Bill Donohue, Ph.D.
Presidente
Liga Católica para los Derechos Civiles y Religiosos
16 de agosto de 2018

A diferencia de la mayoría de los comentaristas y reporteros, he leído la mayor parte del informe del Gran Jurado de Pennsylvania. El propósito de esta declaración es refutar muchos de los mitos, y de hecho mentiras, que estropean el informe y / o las interpretaciones de este.

Mito: Más de 300 sacerdotes fueron encontrados culpables de abuso de jóvenes en Pennsylvania.

Hecho: Nadie fue encontrado culpable de nada. Sin embargo, eso no impidió que la cadena CBS dijera que “300 ‘sacerdotes depredadores’ abusaron de más de 1.000 niños en un período de 70 años”. Todas estas son acusaciones, la mayoría de las cuales nunca fueron verificadas por el Gran Jurado o las diócesis.

El informe, y CBS, también están equivocados al decir que todos los acusados son sacerdotes. De hecho, algunos eran hermanos, algunos eran diáconos y algunos eran seminaristas.

¿Cuántos de los 300 eran probablemente culpables? Tal vez la mitad. ¿Mi razonamiento? El informe de 2004 del John Jay College for Criminal Justice encontró que el 4 por ciento de los sacerdotes en todo el país habían sido acusados con una acusación creíble entre 1950-2002. Esa es la cifra que todo el mundo cita. Pero el informe también señala que aproximadamente la mitad de ese número fue corroborada. Si esa es una medida confiable, la cifra 300 se reduce a alrededor de 150.

Durante las siete décadas investigadas por el Gran Jurado, hubo más de 5.000 sacerdotes sirviendo en Pennsylvania (esto incluye dos diócesis que no están cubiertas en el informe). Por lo tanto, el porcentaje de sacerdotes que tienen acusaciones​ contra ellos es bastante pequeño, ofreciendo una imagen muy diferente de la que los medios de comunicación ofrecen. Y recuerde, la mayoría de estas acusaciones nunca fueron fundamentadas.

Es importante destacar que, en casi todos los casos, nunca se otorgó al acusado mencionado en el informe el derecho a refutar los cargos. Eso se debe a que el informe fue investigativo, no probatorio, aunque el resumen del informe sugiere que es autoritativo. Es manifiesto que no lo es.

El informe cubre acusaciones que se remontan a la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Casi todos los acusados están muertos o han sido expulsados del sacerdocio. Por ejemplo, en la Diócesis de Harrisburg, se nombran 71 personas: 42 están muertos y cuatro están desaparecidos. La mayoría de los que todavía están vivos ya no están en el ministerio.

Hay algunos casos que son tan viejos que no son creíbles. Considere el caso del padre Joseph M. Ganter. Nacido en 1892, fue acusado en 2008 por un hombre de 80 años de abusar de él en la década de 1930. Obviamente, todo esto no llevó a nada. Pero el sacerdote estaba acostumbrado a tales cargos.

En 1945, a petición del Padre Ganter, un juez de paz entrevistó a tres hombres adolescentes que habían hecho acusaciones contra él. No solo dieron historias contradictorias, los tres admitieron que Ganter nunca abusó de ellos. Pero no crea que los medios de comunicación resaltarán este caso u otros similares.

Mito: El informe estaba justificado debido a la crisis en curso en la Iglesia Católica.

Hecho: No hay una crisis en curso; es un mito total. De hecho, no hay ninguna institución, privada o pública, que tenga menos problemas con el abuso sexual de menores hoy que la Iglesia Católica. ¿Cómo puedo saberlo?

En los últimos dos años, el 0,005 por ciento de los miembros del clero católico ha sido acusado con una acusación creíble. Nadie sabe exactamente cuál es la cifra para otras instituciones, pero si hubiera una investigación del Gran Jurado sobre el abuso sexual de menores en las escuelas públicas, las cabezas de las personas estallarían: los problemas de la Iglesia Católica se verían como insignificantes en comparación. Pero ningún fiscal o fiscal general tiene las agallas para investigar las escuelas públicas.

Concentrarse en la Iglesia Católica —sin nunca investigar a ninguna otra institución— es como hacer una investigación del crimen en vecindarios de minorías de bajos ingresos mientras se permite que los delitos de cuello blanco cometidos en los suburbios salgan libres, y luego concluir que no-blancos son más propensos a cometer crímenes. Eso sería una estafa. También es una estaba esa concentración sobre la Iglesia Católica.

Mito: El informe del Gran Jurado se inició para hacer pagar a los culpables.

Hecho: Falso. No tiene nada que ver con castigar a los culpables. El Secretario de Justicia de Pennsylvania, Josh “El Salaz” Shapiro admitió el 14 de agosto que “en casi todos los casos de abuso infantil [el Gran Jurado encontró que eran] demasiado viejos para ser enjuiciados”. Tiene razón. Pero él lo sabía desde el comienzo, entonces ¿por qué siguió en este callejón sin salida?

¿Por qué desperdició millones de dólares de los contribuyentes contra presuntos perpetradores cuando sabía que no podía hacer nada al respecto? Porque él y su predecesora, Kathleen Kane (que ahora está en prisión por mentir bajo juramento y abusar de su cargo de Fiscal General) querían avergonzar a la Iglesia Católica.

Kane y Shapiro nunca han buscado avergonzar a los imanes, ministros o rabinos; solo quieren avergonzar a los sacerdotes. Tampoco llevarán a cabo una investigación de psicólogos, psiquiatras, consejeros de campamentos, entrenadores, consejeros de orientación o cualquier otro segmento de la sociedad donde los adultos interactúan habitualmente con menores de edad.

Shapiro, y aquellos como él, están encantados con todos los detalles salaces en el informe. Cuando se trata de personas que no son sacerdotes, las noticias sobre mala conducta sexual generalmente señalan que ha ocurrido una ofensa sexual, pero a los lectores se les ahorran las cuentas gráficas. No cuando se trata de sacerdotes: les encanta ser lo más explícitos posible.

No es sólo Shapiro quien está interesado en apelar al interés mezquino del público. La historia principal en la edición del 15 de agosto del New York Times es otro caso ilustrativo: en la página principal hay una foto de una nota manuscrita escrita por un joven que describe cómo y dónde supuestamente lo tocó un sacerdote. Sin embargo, cuando las acusaciones surgen contra personas como Harvey Weinstein, todo lo que se nota es la naturaleza de la ofensa.

Mito: Shapiro está buscando corregir estos errores presionando para que se promulgue una legislación que suspenda la ley de prescripción para los delitos sexuales contra menores, permitiendo que los casos antiguos sean enjuiciados.

Hecho: Esta es una de las mentiras más atrevidas de todas. Ni Shapiro, ni el diputado de Pennsylvania Mark Rozzi, que está proponiendo tal legislación, alguna vez han incluido a las escuelas públicas en estas proposiciones de proyectos de ley, solo se aplican a las instituciones privadas [entiéndase: católicas].

En la mayoría de los estados, los estudiantes de escuelas públicas tienen 90 días para denunciar una ofensa. Así de simple. Lo que significa que es demasiado tarde para que un estudiante violado por un maestro de escuela pública presente una demanda si el crimen ocurrió este año al comienzo de la temporada de béisbol. Las instituciones públicas se rigen bajo la corrupta doctrina de la inmunidad soberana, y pocos políticos tienen el coraje de desafiarla.

En los pocos casos en que los estados han incluido las escuelas públicas en dicha legislación, ¿adivinen quién se vuelve loca? La corporación de las escuelas públicas. Los sindicatos de docentes, los superintendentes escolares, los directores: todos gritan cuán injusto es hacer retroceder el reloj e intentar determinar si el acusado es culpable de una ofensa ocurrida hace décadas. Ellos tienen razón al hacerlo; por suerte para ellos rara vez son llamados a la acción.

La razón por la cual tenemos una ley de prescripción es porque muchos testigos están muertos o sus recuerdos se han desvanecido. La corporación de las escuelas públicas entiende la importancia de esta medida de debido proceso y legítimamente protesta cuando está en peligro. Entonces, ¿por qué cuando los obispos hacen exactamente la misma declaración son condenados por obstruir la justicia? La hipocresía es nauseabunda.

Mito: Los sacerdotes “violaron” a sus víctimas.

Shapiro dijo que “los dirigentes de la Iglesia de forma rutinaria y deliberada describieron el abuso como bromas pesadas, lucha libre y contacto inapropiado. No se trataba para nada de todo eso”. Él dijo que era una “violación”. Del mismo modo, el New York Times citó el informe diciendo que las autoridades de la Iglesia usaron términos como “bromas pesadas” y “contacto inapropiado” como parte de su “libro de jugadas para ocultar la verdad”.

Hecho: Esta es una mentira obscena. La mayoría de las presuntas víctimas no fueron violadas: fueron manoseadas o maltratadas, pero no penetradas, que es lo que significa la palabra “violación”. Esto no es una defensa, está destinado a aclarar las cosas y refutar los peores escenarios posibles atribuidos a los perpetradores.

Además, las autoridades de la Iglesia no seguían un “libro de jugadas” para usar términos como “contacto inapropiado”: seguían el léxico establecido por los profesores de John Jay.

Los ejemplos de abuso sexual sin violación que se encuentran en el informe del John Jay incluyen “tocar debajo de la ropa de la víctima” (el acto más común alegado); “charla sexual”; “muestra de pornografía”; “tocar la ropa del clérigo”; “clérigo desvestido”; “víctima desnuda”; “fotos de víctimas”; “juegos sexuales”; y “abrazarse y besarse”. Estos son los tipos de actos registrados en el informe del Gran Jurado también, y por malos que sean, no constituyen una “violación”.

En cuanto a la acusación de que las autoridades de la Iglesia describieron la mala conducta sexual como “juegos pesados”, uno pensaría que habría docenas de ejemplos en el informe donde las autoridades describieron lo sucedido como nada más que “juegos pesados”, especialmente si es parte de un “libro de jugadas” de la Iglesia.

Aquí está la verdad: ¡En más de 1300 páginas, la palabra horseplay (NdT: payasadas o bromas pesadas) aparece una sola vez! Para colmo, se utilizó para describir el comportamiento de un seminarista, no de un sacerdote.

Mito: Los sacerdotes abusivos eran pedófilos.

Hecho: Esta es la mentira más grande de todas, repetida sin parar por los medios de comunicación, y presentadores de talk-shows televisuales nocturnos.

Hubo dos escándalos relacionados con el abuso sexual de menores en la Iglesia Católica. El escándalo n. º 1 involucra a los obispos responsables que encubrieron lo sucedido. El escándalo n. º 2 involucra el encubrimiento de los medios de comunicación del papel que juegan los abusadores homosexuales.

Permítanme repetir lo que he dicho a menudo. La mayoría de los sacerdotes homosexuales no son abusadores, pero la mayoría de los abusadores han sido homosexuales. No admitir esto —y esto incluye a muchos obispos que aún viven en un estado de negación al respecto— significa que el problema continuará. De hecho, hay informes hoy sobre seminarios en Boston y Honduras que son inquietantes.

¿Cómo sé que la mayoría del problema es impulsado por la homosexualidad? Los datos son indiscutibles.

El estudio del John Jay encontró que el 81 por ciento de las víctimas eran hombres, el 78 por ciento de los cuales eran post-pubescentes. Ahora bien, si el 100 por ciento de los victimarios son hombres, y la mayoría de las víctimas son hombres post-pubescentes, ese es un problema llamado homosexualidad. No hay vuelta de hoja.

¿Cuántos eran pedófilos? Menos del cinco por ciento. Eso es lo que encontró el estudio del John Jay. Los estudios realizados en años posteriores (los he leído todos) informan aproximadamente la misma proporción. Ha sido constantemente un escándalo homosexual.

No ayudará decir que el informe del John Jay no concluyó que fueron homosexuales quienes cometieron la mayoría de las ofensas, a pesar de que sus propios datos socavaron su interpretación. Los profesores jugaron el juego de la “autoidentificación”: dijeron que muchos de los hombres que tuvieron relaciones sexuales con varones adolescentes no se identificaron como homosexuales. ¿Y qué?

sacerdote heterosexual que abusó de una adolescente decía que se consideraba homosexual, ¿los investigadores lo incluirían en la lista como tal? Una autoidentificación que no cuadra con la verdad es una mentira. Recientemente hablé con una persona de los medios de comunicación sobre esto. Le dije que me considero un enano chino, a pesar de que es obvio que soy un gran irlandés, y le pregunté si me describiría de esa manera en su historia. Él entendió lo que quise decir.

Shapiro alimentó el mito de que se trataba de un escándalo de “pedofilia” cuando dijo que las víctimas eran “niños y niñas pequeños”. Esto es una mentira. Cualquiera que realmente lea el informe sabe que es una mentira. La mayoría eran post-pubescentes. Esto no hace que el abuso sexual sea moral —los culpables deben ser encarcelados— pero es incorrecto dar la impresión de que estamos hablando de niños de 5 años cuando más típicamente eran niños de 15 años.

El New York Times, que ha estado encubriendo a los homosexuales durante décadas, encontró conveniente destacar la minoría de los casos en los que supuestamente se abusaba de mujeres. Lo mismo hicieron muchos en los medios de comunicación que basan su argumentación en el Times.

El Times es tan deshonesto que menciona un “círculo pedófilo sadomasoquista clerical en Pittsburgh que fotografiaba niños que habían posado para parecerse a Jesucristo, y luego les daba cruces de oro para mostrar que habían sido recibido instrucciones”. La sección del informe que analiza esta presunta ofensa cita al padre Gregory Zirwas como el cabecilla.

Cada persona que toqueteó era un adolescente, lo que significa que era un círculo homosexual. Pero, por supuesto, el lector desprevenido no sabe que este sea el caso.

En resumen, esto es un ardid: El Times quiere que el lector crea que se trata de un problema de pedofilia, y que las mujeres corren tanto riesgo como los hombres, eliminando así la homosexualidad. Esto es claramente falso, pero alimenta la mentira de que no se trata de un escándalo homosexual. También permite que personas como Anthea Butler, que llama a Dios un “racista blanco”, digan: “La Iglesia Católica es un círculo de pedófilos”.

Mito: Los obispos que enviaron sacerdotes abusadores de regreso al ministerio lo hicieron por un desprecio total del bien de las víctimas.

