On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review an appeals court decision that allows New York City public schools to display a menorah during Hanukkah, and a star and crescent during Ramadan, while banning a crèche at Christmastime; the Catholic League arranged for a plaintiff in this case, Andrea Skoros, and the Thomas More Law Center handled the litigation.

We are not happy with this decision, but it is important to note that in the circuit court decision affirming the right of New York City public schools not to display a nativity scene, it did not bar the City from doing so: “We do not here decide whether the City could, consistent with the Constitution, include a crèche in its school holiday displays.”

Furthermore, the appeals court for the Second Circuit rejected the absurd claim by the City’s Department of Education that the menorah is not a religious symbol. Therefore, there is absolutely nothing in this ruling that legally stops the City of New York from allowing principals and teachers to treat Christianity with the same degree of respect it affords Judaism and Islam. And that means that a nativity scene, not a Christmas tree, deserves to be displayed alongside the menorah and star and crescent.

On February 28, J.J. Toland, communications manager for Vermont’s Sugarbush Resort, sent an e-mail to his mailing list that offended many Catholics. Titled “March Snow is on the Way,” Toland’s letter ended with remarks about current skiing conditions. But it opened with two paragraphs bemoaning the “psychological” punishments he received as a student at the hands of Augustinians.

We told the media:

“At one level, this kind of screed may be dismissed as juvenile scribble. But what makes it offensive is a) its wholly gratuitous nature and b) the fact that a noted business establishment would post these remarks in an e-mail. In any event, we are contacting the owners of the Sugarbush Resort, the Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce (listed as a ‘Friend’ of the company), the six members of the executive staff of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, the Diocese of Burlington and many media outlets in Vermont. We believe in free advertisement.”

Within 15 minutes of sending this release to the media—and to the owners of Sugarbush—J.J. Toland and one of the owners called to apologize. We are happy with this conclusion.

Just before we went to print with our last issue of Catalyst, news reports exploded with accounts of the resignation of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan from the John Edwards presidential campaign. While we were able to feature this story on our front page, there was a lot of fallout from this issue that we were not able to cover. Here’s more on this subject.

Double Standard

●     When confronted with the news story—broken by the Catholic League—that two women on his payroll had written several graphically obscene and defamatory statements assaulting Our Blessed Mother, Catholic teachings and religious conservatives, John Edwards called their language “intolerant” and immediately forgave them. After writer Ann Coulter used a slur against homosexuals, Edwards branded her one-word “hateful” and exclaimed that “we can’t stand silently by and allow this kind of language to be used.”

●     After she quit, Marcotte tried to spin her way out of trouble by saying that the words she used “had been insufficiently reverent of his [Donohue’s] religion.” Note: The New York Times said it would not print her remarks because it violated their policy on obscenity.

●     The Philadelphia Daily News downplayed the hate speech by saying the women bloggers had previously written comments “attacking the virgin birth.” Yet it never printed exactly what was said.

●     The Boston Globe was worse—it said the bloggers were shown the door because of “allegedly insensitive remarks.”

●     Democratic consultant Jane Fleming was asked by Bill O’Reilly if she would have fired the two anti-Catholic bigots. Fleming, an Irish Catholic, said, “No, I would have stood by them.” When O’Reilly asked if she would have fired someone “who said anti-Black things in the past,” she said, “Yes.”

Smear Jobs

●     On February 14, Jeffrey Feldman, a Ph.D. author who writes for Arianna Huffington on “The Huffington Post” weblog, accused Donohue of fomenting violence against the two women. “Bill Donohue, it seems, has achieved his objective: to use the threat of violence to silence political debate in this country,” he said. Donohue demanded a retraction and Feldman rewrote this to say, “The authoritarian right in America, it seems….”

●     On February 15, Feldman wrote that Bill Donohue used “his media connections to incite his followers to issue death threats against the two women.” Donohue demanded a retraction and “The Huffington Post” issued a correction making it clear that they did not mean to suggest “that there was any direct link between them [the threats] and either the Catholic League or Donohue.”

Hate Mail

Here’s a very small sample of the hate mail directed at Bill Donohue and the Catholic League over the confrontation with Edwards’ bloggers. While we are accustomed to rantings of this sort, the sheer volume of letters, e-mails and phone calls in this case was noteworthy.

●     Anonymous Man: “Bill Donohue can go to Hell!”

