May 20, 2011, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” on the 2011 John Jay Report on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church: Maher and his panel of guests discussed the release of the 2011 John Jay Report on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church. Maher branded all priests as abusers and falsely claimed that the report blamed the 60s for the abuse scandal.
Maher said, “Here is what they found: Not as bad as you think; it magically solved itself one day in 1985…. And the Church isn’t the problem, celibacy isn’t the problem, repressed homosexuality isn’t the problem; you know what the problem was? The 60s… I’m not kidding, they said it was the permissive attitude of the 60s.”
March 11, 2011, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” on a Catholics Come Home ad campaign: “The Catholic Church is changing. We get it. You don’t want us touching your kids. Message received. This chart shows alleged inappropriate behavior toward children since 90 AD. (Chart show arrow going up every year) When we first started keeping records. We are going to bring those numbers down. We are not miracle workers but here is our pledge to you. You bring your kids back to church and there will be a significantly lower chance that he or she will be inappropriately touched – particularly she. And if one of our priests does touch one of your kids, you will dine absolutely free at Long John Silver’s. We’re the new Catholic Church and we know it’s time to roll up our sleeves and pull up our pants.”
October 19, 2010, “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” on gay priests: “What’s interesting to me is the way conservatives — and I would put the military in this lately in the way they’ve been talking about it and the Catholic Church talk about gay as if it’s something that we really can’t resist if it’s around us. You know, that’s how the Catholic Church talks about it. You know, our priests are not sinning, they’re just giving into temptation when they’re molesting children and going gay and stuff like that.”
September 28, 2010, “Joy Behar Show,” on having faith: “Religion is all about sticking in fingers in your ears and humming. They don’t want to hear what the reality is. They want to believe what they believe. It’s — it’s not about critical thinking. I mean, faith is the purposeful suspension of critical thinking.”
“I don’t know if anybody could read the bible and still want to be a religious person. It is a book that is filled with immorality, wickedness, and then just plain silliness.”
On the Bible:
“But it is a lot of wickedness, there’s a lot God acting like a psychopath and just ethnically cleansing people and wiping people out…. I was pointing out on the show Friday night the Ten Commandments. You know, this is the ultimate list of the ten things right from God and it doesn’t include rape, incest, or genocide. That’s ok. That’s not on the top ten. But apparently swearing, working on Sunday and building statues to other Gods those are the things that are important.”
November 19, 2008, “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” on Prop 8: Leno: I don’t know how two people getting married will suddenly ruin my marriage. I was told this will ruin my marriage. If two gay people — how? What does it matter to me?
Maher: It doesn’t matter. And of course it’s all coming from religion, which is ironic because Jesus never said anything about homosexuality in the bible. And, you know, what if Jesus was gay? I am not saying he was. But it wouldn’t make him any worse. I mean, it could be. He was a gentle guy, never got married.
November 14, 2008, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” on priest saying he would withhold Communion for people who voted for Obama: “A Catholic priest in South Carolina has told his congregation; if you voted for Obama you can’t receive Communion. That’s right, the cracker won’t let you get the cracker. He said supporting Obama constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil. Then he proceeds to pass around the plate so everyone could chip in to pay off the child f***ing lawsuits.”
April 11, 2008, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” attacking pope as Nazi and accusing him of covering up for molester: “And, finally, New Rule: Whenever you combine a secretive compound, religion and weirdos in pioneer outfits, there’s going to be some child f***ing going on. In fact, whenever a cult leader sets himself up as ‘God’s infallible wing man’ here on earth, lock away the kids.
“Which is why I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult. Its leader also has a compound. And this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. [Photo of pope shown] That’s right. The pope is coming to America this week, and, ladies, he’s single!
“Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Bill, you can’t be saying that the Catholic Church is no better than this creepy Texas cult! For one thing, altar boys can’t even get pregnant.
“But, really, what tripped up the ‘little cult on the prairie’ was that they only abused hundreds of kids, not thousands all over the world. Cults get raided. Religions get parades. How does the Catholic Church get away with all of their buggery? VOLUME, VOLUME, VOLUME!
“If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you ‘pope.’
