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Catholic League Forum is a weekly Q&A discussion between Catholic League president Bill Donohue and director of communications Mike McDonald on contemporary issues of interest to the Catholic community. In this week’s episode, Bill and Mike pay tribute to Cardinal George Pell who passed away this week at age 81. They also discuss pro-life and pro-abortion politicians in the current Congress. Finally, they give an overview of the stealth tactics that government, education, and the medical world use to undermine parental rights. To watch click here.

Fr. Philip Eichner died on January 1 at the age of 86. He was chairman of the board of directors of the Catholic League from 1992 to 2016. He was also the president of Chaminade High School (1967-1992) and president of Kellenberg Memorial High School (1987-2018), two outstanding Catholic schools on Long Island. May he rest in peace.

A wake will be held at Kellenberg on January 4 from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

There are some in the medical profession who deliver babies to pregnant women in the morning, and terminate the babies of other pregnant women in the afternoon. Lisa H. Harris is one of them. She wrote about her experience as an obstetrician-gynecologist-abortionist in the New York Times.

Do those who perform abortions know they are taking the life of an innocent human being? Of course they do. The remains of the body are not that of a turkey. So how do they justify their job? They convince themselves that they are non-judgmental facilitators, doctors whose job it is to render whatever service the woman wants. That’s what Harris believes she is doing.

Does she really admit that she is aborting a human being? Here are some of her comments:

• “I know that for every woman whose abortion I perform, I stop a developing human being from being born.”
• “I know that for each of them [all of her patients], there was a second entity there—a baby, a person, a potential life, a life, depending on your beliefs.”
• “Abortion feels morally complicated because it stops a developing human being from being born, which of course it does.”

To say that all of her patients recognize the life of their baby is quite an admission. At least they don’t believe the fiction that what they are aborting is nothing but a clump of cells or tissue.

Twice Harris speaks about the preborn baby as “a developing human being.” This is true. It is also true that newborns are still developing: Brain development does not peak until the third year.

It is not clear where Harris stands on the morality of infanticide. But it is clear that her concessions make it easier to justify.

Faithful America, a radical secularist organization, has attacked the free speech and religious liberty rights of Attorney General William Barr, and has launched a petition drive in support of its ethics complaint against him. Why the complaint? His defense of Christianity, recently made at Notre Dame Law School, against militant secularists. The complaint has been filed with the Justice Department’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility.

As people of faith, we reject the attempt to smear Attorney General Barr. We are also alarmed that Faithful America is seeking to silence his First Amendment rights. Indeed, what it is doing is exactly what Barr warned about—the efforts of secular zealots to undermine our Judeo-Christian heritage by stifling religious expression. We call on the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility to dismiss this pernicious campaign against him.

To print out the petition, click here.

By Bill Donohue

This article was originally published by CNSNews.com on September 28, 2016.

Friday is International Blasphemy Rights Day. On paper, its stated goal appears eminently worth defending: it is opposed to laws, such as those in Muslim-run nations, that punish the free speech rights of those who criticize religion.

For example, it says, “Sometimes religious militants make their own laws, deciding for themselves that expressions of dissent justify brutal killings, like the grisly murders of secularists in Bangladesh, or attacks on religious minorities in Pakistan.”

No one could reasonably argue with this assessment. But upon closer examination, it is clear that those who sponsor this event are not friends of liberty: they are rabidly opposed to religion, harboring a special hatred of Catholicism. In short, the whole project is a farce.

The Center for Inquiry is the force behind International Blasphemy Rights Day. It was once a respectable organization, but that ended in 2010 when its founder, philosopher Paul Kurtz, was forced out by a new board of directors. Led by Ronald A. Lindsay, the new board was comprised of militant, religion-hating, atheists. Kurtz died two years later.

When he was a young man, Kurtz studied under Sidney Hook, the brilliant New York University political philosopher whose intellectual migration traveled from Marxist to neo-conservative. I, too, studied under Hook, though more than two decades after Kurtz did. Hook had a tremendous effect on me (though not on my religious convictions), and to this day I remember him with affection. Both of these men were atheists, but neither was a hater. In fact, they both hated the religion haters.