●     Anonymous Man: “Yeah Bill…who in the hell are you to talk about what people think!”

●     Anonymous Man: “[Dr. Donohue] has a hateful outlook towards those who have different opinions. I hope he apologizes and does something positive to diffuse the hate engendered towards these two people.”

●     Anonymous Man: “Hey Bill…if anything happens to Amanda, Melissa, or their families…I will engage a lawyer from Hell that knows all about your Catholicism and you will be sorry! Have a nice day.”

●     Anonymous Man: “I am a life long Catholic and I am disgusted at this human being who calls himself a Catholic. He is not a Catholic…This Bill Donohue. To call people gooks…to call Obama white…What is wrong with you! You are a sick human being and I hope God and God is waiting and God is going to reject you and send you to the seventh level of hell that you deserve and burn! You’re gonna burn, burn, burn in Hell! You rotten evil man…burn! You and your associates are gonna burn, burn, burn! You rotten evil human being! You’re gonna burn, burn, burn in Hell”

●     Anonymous Man: “[To Bill] Yeah! You’re an ugly anti-American bigot! I hate you!”

●     Anonymous man: “I just wanted to remind you that Bill Donohue is a f—ing moron.”

●     Anonymous man: “Bill Donohue is an ignorant pig-f—er and I hope he chokes on a turd and dies!”

The following is a list of books, articles and television shows that have called into serious question the core beliefs of Christianity during the Lenten season. No other religion is subjected to such scrutiny and none other has its central tenets questioned during its holy days. 

2007

●     “Titanic” director James Cameron and TV-director Simcha Jacobovici claimed they have evidence of a Jerusalem tomb that allegedly houses the remains of Jesus and his family. The men presented their extraordinary claims in a March 4 documentary for the Discovery Channel.

2006

●     On April 2, during Lent, NBC’s “Dateline” discussed The Jesus Papers, the new book by Michael Baigent, coauthor of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Baigent contends that Jesus wasn’t divine, wasn’t born of a virgin birth, married Mary Magdalene and sired a child.

When Baigent was recently asked where he got the proof that Jesus was alive in A.D. 45, he said he got it from reports about a book he cannot find (we’re not making this up!). When asked how he knows the tomb was empty because Jesus needed some rest and relaxation, he said, “Unfortunately, in this case, there are no facts.” Put differently, the guy is a crook and “Dateline” has been had.

2005

●     In 2005, Easter was on March 27. Pope John Paul II was dying at the time and so the ABC special “The Resurrection: Searching for Answers,” was not aired until May 20. Hosted by Elizabeth Vargas, it reported: “Nearly every single detail of the Easter story remains a question of debate. Among them: Was the tomb really empty? And even more basic: Was Jesus ever buried in the first place?”

●     On March 28 (Easter Monday), Newsweek printed a lengthy piece by Jon Meacham called “From Jesus to Christ” that was quite good. But even in this article, the reader is asked to ponder, “How much of this is remembered history, and how much heartfelt but unhistorical theology? It is impossible to say.”

2004

●     The April 12 (Easter Monday) issue of Time magazine featured a major cover story called “Why Did Jesus Die?” It presented both liberal and orthodox Christian beliefs on the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection.

●     On April 5 (during Holy Week), ABC had a Peter Jennings special report, “Jesus and Paul, the Word and the Witness.” Lasting three hours, it included the Doubting Thomases from the so-called Jesus Seminar. Viewers were treated to the work of Robert Funk and John Dominic Crossan, skeptics who believe that Jesus’ body was eaten by wild dogs. The documentary clearly did not take the New Testament seriously.

2003

●     The Discovery Channel showed a documentary called “James: Brother of Jesus” on April 20 (Easter Sunday). It was based on a book which claimed that James was Jesus’ brother and that he was the true leader of the early Church.

2002

●     On March 19 (Easter was March 31st), NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” ran a segment on “Biblical archaeology” wherein the host said, “Two central holidays for Jews and Christians are right around the corner, Passover and Easter. Both are based on those religions’ holiest book, the Bible. For Jews, the story is the exodus from slavery in Egypt; for Christians, the story is the crucifixion of Jesus and his return from the dead on the third day. But what if those stories were not literally true? What if the ancestors of the Jews were never slaves? What if Jesus did not rise from the dead? What would happen to Judaism and Christianity?”