Hecho: Esta mentira es perpetuada por el Gran Jurado cuando ridiculiza a los obispos por hacer que los sacerdotes sean “evaluados” en “centros psiquiátricos administrados por la iglesia”. El hecho es que en el período en que ocurrieron la mayoría de los abusos, desde mediados de los años sesenta hasta mediados de los años ochenta, casi todas las personas con autoridad que tuvieron que lidiar con delitos sexuales en cualquier institución se basaban en la experiencia de las ciencias conductuales.

Francamente, fue un momento en que los terapeutas exageraron su propio nivel de competencia, y muchos continúan haciéndolo. Hubo muy pocos psicólogos o psiquiatras en ese momento que no sobrevaloraron su capacidad de “corregir” a los perpetradores. Fue a ellos a quienes los obispos recurrieron para pedirles consejo. Sin embargo, los medios rara vez los hacen responsables de engañar a los abogados de la Iglesia y a los obispos.

Mito: El cardenal Donald Wuerl es tan culpable que debe renunciar.

Hecho: Esta acusación, hecha por un periodista de CBS, así como por otros, se basa en la ignorancia pura, si no en la malicia. Shapiro jugó el mismo juego cuando lamentó cómo “Monseñor Wuerl” se convirtió en el “Cardenal Wuerl” después de que supuestamente “manejara mal las acusaciones de abusos”. Esta es una declaración difamatoria.

Ningún obispo o cardenal en la nación ha manejado de manera más coherente y valiente que Donald Wuerl los abusos sexuales de sacerdotes. Además, el informe del Gran Jurado, incluso en áreas que son incompletas y poco halagüeñas, no hace nada para cuestionar esta observación.

¿Por qué llamo a Wuerl “coherente y valiente”? Debido a la negativa de Wuerl de retroceder delante del Vaticano cuando se le ordenó reinstalar a un sacerdote que había expulsado del ministerio; esto ocurrió a principios de los 90 cuando Wuerl era obispo de Pittsburgh. El Vaticano reconsideró y estuvo de acuerdo con su evaluación.

¿Quién, dentro o fuera de la Iglesia Católica, ha desafiado a sus superiores, arriesgando su puesto dentro de la empresa o institución, por tales asuntos? Wuerl lo hizo. ¿Quién en Hollywood o en los medios hizo algo similar?

Las personas que ahora atacan a Wuerl lo están haciendo por una razón: como arzobispo de Washington, es el pez más grande que los críticos tienen para freír.

Aquí hay otra pepita. Shapiro demostró lo deshonesto que es cuando se negó a eliminar una acusación sin fundamento contra Wuerl. Hay una nota escrita a mano en el informe atribuida a Wuerl sobre su supuesto “círculo de confidencialidad” que involucra a un sacerdote que volvió al ministerio. Pero no es la letra de Wuerl. Más importante aún, el asesor legal de Wuerl le informó a Shapiro que “la letra no pertenece al entonces obispo Wuerl”, pero no se hizo nada para corregir el registro. Lo cual quiere decir que ellos engañaron intencionalmente al público.

Conclusión

El culpable debe pagar, no el inocente. Esto es una verdad básica que se está pisoteando hoy en día cuando se trata de evaluar la mala conducta de los sacerdotes, algo a lo que el informe del Gran Jurado de Pennsylvania ha contribuido poderosamente.

Ninguna cantidad de compasión hacia aquellos que han sido violados por sacerdotes debe hacerse a expensas de la verdad, no importa cuán impopular pueda sonar. Hacer lo contrario es cobarde, vergonzoso e injusto.

Lo que está impulsando la manía actual sobre este tema no es difícil de entender. Soy un sociólogo que ha estado lidiando con este tema durante mucho tiempo, habiendo publicado artículos al respecto en libros y revistas internacionales.

Esto es lo que está pasando. Hay muchos críticos crueles de la Iglesia Católica que desean debilitar su autoridad moral, y se aprovecharán de cualquier problema que tenga para desacreditar su voz. ¿Por qué? Porque odian sus enseñanzas sobre la sexualidad, el matrimonio y la familia.

Estas mismas personas se deleitan en promover una cultura libertina, que, irónicamente, fue el mismo medio que sedujo a algunos sacerdotes muy enfermos y los supervisores de sus seminaristas a pasar al acto.

No hay nada erróneo en la doctrina católica sobre este tema: si los sacerdotes hubieran seguido sus votos, y no su ello, no tendríamos este problema. Aquellos que se niegan a usar los frenos que Dios les dio, heterosexuales o homosexuales, deben expulsarse o nunca debería habérselos admitido.

Bill Donohue, Ph.D.
President
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
August 16, 2018

Unlike most commentators and reporters, I have read most of the Pennsylvania grand jury report. The purpose of this statement is to debunk many of the myths, and indeed lies, that mar the report and/or interpretations of it.

Myth: Over 300 priests were found guilty of preying on youngsters in Pennsylvania.

Fact: No one was found guilty of anything. Yet that didn’t stop CBS from saying “300 ‘predator priests’ abused more than 1,000 children over a period of 70 years.” These are all accusations, most of which were never verified by either the grand jury or the dioceses.

The report, and CBS, are also wrong to say that all of the accused are priests. In fact, some were brothers, some were deacons, and some were seminarians.

How many of the 300 were probably guilty? Maybe half. My reasoning? The 2004 report by the John Jay College for Criminal Justice found that 4 percent of priests nationwide had a credible accusation made against them between 1950-2002. That is the figure everyone quotes. But the report also notes that roughly half that number were substantiated. If that is a reliable measure, the 300 figure drops to around 150.

During the seven decades under investigation by the grand jury, there were over 5,000 priests serving in Pennsylvania (this includes two dioceses not covered in the report). Therefore, the percent of priests who had an accusation made against them is quite small, offering a much different picture than what the media afford. And remember, most of these accusations were never substantiated.

Importantly, in almost all cases, the accused named in the report was never afforded the right to rebut the charges. That is because the report was investigative, not evidentiary, though the report’s summary suggests that it is authoritative. It manifestly is not.

The report covers accusations extending back to World War II. Almost all the accused are either dead or have been thrown out of the priesthood. For example, in the Diocese of Harrisburg, 71 persons are named: 42 are dead and four are missing. Most of those who are still alive are no longer in ministry.

There are some cases that are so old that they are unbelievable. Consider the case of Father Joseph M. Ganter. Born in 1892, he was accused in 2008 by an 80-year-old man of abusing him in the 1930s. Obviously, nothing came of it. But the priest was accustomed to such charges.

In 1945, at the request of Father Ganter, a Justice of the Peace interviewed three teenage males who had made accusations against him. Not only did they give conflicting stories, the three admitted that they were never abused by Ganter. But don’t look to the media to highlight this case, or others like it.

Myth: The report was warranted because of the on-going crisis in the Catholic Church.

Fact: There is no on-going crisis—it’s a total myth. In fact, there is no institution, private or public, that has less of a problem with the sexual abuse of minors today than the Catholic Church. How do I know?

Over the past two years, .005 percent of the Catholic clergy have had a credible accusation made against him. No one knows exactly what the figure is for other institutions, but if there were a grand jury investigation of the sexual abuse of minors in the public schools, people’s heads would explode—it would make the Catholic Church’s problems look like Little League. But no district attorney or attorney general has the guts to probe the public schools.

To single out the Catholic Church—without ever investigating any other institution—is akin to doing an investigation of crime in low-income minority neighborhoods while allowing white-collar crimes committed in the suburbs to go scot-free, and then concluding that non-whites are criminally prone. That would be a scam. So is cherry picking the Catholic Church.

Myth: The grand jury report was initiated to make the guilty pay.

Fact: False. It has nothing to do with punishing the guilty. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh “Salacious” Shapiro admitted on August 14 that “Almost every instance of child abuse (the grand jury) found was too old to be prosecuted.” He’s right. But he knew that from the get-go, so why did he pursue this dead end?

Why did he waste millions of taxpayer dollars in pursuit of alleged offenders when he knew he couldn’t do anything about it? Because he, and his predecessor, Kathleen Kane (who is now awaiting prison for lying under oath and misusing her Attorney General’s office) wanted to shame the Catholic Church.

Kane and Shapiro have never sought to shame imams, ministers, or rabbis—they just want to shame priests. Nor will they conduct a probe of psychologists, psychiatrists, camp counselors, coaches, guidance counselors, or any other segment of society where adults routinely interact with minors.

Shapiro, and those like him, are delighted with all the salacious details in the report. When it comes to non-priests, news reports on sexual misconduct typically note that a sexual offense has occurred, but readers are spared the graphic accounts. Not when it comes to priests—they love to get as explicit as they can.

It’s not just Shapiro who is interested in appealing to the prurient interest of the public. The lead story in the August 15 edition of the New York Times is another case in point: on the front page there is a photo of a handwritten note by a young male who describes how and where a priest allegedly touched him. Yet when accusations surface against the likes of Harvey Weinstein, all that is noted is the nature of the offense.

Myth: Shapiro is seeking to right these wrongs by pushing for legislation that would suspend the statute of limitations for sexual crimes against minors, allowing old cases to be prosecuted.

Fact: This is one of the most bald-face lies of them all. Neither Shapiro, nor Pennsylvania lawmaker Mark Rozzi, who is proposing such legislation, has ever included the public schools in these proposed bills—they only apply to private [read: Catholic] institutions.

In most states, public school students have 90 days to report an offense. That’s it. Which means it is too late for a student raped by a public school teacher to file suit if the crime occurred this year at the start of the baseball season. Public institutions are governed under the corrupt doctrine of sovereign immunity, and few politicians have the courage to challenge it.

In the few instances where states have included the public schools in such legislation, guess who goes bonkers? The public school establishment. The teachers’ unions, school superintendents, principals—they all scream how utterly unfair it is to roll back the clock and try to determine if the accused is guilty of an offense that took place decades ago. They are right to do so; lucky for them they are rarely called to action.

The reason we have statutes of limitation is because many witnesses are either dead or their memories have faded. The public school industry understands the importance of this due process measure, and rightfully protests when it is in jeopardy. So why is it that when bishops make the exact same argument, they are condemned for obstructing justice? The hypocrisy is nauseating.

Myth: The priests “raped” their victims.

Shapiro said that “Church officials routinely and purposely described the abuse as horseplay and wrestling and inappropriate contact. It was none of those things.” He said it was “rape.” Similarly, the New York Times quoted from the report saying that Church officials used such terms as “horseplay” and “inappropriate contact” as part of their “playbook for concealing the truth.”

Fact: This is an obscene lie. Most of the alleged victims were not raped: they were groped or otherwise abused, but not penetrated, which is what the word “rape” means. This is not a defense—it is meant to set the record straight and debunk the worst case scenarios attributed to the offenders.

Furthermore, Church officials were not following a “playbook” for using terms such as “inappropriate contact”—they were following the lexicon established by the John Jay professors.

Examples of non-rape sexual abuse found in the John Jay report include “touching under the victim’s clothes” (the most common act alleged); “sexual talk”; “shown pornography”; “touch over cleric’s clothes”; “cleric disrobed”; “victim disrobed”; “photos of victims”; “sexual games”; and “hugging and kissing.” These are the kinds of acts recorded in the grand jury report as well, and as bad as they are, they do not constitute “rape.”

As for the accusation that Church officials described sexual misconduct as “horseplay,” one would think that there would be dozens of examples in the report where officials described what happened as nothing more than “horseplay,” especially if it is part of the Church’s “playbook.”

Here’s the truth: In over 1300 pages, the word “horseplay” appears once! To top it off, it was used to describe the behavior of a seminarian, not a priest.

Myth: The abusive priests were pedophiles.

Fact: This is the greatest lie of them all, repeated non-stop by the media, and late-night talk TV hosts.

There have been two scandals related to the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church. Scandal I involves the enabling bishops who covered it up. Scandal II involves the media cover-up of the role played by gay molesters.

Let me repeat what I have often said. Most gay priests are not molesters, but most of the molesters have been gay. Not to admit this—and this includes many bishops who are still living in a state of denial about it—means the problem will continue. Indeed, there are reports today about seminaries in Boston and Honduras that are disturbing.

How do I know that most of the problem is gay-driven? The data are indisputable.

The John Jay study found that 81 percent of the victims were male, 78 percent of whom were postpubescent. Now if 100 percent of the victimizers are male, and most of the victims are postpubescent males, that is a problem called homosexuality. There is no getting around it.

How many were pedophiles? Less than five percent. That is what the John Jay study found. Studies done in subsequent years—I have read them all—report approximately the same ratio. It’s been a homosexual scandal all along.

It won’t help to say that the John Jay report did not conclude that homosexuals committed most of the offenses, even though their own data undercut their interpretation. The professors played the self-identity game: they said that many of the men who had sex with adolescent males did not identify as gay. So what?

If a straight priest who abused a teenage girl said he thinks of himself as gay, would the researchers list him as such? Self-identification that does not square with the truth is a lie. I recently spoke to a person in the media about this. I told him that I consider myself to be a Chinese dwarf—even though it is obvious that I am a big Irishman—and asked if he would describe me that way in his story. He got my point.

Shapiro fed the myth about this being a “pedophile” scandal when he said the victims were “little boys and girls.” This is a lie. Anyone who actually reads the report knows it is a lie. Most were postpubescent. This doesn’t make the molestation okay—the guilty should be imprisoned—but it is wrong to give the impression that we are talking about 5-year-olds when more typically they were 15-year-olds.

The New York Times, which has been covering up for homosexuals for decades, found it convenient to highlight the minority of cases where females were allegedly abused. So did many in the media who take their talking points from the Times.

The Times is so dishonest that it mentions a “sadomasochistic clerical pedophile ring in Pittsburgh that photographed boys they had posed to look like Jesus Christ, then gave them gold crosses to show they had been groomed.” The section of the report that discusses this alleged offense cites Father Gregory Zirwas as the ringleader.

Every person whom he groped was a teenager, meaning this was a homosexual ring. But, of course, the unsuspecting reader doesn’t know this to be the case.

In short, this is a ruse: the Times wants the reader to believe that this is a pedophile problem, and that females are as much at risk as males, thus discounting homosexuality. This is patently untrue, but it feeds the lie that this is not a homosexual scandal. It also allows people like Anthea Butler, who calls God a “white racist,” to say, “The Catholic Church is a pedophile ring.”

Myth: Bishops who sent abusive priests back into ministry did so out of total disregard for the well-being of the victims.

Fact: This lie is perpetuated by the grand jury report when it ridicules bishops for having priests “evaluated” at “church-run psychiatric centers.” The fact is that in the period when most of the abuse occurred—the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s—almost all persons in authority who dealt with sexual offenses, in any institution, relied on the expertise of those in the behavioral sciences.

