People who apologize for offenses they never committed—such as white people who apologize for being white—are either phonies or psychotic.

That is why it was so refreshing to learn that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did not apologize for offenses he never committed while serving as archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982.

In a letter Benedict recently released, he offered his “deepest sympathy” to the victims of clergy sexual abuse, saying he feels “great sorrow for each individual case.” But he did not offer a personal apology, and that is because none was warranted.

In an appendix to his letter, Benedict did, however, provide a much-needed rebuttal to accusations made against him by a Munich law firm; it had been commissioned by the archdiocese to examine accusations of sexual abuse that occurred between 1945 and 2019. He was assisted in this endeavor by some of his supporters.

Benedict takes issue with three outstanding accusations; they form the basis of the charges against him.

The first issue deals with Priest X (Peter Hullermann).

In his preliminary response, Benedict admitted that he erred when he claimed in his memorandum, drafted in response to the law firm, that he was not present at a meeting on January 15, 1980 in which this priest was discussed. He offers a lengthy, and pointed, commentary explaining how his collaborators made an honest mistake.

One of them, Dr. Stefan Korta, inadvertently made a transcription error noting that Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) was not present at the meeting. He clearly was. In fact, the minutes show that he spoke at the meeting. But to call this a “lie” is malicious.

More important is what transpired at the meeting. The records show that the discussion did not revolve around sexual misconduct committed by the young priest. It focused on a request for therapy, which was granted. That is the sum of it. It is therefore scurrilous to charge that Benedict lied about the meeting.

The second issue is based on charges that Benedict did not act properly in handling the other three cases. The charges are false. Not only does Benedict dispute accusations that he knew of sexual abuse committed by these priests, the law firm report “provides no evidence to the contrary.”

Benedict is unequivocal in his response. “The expert report contains no evidence for an allegation of misconduct or conspiracy in any cover up.” Indeed, if the law firm had proof, it would have provided it. It does not.

The third issue claims that Benedict minimized acts of exhibitionism. In fact, this is patently false. In his memoir, Benedict notes that abuse, including exhibitionism, are “terrible,” “sinful,” “morally reprehensible” and “irreparable.” In other words, he clearly condemned such behavior.

I need to clarify something. In my news release of January 25 on this subject, I accepted the accusation that Benedict downplayed exhibitionism, saying, “he did not treat him [the priest in question] the way he should have. He should have seen this as a red flag—normal men don’t act that way.”

I was wrong to accept this accusation at face value—Benedict never sought to make light of exhibitionism. I apologize for doing so.

There are fair-minded critics of Benedict, but there are also many who are ruthless. They have hated him ever since he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, enforcing the Church’s moral strictures.

Consider the reaction to a homily he gave on April 18, 2005. In an address before the College of Cardinals, who had assembled to elect a new pope, he spoke forcefully about the “dictatorship of relativism” that had engulfed the West.

Georgetown professor E.J. Dionne condemned Cardinal Ratzinger for using “fighting words.” Fr. Richard McBrien from Notre Dame said, “I think this homily shows he realizes he’s not going to be elected.” New York Times reporter Peter Steinfels announced, “Oh well, that gets rid of him.”

The next day he was elected pope.

As I said in my new book, The Truth About Clergy Sexual Abuse, “No one has understood why the clergy sexual abuse scandal took place better than Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.” That is largely because he correctly noted the effect of the sexual revolution on the Church, and the huge role played by homosexual priests.

I also said that he “does not get the credit he deserves for the actions he took. Quite frankly, no pope in the modern era worked to punish predator priests more than Benedict.” For example, when he was a cardinal, he pressed for a “more rapid and simplified penal process” in dealing with abusive priests.
More importantly, he defrocked a record number of molesting priests. In point of fact, he not only removed the unrepentant serial predator, Fr. Maciel, from ministry, he did not hesitate to accept the resignation of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick when he turned seventy-five, the earliest possible date for him to do so.

Pope Benedict has nothing to apologize for. If anything, it is his vicious critics who owe him an apology.

Fifty years ago, the findings of “The Rockefeller Commission Report on Population Growth and the American Future” was published. One year later, it got what it wanted when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion. It is important to understand the role of the ruling class in making Roe v. Wade possible.

The process began on July 18, 1969 when President Richard Nixon established a body to examine the effects of population growth on America’s future. On March 27, 1972, John D. Rockefeller 3rd, chairman of the Commission, transmitted the Final Report to the president and the Congress.

