By Ronald J. Rychlak Eugenio Pacelli became Pope Pius XII in 1939, after having spent nine years as Cardinal Secretary of State. Prior to that, he had been the Vatican's representative in Germany. During his lifetime, Pius XII's opposition to Hitler was well known. Nazis condemned him, Jews thanked him, and rescuers identified him as their [...]
On January 18, Bill Donohue explained why he wants a federal investigation into the movie "Hounddog." His goal, he said, is to see if federal child pornography laws were violated during filming. On January 22, the Sundance Film Festival featured the debut of a movie starring 12-year-old actress Dakota Fanning. Premiere magazine described the movie, "Hounddog," as featuring [...]
This is the ad that was to run on February 16 on the op-ed page of the New York Times. But since Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan quit the Edwards campaign just as we were about to deliver it to the Times, we pulled it.
The same judge, John G. Heyburn II, who ruled on October 7, 2005 that the Holy See is a foreign state that enjoys certain immunities now says that the same lawsuit can go forward. That's because a few technicalities that stopped him from initially dismissing the suit altogether are no longer relevant. "There's an odor to [...]
In a recent edition of The New Republic magazine, there was an article by Damon Linker titled "A Mormon in the White House." Appearing around the same time there was a piece in the Wall Street Journal about the execution of Saddam Hussein. The article was written by Marty Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic. The two articles read together provide [...]
What really got our goat was learning that CBS Outdoor had previously rejected ads from PETA, the animal rights group. The company said some of their ads were "pejorative." No doubt they were. The real question is why they didn't find the Eternal Gospel Church ad offensive. In any event, we prevailed and justice was ultimately [...]
It really can't get much worse than this: a politician inviting Catholics to a party celebrating abortion and featuring a speaker from an anti-Catholic group. But that's exactly what happened on January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Roger Limoges, who works for Frances Kissling's Catholics for a Free Choice, spoke at Trinity Brewhouse in Providence, [...]
What started out as a collision course between Nebraska State Senator Lowen Kruse and the Catholic League was avoided when the legislation in question was modified to allay the Catholic League's concerns. In January, Senator Kruse introduced a bill to the state's unicameral legislature that sought to curb underage drinking. In addition to banning minors from [...]
In January, the New York Times ran a story about two 20-year-olds and an 18-year-old who were arrested for stealing statues of baby Jesus from nativity scenes over the past two years. They hit the New York suburban communities of Suffern and Haverstraw several times in 2005 and 2006. The police said they would not charge [...]
In the January edition of Esquire, there was a comment by James D. Watson justifying anti-Semitism. Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for his co-discovery of DNA, offered as one of his musings a rhetorical question: "Should you be allowed to make an anti-Semitic remark?" To which he said, "Yes, because some anti-Semitism is justified." Bill Donohue [...]