“It’s like if you can’t pay your mortgage, you’re a deadbeat, but if you can’t pay a million mortgages, you’re Bear Stearns, and we bail you out. And that’s who the Catholic Church is, the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia. Too big to fail.
“When the—when the current pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul’s Dick Cheney, he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the statute of limitations ran out. And that’s the Church’s attitude: ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.’
“Which is fine. Far be it from me to criticize religion. But, just remember one thing: if the pope was, instead of a religious figure, merely the CEO of a nationwide chain of daycare centers where thousands of employees had been caught molesting kids and then covering it up, he’d be arrested faster than you can say, ‘Who wants to touch Mister Wiggle?’”
February 8, 2008, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” on Mother Teresa: “Mother Teresa, who we found out recently, actually lost her faith.” [Bob Costas then jumped in and said Mother Teresa questioned her faith from time to time, she didn’t lose it entirely.] “Well, but it’s Mother Teresa. Kind of like finding out Colonel Sanders doesn’t eat chicken.”
February 4, 2008, “Larry King Live,” on being an anti-Catholic bigot: “They accuse me of being a Catholic bigot. First of all, I don’t have it out especially for Catholics. I think all religions are coo-coo. Ok? It’s not just the Catholics. I’m not a bigot. Just because I wish for the demise of an organization that I think is entirely destructive to the human race, that doesn’t make me a bigot. I also wish for demise of Hamas and the KKK.”
“It is just so arrogant because it presupposes that we all agree that the bible is the word of God, that that old book of Jewish fairy tales is the word of God.”
January 25, 2008, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” on the Virgin Birth: “But I think it is much more likely that there could be space ships from outer space, than what a lot of things people believe. People still believe, you know, excuse me I know I may inject religion into every show but UFOs are a lot more likely than a space god [that] flew down bodily and you know who was the Son of God and you know had sex with a Palestinian woman…”
January 4, 2008, “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” attacking religious faith and the Eucharist: “You can’t be a rational person six days of the week and put on a suit and make rational decisions and go to work and, on one day of the week, go to a building and think you’re drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god. That doesn’t make you a person of faith…That makes you a schizophrenic.”
August 17, 2007, “Larry King Live,” on the release of his movie “Religulous”: “It should come out at Easter. I would like it out as soon as the time people are celebrating the space man’s flying up to heaven.”
May 22, 2007, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” attacking Catholicism, mixing it with homosexual themes: “And it’s easy to start a religion! Watch, I’ll do it for you: I had a vision last night! A vision! The Blessed Virgin Mary came to me – I don’t know how she got past the guards – and she told me it’s high time to take the high ground from the Seventh Day Adventists and give it to the 24-hour party people. And what happens in the confessional stays in the confessional. Gay men, don’t say you’re life partners; say you’re a nunnery of two. “We weren’t having sex, officer, I was performing a very private Mass, here in my car. I was letting my rod and staff comfort him. Take this and eat of it, for this is my roommate Barry. And for all those who believe there is a special place for you in Kevin.”
April 16, 2007, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” discussing religion and drugs: “Religion is bad, drugs are good.”
On all religions: “Childish, destructive and nonsense.”
April 13, 2007, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” attacking the Eucharist: Maher showed a pictured of Keith Richards and said, “New Rule, snorting your father isn’t crazy.” Then, he showed a picture of a Catholic priest giving Communion and said, “Eating your father, that’s crazy.”
April 8, 2005, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” mocking the death of Pope John Paul II: “The Pope may be cold but this crowd is hot.”
“The Pope was laid to rest just as he requested, in a pine box with his drum sticks, an Allen Iverson jersey and then Bono came and poured Jack Daniels on the coffin.”
“People waited in line for 24 hours to see the Pope’s body and when they got to see the Pope they smelled worse than he did.”
“For those who could not make the funeral the Vatican has asked that in lieu of flowers just stop touching your d***.”
“For a church that is so against homosexuals they put on a pageant that you could not believe.”
May 2003, “Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home,” Maher’s Broadway show: “The problem is they drill religion into your head when you are very young. Well, when you are four years old you believe in Santa Claus, too. Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, the Virgin Birth, sure! When you’re a priest everyday spewing this bulls*** about the apple and the snake etc. you can see him just saying, ‘Ah, f*** it, just blow me, kid!’“
“It’s so gay, the Church! With the robes and the smoke and kneeling in front of the priest with your mouth open eating God.”