The plea to legalize abortion was a foregone conclusion: the commission was stacked with pro-abortion members. In 1967, the chairman, John D. Rockefeller 3rd, was the recipient of Planned Parenthood’s highest honor when he accepted the Margaret Sanger Award; the award was named after the white supremacist founder of Planned Parenthood.

John D. Rockefeller 3rd followed in the footsteps of John D. Rockefeller Jr. “Junior,” as he was called, provided funding for eugenics, giving money to the Germans. Some of it was put to use by the Nazis.

The Commission staff was headed by Dr. Charles F. Westoff. He was a member of the American Eugenics Society and Planned Parenthood’s National Advisory Council. One of the Commission’s Special Consultants was Daniel Callahan, a pro-abortion eugenicist who tried desperately to convince Catholics of the merits of abortion and eugenics. When he failed he quit the Church.

In chapter 11, titled “Human Reproduction,” the Final Report did not hide the pro-abortion sentiments of the Commission. “A few of the members of the Commission are opposed to abortion.” It also said “the majority” are not.

The number-one population problem in the early 1970s, the Commission said, was “unwanted births.” It admitted that only “one percent of first births were never wanted.” So where’s the problem? It found that “nearly two-thirds of all sixth or higher order births” were unwanted. That sounds plausible but that hardly constitutes a crisis. How many women, even back then, had six or more kids?

It has been historically true that those who can least afford to have children tend to have the most, and vice versa. So it made sense that the Commission would find that “Unwanted fertility is highest among those whose levels of education and income are lowest.” This, they said, leads to psychological, economic and health problems. “The Commission believes that all Americans, regardless of age, marital status, or income, should be enabled to avoid unwanted births.”

The solution to this alleged problem was to (a) allow minors to receive contraception information and services (b) eliminate restrictions on sterilization and (c) liberalize abortion laws on the state level. Regarding the latter, much of its reasoning was based on faulty information.

The Commission maintained that there were between “200,000 and 1,200,000 illegal abortions per year in the United States.” In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that in 1972, “130,000 women obtained illegal or self-induced procedures, 39 of whom died.” In other words, the Commission’s estimates were way off base, and so were the horror stories about all the women who died in “back-alley” abortions.

The Commission was also wrong when it contended that “with the increasing availability of contraceptives and improvements in contraceptive technology, the need for abortion will diminish.” We now know that following Roe v. Wade both contraceptive use and abortion rates increased dramatically.

If there is one demographic segment of the population that the Rockefeller Commission believed was a problem, it was African Americans.

The Report said that “if blacks could have the number of children they want and no more, their fertility and that of the majority white population would be very similar.” The goal could not be more plain: get blacks to stop reproducing. What they need, the Report said, was greater access to “the various means of fertility control.”

Some of the Commission members cited Planned Parenthood’s efforts to meet this goal. Mission accomplished: It was reported in 2020 that Planned Parenthood locates 86% of its abortion clinics in or near minority neighborhoods. Though blacks are 13% of the population, they account for one-third of all abortions.

At one point in the Final Report it says, “We share with our fellow citizens an abiding concern for the sanctity of all human life,” and therefore “we appreciate the moral decisions involved in abortion.” It hastened to add that it shares “a deep commitment to individual freedom and social justice,” making clear that this issue was paramount.

The Commission obviously did not have “an abiding concern for the sanctity of all human life,” for if it did it would not argue for the legalization of abortion. It should be noted that in 1963, Planned Parenthood actually admitted that “An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun.”

Abortion has always been one of the ruling class’ preferred methods of solving “the urban problem.” The Rockefellers epitomized this WASP solution. It teed up Roe v. Wade 50 years ago, making it easier for Supreme Court Justices to rationalize its abortion-on-demand ruling.

There are two religious liberty cases before the federal courts that have much in common: (a) both evince a clear animus against Christianity, and (b) they emanate from the most militantly secular states in the nation, Oregon and Washington.

The Oregon case will be appealed to the Supreme Court; the Washington case will be decided in the spring by the high court.

In 2013, the Court of Appeals in Oregon ruled that Aaron and Melissa Klein, who owned a bakeshop in Gresham, discriminated against a lesbian couple, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, when they refused to make a wedding cake for them. The evangelical couple did so on religious grounds, citing Leviticus for support.