2001

●     The Discovery Channel aired a three-hour documentary called “Jesus: The Complete Story” on April 15 (Easter Sunday). According to the Houston Chronicle, the film was about scientists, archeologists, theologians and historians whose “mission is to confirm or deny the facts of Jesus’ life and death as written in the Gospels, that billions of Christians around today’s world accept as gospel truth.” The documentary suggested that perhaps Jesus and Judas planned for Judas to hand Jesus over ahead of time.

●     On April 13 (Good Friday), ABC’s 20/20 featured a segment with the title “Modern Archaeologists, Theologians and Scholars Develop New Theory About Death of Jesus, and Who Was Responsible.” Barbara Walters announced, “Tonight, with the help of leading religious experts, we bring you startling revelations about the life and death of Jesus. In the nearly 2,000 years since his crucifixion, countless acts of love and terrible acts of hate have been carried out in his name. But even as the story endures, it continues to change. Tonight, Bob Brown takes you back to Jerusalem in search of the real Easter story.” A Catholic priest, Fr. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor discussed how the seven last words of Jesus should not be taken historically and said of the words in Matthew “His blood be upon us and our children”: “This was the root of anti-Semitism in Christianity. This was the root of the Holocaust.”

2000

●     The April 24 (Easter Monday) issue of U.S. News and World Report had a cover story called “Why Did He Die?” Jeffery L. Sheler’s piece stated: “But while the Gospel story has inspired piety and devotion through the centuries, it also has spawned darker passions. From the rise of the Holy Roman Empire to the fall of the Third Reich and even today, purveyors of anti-Semitism have sought to justify their prejudices by appealing to the Gospels’ depiction of Jews as jealous villains who plotted against Christianity’s founder.”

1999

●     U.S. News & World Report featured a lengthy article called “Reassessing an Apostle: The Quest for the Historical St. Paul Yields Some Surprising New Theories” in its April 5 (Easter Monday) issue.

The article, written by Jeffery L. Sheler, reports that some scholars suggest that since St. Paul believed the Second Coming to be imminent, “he did not intend his sometimes stern judgments on doctrinal matters and on issues of gender and sexuality to become church dogma applied, as it has been, for nearly 2,000 years.” The article also reports that many charge that St. Paul did not actually write many of the letters in the Bible that are attributed to him.

1998

●     NPR’s program “Talk of the Nation” with Lynn Neary broadcast a segment called “The Historical Jesus” on April 9 (Holy Thursday). Featuring ex-priest and former co-director of the Jesus Seminar John Dominic Crossan as a guest, the show was all about the Jesus Seminar’s theories. While Lynn Neary simply interviewed Crossan about his beliefs on the resurrection, the segment did give him quite a platform from which to present his heterodox views.

1997 

●     On March 28 (Good Friday) PBS’s “News Hour” with Jim Lehrer presented a piece called “Considering Jesus” by Richard Ostling of Time magazine. The piece was a profile of the Jesus Seminar and asked the question, “Should New Testament accounts of his [Jesus’] life be taken literally or figuratively?”

While Ostling did not take any positions, the entire piece was about the Jesus Seminar’s claims that much of what is in the Bible didn’t actually happen. Professor Marcus Borg (Oregon State University) was one of these men who says the resurrection was only symbolic. He was given a good deal more time than N.T. Wright, a scholar (Dean of Lichfield Cathedral) who supported orthodox Christianity and said that the resurrection literally happened.

1996 

●     The April 8 (Easter Monday) issue of Time magazine featured a big story called “The Gospel Truth?” The subtitle accurately conveyed the gist of the story: “The Iconoclastic and Provocative Jesus Seminar Argues that Not Much of the New Testament Can Be Trusted. If So, What are Christians to Believe?”
1995

●     The April 10 issue of Time magazine included the cover story, “The Message of Miracles.” The piece contrasted the faith of American individuals who believe in miracles with the claims advanced by heterodox Christian theologians. The article paid special attention to the group of theologians known as the Jesus Seminar, who had declared in the days before Lent began that Jesus did not literally rise from the dead and who had previously denied the virgin birth.

The article also described other scholars who claim that modern science and archeology show that the miracles of the Bible did not actually happen. Special attention was paid to the renegade professor of biblical studies and ex-priest John Dominic Crossan, who claims that Jesus’ followers were too afraid to bury him, so Jesus’ body was left hanging on the cross or eaten by wild dogs. Also mentioned was Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, who rejects much of the Bible and declared, “I’d like to think Christianity is something that would appeal to people who are also well educated and who are modern people.”