Quite frankly, it was a time when therapists oversold their level of competence, and many continue to do so. There were very few psychologists or psychiatrists at the time who didn’t overrate their ability to “fix” offenders. It was they whom the bishops relied upon for advice. Yet the media rarely hold them accountable for misleading Church lawyers and the bishops.

Myth: Cardinal Donald Wuerl is so guilty that he needs to resign. 

Fact: This accusation, made by a CBS reporter, as well as others, is based on pure ignorance, if not malice. Shapiro played the same game when he lamented how “Bishop Wuerl” became “Cardinal Wuerl” after he allegedly “mishandl[ed] abuse claims.” This is a scurrilous statement.

No bishop or cardinal in the nation has had a more consistent and courageous record than Donald Wuerl in addressing priestly sexual abuse. Moreover, the grand jury report—even in areas that are incomplete and unflattering—does nothing to dispute this observation.

Why do I call Wuerl “consistent and courageous”? Because of Wuerl’s refusal to back down to the Vatican when it ordered him to reinstate a priest he had removed from ministry; this occurred in the early1990s when Wuerl was the Bishop of Pittsburgh. The Vatican reconsidered and agreed with his assessment.

Who, in or out of the Catholic Church, has ever defied his superiors, risking his position within the company or institution, over such matters? Wuerl did. Who in Hollywood or in the media has?

The people now attacking Wuerl are doing so for one reason: as the Archbishop of Washington, he is the biggest fish the critics have to fry.

Here’s one more nugget. Shapiro proved how dishonest he is when he refused to excise a baseless charge against Wuerl. There is a handwritten note in the report attributed to Wuerl about his alleged “circle of secrecy” involving a priest who was returned to ministry. But it is not Wuerl’s handwriting. More important, Wuerl’s legal counsel informed Shapiro that “the handwriting does not belong to then-Bishop Wuerl,” but nothing was done to correct the record. So they intentionally misled the public.

Conclusion

The guilty should pay, and the innocent should not. This is a pedestrian axiom that is being trashed today when it comes to assessing priestly misconduct, something the Pennsylvania grand jury report has contributed to mightily.

No amount of compassion for those who have been violated by priests should ever be done at the expense of telling the truth, no matter how unpopular it may sound. To do otherwise is cowardly, shameful, and unjust.

What is driving the current mania over this issue is not hard to figure out. I am a sociologist who has been dealing with this issue for a long time, having published articles about it in books and international journals.

Here is what’s going on. There are many vicious critics of the Catholic Church who would like to weaken its moral authority, and will seize on any problem it has to discredit its voice. Why? They hate its teachings on sexuality, marriage, and the family.

These very same people delight in promoting a libertine culture, one which ironically was the very milieu that enticed some very sick priests and their seminarian supervisors to act out in the first place.

There is nothing wrong with Catholic teachings on this subject: If priests had followed their vows, and not their id, we would not have this problem. Those who refuse to use the brakes God gave them, straight or gay, should be shown the gate or never admitted in the first place.

To read Bill Donohue’s analysis of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church that appeared in an international social science journal, click here.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains the flaws in the Child Victims Act, a measure included in this year’s budget by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. It is being widely distributed to lawmakers, bishops, and the media. To read it, click here.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an anti-Christian play that previews on January 23:

On January 23, “Jerry Springer: The Opera,” a New Group production, will preview at the Pershing Square Signature Center, an off-Broadway venue.

That morning, at 9:30 a.m., I will hold a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., raising objections to the play and the source of funding for the New Group. Regarding the latter, the New Group receives most of its funding from public sources, led by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

The press conference has two objectives: to call attention to this frontal assault on Christian sensibilities; and to request that President Trump nominate a new chairman of the NEA, one who will discontinue funding of anti-Christian grantees, exhibitions, and performances. The current chairman’s tenure ends in April; the president is expected to announce his nominee in the near future.

To read a script summary of this vile, obscene, and grossly anti-Christian musical, click here.

I am grateful to all those Catholics and evangelicals who have expressed their support for our efforts.

PART I

MEN ACCUSED OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT
WHO HAVE A RECORD OF ANTI-CATHOLIC OFFENSES

 

ENTERTAINMENT:

 

Ben Affleck—After speaking out against Weinstein, the Oscar winner became the subject of his own sex assault narrative when a Twitter user unearthed a clip of Affleck grabbing the breast of then-MTV VJ Hilarie Burton during a 2003 taping of Total Request Live. Affleck has apologized for “acting inappropriately” towards Burton. (Flare, 11/26/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: Starred in “Dogma,” anti-Catholic movie, said film is intended to “push buttons.” (Catholic League, 11/19/2004) The plot was an irreverent look at Catholicism, one that maintained that Mary and Joseph had sexual relations; Mary gives birth to a daughter who works in an abortion clinic. God (played by Alanis Morissette) and the apostles (a foul-mouthed 13th is introduced) are also subjected to director Kevin Smith’s brand of humor. (Catholic League, 10/6/2014)

 

Woody Allen—Accusations of child molestation. (Breitbart, 10/25/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• Starred in “Picking Up the Pieces,” an anti-Catholic movie that thrashes Catholicism from beginning to end. The plot revolves around a butcher (Allen) who slices up his wife and buries her in the desert. One of the hands is found (giving the finger) by a blind woman who brings it to a priest. The woman, now cured of her blindness, insists that the hand belongs to the Virgin Mary. The priest, who is having sex with a prostitute, advertises the hand to the faithful as a cure for all types of maladies; one of the “miracles” results in enlarged breasts for a woman and an enlarged penis for a dwarf. (Catholic League, 5/24/2000)
• Has said he doesn’t have “any respect for any of the major religions.” (Catholic League, 7/26/2000)

 

Alec Baldwin—Bullying and sexist behavior toward women. (Breitbart, 10/25/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: In a burst of anger directed at a photographer Baldwin disliked, he said, “You must have been raped by a priest.” (Catholic League, 9/18/2002)

 

Louis C.K. —Accused by several women of sexual misconduct. He says the allegations are true and has apologized. (AP, 11/24/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• Accused Pope Benedict XVI of “f***ing boys” (Catholic League, 5/18/2015)
• YouTube mockumentary called “Louis C.K. Learns About the Catholic Church.” It features a priest who tells him that the purpose of Catholicism is “boy f***ing,” not faith. He takes him through a crash course in this perverse theology. (YouTube, June 21, 2007)
• Mocked Christianity in a short segment of his “Louie” show, in which he has a fictional debate with a woman from “Christians Against Masturbation.” He defended the act. For obvious reasons, the clip has now gained much media attention. (People, 11/10/2017)

 

David Letterman—Admitted on Oct. 1, 2009 that he had been sexually involved with female staffers on his show. (People, 10/19/2009)

Offensive Catholic fare: A sampling of Letterman’s anti-Catholic bigotry excerpted from Catholic League news releases:
• On Good Friday (2015), David Letterman joked about the pope’s physical exam, saying his weight gain may be a function of “a little too many Communion wafers.” (4/7/2015)
• On Holy Thursday (2015), Letterman made ten jokes about the pope’s physical exam; all the comments were attributed to the attending physician. The joke listed as #1 was: “I know you don’t use it, but I still have to take a look at it.” (4/7/2015)
• Letterman began by saying Pope Francis is thinking about lifting the celibacy requirement. “That’s right, the pope is saying that priests can be in a marriage with a woman and have sex.” He added: “So if a priest sees someone out there in the crowd that he likes, he might send over some Communion wine.” [Letterman is shown pointing and winking at someone.] Off camera, band leader Paul Shaffer replies, “That little lady over there.” To which Letterman replies, “Priests having sex, can you believe that?” (7/17/2014)
• Letterman mentioned Pope Francis’ appearance at World Youth Day in Brazil by saying, “And I’m telling you if there’s anything the kids can’t get enough of, it’s a 76-year-old virgin. Come on! World Youth Day. Or as the Vatican calls it, salute to altar boys.” (7/24/2013)
• After twice saying the pope has “a chronic neck problem,” Letterman let loose with, “He’s got a chronic neck problem and apparently the chronic neck problem is for looking the other way so many times.” He then said the Vatican “is already holding auditions to see who might be the next pope and we have one of those auditions that’s going on.” Footage was then shown of acrobats taking off their shirts and then performing for the pope; he looks on while rock music is played. Letterman said that besides looking for someone who is a biblical scholar and at least 60 years old, the Vatican is looking for “a guy who is good at transferring creepy priests.” (2/14/2013)
• Letterman said he was “stunned” and “fascinated” by Anthony Weiner’s predicament. He then said the following: “Honest to God, is this the kind of behavior you’d expect from a congressman? No. In simple terms, no. It is not the kind of behavior you’d expect from a congressman. It is the kind of behavior you’d expect from a priest.” (6/15/2011)
• When the “Opie and Anthony” show graphically described a couple having sex in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on August 15 (2002), a holy day in the Catholic Church, Letterman made reference to it in a couple of monologues, including a joke about people having sex in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and then getting ordained. He also made reference to a priest molesting an altar boy in the Cathedral. (8/21/2002)

 

Bob Weinstein—Accused of sexually harassing a former employee. (Breitbart, 10/25/2017)
Harvey Weinstein—Accused by dozens of women of sexual harassment or sexual assaults, including rape. Fired by The Weinstein Co. and expelled from various professional guilds. Under investigation by police departments in New York, London, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. (AP, 11/24/17)

Offensive Catholic fare: Long history of making anti-Catholic movies:
• In 1995, Harvey Weinstein and his brother, Bob, offered us “Priest,” a film featuring nothing but miscreant priests.
• In 1999, we were treated to “Dogma,” where the audience learned of a descendant of Mary and Joseph who works in an abortion clinic.
• In 2002, they released “40 Days and 40 Nights,” a film that ridiculed a Catholic for giving up sex for Lent.
• Also opening in 2002 was “The Magdalene Sisters,” a movie that smeared nuns.
• In 2003, “Bad Santa” opened for the holidays; Santa was cast as a chain-smoking, drunken, foul-mouthed, suicidal, sexual predator.
• In 2006, “Black Christmas” made a predictably dark statement about the holiday.
• “Philomena” was released in 2013. It is a tale of malicious lies about Irish nuns and the Church (Harvey lobbied hard for an Oscar, but came up empty). In real life, Philomena Lee was a teenager who abandoned her out-of-wedlock son, and who, because of the good efforts of the nuns, was adopted by an American couple. (Catalyst, 11/2017)

 

MEDIA

 

NPR news chief Michael Oreskes—Accused of inappropriate behavior or sexual harassment by at least four women. He was ousted from NPR. (AP, 11/24/17)

Offensive Catholic fare: Under Oreskes’ leadership, AP ran a story in 2010 on 30 Catholic priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad. AP put some money into this investigative report, which spanned 21 countries on six continents. In 2007, however, when AP ran a report on widespread abuse in public schools, and the “passing the trash” policy of moving abusive teachers around to different districts, it did not name names, nor did it show the same investigative fervor when it was stonewalled in a number of states. (Catholic League, 4/15/2010)

 

NPR Chief News Editor David Sweeney—Left NPR in late November amid allegations of sexual harassment by at least three female journalists. (AP, 11/24/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: Sweeney has been with NPR, in various management positions, since 1993. During that time, NPR has had a long record of anti-Catholic content, including mocking the Eucharist, sexualizing Jesus, criticizing the Catholic faith of Pope Benedict XVI and other Catholic public figures. (Catholic League, 5/16/2017) A sample:
• On May 27, 2012, Barbara Bradley Hagerty did a piece that was posted on the website of National Public Radio (NPR) titled, “Just Doing His Job Is Catholic Official’s Defense.” Here is how she opened her story: “A clergy sex-abuse trial in is [sic] reaching a crescendo in a Philadelphia courtroom. One defendant is James Brennan, a priest accused of trying to rape a minor, which is not that unusual.” [Emphasis added.] (Catholic League, 5/30/2012)
• On Jan. 7, 2008, the Utah NPR station, KCPW, aired a skit lampooning Mike Huckabee that trashed Jesus. On the show, “Fair Game with Faith Salie,” the following was said: “Tired of bland unsatisfying Eucharists? Try this Huckabee family favorite. Deep-Fried Body of Christ—boring holy wafers no more….Mike likes his Christ with whipped cream and sprinkles.” (Catholic League, 10/26/2010)
• On July 5, 1997, NPR mocked the Eucharist when host Scott Simon and musical satirist, Tom Lehrer, got together. Lehrer sang “The Vatican Rag.” Here are some of the lyrics: “Try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer”; “Two, four, six, eight, time to Trans-substantiate.” (Catholic League, 10/26/2010)

 

PBS and CBS host Charlie Rose—Accused by several women of unwanted sexual advances, groping and grabbing women, walking naked in front of them or making lewd phone calls. He has apologized for his behavior, but has questioned the accuracy of some of the accounts. (AP, 11/24/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: PBS has a long history of bias against the Church when it comes to the reporting of sexual abuse:
• “Secrets of the Vatican” marked the 48th time PBS has addressed sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Though this problem is practically non-existent in the Catholic community these days, and is rampant in the public schools, as well as in the Orthodox Jewish community, PBS has devoted a combined total of ZERO episodes on both. (Catholic League, 2/25/2014)
• A dissident Catholic, Jason Berry, was a co-producer of this show; he was also featured in Alex Gibney’s film, “Mea Maxima Culpa.” Indeed, this hit job was nothing more than a retread of Gibney’s propaganda: a New Orleans reporter who previewed it said, “this film reminded me of ‘Mea Maxima Culpa.'” These guys can’t go to the sewer too often. (Catholic League, 2/25/2014)

 

Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner—Accused by one man of sexual harassment. He says he did not intend to make the accuser uncomfortable. (AP, 11/24/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: Rolling Stone published Sabrina Rubin Erderly’s article, “The Catholic Church’s Secret Sex-Crime Files,” (9/6/2011) a hit piece on the Philadelphia Archdiocese based partly on the since exposed lies of Daniel Gallagher. After she was shown to be a fraud with the University of Virginia gang rape story, “A Rape on Campus,” (11/19/2014) Rolling Stone referred to it as an isolated incident. According to the New York Times, which conducted interviews on this story, publisher Jann W. Wenner insists that Erdely’s dishonesty “represented an isolated and unusual episode.” (Catholic League, 4/6/2015)

 

