The Barna Group, a firm that studies faith in American life, released the findings of a survey matching Christians up with those who have “no faith.”

The firm found that most atheists and agnostics (56%) think radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam.  In addition, the faithless, who comprise 9% percent of the population, are less likely than the faithful to volunteer, participate in community activities and donate to charitable causes. Atheists and agnostics are also less likely to report being “at peace” and are more likely to feel stressed out.

In other words, on the whole the faithless have a warped idea of reality, are selfish with their time and money, and are generally unhappy campers. Just what we would expect.

When the Vatican’s Renato Cardinal Martino released “Guide-lines for Pastoral Care of the Road,” now commonly known as the “Ten Commandments of Driving,” many news media outlets took a light-hearted look at the cardinal’s words.  While playful, most stories managed to be respectful at the same time.

Not everyone was so well behaved, however.  On NBC’s “Tonight Show” on June 20, Jay Leno (who frequently makes jokes casting all priests as sex abusers) said the 11th commandment of driving should be “Thou shalt not use your car to transfer pedophile priests to another parish.”  The crowd booed.

The very next night, Leno took another shot at the Catholic clergy.  In his opening monologue he joked, “In Austin, Texas, a 61-year-old priest has been arrested after he left rehab.  This priest leaves rehab, gets drunk and drives his car into a restaurant.  So much for the Vatican’s Ten Commandments of safe driving.  Imagine that, a priest driving drunk into a restaurant.  Thank God it was not a Chuck E. Cheese.  Oh my God.”

Just like the night before, the audience groaned at Leno’s clichéd and bigoted stereotyping.  It clearly isn’t the laughter of his fans that is driving his jabs at the Catholic clergy.  So what is it, Mr. Leno?

On Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” on June 20, host Jon Stewart passed the reins over to “senior Vatican correspondent” John Oliver.  Oliver, standing in front of a Vatican backdrop, stated that as the Vatican suggested automobiles can be occasions for sin, people should not drive while “horny.”  Oliver then unveiled a machine, in the form of a statue of a bishop, which he said was created in the Vatican’s labs.  The statue had a breathalyzer-style tube extending from the groin area, described by Oliver as a “sinalyzer.”  The “sinalyzer” could be used to reveal whether the person blowing into it was “horny.”

It appears that Jay Leno and the “Daily Show” will jump at any excuse they can find to portray the Catholic clergy as a bunch of perverts and sexual predators.  Not only is this shtick bigoted, it’s become worn-out and pedestrian.

On June 16, the New York Times ran an Associated Press story, “Data Shed Light on Child Sexual Abuse by Protestant Clergy.”   It said, “the three companies that insure a majority of Protestant churches say they typically receive upward of 260 reports a year of children younger than 18 being sexually abused by members of the clergy, church staff members, volunteers or congregants.”

On June 20, the Times ran an article called “Between Teacher and Student: the Suspicions are Growing.”  It said “although federal statistics show that reported sex crimes aimed at young people in general—whether at the hands of middle school teachers, parish priests or relatives—have fallen nationwide since the early 1990s, New York State has reported a marked increase in a broader but similar category, what are called moral-fitness cases, involving certified teachers and administrators.”

It is interesting that these two stories have not been more extensively covered by other major news organizations.  In a time when Catholic priests are routinely ridiculed and stereotyped as molesters, the study on Protestant ministers shows the problem is far from limited to one religion.  And as we have pointed out for years, the problem of kids being molested at school is often overlooked.

One troubling aspect of the June 20 story is that there isn’t much information on how students are being treated in schools across the nation.  According to the Times: “the dearth of national data on reports of student abuse at the hands of educators is the result of its wide-ranging nature: a spectrum of misdeeds, from lewd remarks to actual sex, and a range of overlapping responses. There are school disciplinary proceedings, state hearings to revoke certification and criminal prosecution. And many cases simply quietly disappear.”

These stories need to be discussed.  We have to make sure that children are protected wherever they are—whether in Catholic churches, any house of worship, or in the schoolroom.

The Associated Press reported on June 1 that Catholic voters “support legalized abortion in all or most circumstances by 53 percent to 43 percent, according to 2004 exit polling.”