The lesbians filed a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor. It said the Christians violated Oregon’s accommodations statute barring discrimination based on sexual discrimination. The panel ordered them to pay $135,000 in damages. The bakery owners appealed to the Oregon Court of Appeals in 2016, but they lost again. Then they appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2019, the high court vacated the ruling and sent it back to the state court of appeals for reconsideration. It cited its ruling in a similar case, Masterpiece Cakeshop, (which was decided favorably to the religious liberty side), for review.

On January 26th, 2022, the Oregon appeals court told the Bureau of Labor to reconsider its order fining the Christian couple. It said that the state agency “acted non-neutrally” against them. But it insisted that the couple was still guilty of discriminating against the lesbians.

Attorneys for First Liberty Institute, joined by former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray, will appeal this ruling, arguing that the same agency that showed an anti-Christian bias should not be allowed to try this case one more time. They maintain that the appeals court should have put an end to this case once and for all.

The appeals court showed cowardice when it said that the state agency “acted non-neutrally.” This sanitized term is a ruse: it would be more accurate to say that flagrantly anti-Christian remarks were voiced by some on the panel.

The lawyers for the Christians contended that the panel’s “administrative prosecutor disparaged” their client, labeling their objections a mere “excuse” for discrimination. They also unjustly compared their clients’ objections to cases involving “physical violence, prolonged sexual harassment, and religious coercion.” The bakery owners were even enjoined from “speaking about their religious beliefs, despite the lack of any basis for such a gag order.”

The Washington case involves a football coach, Joseph Kennedy, who huddled with players for a prayer on the 50-yard-line after games at Bremerton High School, outside of Seattle.
When he was asked by school officials not to lead the players in a prayer, he complied. When he decided to take a knee and say a silent prayer with the players, the school objected again, saying students could see him praying. Finally, the school banned prayer altogether.

The school said that if he wants to pray he should do so in a janitor’s closet or the press box; this way no one would construe his behavior to be a government-endorsed event. He refused, citing his First Amendment rights. The school fired him.

Kennedy sued and twice lost before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Ninth Circuit ruled that public speech of “an overtly religious nature” is forbidden, arguing that doing so gives the impression that the government is endorsing religion. Kennedy’s First Liberty attorneys charged that the Ninth Circuit was now saying that “even private religious speech by teachers and coaches violates the Establishment Clause (italic in the original).”

Kennedy has appealed to the Supreme Court but the justices declined the case; they asked the lower courts to review it. Now the Supreme Court has decided to hear the latest appeal.

Jeremy Dys, the First Liberty attorney for Kennedy, argued that the Ninth Circuit ruling sets a dangerous precedent. It would call into question whether “a public-school employee has a constitutional right to engage in brief, quiet prayer by himself (his italic.)”

Furthermore, if this ruling were to stand, it would mean that a teacher who bowed his head before a meal in the school cafeteria, or wore a crucifix or yarmulke, could be fired for giving the appearance of government endorsement of religion.

President Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who represents the school board, frames the issue in a patently dishonest way. “No child attending public school should have to pray to play school sports.” She’s right about that, but it is a red herring: No student is being compelled to pray as a condition of playing sports in any public school in the nation.

These two cases are driven by a hatred of Christianity, and that is why they have been banging around in the courts for so long. The totalitarian left, which occupies a sizeable presence in Oregon and Washington (home to the crazed 2020 Portland and Seattle riots), must be stopped if liberty is to prevail.

The January 15th episode of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) was vile.

“Pope Francis said this week that getting vaccinated against Covid is a moral obligation especially since priests work so closely with kids.”

The writers could have chosen to make a nasty joke about blacks, but that would have violated its policy on “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.” It could have made a nasty joke about Asians, but that would have violated this policy. It could have made a nasty joke about transgender persons, but that would have violated this policy. It could have made a nasty joke about homosexuals, but that would have violated this policy. It could have made a nasty joke about the disabled, but that would have violated this policy.

So it chose to nail Catholics, and that is because they are not covered by this policy.

“We stand for everyone. We believe that a diverse, equitable and inclusive company is a more effective company, leading us to approach diversity as a driver for business growth and innovation.”

That is the opening statement issued by NBCUniversal on its policy governing “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.” It is also a lie. Its policy only covers “injustice and inequality against any race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or ability.”

Why are religious groups left out? Because the company obviously doesn’t value them. And why were Catholics the butt of the joke, and not some other religious entity? Because “Saturday Night Live” writers hate Catholics. No other reason is plausible.