Leon Wieseltier—Accused of sexually harassing numerous women. Removed from the masthead of the Atlantic magazine. He has apologized for his behavior. (AP, 11/24/17)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• When Pope John Paul II in 2000 issued his historic apology for mistakes and errors in Christian history, Wieselter pointedly rejected the pope’s gesture of reconciliation, saying he could not accept the pope’s apology. (Catholic League, 5/26/2000)
• Wieseltier trashed Mel Gibson’s, “The Passion of the Christ,” calling it “a repulsive masochistic fantasy, a sacred snuff film.” (Catholic League, 3/5/2004)

 

POLITICS:

 

U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.)—Accused of sexual harassment toward staffers in his office, and has settled one claim of harassment. He has denied the allegations, even the one he settled. (AP, 11/24/17)

Offensive Catholic fare: Sponsored legislation that would have made religious pronouncements against homosexuality a hate crime. (Catholic League, 4/20/2009)

 

U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)—Accused of forcibly kissing a woman while rehearsing for a 2006 USO tour; Franken also was photographed with his hands over her breasts as she slept. Franken has apologized, while maintaining that he remembered the rehearsal differently. (AP, 11/24/17) Subsequently, several more women have come forward accusing Franken of having groped them while posing for pictures with them. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/30/17)

Offensive Catholic fare: Franken has a history of mocking priests, and indeed the entire Catholic Church, for sexual offenses. (Catholic League, 11/16/2017) Here is a sampling of his virulent anti-Catholicism:
• He has mocked the Eucharist
• He has ridiculed the crucifixion of Jesus
• He has slandered all priests as molesters
• He has belittled practicing Catholics (e.g., Knights of Columbus)
• He has disparaged the Church’s teaching on embryonic stem cell research
• He made crude jokes about a dying woman, Terri Schiavo, and then misrepresented her condition by passing her off as already dead
• He once called New York Archbishop John Cardinal O’Connor “an a**hole.” (Catholic League, 10/27/2008)

---

PART II

ENABLERS OF MEN ACCUSED OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT
WHO HAVE A RECORD OF ANTI-CATHOLIC OFFENSES

ENTERTAINMENT:

Matt Damon confirmed to “Good Morning America” that both he and Ben Affleck knew about Harvey Weinstein’s alleged harassment of Gwyneth Paltrow in the late 1990s. (Flare, 11/26/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• September 23, 2010, on NBC’s season premier of “30 Rock” Damon and Tina Fey did a skit in which they were playing characters who are romantically involved and trying to get to know each other better. After they agreed to each tell something about themselves that the other does not know, Damon made the crack that “I was touched by a priest—it’s fine.” (Catholic League, 11/15/2010)
• In 1999, Damon and Affleck both starred in the anti-Catholic movie “Dogma.” The plot was an irreverent look at Catholicism, one that maintained that Mary and Joseph had sexual relations; Mary gives birth to a daughter who works in an abortion clinic. God (played by Alanis Morissette) and the apostles (a foul-mouthed 13th is introduced) are also subjected to director Kevin Smith’s brand of humor. (Catholic League, 10/6/2014)

 

Alec Baldwin: Was close friends with James Toback, working together on many films, and was at first silent on abuse allegations against Toback. Then he claimed not to know anything about them. Then he defended Toback’s character. (NY Daily News, 10/31/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: In a burst of anger directed at a photographer Baldwin disliked, he said, “You must have been raped by a priest.” (Catholic League, 9/18/2002)

 

Sarah Silverman: Criticized Louis C.K. for his sexual abuse of women, but also blamed “the culture that enabled it.” (Washington Post.com, 11/17/2017) This is astonishing, given that she has played a significant role in contributing to the debasement of our culture.

Offensive Catholic fare: Has a long history of anti-Catholic rants, including:
• A Christmas morning tweet (2015), “Merry Christmas! Jesus was gender fluid.”
• Mocked Christians’ “filthy foreheads” on Ash Wednesday (2015)
• Acted out a skit (2014) in which Jesus endorses abortion, refers to himself as “Jesus F***ing Christ” and rubs her sexually
• Defamed Pope Benedict XVI as having had “involvement in the Holocaust.”
• Portrayed herself (2007) as having sex with God (Catholic League, 12/28/2015)

 

Bill Maher: On his November 17, 2017 HBO show, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” commenting on Al Franken, Maher said, “He did a bad thing, and the condemnation has been universal, which he deserves. What he doesn’t deserve is to be lumped in with Roy Moore, or Kevin Spacey, or Harvey Weinstein. Or Donald Trump!” (deathrattlesports.com, 11/20/2017) On that same show, Maher proved once again what a coward he is. He had ample opportunity to discuss the pathologically sick acts of Louis C.K., but just like the week before, he never addressed him by name, opting to make light of his conduct. (Catholic League, 11/20/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: No one has been more obscene, and more relentless, in attacking the pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests than Bill Maher. Here are some particularly egregious examples:
• November 17, 2017, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO]: “Since this is our last show before Christmas, let’s never lose sight of the true meaning of the season. It’s not about presents and fruit cake and putting up extra lights to show you love Jesus more than your neighbor. It’s about a teenage virgin getting knocked up by God.”
• November 10, 2017, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO]: Criticizing statements by Alabama state auditor Jim Zeigler comparing Senate candidate Roy Moore’s alleged behavior to Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus, Maher said, “Using Jesus to justify child molestation? I mean, even Catholics went, ‘Tried it, doesn’t work.'”
• August 11, 2017, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO]: “Criticism of religion is not the same thing as bigotry. I went through this with the Catholic Church ten years ago. They wanted to throw me off television, and they were like ‘You’re anti-Catholic.’ I’m not anti-Catholic, I’m anti child-f***ing….”
• January 16, 2015, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO]: After Pope Francis implored us not to insult other people’s religions, Bill Maher responded during his show by saying, “He’s dead to me now. Oh yeah, F*** the Pope.”
• May 16, 2014, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO]: “This week Pope Francis said he would baptize aliens if they came to Earth. I love you, Frank, but that is some Mitt Romney-level crazy pope. I’m pretty sure any beings advanced enough to travel hundreds of light years aren’t that interested in getting sprinkled with magic water. Besides, given the past history of fondling and groping, the last thing the Church needs is a 50-foot-priest with six arms.”
• July 19, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO]: “This is World Youth Day for the Catholic Church…I mean this is a big jamboree—look at that! This is where all the kids in the world get together with priests. What could go wrong?”
• May 10, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO]: “I think the reason why more rapists go into the military is the same reason why predators go into the Catholic Church: it’s a place they know they can get away with it.”
• March 22, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO]: After labeling Pope Francis a “virgin bachelor,” Maher opined, “What other business could you be in where your company gets caught running a child sex ring since forever and you still keep your customers?”
• February 15, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO] on the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI: “Pope Benedict told Vatican Radio…he was going to resign because the Church needs a fresh, young face, somewhere other than a priest’s lap.”
• February 11, 2013, “Conan” [TBS]: “98% of Catholics use birth control and the only ones who don’t are the priests. They would if altar boys could get pregnant.”
• October 12, 2012, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO] on the vice presidential debate between Congressman Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden: “I have not seen an old Catholic guy give it to a young Catholic guy like that since I was an altar boy.”
• May 2003, “Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home,” Maher’s Broadway show: “What’s the reason for this insanity?” Maher had been discussing Islam. “One word: religion. The Catholics got away with f***ing kids.” When the audience gave a mixed reaction, he said, “Oh come on! Get the rod out of your a**!” He then impersonated an altar boy saying to a priest, “Put some more lotion on, Father,” and said, “Holy lubricant, Father!”
• August 9, 2000, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” [ABC] on sex abuse: “Look, it’s a fact of life. Priests, a lot of times, molest boys, okay? They are celibate and it’s a magnet for homosexual pedophiles.”
• March 20, 2000, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” [ABC] on the Annunciation: Maher commented that the Archangel Gabriel didn’t tell Mary she was pregnant with Jesus, he showed her his “horn had turned pink.”
• March 9, 2000, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” [ABC] on the celibate priesthood: “Priests are supposed to be celibate. They’re not having sex with women….Just with the boys.” (Catholic League’s special report, Bill Maher’s History Of Anti-Catholicism, 1998-2017, on the Catholic League website)

 

Chelsea Handler: Told Maher, “I agree with you on Al Franken. I’m sorry, he’s not a predator. Anybody who knows him knows that’s not true. He made a mistake, absolutely, but he’s not a predator.” (Deadline, 11/17/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: Constant thrashing of Pope Francis:
• June 4, 2014, on Pope Francis urging married couples not to see dogs and cats as substitutes for children: “And like you would know about having children—you’re a gay priest.” (Catholic League, 6/5/2014)
• November 8, 2013, on Pope Francis being on Forbes list of most powerful people in the world: “That’s interesting since he’s never had penetration. How can he be that powerful?” (Catholic League, 11/11/2013)
• December 3, 2013, on Francis having once been a bouncer: “I’m thinking that he’s so liberal—he’s right around the corner from taking confession through a glory hole.” (Catalyst, January-February 2014)

 

Howard Stern: On his SiriusXM show, Stern recalled a 2014 interview with Harvey Weinstein in which he asked the producer whether he ever used his position to engage in sexual activity with women. Weinstein denied it. On his show, Stern said he never bought Weinstein’s claim, declaring: “I knew he was lying. I knew it.” (People, 10/20/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• In June 2001, porn star Rebecca Lord complained on the “Howard Stern Show” on E! Entertainment about the Catholic Church being critical of her line of work. At that point Stern jumped in saying, “Catholic priests are having sex with young boys.” He added that those who work in the pornography industry were healthier than Catholic priests. In an angry voice, Stern charged that priests show boys pornography so they can molest them. (Catholic League, 7/2/2001)
• On Ash Wednesday, 1997, on his radio talk show, Stern did a mock blessing with cigar ashes. (Catalyst, April 1997)
• On September 24, 1996, referring to priests as “fakes” preoccupied with abortion, Stern opined “Meanwhile they’re out getting oral sex from guys.” (Catalyst, November 1996)

 

Seth MacFarlane: Announcing the Oscar nominations for best supporting actress in 2013, he cracked a now infamous joke: “Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.” MacFarlane has explained that he made the quip after his Ted co-star Jessica Barth told him about Weinstein’s attempted advances two years earlier. (BBC News, 10/12/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• MacFarlane has offended Catholics numerous times, from repeatedly mocking the Eucharist, to slandering gay priests, to promoting dishonest myths about the Inquisition. On the January 25, 2016, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], Maher told MacFarlane: “…you’re so lucky that you do cartoons because the things you get away with in cartoons—I’m so jealous of …” The example he chose, predictably, was the repugnant December 7, 2014 episode of “Family Guy”(MacFarlane is the creator). Titled, “The 2000-Year-Old-Virgin,” it defiled Jesus. “I saw your show, it was a repeat, I know,” Maher recounted. “Jesus was f***ing Peter’s wife, but it was a scam. He was f***ing a lot of people’s wives—and this was your Christmas show.” Maher, MacFarlane and the “Real Time” audience then shared a good laugh. (Catholic League, 1/25/2016)
• In the October 19, 2008 episode of FOX’s Family Guy one character, a Nazi officer asked if the character “Mort” is “a real priest.” Another character, Stewie, replies, “Yeah, yeah, I can vouch for him, he’s real. He’s molested me many, many times.” (Catholic League, 10/21/2008.)

 

Whoopi Goldberg: On an episode of “The View” (November 17, 2014), defended Bill Cosby, accused by some 20 women of raping or otherwise sexually assaulting them. Questioning lack of evidence in some cases, she said “we’ll wait and find out what happens.”(Catholic League, 12/4/2014) She also defended Roman Polanski, saying of his admitted rape of a 13-year-old girl, “I don’t believe it was ‘rape-rape.'” (Catholic League, 11/1/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• Blasted the Church for excommunicating a nun who allowed abortion (Catholic League, 12/22/2010)
• Walked out of “The View” because Bill O’Reilly criticized Muslims, despite her constant bashing of Catholics (Catholic League, 11/15/2010)
• Bashed Catholic Church teaching on communion and abortion (Catholic League, 11/23/2009)
• Called the Church “intolerant” and accused it of writing new sins (Catholic League, 2/18/2009)

 

Rosie O’Donnell: Said Weinstein allegations didn’t surprise her and that she had known him and known “of him” for a long time; also said she knew about Kevin Spacey’s behavior. (E! Online, November 2017; Hotair.com, 10/30/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: Inveterate Catholic basher. Just a few examples:
• Ridiculed Eucharist many times, said celibacy was “not normal,” said Catholics don’t read the Bible, misstated facts about the pope and sexual abuse, supported partial-birth abortion, said radical Christianity is akin to terrorism (Catholic League, 7/26/2007)
• Blasted Pope Benedict XVI, lied about sex abuse scandal (Catholic League, 11/7/2006)

 

Jane Fonda: Admitted in an interview with Christiane Amanpour on October 12 that she “found out about Harvey about a year ago.” She added that she was “ashamed that I didn’t say anything right then” but said she stayed silent “because I guess it hadn’t happened to me and so I didn’t feel it was my place.” She said that her knowledge of Weinstein’s alleged behavior came from Rosanna Arquette—one of the 13 women who came forward with sexual harassment allegations against Weinstein in the New Yorker. (People, 10/20/2017)
Offensive Catholic fare: Portrayed an anti-Catholic woman in the offensive movie “Agnes of God.” (Catholic League, 6/5/1997)

 

Harvey Weinstein: Organized a petition, signed by more than 100 prominent filmmakers, actors, producers, and technicians defending the rights of admitted child rapist Roman Polanski. Weinstein referred to the rape—in which Polanski plied the child with alcohol and drugs, and then raped her orally, vaginally, and anally—as a “so-called crime.” (Catholic League, 11/1/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: Long history of making anti-Catholic movies:
• In 1995, Harvey Weinstein and his brother, Bob, offered us “Priest,” a film featuring nothing but miscreant priests
• In 1999, we were treated to “Dogma,” where the audience learned of a descendant of Mary and Joseph who works in an abortion clinic
• In 2002, they released “40 Days and 40 Nights,” a film that ridiculed a Catholic for giving up sex for Lent
• Also opening in 2002 was “The Magdalene Sisters,” a movie that smeared nuns
• In 2003, “Bad Santa” opened for the holidays; Santa was cast as a chain-smoking, drunken, foul-mouthed, suicidal, sexual predator
• In 2006, “Black Christmas” made a predictably dark statement about the holiday
• “Philomena” was released in 2013. It is a tale of malicious lies about Irish nuns and the Church (Harvey lobbied hard for an Oscar, but came up empty). In real life, Philomena Lee was a teenager who abandoned her out-of-wedlock son, and who, because of the good efforts of the nuns, was adopted by an American couple. (Catalyst, November 2017)

