That’s my position on that.” He did not volunteer to make a personal contribution to that end.

Maher’s sincerity is appreciated, if not his promotion of violence. He knows, as every honest person who agrees with science knows, that abortion is the taking of innocent human life.

The most famous person to warn of overpopulation, Thomas Malthus, was opposed to abortion as a remedy. Perhaps that’s because he was an Anglican minister. Maher is an atheist.

Maher has more in common with Paul Ehrlich, the most famous overpopulation zealot in recent times. He predicted in 1968 that “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death” in the next decade. It never happened. In fact, obesity spiked in the 1970s. Like Maher, however, he recommended aborting more children to “solve” this alleged problem.

Maher makes abortion rights advocates jittery. On his show, two guests, Gillian Tett and Piers Morgan, admitted they are fans of abortion rights, but when Maher said he was okay with the killing of innocent kids, they branded his position “quite harsh.” They did not explain what was harsh about it.

It is dishonest to say that some abortion rights advocates are not happy to be pro-abortion. In fact, there is a book, Abortion Is A Blessing, by a famous atheist, and there are several women who have testified before Congress bragging how abortion “is an act of self love.” Sickness abounds.

This is the article that appeared in the May 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Part I

There are many radical organizations in the country, but none has achieved a more inflated status than the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Its undeserved status is due to its perceived expertise in assessing hate groups. While its tracking of hate groups includes some that are undeniably hateful, its list also includes many that are merely conservative organizations who are anything but hateful. By smearing these entities, SPLC is proving that it is the master of hate.

The following organizations are listed by SPLC as hate groups, and the quotes are cited by it as proof that they are a Klan-like organization. Judge for yourself.

Alliance Defending Freedom

“Allowing males to compete in the female category isn’t fair and destroys athletic opportunities. Males will always have inherent physical advantages over comparably talented girls – that’s the reason we have girls’ sports in the first place. And a male’s belief about gender doesn’t eliminate those advantages.” ADF legal counsel Christiana Holcomb

“Men who self-identify as women are still biological men. Sure, they can take synthetic hormones to make themselves appear more feminine, style their hair, and wear makeup (or not). But being a woman is more than a physical appearance or a feeling – it is a biological reality.” Marissa Mayer, senior web writer, on the ADF website

“The only surprise is the rapidity with which this degradation of our human dignity has occurred. It has occurred, with raging effect, and within twelve months, on the heels of government mandated recognition of same-sex ‘marriage’ – an oxymoronic institution if ever there was one.” ADF-affiliated attorney Charles LiMandri

American College of Pediatricians

“Transgenderism is a belief system that increasingly looks like a cultish religion – a modern day Gnosticism denying physical reality for deceived perceptions – being forced on the public by the state in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.” Andre Van Mol, co-chair of ACPeds’ Committee on Adolescent Sexuality

“Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.” Gender Ideology Harms Children, ACPeds article

“Sex is hard-wired from before birth, and it cannot change.” Michelle Cretella, former president of ACPeds

Family Research Council

“People with gender dysphoria or transgender identities are more likely than the general public to engage in high-risk behaviors, which may result from or contribute to psychological disorders (or both).” FRC senior fellow Peter Sprigg

“I know they’ll mock at the idea, but look, if you are a male – genetically you are a male, biologically you’re a male – and you say, ‘Well, I’m not a male. I’m a female.’ I mean what’s to keep you from saying that you’re an animal?” Tony Perkins, president

“By ignoring underlying conditions, the demands of transgender supremacy ignore our unique kids, especially those with autism and mental health diagnoses. They deflect much-needed resources away from the pandemic of autism.” Sarah Perry, FRC director of partnerships and coalitions coordinator

Liberty Counsel

“Homosexual conduct can result in significant damage to those involved who engage in such conduct. There is no evidence that a person is born homosexual. And there is evidence that people can change.” Liberty Counsel website

“One of the most significant threats to our freedom is in the area of sexual anarchy with the agenda of the homosexual movement, the so-called LGBT movement. [It] undermines family and the very first building block of our society [and] secondly…it’s a direct assault on our religious freedom and freedom of speech.” Mat Staver, president

“Statistically, sexual promiscuity is increased among those who engage in homosexual conduct, the result of which is disease found predominantly, if not exclusively, among homosexuals.” Mat Staver

Pacific Justice Institute

“It is fundamentally unjust for the government to treat some crime victims more favorably than others, just because they are homosexual or transsexual.” PJI president Brad Dacus

“Most parents do not want their first through fifth graders bombarded with pro-homosexual messages at school. If LGBT advocates really want to stop name-calling and bullying, they should start with themselves.” Brad Dacus

“Forcing boys and girls to share bathrooms, locker rooms and sleeping arrangements is not equality; it is insanity.” Brad Dacus

Ruth Institute

“Transgender is a political category. Invented for political purposes. It has nothing to do with either psychology or medicine. It is a political category.” Jennifer Roback Morse

“Compared to children raised by their own biological parents, married to each other, children whose parents had a same-sex relationship are at elevated risk for the following…emotional problems, pleading guilty to a non-minor offense, learning disabilities.…” Ruth Institute pamphlet

“It’s really important to be well informed about what the church actually says about homosexual practice…The church is very clear that same-sex sexual action are intrinsically disordered and can never be morally acceptable.” Jennifer Roback Morse