Such polls typically don’t separate practicing Catholics from those who haven’t been to Mass in ages.  When that distinction is made, the numbers are much more revealing.

For instance, a 2006 poll by Purdue University’s James David-son found that 72 percent of weekly Mass attendees oppose abortion; versus only 29 percent of lukewarm or lapsed Catholics.

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.

William A. Donohue

How many times have we been lectured by elites that the U.S. needs to get its laws in line with the Europeans on everything from welfare to the environment? Well, on April 18 our laws moved in a European direction, but the elites weren’t applauding. That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court moved the vector of our abortion laws a little closer to the European standard when it affirmed the ban on partial-birth abortion.

In the 1980s, when Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon was researching a book on abortion laws in Europe and the United States, she was stunned to learn that no nation had abortion laws quite as liberal as those in the U.S. Every European nation, she found—including the sexually liberated Scandinavian countries—had long had some restrictions on abortion. Only in the U.S. was abortion-on-demand considered sacrosanct through term.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late New York Senator, was a supporter of the high court decision that legalized abortion, but he regarded partial-birth abortion “infanticide.” The same is true of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch. Say what you will about Princeton’s Peter Singer, at least he is honest enough to chastise his fellow pro-choice colleagues for not admitting that there is no fundamental moral difference between killing a child in the womb just prior to birth and killing a child who was just born.

Singer’s honesty is particularly unique because almost everyone associated with the pro-abortion movement has been a liar at one time or another. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of the radical pro-abortion group NARAL, later admitted that he lied when he told the media in the early 1970s that 1 million illegal abortions were done each year in the U.S.; he knew the real figure was approximately 100,000. The Jane Roe in the infamous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, Norma McCorvey, later admitted that she lied about being raped in the very case brought before the court. And in 1995, Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, went on national television saying he “lied through [his] teeth” when he “spouted the party line” about partial-birth abortion being rare.

Nathanson also admitted that NARAL was anti-Catholic from the get-go. NARAL reasoned that if the Church’s moral authority could be sullied, or at least called into question, it would wound the pro-life movement. Ergo, attempts to smear Catholicism were orchestrated. Like McCorvey, Nathanson would eventually become pro-life and convert to Catholicism, but the lies and anti-Catholicism in the pro-abortion movement would remain. Indeed, both attributes are integral to its politics.

When John Roberts was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, his Catholicism became an issue with pundits like NPR’s Nina Totenberg, ABC’s Barbara Walters, CNN’s Tony Harris, Slate’s Christopher Hitchens, the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, Harper’s John MacArthur, former governor Mario Cuomo, et al. No one beat The American Prospect’sAdele Stan: She wrote that Bush was “playing the Catholic card” in nominating Roberts, and that “Rome must be smiling.”

Not surprisingly, when Samuel Alito was nominated, people like feminist Eleanor Smeal and NPR’s Dahlia Lithwick ominously warned that Alito would make the fifth Catholic on the high court. Now that it was the five Catholics on the Supreme Court who voted to end partial-birth abortions, we can expect the anti-Catholic bullies to raise their ugly heads once again. Must they be reminded that Senators Kennedy, Kerry, Leahy, Durbin and Dodd are also Catholic, and that they also support partial-birth abortion?

Politically, the fallout of this decision is something to watch. Republican presidential candidates Giuliani, McCain and Romney have all flip-flopped on abortion. Giuliani is an abortion-rights advocate, though he now says he would appoint judges like the very ones who voted to ban partial-birth abortions. McCain said in 1999 that he was not in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, but now he says he wants it repealed. When Romney ran for senator in 1994, and for governor in 2002, he said he was in favor of abortion rights, though now he says he isn’t.

One thing is for sure: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have never flip-flopped on abortion—they’ve never found an abortion they couldn’t justify. And unlike Giuliani, McCain and Romney, who all cheered the high court’s decision, Clinton and Obama denounced it. It’s too bad there isn’t room for children in utero in Clinton’s Village. Similarly, it’s regrettable that Obama’s pledge to “Reclaim the American Dream” doesn’t extend to the unborn. No matter, their side is losing: As young people look at sonograms and witness the humanity of unborn babies, they are joining our side.