Fr. Pat Conroy, a Jesuit, is the former House Chaplain; he left that post in 2019. He is back in the news, this time for giving the green light to Catholics to be pro-abortion. Much of what he said in a Washington Post interview on January 5 is uninformed, and some of his comments are simply wrong.

“I want to know the American who thinks government should take away their choice in any area of their life—any area of their life (newspaper’s italic).”

That’s not hard to do. Simply read the surveys that reveal the support for Covid lockdowns—millions support allowing the government to take away the choices of citizens. Alternatively, go to Princeton or Yale and interview the administrators who are creating a police state environment in the name of combatting the flu.

Conroy says, “A good Catholic in our system could be saying: Given women in our system have this constitutional right, our task as fellow Christians, or as Catholics, is to make possible for her to optimize her ability to make the choice.”

Let us pose an analogy, using slavery as the object of choice. “A good Catholic in our system could be saying: Given citizens in our system have this constitutional right [to slavery], our task as fellow Christians, or as Catholics, is to make it possible for them to optimize their ability to make the choice.”

Conroy insists that “a pro-choice Democrat isn’t a pro-abortion person.” Tell that to the pro-abortion protesters who were in the news recently holding signs that said, “I Love Someone Who Had An Abortion.”

Similarly, Conroy says about the woman planning to abort her child, “she is the one to make her choice; we should not make it for her.” But choice is a verb that has no moral meaning. It only takes on meaning when we know the object of choice. A doctor who chooses to bring life into the world is a good man. A doctor who chooses to kill it is not.

Conroy opines that “Thomas Aquinas says if your conscience says to do something the church says is a sin, you are bound to follow your conscience. That’s Thomas Aquinas!”

That is a highly selective reading of Aquinas.

To be sure, Aquinas prized conscience rights, but he did so with the understanding that it must be a well formed conscience. If it were not, then all choices, no matter how murderous, could be countenanced. Which explains why he said, “If…we consider one action in the moral order, it is impossible for it to be morally both good and evil.”

It is wrong to suggest that Aquinas said that conscience rights override Church teachings. “The universal Church,” he said, “cannot err, since she is governed by the Holy Ghost, Who is the Spirit of truth.” He also said, “Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.”

Regarding abortion, Aquinas said that abortions are a “grave sin” and were not only “among evil deeds,” they were “against nature.” In the 12th century, science had not yet learned that life begins at conception, which is why Aquinas accepted the prevailing view that life begins at some time after fertilization. But that didn’t stop him from condemning abortion.

If liberal Catholics regarded abortion to be as morally offensive as racial discrimination—it is actually much worse—they would not strain to justify it. That they continue to do so while feigning an interest in social justice is positively nauseating.

It is legal to burn the American flag in Boston (and elsewhere), and it is legal to display the flags of Communist nations in front of Boston’s City Hall, but it is illegal to raise a Christian flag in the same spot. That may be changing once the Supreme Court rules on this case in June.

The justices recently heard oral argument on this case, and it didn’t go well for Boston officials. The position put forth by Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, representing Boston, appeared lame. Even some liberals on the high court seemed unimpressed.

A closer look at what he said is troubling: it suggests that either city officials are badly educated on the First Amendment, or they harbor an animus against Christianity.
City officials in Boston are used to people making requests to fly celebratory flags outside City Hall. For example, Gay Pride flags are flown. Most of the requests, however, are to fly the flag of a foreign nation.

Boston granted 284 consecutive requests until it finally said no to one. It said no to a man who wanted to fly a “Christian flag” (it bears a Latin cross).

For the justices, the key issue was clear cut: either the flagpole represents a public forum where private parties can express themselves, or whether raising these flags conveys government endorsement of their message. If it’s the former, then city officials cannot deny the Christian flag from being flown; if it’s the latter, they can.

The lawyer for the city argued that Boston would be endorsing Christianity if it allowed the Christian flag to be flown. He admitted that religious symbols are inscribed on some nation’s flags, but city officials believed that was different: the flag’s message was about the nation, not religion. But was he right to say that the establishment clause of the First Amendment prohibited the flying of a Christian flag?

Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch all indicated that it may be a “mistake” to see this issue as a violation of the establishment clause, and that if that is the case, then it ends the discussion.

“Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The latter clearly says that the government cannot stop the free exercise of religion. The former, according to Boston city officials, means that flying the Christian flag outside City Hall is tantamount to government endorsement of it.