1994

●     On March 31 (Holy Thursday) CNN aired a segment featuring a debate between Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong and Rev. Peter Stavinskas. Spong claimed that the Gospel story of an angel appearing, putting the soldiers to sleep and rolling back the stone of Jesus’ tomb is “stuff of legends.”

He also stated that, “I just don’t believe that modern men and women are going to be called into faith by things like the story of the empty tomb. If you look at the first Gospel to be written, the first time the tomb story appears, no faith is born.”

●     The April 4 (Easter Monday) edition of the NPR show “Weekend Edition” hosted by Scott Simon included a segment with Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong where he discussed his new book, Resurrection: Myth Or Reality? Spong said of the resurrection, “I don’t think it’s fair to say that what the resurrection originally was was a physical resurrection, or Jesus sort of walking out of the grave and being seen in a physiological way. The question is, what happen to the story between whatever it was that occurred, and the first writing of that?”

●     The April 4 (Easter Monday) issue of Newsweek featured a story titled “A Lesser Child of God” about the Jesus Seminar and its portrait of Jesus. The seminar claims that the real Jesus was not the Son of God, but an illiterate Jewish peasant. The Jesus Seminar contributors also believe that Jesus did not physically rise from the dead, rather he was taken down from the cross and buried in a shallow grave where he may have been eaten by dogs.

1993 

●     Harper waited until the month of Easter to release The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins, a book by Burton Mack that challenges orthodox Christian beliefs; Mack summoned Christians to “rethink how to live in a multicultural world.” The Boston Globe chose Easter Sunday to review it and the Chicago Tribune published its piece on the book on Easter Monday.

1992

●     Ex-priest and Jesus Seminar guru John Dominic Crossan published his famous book, The Historical Jesus, in 1991, but the major newspapers waited until the Lenten season to promote his heterodox views about Jesus being nothing more than a nice peasant who entertained egalitarian ideas. For example, though the New York Times had already given Crossan’s book a front-page story, just one week before Easter it ran another story on it. The San Francisco Chronicle treated Christians to a review of the book on Good Friday, the Los Angeles Timesdelivered one on Holy Saturday and the Washington Post gave its Easter-present review on Easter Sunday.

1991 

●     On March 28 (Holy Thursday), CNN’s “Larry King Live” featured a debate between two Episcopal leaders, Bishop William Frey and Bishop John Shelby Spong. Spong had recently released a book called Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. Larry King introduced the show by asking, “Was Saint Paul a repressed homosexual; Mother Mary not a virgin? These are the claims of [Bishop Spong].”

Throughout the show, Bishop Spong advanced his heterodox views. When a caller challenged him, the bishop stated that his ideas were new, and “I would like to say that every new idea that’s come about in the Christian faith has always been resisted…we don’t believe that the earth is the center of the universe, but we surely did persecute Galileo when he first suggested that.”

1990

●     The “Horizons” section of the April 16 (Easter Monday) edition of U.S. News & World Report featured three articles by Jeffery L. Sheler titled “The Last Days of Jesus,” “The Burial,” and “The Resurrection.” The pieces focus on the “controversy” over the crucifixion of Jesus, noting scholars who claim the historical accounts of Christ’s death and resurrection do not hold up and others who maintain the Easter narrative is a mix of legend and fact.

Sheler describes critics who maintain that the accounts of the burial of Jesus conflict with the likely behavior of Jews of that time, as well as theologians who hold that Jesus’ resurrection was purely metaphorical.

CBS Outdoor, a division of the CBS Corporation, recently posted anti-Catholic billboards paid for by the Eternal Gospel Church, a breakaway sect of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, along Interstate 65 in Jeffersonville, Indiana. The town is located on the Indiana-Kentucky border across the river from Louisville. Our response caught them off-guard and ultimately led to a victory.

For years we have been battling the Eternal Gospel Church. It is an old-fashioned anti-Catholic group that accuses the pope of being the Antichrist, among other things. While not nearly as upsetting as what employees for John Edwards have said about Catholicism, it is disturbing enough.

Instead of launching a formal protest, we decided we’d beat CBS at its own game. We told CBS Outdoor we wanted to post a billboard in the same area saying, “CBS Sponsors Anti-Catholicism.” All of a sudden we touched a nerve.