The lies and the anti-Catholicism that have colored the culture of death are not about to vanish, but at least some children who might have had a scissors jammed into their heads will now continue to live. That’s no small achievement, even if there’s still a lot of work to do.

by Dan Kurzman

As soon as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was ousted from power on July 25, 1943, Adolf Hitler began hatching a plan to kidnap Pope Pius XII and plunder the Vatican. Clearly, the Fuehrer thought, the “Jew-loving” pope had encouraged King Victor Emanuel II and some rival fascist leaders to overthrow his Italian puppet.

The following day Hitler called for an urgent meeting of his military leaders. They must liberate Mussolini and return him to power, he cried. And “we must occupy Rome” and “destroy the Vatican’s power, capture the pope, and say that we are protecting him.” The pope might even have to be killed.

About six weeks later, on September 13, SS General Karl Wolff, the SS commander in Italy, received a phone call from his boss, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, orchestrator of the Holocaust. Himmler, Wolff told me, bellowed that the Fuehrer wanted to see him urgently.

The general, who had previously served as Himmler’s chief of staff, suspected why. Three days earlier, on September 10, German troops had marched into Rome, and German intelligence soon snatched Mussolini from captivity. The Duce was now to regain power in Nazi-occupied northern Italy, and Wolff would be sent to the capital in Fasano, near Salo, primarily to make sure that Mussolini followed the Nazi line. But Himmler had revealed to Wolff that Hitler had an additional secret mission in mind for him.

According to notes that Wolff told me he had taken during and after the meeting, Hitler barked: “I want you and your troops to occupy Vatican City as soon as possible, secure its files and art treasures, and take the pope and the curia to the north,” probably Liechtenstein.

Referring to the threat of an Allied invasion of Italy, he added: “I do not want the pope to fall into the hands of the Allies or to be under their political pressure and influence.”

Wolff promised to do his best but was conflicted, feeling that such an operation could alienate Italy and the entire Catholic world. Besides, he worshipped power, and the pope, like Hitler, was one of the world’s most powerful leaders. The two men, although holding diametrically contrary views, were to the calculating general like earthly gods. Still, he felt, his mission might be useful—if he could sabotage it and obtain a blessing from Pius for saving his life and the Church itself.  Wolff could perhaps also save his own life if Germany lost the war and he was tried for his war crimes.

But Wolff, who revered the SS, may have been prompted as well by other more sordid details of the kidnap plot that were later discovered in a letter that one Italian fascist leader wrote to another. It was headed Massacre of Pius XII with the Entire Vatican.

According to this message, which repeated what a high SS official (perhaps Wolff) told the fascist writer, the purpose of the plot was to avenge “the papal protest in favor of the Jews”— apparently referring to an expected papal outcry when the Roman Jews were rounded up.

The plan called for soldiers of the SS Florian Geyer Cavalry, disguised in Italian uniforms, to invade the Vatican shielded by  night, kill all members of the curia, and take the pope prisoner. Then troops of the Hermann Goering Panzer Division would surge into the Vatican to “rescue” the pontiff and kill the disguised SS men, assuming they were Italian assassins rather than SS compatriots. Thus, no witnesses.

If the pope tried to escape (or was perceived as trying to), he, too, would be shot. The world, like the panzer soldiers, would be led to believe that the “Italians” were guilty.

Meanwhile, Wolff described Hitler’s order to Rudolf Rahn, the German ambassador to Italy, who was to be transferred from Rome to Fasano as the emissary to Mussolini’s new republic. Rahn then joined in a conspiracy with Wolff and several other like-minded German officials against the plot and went to see Hitler. If the people learned that their pope had been abducted, Rahn told the Fuehrer and his chief lieutenants, they might rise up against the Germans.

Most of Hitler’s men seemed cool to an attack, fearing such a reaction. Even Himmler, who had been meeting secretly with the German Resistance, was uncertain; he had to choose between striking the Church, which he hated, and seeking to improve his image in Allied eyes in case Germany lost the war.

The only one present who strongly supported an attack was Martin Bormann, Hitler’s ruthless secretary, who wanted to replace Christianity with a new religion headed by the Fuehrer. Bormann, Rahn told me, turned beet-red with anger as he, the ambassador, made his plea. But Hitler trusted his secretary most, and it appeared that his advice would be taken.