 

Martin Scorsese: One of more than 100 prominent filmmakers, actors, producers, and technicians who signed a petition defending the rights of admitted child rapist Roman Polanski. (Breitbart, 10/15/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: A scene from “Boardwalk Empire” (executive producer, Martin Scorsese) in November 2010 that was particularly vile: several middle-age men are sitting around watching old movies. What they find terribly amusing is a shot of a nun on her hands and knees being penetrated from behind, and another which shows a man performing cunnilingus on her. There is nothing left to the imagination—this was graphic pornography. (Catholic League, 11/12/2010)

 

Stephen Frears: Signed Polanski petition. (Breitbart, 10/15/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: Director of anti-Catholic movie “Philomena.” Released in 2013, it is a tale of malicious lies about Irish nuns and the Church. In real life, Philomena Lee was a teenager who abandoned her out-of-wedlock son, and who, because of the good efforts of the nuns, was adopted by an American couple. (Catholic League, 3/13/2014)

 

Terry Zwigoff: Signed Polanski petition. (Breitbart 10/15/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: Directed the extremely vulgar Weinstein movie, “Bad Santa” (2003). Santa in “Bad Santa”…is a chain-smoking, drunken, foul-mouthed, suicidal, sexual predator. He is shown soiling himself in Santa’s chair, vomiting in alleys, having sex with a woman bartender in a car, and performing anal sex on a huge woman in a dressing room. And his commentary in front of kids is replete with the “F-word.” (Catholic League, 11/20/2003)

 

John Landis: Signed Polanski petition. (CNN 10/1/2009)

Offensive Catholic fare: In 2004 the Bravo Network aired a Halloween special, “The 100 Scariest Movie Moments” hosted by John Landis. In commenting on “The Exorcist,” he said, “It took a completely unbelievable situation and made it seem realistic, that the devil would take over a young girl and the Catholic Church would be the good protecting us from evil—when they weren’t molesting young boys….” (Our emphasis.) (Catholic League, 2004 Report on Anti-Catholicism)

Other Celebs Who Have Defended Roman Polanski Publically (IMDb)

 

Woody Allen
Offensive Catholic fare: In 2000, Allen starred in the movie “Picking Up the Pieces,” that thrashed Catholicism from beginning to end, featuring, among other things, a priest who is having sex with a prostitute. (Catholic League, 5/24/2000)

 

Pedro Almodóvar
Offensive Catholic fare: Films depicting a predatory homosexual priest (Catholic League, 11/19/2004) and a pregnant, HIV-infected nun. (Catholic League, 11/17/1999)

 

Costa-Gavras
Offensive Catholic fare: Directed “Amen,” a film that scapegoated the Catholic Church about a German SS officer who allegedly tells a priest what was happening to the Jews during the Holocaust and the subsequent refusal of Pope Pius XII to do anything about it. (Catholic League, 2/14/2002)

 

MEDIA:

 

New York Times: Sharon Waxman, a former reporter at the Times, writes in The Wrap how she had the story on Weinstein in 2004—and then he bullied the Times into dropping it. Jonathan Landman, Waxman’s editor at the Times, asked her why it mattered. After all, he told Waxman, “he’s not a publicly elected official.” (The Weekly Standard, 10/9/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: There are numerous instances of New York Times anti-Catholic bias, from its maligning St. Junipero Serra (Catholic League, 10/7/2015); some of its coverage of the Irish “mass grave” hoax (Catholic League, 11/2/2017); double standard on art “censorship”(Catholic League, 10/6/2017). Most flagrant has been its treatment of sexual abuse of minors:
• Maligning the record of Church leaders like Cardinals Dolan and Egan (Catholic League, 10/17/2016; Catholic League, 3/6/2015)
• Failure to cover sexual abuse in other religions, i.e. Orthodox yeshiva’s $2.1 million settlement of child sexual abuse case (Catholic League 10/26/2016)
• Hiring Mark Thompson while ignoring his connection, as a BBC executive, to Jimmy Savile, who, according to MailOnline, was “a ‘classic’ child abuser, targeting vulnerable youngsters at schools, hospitals and children’s homes….He plied them with treats—under the noses of teachers, doctors and BBC managers—and took them for rides in his Rolls-Royce….Savile sexually abused them in his car, his BBC dressing room, on hospital wards and in the bedrooms of girls at Duncroft boarding school in Surrey.” Former BBC chief Mark Thompson says it’s all news to him, though the evidence does not support his contention. (Catholic League, 12/19/2012)

 

Jill Abramson, former executive editor at New York Times: Once served as deputy to Michael Oreskes, she recently confirmed to the Washington Post a description of his questionable interactions with a young female employee then at the Times. Abramson said she wished she had said something about Oreskes’ conduct. (New York Times, 10/31/2017) Contrast that with the book Abramson co-wrote in 1995, “Strange Justice: the Selling of Clarence Thomas” which savaged Thomas and embraced unquestioningly all of Anita Hill’s allegations against him. (Tod Lindberg, Commentary, 2/1/1995)

Offensive Catholic fare: Abramson was one of the judges who awarded the $10,000 Worth Bingham Prize for 2002 to the staff of the Boston Globe for its continuing series of stories on the clergy sexual abuse scandal. (Boston Globe, 2/4/2003)

 

Tina Brown: Used to run Talk, Weinstein-funded and co-founded magazine. She is “dear” friends with Charlie Rose, stating: “I didn’t know anything about it, actually, and at the time….I was so exercised and energized about what had just happened to Harvey that I was focused on him—I wasn’t looking around for everybody else that I knew for, well, what’s happening now.” (W Magazine, 12/3/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• We asked her to make a statement condemning the Weinsteins suing us for “inciting violence,” which she never did. (Catholic League, 7/17/1999)
• When Brown was with the New Yorker, she was approached by one of her writers, Paul Wilkes, who suggested a profile on a Massachusetts rabbi. When Wilkes described the rabbi as “a seeker of truth,” Brown’s “eyes glazed over.” She then told Wilkes, “How about a profile of Bruce Ritter?” Father Ritter, who had recently died, left Covenant House after charges of pedophilia were made. (Catholic League, 12/26/1999)

 

Barbara Walters: In a 2013 interview on “the View,” as Corey Feldman told of the culture of pedophilia in Hollywood, Walters told him, “You’re damaging an entire industry.”(Daily News, 10/17/2017) She also made headlines in 2014 for defending Woody Allen amid resurfaced molestation allegations. (foxnews.com, 10/17/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• Co-Producer and moderator of “The View.” She did nothing to stop anti-Catholic assaults by hosts. (Catholic League, 11/12/2005)
• Admonished hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg for walking off set during a comment Bill O’Reilly made about Muslims but not for their many anti-Catholic rants (Catholic League, 11/15/2010)
• Defended Goldberg’s anti-Catholicism and suggested prostitution should be allowed by Church (Catholic League, 7/26/2007)
• Mocked sexual teachings of Catholic Church (Catholic League, 11/12/2005)

 

Joy Behar: When it came to Bill Clinton’s victims, she called them “tramps.” Now, she defends Al Franken, saying he shouldn’t resign. A picture of her with Al Franken grabbing her breast surfaced. (100percentfedup.com, 11/20/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• Blasted the Church for excommunicating a nun who allowed abortion (Catholic League, 12/22/2010)
• Walked out on Bill O’Reilly due to Muslim statement despite constant bashing of Catholics (Catholic League, 11/15/2011)
• Mocked Catholic school which did not allow lesbian family (Catholic League, 3/16/2010)
• Bashed Church teaching on communion (Catholic League, 11/23/2009)
• Referred to her Catholic years as being “brainwashed” (Catholic League, 6/3/2009)
• More than once bashed all priests as pedophiles (Catholic League, 2/18/2009)
• Mocked Baptism and the crucifixion. She accused Catholics of not reading the Bible and suggested the Church is superstitious. To top things off, she insulted nuns and defended anti-Catholicism. (Catholic League, 7/26/2007)
• Called all priests drunks (Catholic League, 11/7/2006 )

 

Cokie Roberts: Talking about allegations of abuse against Rep. John Conyers, said, “I mean, we all talked about for years, ‘don’t get in the elevator with him,’ you know, and the whole every female in the press corps knew that, right, don’t get in the elevator with him.” (Newsbusters, 11/28/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: In 2012, Steve and Cokie Roberts attacked Vatican efforts to reform the LCWR, an organization of liberal nuns: “Really? Women religious in America will now have a bishop grading their morals? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Given the sex-abuse scandals— in which many Roman Catholic bishops looked the other way at best and moved child molesters from parish to parish, perpetrating evil, at worst— you would think that a ruler rap on the hierarchical knuckles would be in order.” (News Tribune, 4/27/2012)

 

POLITICS:

 

Bill and Hillary Clinton: Harvey Weinstein has long been a major contributor and fund-raiser for Bill and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. He also donated $10,000 (the maximum allowed) to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund in response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment. Now Lena Dunham and Tina Brown say that they warned top people in Hillary’s presidential campaigns about Weinstein’s sexual sleaziness and misconduct.
Brown said she cautioned members of Clinton’s inner circle during Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign. “I was hearing that Harvey’s sleaziness with women had escalated since I left Talk in 2002 and she was unwise to be so closely associated with him,” Brown said.
Dunham, a vocal Clinton supporter, said that in March 2016 she told Kristina Schake, the Clinton campaign’s deputy communications director, “I just want to let you know that Harvey’s a rapist and this is going to come out at some point.” She recalled adding, “I think it’s a really bad idea for him to host fund-raisers and be involved because it’s an open secret in Hollywood that he has a problem with sexual assault.” Dunham said Schake seemed surprised, and said she would tell campaign manager Robby Mook. Dunham said as the Democratic National Convention approached in summer 2016, she also warned Adrienne Elrod, a spokeswoman for Hillary who was leading efforts with celebrity campaigners. But Dunham saw no evidence that the campaign had responded to her warnings, and weeks before Election Day Weinstein hosted a star-packed fund-raiser for Clinton.
Days after the election defeat, Bill and Hillary had dinner with Weinstein, lawyer David Boies and their wives. (New York Times, 12/6/2017)
When the Weinstein scandal broke in October, it took Hillary five days to issue a statement condemning him. (foxnews.com, 10/16/17)

Offensive Catholic fare:
• In 2016, Hillary’s presidential campaign leaders were revealed in a WikiLeaks document to have been engaged in anti-Catholicism. Jennifer Palmieri, communications director, mocked Catholics with left-wing activist John Halpin, who called Catholicism a “bastardization of the faith” and said it had “severely backwards gender relations.” (Catholic League 11/21/2016)
• John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, plotted with a left-wing friend to start a Catholic “revolution” and admitted to creating phony Catholic groups intended to sabotage the Church from within. Hillary refused to address this and refused to sanction or fire these staff members. (Catholic League, 11/21/2016)
• Speaking about abortion, candidate Hillary Clinton said that “religious beliefs” must change in order for progress to be made (Catholic League, 11/21/2016)
• President Bill Clinton nominated anti-Catholic homosexual activist James Hormel as Ambassador to Luxembourg, who refused to distance himself from the anti-Catholic Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (Catholic League, 3/30/1999)
• President Bill Clinton instituted extreme pro-abortion policies, including allowing federally-funded family planning clinics to give abortion counseling, funding fetal research, allowing U.S. funding of overseas abortions, and trying to reverse the Hyde Amendment. Because these policies were put in place on the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it was seen as a direct attack on Catholics and pro-lifers. (Catholic League, 3/27/1995)
• President Bill Clinton hired as Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who pushed for widespread condom distribution among teens and said pro-lifers were not Christians and had “slave-master mentalities,” saying they should get over their “love affair with the fetus.” Her antipathy towards Catholicism included accusing the Church of being “silent” about the Holocaust, blaming the Church for slavery and the plight of Native Americans, and calling it a “celibate, male-dominated” institution. (Catholic League, 3/27/1995)
• President Bill Clinton’s State Department spokeswoman Faith Mitchell suggested the Vatican’s opposition to Clinton-backed Cairo conference, which sought to redefine the family, was because “the conference is really calling for a new role for women.” The Cairo conference was an anti-Catholic event that required later White House discipline. (Catholic League 3/27/1995)
• President Bill Clinton’s Ambassador to the Vatican admitted he was “embarrassed” about the “ugly anti-Catholic bias” in the Clinton administration (Catholic League, 3/27/1995)

 

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo: Despite William Hoyt’s history of sexual misconduct while in the state Assembly, Cuomo hired him as a regional president of Empire State Development Corp. in 2011. Now Cuomo is named in a lawsuit for having allegedly shown “deliberate indifference” no less than six times, to complaints that Hoyt had sexually manipulated, harassed and assaulted a female state employee. (nypost.com, 11/18/2017)

Offensive Catholic fare: In January 2014, Cuomo declared that pro-life activists, along with defenders of traditional marriage “have no place in the state of New York,” thus attacking the religious freedom of faithful Catholics. (Catholic League, 1/23/2014)

Bill Donohue, Ph.D.
President
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

July 20, 2017

Meet the Accusers

Cardinal George Pell’s appearance before a Melbourne court on July 26 will be watched carefully all over the world. He will answer questions about alleged sexual abuse, including covering up for molesting priests and his own personal involvement in molestation.

The details of the charges against him have not been made public; we only know that the alleged offenses took place a long time ago. He has steadfastly proclaimed his innocence saying he is a victim of “relentless character assassination.” The evidence strongly supports his position.

Everyone claims to be against sexual abuse, including the abusers, so it means little to protest against it. But when Cardinal Pell says that “The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me,” it is much more than a throw-away line: he has a stellar record of combating this problem.

When Pell was made Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, he was the first Australian member of the Catholic hierarchy to institute reforms. The Melbourne Response was a serious effort to stem the sexual abuse of minors. It took him less than three months to move on this issue. Since that time, he has been an outspoken critic of priestly sexual abuse.

Cardinal Pell is no stranger to vile accusations made against him. But in every case, he has been exonerated.