“How does a country get away with keeping half its population in beekeeper suits? I’ll tell you how. They say the magic word: religion. It’s their religion. You say religion, you can get away with anything. The Catholics got away with f***ing kids, for crying out loud!”
June 20, 2002, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” on the canonization of Padre Pio: “Pope John Paul canonized him and the reason it sticks in my craw is because it just seems like they needed a saint badly, because they had a lot of bad P.R. with the whole, you know, we’re having sex with kids thing.”
June 5, 2002, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” responding to a guest who had said that no one wants to see the Catholic Church go away: “Well, no, I’d love to see the Church go away. And there are lots of people who would.”
May 22, 2002, on “Larry King Live,” about the Catholic Church: “Well, I wasn’t raised Jewish. My mother is Jewish. But I never even knew I was half-Jewish until I was a teenager. I was just so frightened about the Catholics and everything that was going on there in the church — and I was never, you know, molested or anything. And I’m a little insulted. I guess they never found me attractive. And that’s really their loss.
May 10, 2002, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” on the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church: “So it is in this spirit that I offer this modest proposal that the Catholic church just drop the pretense and just go gay. Just come out of the confessional. Preach the sermon on the mountain. Embrace it. Let the straight people be Baptists. It’s high time you gay Catholics stood up and announced to the world, ‘we’re here, we’re queer, get Eucharist.’”
May 7, 2002, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” discussing sex abuse settlements: “I am not defending the Church. I have hated the Church way before anyone else. I have been pounding religion for nine years on this show.”
March 8, 2002, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” on the sex abuse problem: “Before puberty, I would say nobody caused me more pain than the Catholics.”
“I apparently was not attractive enough to be hit on [by priests].”
Jason Jones of Human Life International commented that the sex abuse problem was not prevalent in Europe or South America, Maher shot back, “You’re right. In African countries they rape the nuns.”
March 5, 2002, on “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” discussing the Eucharist: Kirk Franklin, a black musician, attacked the Eucharist by complaining “gotta take the cracker.” To which Maher replied, “Gotta take the cracker from a cracker.”
October 27, 2000, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” discussing Christianity and Halloween: “Christianity is grafted from paganism.”
“It’s all about a man in the sky who’s going to send you in a burning lake of fire if you screw up.”
“Which is the perfect description of religion itself. I mean, what is scarier than drinking the man’s blood every Sunday? That’s not a spooky ritual? Here kids, drink his blood and eat his body. Like that’s not pagan? What can be more pagan than that?”
August 9, 2000, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” discussing 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.
July 11, 2000, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” discussing celibate priests: “Be fruitful and multiply. What’s more weird than being celibate. There’s nothing more perverted than that.”
March 20, 2000, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” discussing the Annunciation: Maher commented 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,” discussing the celibate priesthood: “Priests are supposed to be celibate. They’re not having sex with women…. Just with the boys.”
March 2, 2000, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” discussing anti-Catholicism in the wake of George W. Bush speaking at Bob Jones University: “Isn’t it amazing that this is an issue in this election? When was the last time you ever heard of a Catholic being bashed? … But when was the last time someone called you a Papist? I mean really, is this really going on nowadays?
November 10, 1999, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” discussing why many people don’t go to synagogue or church: “You shouldn’t, I don’t think, lump the synagogue in with the Church. They operate very differently, OK. The synagogue…was never as corrupt as the Catholic Church.”
“Catholics practice what they want to practice. They go to see the Pope because he is a big celebrity, but they go home and they masturbate, they practice birth control…well they do.”
February 4, 1999, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” on the pope and abortion: “The pope had his dress up about the abortion issue.”
October 8, 1998, “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” discussing the Catholic Church: “But Catholics nowadays are like you know ‘The pope says we shouldn’t do this and this, but we really wanna pick and choose the parts of the religion that we feel fits us. You know the pope says you shouldn’t masturbate or have abortions, but that’s fine for him, he’s an elderly man, but for us…’“