Meanwhile, General Wolff revealed to the Vatican that Pius was in danger. The pope loathed Hitler. And Hitler loathed him, viewing him as an obstacle to his —and Bormann’s—grandiose plan to capture the minds and souls of much of mankind after a victorious war.

In 1939, realizing what was at stake, Pius had actually joined in a conspiracy by some German generals to overthrow Hitler and, if necessary, a high Vatican official told me, to kill him. The risks, he said, to both the pope personally and the Church were incalculable. But in the end the plot fell through.

In 1943, as the tension between the two men grew, Monsignor Domenica Tardini, the Vatican’s assistant secretary of state, told the cardinals to “keep a suitcase ready because we might be deported at any time.” The pope himself called a meeting of cardinals to choose a possible successor in case he was kidnapped. And friends of the pope prepared a plan for him to flee to Spain if necessary, though he vowed to remain in the Vatican unless he was carried out.

Ernst von Weizsaecker, the German ambassador to the Vatican, another anti-Hitler conspirator, tried to convince Pius that he should remain silent when the Nazis rounded up the Jews of Rome. The Pope, until then, had felt that if he spoke out strongly against the Jewish genocide, Hitler would not only attack the Vatican but would drag out the hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Vatican institutions in which they were hiding throughout occupied Europe, as well as their Christian protectors.

But the German diplomats were afraid that he would nevertheless speak out publicly if the Roman Jews, his neighbors, were deported. If he did, they argued, there was virtually no chance that Hitler would cancel his kidnap plan. And on October 16, the Gestapo in Rome began rounding up the Jews.

That rainy morning, Princess Enza Pignatelli Aragona, a friend of Pius, was awakened by a phone call from a friend, who informed her of the arrests. The princess told me she rushed to the Vatican and, interrupting a papal mass, blurted the news to the pope, crying, “Only you can stop them!”

“But they promised me that they would not touch the Jews in Rome!” Pius exclaimed. He then ordered Cardinal Luigi Maglione, his secretary of state, to summon Ambassador Weizsaecker urgently and protest the action. As the princess departed, the pope promised, “I’ll do all I can.”

When Weizsaecker arrived for a meeting with Maglione, he said he would “try to do something for these poor Jews.” But, he asked, “what would the Holy See do if these things were to continue?”

“The Holy See would not want to be faced with the need to express its disapproval,” the cardinal answered …”If the Holy See were forced to [protest], it would trust the consequences to Divine Providence.” In other words, he would speak out publicly if the roundup of Jews continued.

Shaken, the ambassador responded, “I think of the consequences that a protest by the Holy See might precipitate.”

Clearly, the word “kidnap” was on both their minds.

Meanwhile, other German diplomats—and, the Vatican would say, the pope’s nephew—urged an eminent priest, whom Berlin trusted, to write an urgent note to a cooperative German commander in Italy that was to be wired to Berlin echoing Cardinal Maglione’s warning.

At the same time, in Germany, General Wolff managed to convince Hitler that he would have a hard time suppressing an uprising in Italy if the pope felt forced to speak out and had to be dethroned. So, finally, Himmler ordered that the roundup stop after only about 1,000 of the 8,000 Roman Jews were picked up. And the pope, who had apparently been prepared to publicly condemn the roundup, felt there was no longer a need to do so now.

Several months later, in May 1944, Wolff secretly met with Pius, who, having learned of the general’s role in helping to sabotage the kidnap plot, felt that the man must have some good in him, whatever his background.

Both men agreed that the war would best end in an Allied-German alliance, without Hitler, to halt the Soviet advance on Europe. And Wolff assured the pope that he would try to frustrate any new plot against him.

Wolff was overwhelmed when the pope then blessed him. He now had the full confidence of both the Vicar of Christ and the Antichrist, an incredible interworld feat. The general rose, clicked his heels together—and raised his arm in the Nazi salute! The pope smiled forbearingly. His visitor had simply confused his gods. But he would eventually betray one of them—surrendering the entire German army in Italy, on his own, to the Americans.

The kidnap plot had failed, but it had helped to shape the policies and attitudes of the pope, Hitler, and their subordinates during a most important segment of World War II history.

