In times of adversity, most Americans turn to God for relief, but there are segments of society that are so thoroughly enmeshed in a culture of secularism that even something as horrific as the coronavirus pandemic is not enough to change them. Hollywood is a case in point. The advice that celebrities are being given is only complicating their condition.

The Hollywood Reporter recently interviewed three therapists about the advice they are giving celebrities.

Dennis Palumbo is a former screenwriter-turned-psychotherapist who works almost exclusively with those in the entertainment industry. He tells his patients that they need to adjust to their new environment by letting themselves “process what a change this is” and learn to deal with it. “I think rather than try to get right back on the horse,” he advises, “I would suggest walking alongside the horse for a week.” Besides being hopelessly vague, and therefore almost useless, this is classic self-help advice. Self-help aficionados, of course, have no need for God.

Dr. Jenn Mann is a psychotherapist and host of VH1’s “Couple’s Therapy” and “Family Therapy.” She can’t bring herself to advise her Hollywood patients to pray—that would be too extreme—but she does come close: meditation is okay. But meditation must have an object. Meditation about what? Given her patients’ subculture of self-absorption, we have a good idea it won’t be about anyone save themselves.

Philip Pierce is a producer and Beverly Hills psychologist and he recommends that his patients “reflect on one’s values, and what is truly meaningful.” Those values, however, are hopelessly secular to begin with, thus doing nothing to alter their condition.

Even those celebrities who have been moved to rethink their relationship with God have a hard time breaking away from their narcissistic condition. For example, Miley Cyrus says the coronavirus pandemic has inspired her to reconsider her rejection of religion.

Hollywood would benefit more if they dashed their therapists for a clergy member.

In 1987, Raymond Donovan, former Secretary of Labor under President Ronald Reagan, was acquitted of charges that he conspired with the mafia for a business transaction. When he walked out of court a free man, he was asked by the media how he felt. He famously quipped, “Which office do I go to get my reputation back?”

The same question is being asked by falsely accused priests, though they don’t garner much attention from the media. Ask yourself this: How many times have you seen an exonerated priest interviewed on TV?

Everyone knows when charges are made against a priest—it’s all over the news—but aside from a few stories about priests whose case has been tossed, there isn’t much interest in detailing what these men have gone through. It’s sexy to report accusations; it’s unattractive to report acquittals.

The following is a list of priests in the first quarter of 2020 whose case was either found to be unsubstantiated by a church review panel or was thrown out by the courts.