• A Melbourne man said he was abused by Pell in 1962 at a camp when he was 12; Pell was studying for the priesthood. The case was thrown out when nothing could be substantiated. Not a single person who worked at the camp supported the charges, and all of the signed statements were favorable to Pell. The accuser had been convicted 39 times for offenses ranging from assault to drug use. Indeed, he was a violent drug addict who served four years in prison. He drove drunk, beat people, and took amphetamines.
• In 1969, Pell was accused of doing nothing to help an abused Australian boy who pleaded for help. But Pell’s passport showed that he lived in Rome the entire year.
• At a later date, Pell was accused of chasing away a complainant who informed him of a molesting priest. The authorities dismissed the charges after discovering that Pell did not live at the presbytery in Ballarat where the encounter allegedly took place. The accuser was later imprisoned for sexually abusing children.
• In a high profile case, Pell was accused of bribing David Ridsdale to stop making accusations to the police that he was abused by his uncle, Gerald Ridsdale, a notorious molester priest. The accusation was investigated and Pell was exonerated.
• Pell was also accused of joking about Gerald Ridsdale’s sexual assaults at a funeral Mass in Ballarat. But there was no Mass that day and the priest whom Pell was allegedly joking with was living someplace else when the supposed incident took place.

What about Pell’s accusers this time? From what we know of at least some of them, they are not exactly beacons of integrity.

In October 2016, Pell spoke to Victoria police about allegations that he had inappropriately touched two boys while horsing around in a pool in the 1970s. Neither of the two boys said a word about this alleged incident for nearly 40 years. Why not? What made them come forward recently? Just as important, why have the Australian media, and the media in other parts of the world, been reluctant to report this fact?

Moreover, why have the media had so little to say about the character of these alleged victims? Here’s what we know.

Lyndon Monument was a big boozer, a drug addict, a drug dealer, and a thug who beat and stalked his girlfriend. An ex-con, he has also been arrested for burglary, assault, and making threats to kill. Damian Dignan also has a record of violence, and has been arrested for drunk driving.

Not surprisingly, Monument and Dignan have also made accusations against former teachers. These are the guys who said Pell inappropriately touched them while throwing them off his shoulders in a swimming pool in the 1970s.

Then there are the two choir boys: They claim that Pell made them perform oral sex on him after Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral almost two decades ago. Over the past few years, the police investigated this charge, and found nothing to support it. One of the boys has since died—he overdosed on drugs—though not before admitting to his mother, on two occasions, that he was never abused by Pell.

A priest who was Pell’s right-hand man, always accompanying him during this period at St. Patrick’s, told the police that it was “physically impossible for Archbishop Pell to have been alone with anyone in the Cathedral, before, during, or after the celebration of Sunday Mass or on any other occasion.”

Can Pell Get a Fair Trial?

How long will it take for justice to be served? It depends on a lot of factors, but it could drag on for years. Some court observers say it could be over in a few months; others think it will last well into 2019.

Pell has testified before and/or spoken to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on several occasions, offering his full cooperation. However, the Royal Commission has been less forthright.

Pell arrived in Australia on July 11 to prepare for his day in court. Within hours after doing so the Royal Commission released a trove of emails and letters accusing him of wrongdoing. A spokesman for the panel said the timing was coincidental. Was it also a coincidence that the Royal Commission published its final submissions against Pell last February, at the same time that Pell was being interrogated by the panel?

We know one thing for sure: Pell was demonized when he offered his account. Indeed, as a reporter for one Australian newspaper put it, he has “appeared at a parliamentary inquiry and a royal commission and before an audience of abuse survivors who reflexively hiss, howl and heckle.” Yet he always honors requests to speak.

Pell has received the support of his fellow Australian bishops, but no one has been more outspoken than Hobart Archbishop Julian Porteous. He is worried whether Pell can receive a fair trial, especially given the media circus that has developed. “I don’t know how a jury could proceed with a trial where [there is] so much media out there,” he recently said. He blames the media for “creating a very unfair environment for justice.”

Archbishop Porteous has good reason to be concerned. In 2002, Pell was completely exonerated of allegations that he abused a teenager in the 1960s. Yet the same news outlets that accurately reported the story in 2002 said his name was not fully cleared in 2013!

Few Australian reporters have been as dogged as Andrew Bolt in covering the Pell story; he writes for the Herald Sun. He has long noted the media bias against Pell. In 2016, he wrote, “There is something utterly repulsive about the media’s persecution of George Pell. There is something also very frightening about this abuse of power.”

On July 3, 2017, Bolt said, “The media commentary suggests there’s little chance Cardinal George Pell can get a fair trial.” What concerns him is the temptation to make someone in the Church hierarchy pay for the sins of others. “He himself may be innocent,” Bolt says, “yet could be punished as a scapegoat.”

Amanda Vanstone is not a friend of organized religion, but in her coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald she noted that “What we are seeing is no better than a lynch mob from the dark ages.” She adds that “The public arena is being used to trash a reputation and probably prevent a fair trial.” She freely admits that she and Pell have “widely divergent views on a number of matters,” but having “differing views isn’t meant to be a social death warrant for the one with the least popular views.”

Complicating matters further for Pell is the site of his court hearing, the Australian state of Victoria, also known as the People’s Republic of Victoria. Not only is it a hotbed of anti-Catholicism, its due process rules leave much to be desired. There is no voir dire, or questioning of prospective jurors. Which means there will be no screening of jurors who might hold an animus against the Catholic Church.

Why Pell is Hated

 The principal reason why Pell is hated is because he is a larger-than-life Australian cleric who strongly supports the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Quite frankly, he is an inviting target in a land where expressions of anti-Catholic bigotry are ascendant. Carl E. Olson writes in the Catholic World Report that “much of Australia seems to have held on rather tightly to its suspicion, dislike, and even hatred of the Catholic Church.”

Olson quotes one of his Aussie correspondents. “The Australian leftist establishment hates him, the gay lobby hates him, the atheists, liberal Catholics and feminist ideologues hold him in contempt and he has taken on the Italian mafia in trying to reform the Vatican finances.” In addition, secular militants in and outside of government are currently pushing for euthanasia and transgender rights, and are “quietly gloating over the possibility of destroying Australia’s best-known Catholic.”

It is not just anti-Catholics who are ripping Pell and/or the Catholic Church—some left-wing Catholics, including priests, are taking aim. Consider the testimony offered last February before the Royal Commission.

Father Michael Whelan, SM, is a parish priest and director of Aquinas Academy. He testified that the Church’s teaching on celibacy was “unjust” and that it is time to “get rid of seminaries.” To get a good look at his mindset, consider this remark: “Why has the church and governance of the church repeatedly persecuted and oppressed Jews, tortured heretics, and why did it fight the brutal wars we know as the crusades?” His command of history, to say nothing of his anger, is appalling.

Father Francis Maloney STB also went over big with the panel; he is a senior professional fellow at Catholic Theological College. He testified that in the 1960s “Things were looking good” for the Church. But when clerics like Pell came along, it was “back to the old system.” He has it all backwards.

Monica Doumit, who has done yeoman work on the Pell story for the Catholic Weekly, pointed out that the data show it was in the 1960s and 1970s when the sexual abuse scandal took hold—the same years it exploded in the United States—and it was not until Pell made reforms that the problem was checked.

Father Gerry O’Hanlon SJ was imported from Ireland to testify. An adjunct professor at Loyola College, Dublin, he blamed a “top-down model of leadership” made popular during the tenure of Saint John Paul II. This, he said, accounted for “the poor response on child sexual abuse because people were afraid to raise unpopular ideas on any issue, but mainly in relation to sexual morality.” He did not say why a response of any kind was needed in the first place, nor did he comment on the sexual orientation of the molesters. More about that later.

Father Thomas Doyle is every dissident’s favorite carping priest. He surprised the panel when he took issue with Jesus: He said Our Lord was not the founder of the Catholic Church. He did not say who founded the Catholic Church, but in 2011 he told an audience of Catholic haters in America that it was Constantine. He also said at the conference of professional victims’ advocates that “The Mass = magic words.”

The Royal Commission also heard from an array of other Church critics.

Dr. Michelle Mulvihill is a psychologist and former Sister of Mercy. The sexual abuse scandal, she said, could be explained as a power grab and the result of a misogynistic culture. Curiously, she never identified the existence of a non-misogynistic culture. More important, her hostility to Catholicism is unmistakable, and not at all unusual for ex-nuns (or ex-priests). “Compulsory registration of active priests and religious is absolutely necessary.” Her contempt for civil liberties is astonishing.

Neil James Ormerod is a professor of theology at the Australian Catholic University. He claimed that the Archdiocese of Adelaide, under the tutelage of a progressive bishop, had the best record of combating the sexual abuse of minors. But as Doumit pointed out, he was wrong: its record was worse than the national average. She accused him of misusing the abuse data to further his own “particular hobby horse,” in this case advancing “women in leadership roles” rather than objectively pursuing the truth.

Patrick Parkinson is a professor of law at Sydney University. He told the panel that the hierarchical structure of the Church was responsible for the problem of sexual abuse. He did not identify a single non-hierarchical institution, secular or religious, that has ever existed in the history of the world. Nor did he explain why this problem is particularly prevalent among step-fathers and live-in boyfriends, neither of whom have anything to do with hierarchical structures.

Peter Johnstone is president of Catholics for Renewal, an organization he insists is not dissident. Yet he not only accuses the Church of mistreating women, he finds fault with the Church’s alleged “extended claims of infallibility.” Those claims, he says, are “stifling discussion on many important issues,” especially human sexuality. But he is not a dissident.

Louise Milligan did not testify before the Royal Commission but she has made quite a splash with her recent book, The Rise and Fall of George Pell. To say that her book has been ripped by reviewers would be a gross understatement. Her palpable bias and inability to get the facts straight have been widely noted, especially by Julia Yost in a devastating article posted on the website of First Things. No wonder American theologian George Weigel branded the Milligan volume “a hatchet job riddled with inaccuracies and replete with unfounded allegations.”

Data Prove Revealing

 Whenever data are presented on any issue, especially on matters that involve criminality, it is important that comparisons with other individuals or institutions be made. The Royal Commission promised to do this, but its top-heavy interest in the Catholic Church raises serious concerns.

We’ve seen this game played out in the United States before, most notoriously in Philadelphia. In 2001, Lynne Abraham, the Philadelphia D.A., pledged to probe all religious organizations and denominations on the sexual abuse of minors. She did not: She focused exclusively on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Fast forward to Australia today. The Royal Commission spent 15 days last winter on the Catholic Church. By comparison, it spent three hours on the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and just a few hours on the Uniting Church. Yet proportionately speaking, the number of sexual abuse cases in those two religions—as compared to the Catholic Church—would seem to merit much more attention.

The Catholic population in Australia totals 22.6 percent. Between 1980 and 2015, 4,444 allegations were made against members of the Catholic Church. The media would have us believe that the accused were all priests. Wrong. That number includes religious brothers, sisters, and lay people.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses comprise .4 percent of the population, and never once has it reported a single case of child sexual abuse to the authorities. Its leadership claims a religious exemption from doing so, invoking an old biblical rule requiring two witnesses to prove wrongdoing. But even with this restriction, the panel learned of 1,006 cases of alleged sexual abuse.

The Uniting Church makes up 3.7 percent of the Australian population. The panel found that there were 2,500 allegations made against its clergy during its 40 year history. Anglicans, who total 13.3 percent, were charged with 1,100 allegations between 1980 and 2015.

What about Islam? No data are available. It is the third largest religion in Australia, yet in the four years that the Royal Commission spent investigating religious organizations, it never bothered to question any Muslims. Islam was simply given a pass.

This is inexcusable. It is deliberate. It is a dereliction of duty. The corruption extends to the top of the Australian government. Why are the media ignoring this? Because the only data that matter pertain to the Catholic Church?

Nonetheless, the data on the Church are worthy of much discussion. Let’s take a closer look at what was found.

The 4,444 allegations include both substantiated and unsubstantiated charges. In other words, the figure of 7 percent of Australian priests who have been accused between 1980 and 2015 has not been verified. More important, it cannot be. Why? For one, the allegations extend back to the 1920s. Who is going to validate charges going back nearly a century ago?

The Royal Commission says that 1,880 alleged perpetrators were named. But this figure, by its own admission, includes 500 persons, or 27 percent of the total, for whom there is no record. That’s a huge chunk.

So how many of the 4,444 alleged victims testified? Two hundred sixty-one. Why did it take so long for these alleged victims to come forward? Few reporters have any interest in finding out, but Bolt did. “The average gap between alleged offence and the alleged victim lodging the complaint was 33 years, according to the royal commission.”

Virtually every serious psychologist and psychiatrist who has studied the subject of “repressed memory” considers it a throw-away term. Yet the media and victims’ advocates let it roll off their lips with alacrity, inviting the public to think that it is a real-life phenomenon.

Clinical psychologists from the University of Nevada, Reno have studied this issue carefully. Led by William O’Donohue, they found that false memories—inaccurate perceptions of an event—are not identical to repressed memories, or memory of a major event that has been erased. False memories are real; repressed memories are not. They concluded that “there is a large amount of scientific research that clearly shows that repressed memories simply do not exist.”

No matter, the figure of 4,444 accusations over a period of 35 years appears daunting. However, this figure lumps substantiated cases of abuse with the unsubstantiated. Moreover, the accusations extend back 100 years. It is not certain what to make about all of this, but a look at the American situation might prove instructive.

We know that in the United States, the much touted figure of 4 percent of the clergy who had an accusation made against them between 1950 and 2002, is misleading: only half were substantiated. In other words, is the figure of 7 percent of Catholic clergy and laity who have been accused of sexually abusing minors in Australia accurate? Or is it more likely half that number?

Thanks to Doumit, we know that in Australia as a whole, there were 5,474 substantiated cases of child sexual abuse that occurred between 2014 and 2015. Looks like this problem is on-going in many quarters.

Doumit also points out that “most of the claims [against Catholics] occurred before 1990,” and that with the exception of a few dioceses, “the proportion of clergy who first had a complaint made against them since the year 2000 is less than 1%.”

To put it differently, this is a problem which has been mostly checked, much as it has in the United States. For instance, between 2015 and 2016, there were two new substantiated cases made against 52,238 American priests and deacons, or .004 percent of the clergy. No institution of any kind can match that figure.

Finally, who is doing the molesting? The lion’s share of the abuse has been done by homosexuals. In Australia, 78 percent of the complainants were male; the average age at the time of the alleged abuse was 11.6.

The Department of Health in Australia has determined that early adolescence begins between 10 and 13. Therefore, the average victim was postpubescent, meaning that homosexuals were the victimizers, not pedophiles.

In the United States, between 1950 and 2002, 81 percent of the victims were male and 78 percent were postpubescent. Less than 5 percent of the abusers were pedophiles.

Just as in the United States, there is no interest in Australia, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, of discussing the role that homosexuals have played in molesting minors. In both nations the data make it clear that this is not a problem of pedophilia, yet there is no courage to speak the truth about this matter. Frankly, this is a homosexual cover-up.