Award-winning author Dan Kurzman is the only journalist who ever interviewed General Karl Wolff.  His newly released book, A Special Mission: Hitler’s Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII, is available from Da Capo Press.

In 1960, Catholic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy went to Houston to clarify his position on church and state. On May 11, Catholic presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani spoke in Houston to clarify his position on abortion. Kennedy succeeded in assuaging the fears of his skeptics. Giuliani failed.

 From the Associated Press report on Giuliani’s speech, it was apparent that the former New York City Mayor broke no new ground. We know he believes that abortion is “morally wrong,” and we know that he supports abortion rights in general. But in Houston he lacked the specificity that he previously espoused. Consider how specific he’s been in the past.

 In 1987, Giuliani said, “I don’t equate abortion with murdering a child, which I guess puts me in conflict with the teaching of the Catholic church.”

In 1989, he said that if his own daughter were contemplating an abortion, he would try to dissuade her from doing so, but that if she held to her view, “I’d give my daughter the money for it.”

In 1992, he said, “I made a terrible mistake on abortion last time. I should have said I was pro-choice and stopped.”

In 1997, he answered affirmatively when asked, “Would you support legislation which would require Ob/Gyn graduate training hospitals to require training in abortion procedures?”

In the 1990s, he wrote several checks to Planned Parenthood, explaining that he did so because he values the right of women to make choices. Yet there is no evidence that he ever wrote one check to support Crisis Pregnancy Centers, making clear what choice he really prefers.

 It is up to Republicans to decide whether Rudy Giuliani is the best candidate. But Catholics of both parties, as well as Independents, have every right to know—in great detail—how a Catholic candidate will decide on a matter the Catholic Church regards as “intrinsically evil.”

Pop singer Sheryl Crow performed in St. Louis at an April 28 benefit concert for the Bob Costas Cancer Center at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center. St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke,  chairman of the board of governors of the Cardinal Glennon Children’s Foundation (which raises money for the Medical Center), resigned from the board to protest Crow’s appearance.

Because Crow is an ardent abortion-rights supporter, and because the board would not cancel her appearance, Burke felt that he could not in good conscience remain on the board.

 Once again, practicing Catholics who do not live in St. Louis were envious of the privileged position that Catholics in that wonderful city enjoy. Time and again, Archbishop Burke has proven to be one of the most prominent voices of moral clarity inside and outside the Catholic Church in the United States.

 For a Catholic leader to give cover to someone who is not just incidentally pro-choice, but is a rabid abortion-rights activist, would be morally unconscionable. To wit: Crow campaigned in Missouri for the right to clone human beings and destroy nascent human life, thus making her presence at a Catholic event morally incoherent. Those who criticized Archbishop Burke—saying he should have demurred given the money being raised for a worthy cause—should explain how they would react if David Duke spoke at a fundraiser to fight sickle-cell anemia in East St. Louis.

What Archbishop Burke did was unfortunately controversial. It was unfortunate because his courage stands in stark contrast to the moral lassitude that is exhibited by religious and secular leaders throughout the nation.

Three cheers for Archbishop Burke—and thumbs down to the St. Louis media.   The controversy over Burke’s decision had them in a frenzy.

Burke’s resignation was a legitimate media story. What was not legitimate was the voyeurism of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, KMOV (CBS affiliate) and others: they had the general public weigh in on the situation.

 After Burke’s resignation, the Post-Dispatch invited non-Catholics to opine about an internal matter of the St. Louis Archdiocese, beckoning anti-Catholic bigots to post their hatred on its website. It even ran a punch line cartoon on this issue, asking the public to submit a caption.

 On April 27 KMOV ran an online article, wanting to know why Archbishop Burke did not object to other fund-raising celebrities who were arguably offensive. The Archbishop was too mannerly to say what we were not afraid to say—take a walk, it’s none of your business. KMOV played voyeur by asking non-Catholics to stick their noses into the affairs of another religion.

In fact, KMOV was so obviously obsessed with Catholicism that in May it boasted four surveys on its website on the Catholic Church. No other religion was open for question, however.

The Post-Dispatch and KMOV tried to manipulate the Catholic Church—that’s what was behind their silly surveys. Guess they didn’t understand who we are and what they’re up against.