• A Valley County, Nebraska jury found Fr. John Kakkuzhiyil not guilty of first-degree sexual assault. He was accused of forcible sexual assault of a woman in 2018. [“Priest Cleared of Sexual Assault,” www.theindependent.com, January 9]
• Two Buffalo priests, Monsignor Peter J. Popadick and Fr. Paul M. Nogaro, were returned to ministry after the Diocese of Buffalo was unable to substantiate allegations of child sexual abuse against them. The accuser refused to cooperate with the diocese. [“2 Buffalo Diocese Priests Accused of Sex Abuse Returned to Ministry,” Buffalo News, January 18]
• Another Buffalo priest, Fr. Roy T. Herberger, sued his accuser for lying about charges of sexual abuse against him (the accuser is suing the diocese but not the priest); the priest is charging him with slander. The alleged offense took place in the 1980s and no charges were made until 2018. The accuser said he was a student at St. Ann School in the mid-1980s, but there is no record he ever attended the school. Herberger said “there is no proof, no evidence, not even an inkling, just an accusation and all of a sudden, people like me are put on the front page of papers, picture, name on television, and I mean, that’s just not fair.” [“Priest Files Defamation Suit Against His Accuser,” Buffalo News, January 23]
• A Kentucky priest, Fr. David Glockner, was accused of inappropriately touching two teenage girls, and had the charges dropped both by an independent investigation by his religious order and a grand jury. [“Northern Kentucky Catholic Priest Cleared of any Wrongdoing,” www.cincinnati.com, February 5]
• Fr. Paul Angelicchio was reinstated by the Diocese of Syracuse after it was determined that charges of sexually abusing a boy in the early 1980s could not be substantiated. The accuser refused to cooperate with the diocese. [“Accused Priest Reinstated by the Diocese,” Post-Standard, February 6]
• In September, 2019, a Wisconsin judge dismissed one of six counts of sexual misconduct against Fr. William A. Nolan, and the jury found him not guilty of the remaining counts. But the Diocese of Madison commenced its own investigation of him and in March, 2020 it deemed all allegations against him not credible. [“Priest Accused of Sex Abuse Cleared by Madison Diocese,” www.gazettextra.com, March 7]
• Fr. Hugh Lang, former schools superintendent of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, had his conviction of February 6 tossed when an Allegheny County judge agreed with a post-sentencing motion filed by his attorney. The initial judge, who was removed from the bench over alleged racist remarks, was found to have erred when he allowed spurious evidence to be used against the priest. [“Ex-Pittsburgh Priest Accused of Sexually Abusing Child Has Conviction Tossed,” www.triblive.com, March 9]
• An independent investigation of an Augustinian priest from Andover, Massachusetts, Fr. Peter Gori, found charges of sexual abuse from 30 years ago to be unsubstantiated. The accuser could not recall details of what happened, and his account was at variance with facts about the priest’s assignment history. The attorney for the accused is Mitchell Garabedian of “Spotlight” fame; he has had previous cases against priests thrown out. [“Andover Priest Reinstated After Sexual Abuse Investigation,” www.bostonglobe, March 30]

Then there is the case of Fr. John Onderko from Illinois. The 83-year-old priest was removed from ministry by the Diocese of Peoria for alleged sexual abuse dating back decades ago. He says he was never told of the accusations, which he denies. He has sued the diocese saying he was denied due process. [“Accused Priest in Rock Island Sues Peoria Diocese,” https://qctimes.com, March 10]

As Ray Donovan put it, how do these priests get their reputation back?

Ronald J. Rychlak

The following article was written by Ronald Rychlak, Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi Law School. He also serves on the Board of Advisers of the  Catholic League.

Rolf Hochhuth has passed away in Germany at the age of 89. He is best known as author of the 1963 play The Deputy (Der Stellvertreter), which first raised serious charges against Pope Pius XII and his leadership of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust. The play tried to make the case that Pius, if not actually pro-Nazi, at least feared Communism more than he feared Hitler.

Prior to the play, Pius had been hailed as a hero to the victims, an inspiration to the rescuers, and as the New York Times editorialized in 1942, “a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent.” After the play, his reputation was that of a silent enabler if not a collaborationist. While the play was fictional, Hochhuth claimed that it was based on “provable facts,” and he appended a text (Sidelights on History) in which he argued that his depiction was justified by the historical record.

 A play was a smart tactic. While numerous holes were poked in the narrative, Hochhuth responded by claiming artistic license and the need to use theatrical devices to advance the story.

 It was not until 2007 that Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking defector from the Soviet intelligence bloc revealed that The Deputy had been crafted, developed, and promoted from inside the Kremlin. After that, closer scrutiny of Hochhuth’s efforts showed that he had worked to discredit Winston Churchill, promote Che Guevara, defend a noted Holocaust denier, and generally support the Soviet line, whatever it might be. His 2004 play McKinsey is Coming, for instance, was seen by many as excusing violence against capitalists.

Hochhuth’s collaborator and life-long friend was the noted Holocaust denier David Irving. In 2005, Irving was arrested in Austria and charged with Holocaust denial. Hochhuth defended his old friend, calling Irving “a fantastic pioneer of current historiography who has written terrific books.” That led newspapers in Germany to label Hochhuth an anti-Semite. The President of the Central Jewish Council in Germany argued that Hochhuth was denying the Holocaust. Hochhuth’s publishing house, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, even cancelled publication of his autobiography.