Here’s another similarity: both nations have their monster priests. In the United States, it is Paul Shanley. The serial abuser is known to the public as a pedophile, though most of his victims (just like his consensual sexual partners) were postpubescent males. In Australia, their monster priest is Gerald Ridsdale. He, too, is known to the public as a pedophile. But he is not—he is a homosexual.

The media are well aware that Ridsdale is a homosexual, but they lie about it. For example, the Daily Mail ran a piece on July 12, 2017 with the following title: “The Grinning Paedophile and His Teenage Victim: Vile Predatory Priest Gerald Ridsdale Smiles on a Bed Beside Helpless 14-Year-Old Boy He Abused ‘Every Day for Six Months.'”

A 14-year-old boy is postpubescent. Therefore, any male who abused him is a homosexual. Straight men do not abuse teenage males—only homosexuals do. By the way, Ridsdale’s nephew, David, who was abused by his uncle priest, was between the ages 11 and 15 when the molestation took place. Again, homosexuality, not pedophilia, was at work.

Gerald Ridsdale’s homosexual behavior was long known to Church officials. In 1982, Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns admitted that there was “a problem with homosexuality in the diocese.” He named Ridsdale as one of those who had been “committing homosexual acts” within the community. Had his homosexuality been taken seriously, things would have been different. But just as in the United States, active homosexual priests in Australia have long been protected, to the detriment of everyone.

Conclusion

 Can anyone say with a straight face that if Imam Abdul were the subject of a Royal Commission investigation that he would be treated the same way Cardinal Pell has been?

No fair-minded person wants to see guilty priests—or anyone else—get away with any offense, much less the sexual abuse of minors. But justice demands that the accused, including those charged with heinous crimes, be entitled to a presumption of innocence. The evidence shows that Cardinal George Pell has not been afforded this elementary right, and has indeed been a victim of a war against him.

Bill Donohue

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has been sued before, and while it has been hurt by those filings, the latest one suggests the end is near. It can’t come too soon.

The Catholic League has been tracking SNAP for years. From news releases to radio and TV interviews, we have kept the media abreast of just how corrupt the outfit is. We’ve sent people undercover to attend its public conferences; we’ve taken out ads in major newspapers; we’ve issued several lengthy reports; we’ve fielded complaints from its clients; and we’ve consulted with bishops and others. SNAP is a fraud.

The lawsuit by a former employee, Gretchen Rachel Hammond, registers several serious accusations against SNAP, all of which are supported by the Catholic League’s own investigations of the group. The two together—an eyewitness account and our research—wholly discredit its reputation and completely disarm its supporters, namely, those in the mainstream media.

Hammond has sued David Clohessy, the executive director, Barbara Blaine, founder and president, and outreach director Barbara Dorris; the case is before the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. Hammond, a transgender person, worked for SNAP as its director of development between mid-2011 and early 2013. In that capacity, Hammond learned the truth about SNAP, and has now unloaded with the details.

Not surprisingly, after confronting SNAP officials about its ethically offensive and legally suspect work, Hammond was subject to retaliatory action. Consequently, the plaintiff suffered from stress and depression, resulting in health problems. Hammond is suing for a loss of wages as well. The lawsuit closes with a grave indictment: “SNAP acted willfully with actual malice, including a wanton disregard for the rights of others such that an award of punitive damages is appropriate.”

Hammond uncovered a whole lot, all of which will be discussed. Most seriously, the lawsuit says that “SNAP routinely accepts financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of ‘donations,'” and in return SNAP “refers survivors as potential clients to attorneys, who then file lawsuits on behalf of the survivors against the Catholic Church. These cases often settle to the financial benefit of the attorneys and, at times, to the financial health of SNAP, which has received direct payments from survivors’ settlements.”

Anti-Catholicism Drives SNAP

Before addressing the legal issues involved, it is important to understand what makes SNAP tick. Hammond learned first-hand what the Catholic League has been saying for decades: SNAP is driven by a pathological hatred of the Catholic Church, not a concern for the welfare of victims.

“While SNAP claims that it is motivated by the interests of survivors, in fact,” the lawsuit says, “SNAP is motivated largely by the personal animus of its directors and officers against the Catholic Church.”

For example, Clohessy recommended that an alleged victim pursue a claim against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, saying that every nickel it doesn’t have is money that can’t be spent on “defense lawyers, PR staff, gay-bashing, women-hating, contraceptive-battling, etc.” He then offered to refer the person to one of his lawyer friends.

The Catholic League is in an even better position than Hammond to identify SNAP’s hatred of the Catholic Church.

On July 8-10, 2011 SNAP held a national conference, open to the public, near the airport in Washington, D.C. There were approximately 110-130 people in attendance, all white, mostly female, aged 40-75 (mostly seniors or near seniors). They came from only a few states.

We know this, and much more, because I paid for two persons to attend the conference and report back. I subsequently published the findings online in a report, “SNAP EXPOSED: Unmasking the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.“ Copies were sent to all the bishops.

Here is how one of our confederates summed up his experience. “The recurring theme of the conference was the evil nature of the Catholic Church. The word ‘evil’ was used repeatedly to describe ‘the institution.’ There was no presumption of innocence: accused priests were spoken of as if they were guilty, and this was true of all the speakers, including the attorneys.”

It was no surprise that Jeffrey Anderson was one of the speakers. No one has ripped off the Catholic Church more than this diminutive lawyer from Minnesota. A former hippie and recovering alcoholic, in one settlement alone he netted half a billion dollars. He once described himself as a “dedicated atheist.” His goal, he plainly admits, is to “sue the s*** out of them [the Catholic Church].” His hatred runs deep: He has sued the Vatican on several occasions, trying to hold the pope responsible for priestly misconduct from Boston to Bombay. He has never won.

Father Thomas Doyle, a Dominican, is another recovering alcoholic who has big problems with the Catholic Church. He blasted the Church for promoting “fear, power, and guilt,” saying that Constantine, not Jesus Christ, founded the Church.

Another speaker, Terence McKiernan, founder and president of BishopAccountability, told the small gathering of Catholic haters that he would like to “stick it to” New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan. He also accused him of “keeping the lid on 55 names” of predator priests. On several occasions, I personally asked McKiernan to provide me with his list of names, but he never responds. It’s a lie, and he knows it.

Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk, told the seniors, “The Church is corrupt,” and proceeded to make many unsupported accusations. He knew no one would challenge him because they all came to hear horror stories.

It would be a serious mistake to assume that this is just venting, idle banter coming from some malcontents. No, this is the mindset that drives SNAP to plunder the rights of priests. Take SNAP president Barbara Blaine. She has justified raids made by Belgian police on Catholic churches, and is adamant in her conviction, expressed at the conference, that while accused priests may have a legal right to countersue, they have no moral right to do so.

Clohessy was once asked about the rights of priests, and when pressed about what he means by pursuing “credibly accused” priests, he could not provide a clear answer, saying only that “there’s all kinds of criteria” determining what that means. In practice, SNAP makes no distinction between an accusation and one that has been substantiated.

The contempt that SNAP has for the rights of priests is bad enough, but it pales in significance compared to its own conspiratorial savaging of innocent priests. Take the case of  Father Joseph Jiang. SNAP accused him of sexually abusing minors.

SNAP said it knew who the victims were, but when pressed it could not name a single person. When ordered by a federal court to provide evidence, it refused to do so, resulting in sanctions. This was one reason why U.S. District Court Judge Carol E. Jackson accused SNAP of defaming Father Jiang. The Hammond lawsuit was right to seize on the judge’s ruling.

The court declared that “it has been established that the SNAP defendants conspired with one another and others to obtain plaintiff’s conviction on sexual abuse charges and that they entered into this conspiracy due to discriminatory animus against plaintiff based on his religion, religious vocation, race and national origin.” Moreover, the court ruled that “the SNAP defendants’ public statements about plaintiff were false and that they did not conduct any inquiry into the truth or falsity of these public statements, but instead made these statements negligently and with reckless disregard for the truth.”

That’s quite an indictment. SNAP officials conspired to make false charges against an innocent priest and did so because they hate the Catholic Church.

What makes this even more sickening is the fact that when SNAP learns of real sexual abuse, it does nothing about it. To be specific, David Clohessy is quick to condemn bishops for not reporting suspected priests, yet he never called the cops in the 1990s on his priest brother, Kevin, after learning that he abused a minor.

Kickbacks

Hammond’s lawsuit lists one “donation” after another being made by plaintiff attorneys to SNAP. These SNAP-greasing lawyers make up the lion’s share of funds collected by Clohessy and company in any given year. For example, in 2008, “a Minnesota lawyer” contributed 55 percent—$414,140—of SNAP’s total donations for the year; three years later he contributed over 40 percent of total revenue. The lawyers, of course, love to write SNAP a check because that’s how they get many of their clients.

SNAP is so thoroughly corrupt that it has even laundered money to itself via dummy organizations. “Tellingly, at one time during 2011 and 2012,” the lawsuit says, “SNAP even concocted a scheme to have attorneys make donations to a front foundation, styled the ‘Minnesota Center for Philanthropy,’ and then have the Minnesota Center for Philanthropy make a grant to SNAP in order to provide a subterfuge for, and to otherwise conceal, the plaintiff’s attorneys’ kickbacks to SNAP.”

Keep in mind that this is just what we know from the short time Hammond was working there. God only knows how many other rip-off schemes SNAP has been involved in over the years.

When Clohessy was deposed in 2012, in a case involving a priest in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, he was asked to disclose his source of funding. He refused. When asked specifically about monies SNAP receives from lawyers, he once again refused to answer. What really set him off was the question, “Does SNAP have any agreements with attorneys regarding referral of victims to those attorneys?” He never answered the question, saying only that he was “offended” by it.

At the 2011 SNAP conference, Anderson shamelessly conducted a fundraising appeal on the spot, matching dollar for dollar any donation made by an attendee. But he made it clear he would not match a $10,000 donation by fellow attorney Jeffrey Herman. All total, $30,000 was raised. So if Herman gave $10,000, and Anderson matched all donations save for Herman’s contribution, that means the attendees dished out $10,000. In other words, two steeple-chasing attorneys accounted for two-thirds of the all the money raised. Without their input, SNAP would have folded years ago.

Corruption Abounds

SNAP’s unseemly relationship with lawyers is not confined to funding. For example, according to the lawsuit, it “regularly communicates with attorneys about their lawsuits on behalf of survivors, receiving drafts of pleadings and other privileged information. The attorneys and SNAP work together in developing the legal theories and strategies of survivors’ lawsuits.” It’s what they do with this information that matters most.  “Attorneys and SNAP base their strategy not on the best interests of the survivor, but on what will generate the most publicity and fundraising opportunities for SNAP.”

Hammond’s account raises serious ethical and legal questions about the way SNAP operates. Attorneys would give Clohessy, Blaine, and Dorris “drafts of complaints and other pleadings prior to filing, along with other privileged information,” and then they would “use those drafts to generate sensational press releases on the survivors’ lawsuits.” Not surprisingly, they would then issue “press releases to media outlets and schedule a press conference on the day a survivors’ lawsuit was filed.”

What the lawsuit does not say is how this game is played to the disadvantage of the diocese being sued. For instance, after Clohessy completes his press conference speaking about a leaked lawsuit, the media ask the local bishop and his attorneys to comment. Of course, they cannot say anything about a lawsuit they have not seen. This is exactly the point: the Church is made to look bad.

Hammond’s account is further validated by considering what Clohessy said under oath when deposed in 2012. He was asked about a lawsuit that was filed at 2:44 p.m. on October 20, 2011. How could he have had this information before it was filed in court? He used it as the basis of a press conference, blindsiding the Church in the process. Clohessy refused to answer the question.

In another case, a lawsuit had a file stamp of November 8, 2011 at 1:28 p.m. Again, Clohessy was able to post information about this before it was filed with the court. When asked to explain himself, he refused. He is a master of deceit.

Hammond shows how SNAP officials were more concerned about raking in the dough than in serving the interests of their clients. The lawsuit cites an email exchange between SNAP officials discussing a subpoena that was issued to them. The contents reveal much about their character.

One of them asked if they should mention the subpoena in their newsletter. It “may prompt more donations,” the missive said, even though “on the other hand, it’ll also upset more survivors….” Blaine’s answer was vintage SNAP: “My initial response is that we err on the side of using it to raise money.”

There it is in black and white: in a conflict between obtaining money and protecting survivors, take the cash and run. One of Blaine’s colleagues agreed. What came next is priceless. An unidentified employee chimed in, cautioning everyone to be careful “what we put in e-mails, ok?” Too late for that.

The lawsuit also shows how Clohessy relies on attorneys to intimidate his critics. When a Kansas City blogger raised serious questions about the way lawyers grease SNAP, and how SNAP officials ask their clients to share some of the money they’ve won in a lawsuit, Clohessy asked an attorney involved in the case to reply. He said that if the writer were to get a letter from a lawyer, out of “fear” he may become “more temperate in his comments in the future.” In other words, let’s see if we can silence the critic by intimidating him.

What does SNAP do with its money? The officials know how to have a good time. When traveling to The Hague in 2011 to file a lawsuit against Pope Benedict in the International Criminal Court (it went nowhere), they “used the funds raised by Plaintiff to pay for lavish hotels and other extravagant travel expenses for its leadership.” Not only that, but “SNAP also uses funds meant to assist survivors on its own legal troubles.”

SNAP is not an organization the way the Catholic League is. We have a staff that goes to work Monday thru Friday, reporting to our office in New York City. Not SNAP. When Clohessy was deposed, he testified that SNAP has a business address in Chicago. Who works there is a mystery. He didn’t even know the zip code. He works out of his home, but it is not near the Chicago office. It’s in the St. Louis area.

What does Clohessy do for a living? He said he fields phone calls from strangers who “share their pain” with him. So what does he do about their pain? “I console them and I may be on the phone with them for an hour.” He said he doesn’t charge a fee. So generous of him.

Declaring one’s home a place of business raises legal questions. Clohessy was asked whether “at your house do you have an occupational license or a business license to do business out of your house?” He simply said, “No.”

Under oath, Clohessy was asked if SNAP gives a portion of its funds to charity, as required by law. He replied, “I’m not aware of that.” So what does SNAP do with its money? It was revealed that in 2007 it spent a total of $593 on “survivor support.” That was it. The following year it spent $92,000 on travel. This is quite a racket.