Are there really two clauses here, serving two different ends? That is what the city of Boston believes. But to the Framers, the two clauses serve to facilitate one end: religious liberty. That being the case, there is no need to “balance” one against the other, and it is wrong to see them as oppositional, as if they were written to cancel each other out.

The article “an” is important. It takes on more meaning when we understand what Madison, who wrote the First Amendment, said about it. By “an establishment of religion” he meant a national church, such as the Church of England. In addition, he said, government could not show preference for one religion over another. That was it.

From the oral argument, it is possible to deduce that Boston officials are using the establishment clause as a ruse: it may be that they are simply against the public expression of religion.

Justice Samuel Alito noted that the original Boston policy on flag flying did not list any reasons why a request could be denied. After the Christian flag was denied, it was decided not to grant requests for flags that were “discriminatory, inappropriate or religious.” Alito charged that in doing so, “you’ve reverse engineered.”

“We want to create an environment in which everyone feels included.” That is what the Boston attorney said. But by denying a Christian flag, does that not send a message that Christians are not included?

The city’s lawyer also said, “Our goal is to foster diversity by celebrating the communities within Boston.” Justice Clarence Thomas jumped on this admission, saying, “You mentioned diversity several times, and what I don’t understand is your definition of diversity because it would seem to me that Christians in Boston would be a part of that diversity calculus.”

The Boston case was made harder when several justices said the city’s policy amounted to “viewpoint discrimination.”
What happened during oral argument is commonplace these days. The words “diversity and inclusion” roll off the lips of those on the left as a mantra. They mean nothing. They mean nothing because they rarely seem to apply to those who hold to traditional moral values. If anything, they are used as a weapon against them.

In 1963, the Supreme Court, in Abington v. Schempp, ruled that “the State may not establish a ‘religion of secularism’ in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion.” Seems apropos.

The generous interpretation of this case is that Boston officials need to get up to speed on the meaning of the First Amendment. A less generous one suggests that their real goal is to censor the public expression of Christianity.

Bill Donohue explains why he wrote the letter found here.

Over the past several years, I have written many pieces on how some in the media have been manipulating Pope Francis. But the scheming is not confined to the media.

The latest example comes by way of New Ways Ministry (NWM), a disloyal Catholic outfit that has been the focal point of numerous sanctions from Church authorities, both in Rome and in the United States. It explicitly rejects Church teachings on marriage, the family and sexuality, especially homosexuality.

In October, the Vatican formally announced the beginning of a two-year program, the Synod on Synodality, that would allow Catholics to participate in a dialogue with Church officials on matters of importance to them. The Vatican’s Synod of Bishops posted a resource page that provides links to a webinar for participating parties.

One of the groups that sought participation was NWM; it succeeded in obtaining a link to the webinar. However, when loyal Catholics complained that it was a heretical group, the link was taken down on December 7. After disloyal Catholics complained, the link was restored on December 13.

On December 15, I wrote a letter to Cardinal Mario Grech, General Secretary of the Synod of Bishops; it was sent by fax that day and arrived via express mail on December 17. Confirmation that the fax was received was dated December 21.

Cardinal Grech did not reply by January 10. I then decided to go public with my statement. My letter is on the opposite page.

Letters by Pope Francis commending NWM have now surfaced. On December 10, the pope wrote a short note to Sister Jeannine Gramick thanking her for her 50 years of ministry; she co-founded NWM in 1977 with Fr. Robert Nugent. Last spring, two letters of correspondence were exchanged between the pope and Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of NWM.

On May 3, 2021 Pope Francis wrote to DeBernardo about his letter of April 21. “It helped me a lot to know the full story you tell me,” the pope said. “Sometimes we receive partial information about people and organizations, and this doesn’t help. Your letter, as it narrates with objectivity its history, gives me light to better understand certain situations.”

It is painfully obvious that the pope does not have “the full story.” Indeed, he has been manipulated once again.

In his letter to the pope, did DeBernardo tell him why Washington Archbishop James Hickey barred NWM officials in 1984 from continuing their “service” to the Church? He did so following numerous complaints that Gramick and Nugent had infiltrated the seminaries, openly defying Church teachings on homosexuality.

Did he tell the pope why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was pressed into starting an 11-year investigation of NWM? They did so because Gramick and Nugent refused to accept the Church’s teaching regarding “the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination.” That is why when the probe was finished in 1999, they were told to stop with their “ministry.”