Kurtz founded several secular humanist organizations, and was the editor of “The Humanist,” an organ of the American Humanist Association. He insisted on putting a positive face on atheism while simultaneously adhering to a religion-friendly line. Unfortunately, over time American atheists became increasingly extreme, and so, too, did those drawn to organizations such as the Center for Inquiry.

By the time Kurtz was forced to resign, he had had it with what he called the “angry atheists.” He was referring to the “new atheists,” writers such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. He properly called them “dogmatic” and atheist “fundamentalists,” men whose malice toward religion was deeply offensive.

In 2010, just before Kurtz left the Center for Inquiry, he witnessed the first International Blasphemy Day. He was not happy with what happened. With good reason, he objected to a “Free Expression Cartoon Contest”: top prize was given to a bishop ogling altar boys.

Two days before the event, I wrote a news release slamming it for its scheduled foray trashing Catholicism.

“Artist Dana Ellyn will wander to Washington, D.C. to show her masterpiece, ‘Jesus Does His Nails,’ a portrait of Jesus polishing a nail jammed into his hand. In Los Angeles, there will be a film about a gay molesting priest and another about a boy who is so angry about being sent to bed that he asks God to kill his parents.”

One person who loved these displays of bigotry was PZ Meyers. He correctly said that the day was established to “mock and insult religion without fear of murder, violence, and reprisal.” The University of Minnesota professor is known for intentionally desecrating a consecrated Host with a rusty nail.

In recent years, the participants at these Blasphemy Rights Day events have been better behaved—owing to the backlash—but the fundamental problem remains. The Center for Inquiry believes that “free speech is the foundation on which other liberties rest.” Wrong. Freedom of religion is the foundational liberty, but to admit that would undercut its mission.

To demonstrate how committed the Center for Inquiry is to hate speech, consider that it will soon be home to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. Dawkins is to Catholics what the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks. A few months ago, he said, “I’m all for offending people’s religion. I think it should be offended at every opportunity.”

Bill Donohue is President and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization. He was awarded his Ph.D. in sociology from New York University and is the author of seven books and many articles.

Bill Donohue comments on the upset victory by Democratic primary challenger Brian Barnwell over incumbent New York Assemblywoman Margaret Markey:

The big losers last night are those who have been waging war against the Catholic Church in New York State: Margaret Markey, the Daily News, and attorney Marci Hamilton.

Markey spent 18 years of her life trying to stab the Catholic Church. First elected in 1998, she has been at the forefront of bills that would do absolutely nothing to protect public school students who have been molested by their teachers. Her sole objective was to sponsor bills that exclusively targeted private institutions, her real goal being parochial schools. The one time she strayed from her agenda and included public schools in her bill, she incurred the wrath of the public school establishment.

Markey’s low point came this past spring when she falsely accused Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of trying to bribe her nearly a decade ago. It showed a side to her so dirty that no respectable person could stomach it. I called for her to resign in June. Now she’s toast.

In recent years, the New York Daily News has turned strongly anti-Catholic, highlighting stories on miscreant priests while burying similar stories on rabbis. It has also been a steadfast supporter of Markey’s selective indignation, ripping the Catholic Church at will.

Another loser is attorney Marci Hamilton. She spends her days working with other anti-Catholic lawyers across the nation plotting to sue the Catholic Church. She is a dishonest person whose agenda is so totally transparent that no sentient human being could fail to see it.

This is a big win for justice.

Contact: MarkeyM@assembly.state.ny.us

President of The Catholic League, Newsmax Contributor, and Author of “The Catholic Advantage” joins Steve to discuss his Wednesday meeting with Pope Francis at the prayer service at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., as well as his meeting with the pope.

The Catholic League’s annual nativity scene in New York City’s Central Park was erected today in a spot just south of the Park: It is on 5th Avenue, between 58th and 59th Street, in front of the Plaza Hotel. Tourists are showing up in droves for pictures.

We deliberately put it in this spot so that everyone who takes the bus down 5th Avenue cannot fail to see it. It is our Christmas gift to believers, as well as devout atheists.

Those who object to a religious symbol on public property—unadorned by secular symbols (we are anti-reindeer at the Catholic League)—will be outraged. If they object, they can always call the New York City Parks Department which issued us a permit.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

To see a picture of the nativity scene, click here.