Their initial response was bewilderment. Then came their answer—we were denied. Fine, we said, now we’ll tell the whole world. We then posted the e-mail address of Wally Kelly, the CEO of CBS Outdoor in our news release. He was quickly bombarded with letters of protest. So guess what happened? They reversed course and said the offensive billboards would come down.

The people on our side are great. A week after we won, CBS Outdoor called to say they were still getting hit with angry letters. But it was too late to call off the dogs. (More on page 7.)

On February 6, the Catholic League demanded that presidential hopeful John Edwards fire two recently hired anti-Catholics who had joined his team: Amanda Marcotte as Blogmaster and Melissa McEwan as the Netroots Coordinator. He chose to fire them, then rehire them. After we exposed another anti-Christian screed by Marcotte—written only three days after Edwards had assured everyone that this would not happen again—she was forced to quit. She blamed Bill Donohue as she waltzed out the door. The next day, McEwan also resigned.

Writing on the Pandagon blogsite on December 26, 2006, Amanda Marcotte wrote that “the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.”

On October 9, 2006, she said that “the Pope’s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are cast into Satan’s maw.” On the same day she wrote that “it’s going to be bad PR for the church, so you can sort of see why the Pope is dragging ass.” And on June 14, 2006, Marcotte offered the following Q&A: “What if Mary had taken Plan B after [here she described the Virgin Birth with vulgar sexual terms],” to which she offered the reply, “You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.”

On November 21, 2006, Melissa McEwan wrote on the website AlterNet that “some of Christianity’s most prominent leaders—including the Pope—regularly speak out against gay tolerance.” On November 1, 2006, on her blog Shakespeare’s Sister, she referred to President Bush’s “wingnut Christofascist base” when lashing out against religious conservatives.

On February 21, 2006, she attacked religious conservatives again, this time saying, “What don’t you lousy [expletive] understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?” Currently, the very first entry under “Greatest Hits” on her website (where she brags about being appointed to Edwards’ campaign) is titled something so filthy we cannot in good conscience reprint it here.

Our initial news release was easy on Edwards: “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots. He has no choice but to fire them immediately.”

 After Marcotte resigned, we issued a news release demanding that McEwan either quit or be forced out. It didn’t take long.

William A. Donohue

The cultural elite reek of hypocrisy so bad it’s nauseous. In this issue of Catalyst alone, there are three huge examples of just how bad this duplicity is; they involve Hollywood, CBS and the New York Times. In each instance, there was a confrontation with the Catholic League, and in each case we won.

On January 22, the movie “Hounddog” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. There was nothing anti-Catholic about the movie, but it was troubling on several fronts nonetheless. Here was a film starring a 12-year-old girl, Dakota Fanning, playing a 9-year-old who gets raped. Moreover, her father gets into bed with her naked, and she dances around in a suggestive fashion in her underwear.

This is sick. What is even sicker is that the same Hollywood gang that loves to beat up on Catholics, and is quick to damn the few priests who have molested minors, is celebrating child rape as entertainment. That’s why I unloaded.

The reaction of the Hollywood gang to the Catholic League’s criticism of the movie was astounding. It was as if we had no right to comment. What really drove them nuts was our decision to contact the Feds. I wrote to the Justice Department division that deals with these matters asking for an investigation. Specifically, I wanted to know if the federal child pornography laws had been violated. The Justice Department turned the case over to the FBI.

The movie’s producer went bonkers. In typical Hollywood form, she lashed out at me making anti-Catholic remarks. With her back to the wall, she tried to spin the issue by saying the film was a good educational tonic on the subject of sexual abuse. But as I said on TV, the movie was never billed as “Health 101.” In any event, we won: no distributor picked up the movie. So as it stands now, it will never make it to be big screen.

On another issue, when we learned that the Eternal Gospel Church was marketing more of its anti-Catholic junk, we immediately inquired into which company owned the billboards (we have known the sect was anti-Catholic for years). What a surprise it was to learn that CBS Outdoor, a division of CBS, was the owner. The strategy we outlined proved successful.