Nothing has changed since. Indeed, on January 7, 2022, Gramick said that in 1999 the Vatican wanted her and Nugent “to say that homosexual activity is objectively immoral and that we personally believed that. And I could not say that.”

Did DeBernardo tell the pope that Gramick praised the biggest pervert priest in American history, Father Paul Shanley? He raped males of all ages and he did so for decades. He liked to blame children for his perversion, famously saying, “the kid is the seducer.”

In 2005, Gramick said she was horrified by Shanley’s behavior but that she “grieved for this man I had not seen in almost 20 years, but whose principles and whose advocacy for the downtrodden I had applauded for three decades.” Journalist Maureen Orth was horrified by what Gramick said, adding that she interviewed nine of Shanley’s victims. Gramick never spoke to one of them.

We know what Pope Francis has said about marriage—it should be confined to a man and a woman in the institution of marriage. We know that he has called gay marriage the work of “the father of lies,” meaning the devil. We know that he has advised men with “deep-rooted” homosexual tendencies not to enter the priesthood. We know that he has warned against the “gay lobby” in the Church. We know that he regards gender ideology—that men and women can switch their sex—to be “demonic.”

We also know that neither Gramick nor DeBernardo believe a lick of what the pope has said.

In 2015, when Pope Francis visited the U.S., many disloyal Catholic groups sought to meet with him, one of these was NWM. They were rightfully denied. Loyal Catholics did meet with him (I did so on September 23).

On October 9, 2021, Pope Francis gave an address about the opening of the Synod. Quoting Yves Congar O.P., he said, “There is no need to create another church, but to create a different church.” True enough. NWM wants another church, not a different one.

Loyal Catholics need clarity from Rome about this issue.

Your Eminence:

As president of the largest Catholic civil rights organization in the United States, my job is to defend individual Catholics against discrimination and the institutional Church from defamation. The latter ineluctably involves a defense of Church teachings and strictures.

I am writing to you because recent news reports indicate that your communications manager, Thierry Bonaventura, has announced that he has restored a link to New Ways Ministry’s (NWM) webinar on synodality that had been taken down following considerable criticism. Moreover, he has extended an apology to NWM.

Like so many other Catholics, we were surprised to learn that a video by a dissident organization—one that has been summarily rebuked by the Vatican and the U.S. bishops for decades—would be accepted by the Vatican as a legitimate Catholic contribution to the synodal consultations. We were relieved when this post was taken down. You can imagine how we felt when it was restored. Worse was an apology to an organization that not only has no standing in the Catholic Church—it actively seeks to undermine it.

What I have said is not a matter of opinion.

I am sending via fax and the U.S. mail a copy of the “Notification Regarding Sister Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Father Robert Nugent, SDS,” a publication of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (pope emeritus) in 1999.

Ratzinger noted that in 1984, “James Cardinal Hickey, the Archbishop of Washington, following the failure of a number of attempts at clarification, informed them [NWM] that they could no longer undertake their activities in that Archdiocese. At the same time, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life ordered them to separate themselves totally and completely from New Ways Ministry, adding that they were not to exercise any apostolate without faithfully presenting the Church’s teaching regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts.”

Ratzinger then detailed the many attempts by Church officials to persuade Gramick and Nugent to abide by Church teachings on this subject. He concluded that they “are permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons and are ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes.”

Three years later, in 2002, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote that “New Ways Ministry does not promote the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church.”

In that same year, Archbishop Thomas Kelly of Louisville told organizers of the group’s conference that they should not celebrate the Eucharist at the NWM event. Following suit in 2007 was St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop Harry Flynn: he barred NWM’s national conference from celebrating the Eucharist.

In 2010, Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated that he can assure Catholics that “in no manner is the position proposed by New Ways Ministry in conformity with Catholic teaching and in no manner is this organization authorized to speak on behalf of the Catholic Church or to identify itself as a Catholic organization.”

In 2011, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of the Washington Archdiocese, and chairman of the Committee on Doctrine, joined with Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, and chairman of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on the Defense of Marriage, issuing an affirmation of Cardinal George’s denunciation of NWM.

Were all of these senior members of the Catholic Church wrong about NWM? Or is the decision to welcome them to the syndoal process wrong? They can’t both be right.

I would like to know by January 10 what your response is. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.