How SNAP Exploits Survivors

On the first page of Hammond’s lawsuit, it says “SNAP does not focus on protecting or helping survivors—it exploits them.”

SNAP, the lawsuit says, “callously disregards the real interests of survivors, using them instead as props and tools in furtherance of SNAP’s own commercial fundraising goals. Instead of recommending that survivors pursue what is in their best personal, emotional, and financial interests, SNAP pressures survivors to pursue costly and stressful litigation against the Catholic Church, all in order to further SNAP’s own publicity and fundraising interests.”

The media would have us believe that SNAP is a caring, survivor outreach organization in pursuit of justice. It is anything but.

If SNAP really cared about the victims of sexual abuse, it would employ professional counselors to deal with them. But as the lawsuit says, it “did not have a single grief counselor or rape counselor on its payroll.” Moreover, it “never reached out to, or communicated with, grief counselors or rape counselors for the purpose of providing counseling to survivors through SNAP’s network.”

Worse, SNAP “would even ignore survivors who reached out to them.” When Dorris was told about phone calls from aggrieved parties—persons  who shared their traumatic experiences—she told Hammond “to simply not answer phone calls from survivors seeking assistance and counseling.” In other words, just blow them off.

There is one Louisiana psychiatrist who did work for SNAP, Dr. Steve Taylor, but in 2011 he was sentenced to prison. His offense? Possession of child pornography. SNAP defended him! In fact, Blaine wrote to the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners pleading with them to cut Taylor some slack. And they have the nerve to pretend that they care about child sexual abuse.

SNAP claims to be a rape crisis center, but it is a lie. The lawsuit correctly references Clohessy’s deposition, citing how the court labeled as “meritless” SNAP’s assertion that it is a rape crisis center.

Clohessy told the court that he didn’t have to comply with a request for internal documents, nor did he have to answer any questions. He cited Missouri law which protects the confidentiality of rape crisis centers. But when asked, point blank, “Did you identify yourself as a rape crisis center?”, he said, “I don’t know.” At a later point, he admitted, “I don’t know under the Missouri statutes exactly what constitutes a rape crisis center.”

Clohessy was asked about his training as a rape crisis center counselor. He admitted that he had no formal education or training in that area. In fact, he is not a licensed counselor, and even admitted he has never taken formal classes in counseling sexual abuse victims. [He has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and political science.] Yet his lack of expertise did not stop him from falsely presenting himself as a counselor. In fact, no one at SNAP has ever been a licensed counselor.

When Clohessy was asked where his “counseling” sessions took place, he said, “We meet people wherever they want to meet, in Starbucks, at, you know—wherever people feel comfortable, that’s where we meet.” What do they do? He admitted that “the overwhelming bulk of our work is talking to, listening to, supporting sex abuse victims.” He did not say who paid for the coffee in these “clinical” settings.

How SNAP Exploits the Media

The lawsuit charges that SNAP “manipulates and exploits media publicity surrounding survivors’ lawsuits against the church to raise its own publicity and drive fundraising efforts.” In a case involving Father Michael Tierney, et al., the trial judge issued a gag order after SNAP made statements that “seriously jeopardize [the priest’s] ability to receive a fair trial in this case.” That gag order was then violated, leading to a very telling exchange.

Clohessy was put on the spot. “Has SNAP to your knowledge ever issued a press release that contained false information?” He didn’t blink. “Sure.”

Not only does SNAP lie to the media, it has a blueprint for doing so. At the conference, Clohessy gave some tips on how to sucker the media and stick it to the Church. Attendees were instructed that the best way to get the media’s attention is to hold press conferences outside a chancery. That way when the event is over, reporters can quickly seek an interview with some diocesan PR person.

What really works, the gathering was told, is to play on the emotions of reporters. “Display holy childhood photos!” What if no photos are available? “If you don’t have compelling holy childhood photos,” Clohessy said, “we can provide you with photos of other kids that can be held up for the camera.” It doesn’t matter whose kids are in the photo–what counts is that the media be seduced.

Clohessy also instructed attorneys to conduct interviews in front of the parish where the priest was assigned. Why? This is a good way to get clients and entice whistleblowers to come forward when they see the interview on TV.

It is important, Clohessy said, to use “feeling words.” He offered some suggestions. “I was scared. I was suicidal.” He counseled that it is better to come across as sad, not mad; doing so facilitates making an emotional connection with the audience. It was also critical to use the word “kids” as often as possible. That pulls at everyone’s heart strings.

Conclusion

What we know about SNAP, and what is alleged, is startling.

• It accepts kickbacks from attorneys
• It is motivated by a pathological hatred of the Catholic Church
• It has no respect for the rights of accused priests
• It lies about priests
• It lies to survivors
• It lies to judges
• It lies to the media
• It seeks to intimidate and silence its critics
• It blindsides diocesan officials with leaked lawsuits
• It abuses donations
• It exploits survivors by offering unlicensed counseling services
• It spends practically nothing on servicing survivors
• It manipulates the media by staging events
• It retaliates against employees who question its operations

In short, SNAP officials function as borderline gangsters out to destroy innocent persons. It is motivated by hate and exploits the very people it claims to serve. Justice demands that it be shut down by the authorities before it does any more harm.

 

Bill Donohue has written an in-depth analysis of sexual abuse at the BBC, and the BBC’s coverage of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. He explains the similarities and dissimilarities, focusing on why the scandals occurred and how the top brass in each institution reacted. He concludes that while the BBC got off easy in a recent report on its problems, its coverage of the Church’s problems was patently unfair. To read his article, click here.

Donohue holds a Ph.D. in sociology from New York University and is the author of several books on civil liberties, social issues, and Catholicism.

Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler
by Mark Riebling
Basic Books, New York, 2015
375 pages, $29.99.

Ronald J. Rychlak

Pope Pius XII and the Nazis: far too many writers have wandered into this fascinating subject without bringing anything new to the table. Many of the late pope’s critics have simply repeated information that appeared in already discredited books and articles, but even some supporters have done little more than parrot earlier accounts. Thus, as one who has read almost all of the books on the topic, I approached Mark Riebling’s Church of Spies cautiously.

The first chapter seemed promising as it covered the outbreak of World War II and the new pope’s first encyclical, Summi Pontifictus and its striking condemnation of racism. Unlike many other writers, Riebling acknowledged Pius XII’s profound and express statement that there was no room for distinction between Gentiles and Jews in the Catholic Church. That was good, but Riebling also wrote about the perception that Pius was insufficiently outspoken and the problems that created between Catholics and Jews. It looked like the book might go either way, but then Riebling came out with a line that smacks the reader upside the head: “The last day during the war when Pius publicly said the word ‘Jew’ is also, in fact, the first day history can document his choice to help kill Adolf Hitler.” Fasten your seatbelt; you’re in for one heck of a ride.

It has long been known that the pope tipped off the Allies about at least one planned coup attempt and certain German troop movements, and other writers have noted that Pius was involved on the periphery with efforts to topple Hitler. Riebling, however, uses documents from German, Italian, Vatican, and other archives to prove that rather than being on the periphery, Pius was deeply involved in the various plots to assassinate Hitler.

The assassination plot began inside the German high command in August 1939. Hitler had already ordered the extermination of those who were mentally or physically defective, he had begun his war against the Jews, and he was just days away from invading Poland. He called together his top generals and admirals to brace them for the invasion, which would be carried out with “merciless severity.” The Führer, who saw Catholicism as incompatible with Nazism and particularly hated Pope Pius XII, capped off his talk by saying that he would “snuff out the least flicker of Polish strength by liquidating thousands of Catholic priests.”

The head of German military intelligence, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, had once admired Hitler. A year earlier, however, he became disillusioned when
Hitler began turning ferociously on Germany’s own citizens, including some German officers. Although he was a Protestant, extermination of Catholic priests was the final straw. Canaris already had a small circle of like-minded friends. Now they made the fateful decision to depose Hitler, even if they had to kill him.

The logistics of any coup would be complicated enough, but the Canaris group was also concerned about how the Allies would respond. They did not want to see a repeat of the Treaty of Versailles, the harshness of which had assisted Hitler’s ascendance to power. They needed to communicate and coordinate with the Allies.

The question was how to make contact with Allied leadership. Canaris determined that the only person with sufficient prestige and freedom to act was the pope. Canaris had known the future pope as a Vatican diplomat in Germany back in the 1920s. He knew about Pius XII’s many talents and his utter disdain for Hitler. He just needed someone to help him make contact.

Munich attorney Josef Müller was a war hero and devout Catholic who had represented the Church against the Reich in legal matters. Riebling described him as “part Oskar Schindler, part Vito Corleone.” In 1934, Müller survived a beating and interrogation at the hands of SS Commander Heinrich Himmler, who asked the lawyer about a controversy that had taken place in Bavaria. Without apology, Müller admitted that he had advised the Bavarian prime minister to have Himmler killed. Impressed by his courage, Himmler invited Müller to join the SS. Müller replied: “I am philosophically opposed to you. I am a practicing Catholic, and my brother is a Catholic priest. Where could I find the possibility of compromise there?” Himmler appreciated this “manly defense,” and let the lawyer go. This made Müller somewhat of a legend even among Hitler loyalists.

Riebling introduces Müller in the prologue to Church of Spies. He is in leg irons at Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945, hands tied behind his back, and forced to “eat his food like a dog from a plate on the floor.” On the next page, he is being led to the gallows. The chapters that follow explain how and why he got there.

In addition to being an attorney, Müller was a pilot, and he often traveled to Rome on business. So, in 1939, when the conspirators tapped him as their messenger, his trips did not draw undue attention. For his first mission, German intelligence gave him a dossier of Nazi atrocities in Poland. He flew to Rome and asked the pontiff’s top assistants whether Pius would be willing to contact the British government and ask for support.

Not only did Pius XII agree to assist the conspirators, saying “the German opposition must be heard,” he also mobilized Catholic religious orders, especially the Jesuits and Dominicans. These orders did not report to local bishops, who might be susceptible to Nazi pressure, but to leaders of their orders, who reported directly to the pope. The head of the Jesuits in Northern Germany, Augustin Rösch, had been battling the Gestapo since well before World War II, and he became the driving force behind the pope’s team in Germany. Rösch linked his group with the military intelligence unit headed by Canaris and worked on planning the coup.

Müller also built a spy network among “army, college, and law-school friends with access to Nazi officials—a community of the well-informed, who worked in newspapers, banks, and even … the SS itself.” His office soon became a clearinghouse of information for the Vatican.

The issue of a political assassination, even of Hitler, raised many questions. Riebling, however, explained that: “Over the centuries, Catholic theologians had developed a nuanced doctrine of tyrannicide, covering virtually every conceivable context.” After peaceful means had been exhausted, the assassination of a tyrant could be justified if it would improve conditions in a subjugated nation without sparking a civil war. Unfortunately, Lutheran and Calvinist generals were tied to a Protestant theory of state authority, and they had a much harder time justifying such an action.

Although initially suspicious, British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax and Francis D’Arcy Osborne, British ambassador to the Holy See, were won over by the pope’s personal intervention. They would negotiate with “The Decent Germany” if Hitler could be removed. Unfortunately, there were many doubts in high British circles, and the Allies failed to take advantage of much reliable information.

The plotters organized several attempts on Hitler’s life, but he had “the luck of the devil,” surviving repeated assassination attempts. He canceled speeches without knowing that snipers were in position and ready to take him out. He missed parades where bombs were set to explode. Plotters attempted to kill him by blowing up his plane, but the bomb didn’t go off. By shifting a meeting from a concrete bunker to a wooden barracks, Hitler evaded another attempt, memorialized in the movie Valkyrie.

Resistance to the Führer at home began to melt away after his military victories in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and France. Outside of Germany, others began to lose patience with the conspirators. Upon becoming prime minister, Winston Churchill put no faith in “decent Germans” taking out Hitler.

German military intelligence eventually learned about Müller’s work with the pope and brought him in for questioning. The lawyer was shocked when they asked him to work with them against Hitler. They gave him a cover story. He was to be a German operative using his contacts with the Vatican to spy on Italians. He would do this by posing as a conspirator seeking out Italians who might rally against Mussolini. “Müller would advance the war effort by pretending to talk peace,” explained Riebling. “But he would only be pretending to be pretending.” He actually was the anti-Axis plotter that he was pretending to be. Müller, of course, informed the Vatican of what was going on. It dramatically escalated the risk and potential reward of the pope’s work with Müller.

At this point, Vatican officials introduced the German lawyer to the concept of Disciplina Arcani—the “way of secrecy.” Those involved in the Vatican spy ring developed code names. Müller was known as “Herr X,” and Pius XII was called “the Chief.” Some high security meetings were held in the most secure place possible, excavation sites under Vatican City.

Plotters from Germany’s intelligence services asked “the Chief” to keep quiet: “Singling out the Nazis,” one later explained, “would have made the German Catholics even more suspected than they were and would have restricted their freedom of action in their work of resistance.” Explaining this to a French diplomat, Pius once said: “You know which side my sympathies lie. But I cannot say so.”

In 1943, as the SS narrowed its focus, a member of German intelligence finally revealed the names of the conspirators. Müller’s dramatic flights across the Alps came to an end, and the Gestapo found his secret files, including the conditions that the plotters had established to kill Hitler, which were printed on Vatican letterhead. This sent Müller into Dachau for the remainder of the war.

When Mussolini was ousted in July 1943, Hitler ordered a division of paratroopers to the borders of St. Peter’s Square. “On one side stood German soldiers in black boots and steel helmets, with carbines on their shoulders and Lugers on their hips. On the other side were the Pope’s Swiss Guards, in ruffled tunics and plumed hats, holding medieval pikes in white gloves.” Fortunately, Hitler’s advisors talked him out of an immediate invasion, though Hitler vowed to finish the job after the war.

Hitler ultimately avoided assassination and died by his own hand, but not before the SS tracked down the resistance. The SS interrogated conspirators, tortured them, and executed or sent them to concentration camps. Some were subjected to show trials before being publicly executed.

Church of Spies reads so well that one is inclined not to reveal what happened to Müller and Rösch (spoiler alert: it’s not as bad as the prologue might suggest). In fact, that aspect of Church of Spies, involving multiple death sentences, paperwork problems, and well-timed favors, could be a book unto itself.

 Church of Spies reads like an adventure novel, but it is documented history. It explains the virtually universal perception of Pius XII during and after the war as a staunch opponent of the Nazis and defender of the Jews. It also reveals Moscow’s perception that Pius was anti-Soviet, which certainly could account for the post-war assault on his reputation. It’s a great read and an enormously important book.