I asked Kiera McCaffrey, our director of communications, to call CBS Outdoor and let them know of our interest in placing an ad on one of their billboards along I-65 in Indiana (near Kentucky) where the anti-Catholic messages were posted. The agent was very happy to get our business and said he would mail us pictures of some billboards in the area so as to facilitate our decision where we wanted our statement to appear. He said the cost was $4,000 for one month, and $6,000 for two months. He even said he would get his graphic designer to work up our ad for us. Kiera expressed delight. He then asked, “What do you want the billboard to say?” Kiera replied, “CBS Sponsors Anti-Catholicism.”

The poor agent was aghast. He said he’d have to get back with us. The next day he told us that our request had been denied: CBS has a policy that does not allow anything defamatory to be said about CBS on its billboards. How convenient. But, as we reasoned, they obviously don’t have a problem regarding statements that are defamatory about Catholicism.

In the news release on this subject, we listed the e-mail address of Wally Kelly, the CEO of CBS Outdoor in Phoenix, Arizona. He was inundated with letters of protest, so much so that only a few hours later the agent called to say the anti-Catholic signs were coming down.

We had planned to run an ad in the New York Times about the John Edwards matter, but just as we were about to go to press we had to pull it: that’s because the two offensive employees had just resigned. You can see the ad we planned on p. 5. Interestingly, it was originally rejected because it allegedly violated the newspaper’s policy on obscenity. So I rewrote the first part and resubmitted it. Here is what it said.

“This ad was to begin with two vile anti-Christian quotes penned by two women who work for John Edwards. Though neither contained obscene words spelled in full, the New York Times said it violated their policy and therefore rejected them. The first quote was a reference to the Virgin Mary being injected with semen by the Lord. The second used a patently vulgar term to describe religious conservatives. The first part of the word is ‘mother.’ To read what was actually said, please see the Catholic League website.”

Guess what happened? A few minutes later we got a call back saying the New York Times had reconsidered its objections and decided that our original submission was okay. What obviously entered their minds was the prospect of having the big free speech guys look rather prudish when compared to the Catholics over at the Catholic League.

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 inspiration. More recently, however, some writers have raised questions about how actively he opposed the Nazis. One even dubbed him “Hitler’s Pope.”

Critics often claim that the Vatican is hiding evidence of the Pope’s activities during the Holocaust because, like most nations, the Holy See keeps diplomatic records sealed for a number of years. This respects the confidentiality of people who are still living, protects state secrets, and gives archivists time to index and catalog documents. The Vatican has, however, tried to accommodate the researchers.

In the 1960s, Pope Paul VI appointed a team of four Jesuits to cull through the archives for relevant documents from the Holocaust era. By 1980, they had produced and made public 11 thick volumes of documents. This did not satisfy the critics, because the actual archives containing post-1922 documents remained closed to outsiders.

In 2003, some archives from the years 1922-1939 were opened, and in 2006 more were opened. These archives cover the years during which the Nazis came to power and during which the future Pope Pius XII was very involved in German-Vatican diplomacy. Even though these archives (not to mention the 11 volumes prepared by the Jesuits) have not been fully mined, many researches, some with personal agendas, continue to clamor for more access.

Recently, 35 such researchers petitioned the Vatican to open all Holocaust-era archives. One of the petitioners, Seymour Reich, wrote toJewish Week complaining that the beatification of Pius XII before all archives were open would cause “serious problems with the Jewish community’s attitude toward the Vatican.”

One wonders whether these petitioners are aware of the new archival evidence. One piece of recently discovered evidence is a letter written in 1923, when Hitler was just emerging as a force within Germany, in which papal representative Pacelli reports that “followers of Hitler” are persecuting Jews and Catholics. The future Pope refers negatively to this group (not yet known as Nazis) as “right-wing radicals.” He also praises the “learned and zealous” Cardinal Archbishop Michael Faulhaber of Munich whom the radicals attacked because he “had denounced the persecutions against the Jews.”

It had long been known that philosopher Edith Stein (recently canonized as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) wrote to Pope Pius XI in 1933 concerning the Nazis and their treatment of Jews. The precise words she used, however, were not known. It had been assumed that she asked for an encyclical—a formal papal document—condemning Naziism. It turns out there was no such request.

The reply letter to Stein, which was not seen until the new archives were opened, came from Secretary of State Pacelli. The future Pius XII assured Stein that the Vatican shared her concerns and that the Church would ultimately score a “final victory” over Nazism. The newly opened archives also show that even before Stein sent her letter to Rome, the Vatican had instructed its representative in Berlin to intervene with the German government on behalf of the Jews. Upon reviewing these documents, CNN’s Vatican correspondent concluded that its release “resolves a historical debate in favor of the Vatican’s position.”