Bill Donohue

[Note: We run this article each year on March 17]

The heroics of St. Patrick are not appreciated as much as they should be. He is the first person in history to publicly condemn slavery, and one of the first leaders to champion the cause of equal rights.

There is much to celebrate on March 17. Fortunately, his writings, though slim, are eye-opening accounts of his life: Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus and Confession reveal much about the man. Along with other sources, they paint a picture of his saintliness.

Patrick was born in Britain in the 4th century to wealthy parents. It is likely that he was baptized, though growing up he did not share his family’s faith. He was an atheist.

When he was 15, he committed what he said was a grave sin, never saying exactly what it was; it appears it was a sexual encounter with a young girl. No matter, it would haunt him throughout his life.

At age 15 or 16 (the accounts vary), Patrick was kidnapped and enslaved by Irish barbarians. They had come to plunder his family’s estate, and took him away in chains to Ireland. While a slave, he converted to Christianity, praying incessantly at all hours of the day. After six years, he escaped, and made his way back home.

His family thought he was dead, and with good reason: no one taken by Irish raiders had managed to escape and return. St. Patrick biographer Philip Freeman describes how his family received him, stating “it was as if a ghost had returned from the dead.”

After he returned home, he had a vision while sleeping. He felt called to return to Ireland. This seemed bizarre: this is where he was brutalized as a slave. But he knew what Jesus had commanded us to do, “Love thy enemy.” He was convinced that God was calling him to become a missionary to Ireland. So he acted on it, despite the reservations of family and friends.

Patrick became a priest, practiced celibacy, and was eventually named a bishop. Contrary to what many believe, he did not introduce Christianity to Ireland, nor was he Ireland’s first bishop. But he did more to bring the Gospel to Ireland than anyone, converting legions of pagans, especially in the northern parts of the island.

His missionary work in Ireland has been duly noted, but his strong defense of human rights has not been given its due.

No public person before him had denounced slavery, widespread though it was. Jesus was silent on the subject, Aristotle thought it was a natural way of life, and neither master nor slave saw anything fundamentally wrong with it. Patrick did.

Though he did not invoke natural law specifically, he was instinctively drawn to it. He taught that all men were created equal in the eyes of God, and that the inherent dignity of everyone must be respected.

Patrick did more than preach—he lashed out at the British dictator, Coroticus, harshly rebuking him for his mistreatment of the Irish. In fact, Patrick found his Irish converts to be more civilized than Coroticus and his band of thugs.

Patrick was way ahead of his time in the pursuit of human rights. Not only were men of every social status entitled to equal rights, so were women. In his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, he scolds “the tyrant Coroticus—a man who has no respect for God or his priests.” More important, he made a startling plea: “They must also free Christian women and captives.” His reasoning showed the power of his faith when he said, “Remember, Christ died and was crucified for these people.”

He did not mince words. “So, Coroticus, you and your wicked servants, where do you think you will end up? You have treated baptized Christian women like prizes to be handed out, all for the sake of the here and now—this brief, fleeting world.”

What makes this all the more dramatic is the way the pagan world thought about women: the idea that women were equal to men was totally foreign to them. But the women understood what Patrick was saying, and gravitated to him in large numbers. The Christian tenet that all humans possess equal dignity had taken root.

Did the Irish save civilization, as Thomas Cahill maintains? Freeman thinks not—”it had never been lost.” But everyone agrees that had it not been for St. Patrick, and the monasteries that followed, much of what we know about the ancient world would not exist.

Indeed, it is difficult to fathom how classical Greek and Roman literature would have survived had it not been for the Irish monks who attracted students from many parts of Europe. They are responsible for preserving the great works of antiquity. And all of them are indebted to St. Patrick.

It is believed that he died on March 17, sometime during the second half of the fifth century. That is his feast day, the source of many celebrations in his honor. His impact extends beyond the Irish and the Catholic Church—human rights are a global issue—making him a very special person in world history.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue shares some good news:

On March 5th, Fr. Gordon MacRae, who is unjustly sitting in a New Hampshire prison for a crime he didn’t commit, had his Facebook account disabled. Apparently, the censors who work there didn’t like one of his essays. Like his other articles, it was one that no rational human being would find objectionable.

That did not stop us from helping our friend. On March 9, we emailed his “objectionable” article to our list of email subscribers, which is big and growing. We have now learned that Facebook has apologized and has restored his account.

Thanks to everyone for your support.