George Heartwell, mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan, sent a campaign postcard to Catholic voters in late July that showed a picture of a local Catholic church on the front and the names of seven local Catholic leaders on the back. The mayor is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and an abortion-rights advocate. [...]
Disney president Robert Iger wrote a letter on July 25 to Rep. Edward Markey, chairman of the House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee, regarding smoking in Disney’s films. Here is an excerpt: "We discourage depictions of cigarette smoking in Disney, Touchstone and Miramax films. In particular, we expect depictions of cigarette smoking in future Disney branded films [...]
In the July 25 episode of the FX drama "Rescue Me," Denis Leary's character had an exchange with a new firefighter about the Bible. He said the Bible is to Catholics what "The Godfather" is to the Mafia. Continuing, Leary blasted the Catholic Church for being corrupt, maintaining that his time in the Church was effectively [...]
The defense of Pope Pius XII is an on-going commitment for us, and to further that end we would like our members to know of the great work conducted by Howard Walsh of Keep the Faith. A Catholic League member, whose daughter Mary once worked at the league, Howard has been fighting the disgraceful reception that [...]
Nothing riles us more than to see self-righteous anger directed at our religion by professed experts from some other religion. Such was the case recently when Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite attempted to tie the renewed interest to the Latin Mass to the sex abuse scandal that has marked the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Thistlethwaite is president of [...]
The Catholic League's patience with "The View" ran out on May 31. That was the day the ABC show attacked Catholicism for the 15th time since September; it was the second hit to occur within a two-week period. Our response was to finger the show's co-owner, Barbara Walters, as the guilty party in a New York Times op-ed [...]
We have an update on the anti-Catholic resolution that was passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last year: we filed a complaint of judicial misconduct against Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, and it has been accepted as worthy of investigation. Readers of Catalyst will recall that the Catholic League objected when the resolution in question [...]
William A. Donohue It was Marx who said that religion was the "opiate of the masses," and it was the late French sociologist Raymond Aron who once said that Marxism was the "opiate of the intellectuals." With slight emendation, it can be proffered that atheism is today's "opiate of the intellectuals." Christopher Hitchens is not just [...]
By David R. Carlin Once upon a time—let's say from the time of Franklin Roosevelt till the time of Lyndon Johnson—the Democratic Party was the clear party of choice for American Catholics. The party had a special concern for the urban working classes and for the children and grandchildren of immigrants; its social justice ideas were [...]
As soon as Rosie O'Donnell joined the panel of co-hosts on ABC's "The View" last year, we knew that the program would provide a forum for the comedienne to spew her anti-Catholicism. What we saw between September 2006 and May 2007, however, exceeded our expectations. On 15 separate occasions, the Catholic Church was attacked on the [...]