An event that took place in 2003 shows why the Vatican is so concerned about archiving and indexing the documents. Shortly after new archives were opened, an Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, claimed that a 1934 letter had been found in which a Jesuit priest named Friederich Muckermann accused Secretary of State Pacelli of collaboration with the Nazis. The paper reprinted what it claimed was the actual letter.

After reading the article, officials from the Congregation For the Causes of Saints called the reporter to find out where he got his information. The reporter had not seen the letter; it had been read to him over the phone by a researcher who had been given access to the archives. Vatican officials pulled the files that the researcher had been using. Not long thereafter, they found the original letter.

As printed in the newspaper the letter was about 550 words long. The letter Fr. Muckermann wrote, however, was almost three times that long. The newspaper had changed words (“unjust” charges against the Holy See were published as “just” charges) and omitted entire passages (“The whole world knows that the German Bishops have done much” against Hitler) without any indication that the letter had been edited. Obviously, someone wanted to cast the Church in a bad light, and sloppy reporting let that happen. Fortunately, the Vatican was able to issue a correction not long after the story was first published precisely because of the care it had taken with the archives.

A similar mistranslation hit the press in 2005, when the New York Times ran an article based on an unsigned document, not on Vatican letterhead and in the wrong language, that reportedly had been found in a Paris archive. According to the Times, this was a directive from Pius XII instructing Catholics who had taken Jewish children into their households during the Nazi occupation. Supposedly, the Pope told these rescuers not to return the children to their parents if the youngsters had been baptized.

Within a week, thanks again to careful archiving, the Pope’s original instruction was found, and it was quite different from the news reports. The Pope actually said that Catholic parents had an on-going duty to the Jewish families. They were instructed not to dump these children on the first charity group that approached them. They should, of course, return the children to their parents.

The current charge is that Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, was critical of Pius XII because he did not assist Roncalli’s efforts on behalf of Turkish Jews. This is not new. As early as 1968, there were several false charges that John was a critic of Pius. Archbishop Loris Capovilla, John’s private secretary, has expressly answered this claim:

With regard to the actions in favor of the Jews, affected particularly in Istanbul in the years 1935-1944, which was recognized and praised by Hebrew communities in Jerusalem, Istanbul, and the United States, it is obligatory to recognize that Roncalli was and declared himself the executor of the thought and the directives of Pius XII. He repeated, in fact “The papal representative is the eye, the ear, the mouth, the heart and the effective hand of the Pope.”

Capovilla said that Roncalli’s rescue efforts on behalf of Jews make sense “only if they are referred above everything else to Pius XII, of whom Roncalli was the careful and most faithful interpreter. Any strictly personal action, even though it be heroic, of Roncalli himself, would otherwise be inconceivable.”

Throughout his life, John praised Pius. Before he was made Pope, John was offered thanks for his wartime efforts to save Jewish refugees. He replied: “In all these painful matters I have referred to the Holy See and simply carried out [Pius XII’s] orders—first and foremost to save human lives.” When Pius died, the future John XXIII said that Pius had been like a “public fountain” pouring forth good waters at which all the world, great and lowly, could profitably drink. As one reporter of the times wrote: “In the autumn of 1958 the world showed little doubt that one of its great ones had departed, and none showed less doubt than Angelo Roncalli.”

As Pope, John prayed monthly before Pius XII’s tomb and even considered taking the name “Pius XIII.” One of the first things he did upon becoming Pope was to place a photo of Pius XII on his desk. He also had his predecessor’s photograph published with a prayer on the back asking for his canonization. The prayer called Pius “a fearless defender of the Faith, a courageous struggler for justice and peace… a shining model of charity and of every virtue.” A million of these cards were soon in circulation.

In his first Christmas broadcast, Pope John said that Pius XII’s doctrinal and pastoral teaching “assure a place in posterity for the name of Pius XII. Even apart from any official declaration, which would be premature, the triple title of ‘Most excellent Doctor, Light of Holy Church, Lover of the divine law’ evokes the sacred memory of this pontiff in whom our times were blessed indeed.” It should be noted that only a saint can be declared a Doctor of the Church.

