On April 30, the New York Times ran a front-page story on Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama and his spiritual journey to Christianity. The Catholic League questioned whether Senator Obama wants the U.S. to become a theocracy: If the same standard that was applied to President George W. Bush were to be applied to Senator Obama, then Obama [...]
In May, the University of Wisconsin-Madison agreed to pay $250,000 in student fees next year to the University of Wisconsin Roman Catholic Foundation to settle its religious discrimination lawsuit. The Catholic group, which has existed on the campus since 1883, was deemed ineligible by the university because some of its board members were not students and [...]
Washington Mutual is a bank that recently ran an advertisement on the radio that offended many listeners. The radio ad, which played in Sacramento, California and other places on the west coast, featured a ruler-wielding nun as a mortgage lender. Every time a man asked her a question about his mortgage, the nun would say "no" [...]
Planned Parenthood Golden Gate (PPGG) released a "Safe is Sexy" television advertisement in April that features a young couple being interrupted from having unprotected sex by their Guardian Angels. The ad, slated to appear on MTV, VH1 and FX, shows a sloppy-looking male angel eating popcorn at the head of the bed watching in delight. Then [...]
Whenever we protest a movie or work of art, we are invariably asked why we are drawing attention to what offends us. But isn't that what all anti-defamation organizations do for a living—protest bigotry? Actually, in our case, it is more complex than that. If the offender is well known, or has his work prominently displayed, [...]
Catholic League members know that one of our perennial issues is protecting and defending the good name of Pope Pius XII, who occupied the Chair of Peter during the dark days of World War II, from his detractors. Those detractors, of course, continue to claim that Pius XII was silent during the Holocaust and did nothing [...]
John Hagee is the senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. Best known for his End-Time writing, Hagee is committed to bringing evangelical Protestants and Jews together. He is also committed to slandering the Catholic Church. Hagee is no stranger to the Catholic League—we've been tracking his bigotry for some time. But in his [...]
In last month's Catalyst, we ran a story on a public high school in Georgia where a Catholic student had her ashes involuntarily removed from her forehead on Ash Wednesday by a substitute teacher, who then berated the student. The teacher also hurled anti-Catholic invectives at her. We followed the chain of command and, after a runaround, [...]
From April 1 to April 7, the Roger Smith Lab Gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City was set to display a 6-foot tall anatomically correct sculpture of Jesus in milk chocolate; the figure was depicted as crucified. But thanks to a protest led by the Catholic League, it never saw the light [...]
On April 4, the Comedy Central show "South Park" lampooned Bill Donohue. Donohue appeared as one of the cartoon characters, along with a figure of Pope Benedict XVI. The Easter script depicted Donohue chastising the pope for being "too soft." Donohue then takes over as pope. When a Jesus figure appears, Donohue has both the pope [...]