It is true that some archives remains sealed, and historians do not have all of the evidence. At the same time, the evidence that we already have shows conclusively that Pope Pius XII intervened frequently; encouraged rescue efforts; and tried to comfort all victims, including persecuted Jews. During and after the war Pius XII’s efforts were recognized by virtually everyone. As more archives are opened, after they have been properly cataloged and indexed, we can be confident that the reputation that he once enjoyed—as a firm opponent of the Nazis—will be reconfirmed. Catholics should all take pride in knowing that Pope Pius XII stood tall in a time of great difficulty.

Ronald J. Rychlak is the MDLA Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope (Our Sunday Visitor Press) and Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis (Spence Publishing).

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 “a devastating rape by an older boy.” Before it opened, others had also noted how coarse it was.

On January 16, Alan Colmes on “Hannity and Colmes” said, “In the film, 12-year-old Fanning plays a sexually promiscuous character who’s physically abused by her father and eventually raped on screen in a violently graphic scene.” Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper said Fanning’s character “is violently raped and appears, at different times, either naked or in underpants.” Other sources said it was uncertain whether a mutual masturbation scene featuring other minors would be shown.

“It is unclear whether federal child pornography statutes have been broken in the course of filming this movie,” said Donohue. He added, “It matters not a whit whether Fanning’s mother, along with Fanning’s teacher/child welfare worker, gave their consent. What matters is whether they are an accessory to a crime.”

Accordingly, Donohue asked Andrew Oosterbaan, Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section within the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, to investigate the matter. Federal statutes on child pornography define a minor as anyone younger than 18. Fanning is a pre-teen. Donohue also wrote to First Lady Laura Bush requesting her assistance in this endeavor. That’s because she was cited in the New York Times, along with the First Ladies from France, Russia and Egypt, as having recently met “to discuss the fight against child pornography and pedophilia.”

“For the past five years,” Donohue said, “there has been a steady drumbeat of criticism aimed at the Catholic Church for allowing sexual abuse of minors to continue with impunity.” He continued by saying, “Much of that criticism was right on target. Let’s see now whether Hollywood will be held to the same level of scrutiny for promoting simulated child rape movies.”

We were delighted to learn that the Justice Department turned the case over to the FBI. Whether the law was broken is not known, but it will surely make others think twice the next time they seek to exploit children under the guise of entertainment.

After we pressed the issue, the media coverage exploded. In what is typical fashion, Donohue was attacked personally. The anti-Catholic messages and calls that we received were as voluminous as they were vicious.

Fortunately, the reviews of “Hounddog” were almost uniformly lousy. This, coupled with our protest, left the film’s producer without a distributor. It was sickening nonetheless to read how dishonest those associated with the film became. They tried to pitch the movie as a good way to educate the public about child rape. But their motive was never therapeutic. They hoped to make a profit at the expense of the young girl.

The Sundance Film Festival brought out some real sickos. It even showed a film about a man having sex with a horse (a true-life story about a Seattle man a few years ago). The film, “Zoo,” was deemed by Sundance judges as a “humanizing look at the life and bizarre death of a seemingly normal Seattle family man who met his untimely death after an unusual encounter with a horse.” Donohue responded by saying, “To be blunt about it, the movie tries to sanitize the sick death of an obviously deranged Seattle pervert who perforated his colon after he molested a horse.”

The hypocrisy surrounding this story was truly amazing. Consider Kenneth Turin of the Los Angeles Times. He was unhappy with Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” because of its “almost sadistic violence,” but he loved the bestiality in “Zoo,” calling it “an elegant, eerily lyrical film.” What he liked best was that it was “a poetic film about a forbidden subject.” But as we pointed out, it’s forbidden no more.

Donohue ended his remarks by offering the following: “I have only a few questions. Whatever happened to the horse? Did he survive this ordeal? Has PETA filed suit alleging his animal rights have been violated? And because the horse was an Arabian stallion, does this constitute a bias crime?”

CNN’s “Showbiz Tonight,” January 22:

A.J. Hammer: “But Bill, you have not seen the movie and you don’t have the context for it. On the other hand, contextually, they are saying it actually calls attention to something that goes on every day.”

Bill Donohue: “Why don’t we show it in health classes then? Is that what they’re doing now, as they’re running from the argument? Look, this is all about making a fast buck. They are exploiting this kid, and I think most Americans are on my side. You know, it’s like time out, enough is enough, leave the kids alone.”

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.