Hochhuth’s 1967 play, Soldiers, alleged that Winston Churchill ordered the assassination of the Polish Prime Minister in exile, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, with a staged plane crash. The British government tried to stop the play’s production, and that generated great debate about freedom of expression in Britain. It also led actor Carlos Thompson to write The Assassination of Winston Churchill.

Originally intending to defend Hochhuth, Thompson’s book ended up exposing Hochhuth’s shoddy research and ridiculous theories. Thompson revealed a semi-paranoid, “all-too-eager to believe anything he was told” Hochhuth. One chapter, entitled “A sad example of Hochhuth’s methods,” told of the “tangled gyrations of Hochhuth’s thinking” and said his mind worked along “dangerously greased rails.”

When his charges against Churchill were exposed as fraudulent on David Frost’s television program, Hochhuth claimed to have deposited proof in a bank vault to be opened 50 years later. He said, “I know that in fifty years my play will be unassailable.” Fifty years have come and gone. No vaults were opened. Hochhuth’s work is more assailable than ever.

A top-secret 1969 British intelligence report noted various grounds for suspecting “that Hochhuth’s and Irving’s activities are part of a long-term Soviet ‘disinformation’ operation against the West.” Another declassified secret report said: “it can also be argued… that Hochhuth is engaged in some ‘decomposition’ exercise and that he is attempting to destroy the fundamental value of a free society, from its religions to its heroes.” It went on to speculate that Hochhuth “might perhaps be an ‘intellectual agent, writing either on behalf of the East Germans or the Soviets.”

The intelligence officers, like author Carlos Thompson, were trying to understand Hochhuth’s work without knowing about his connections to the Kremlin. Moreover, due to his penchant for litigation (he was notorious), some researchers have been reluctant to publish their discoveries. I was warned about the possibility of litigation when I wrote the second edition of Hitler, the War, and the Pope in 2010. I have always trusted, however, in the protection of writing the truth.

To the best of my knowledge, Hochhuth did not write any new slanders or bring any new lawsuits in the last decade or more of his life. I hope he found peace and made amends for the disinformation that he spread earlier in his career. As Catholics, that is what we should pray for.

The coronavirus pandemic led to thousands of deaths, overrun mortuaries, untold suffering, burnt-out hospital staff, economic hardship, and psychological distress. It also gave millions a time to renew their faith, or come back to it. But is prayer a reliable tonic? Yes. Is there scientific data to back it up? Yes.

One leading researcher, Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School, holds that prayer and general stress management can reduce doctor visits by up to 50 percent. Most patients would agree. In a national survey, it was revealed that 35 percent of respondents used prayer for health concerns; 75 percent of these prayed for wellness, and 22 percent prayed for specific medical conditions. Perhaps most important, 69 percent of those who prayed for specific medical conditions found prayer very helpful. With data like this, it makes moot the convictions of skeptics: what matters is that “Hail Marys” work.

Many of the skeptics, of course, eschew any evidence that does not comport with their view of reality. Dr. Jeff Levin, an epidemiologist and former medical school professor, contends that the “resistance and hostility that some scientists and physicians show to this topic stem, I believe, from an unwillingness to consider explanations that undermine a strictly materialistic worldview.”

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of prayer and better well-being is whether praying for others actually has beneficial consequences. As it turns out, what is called “absent prayer,” or “intercessory prayer,” does yield positive outcomes. When people are asked to pray for a specific person, whom they do not know, but who is suffering from an illness, and the recipient of prayer has no knowledge that this is happening, most of these “double blind” studies show that patients who are prayed for improve better than those patients with the same condition but who did not have anyone pray for them.

One of the earliest and most prominent studies ever done on the health effects of intercessory prayer was conducted by Dr. Randolph C. Byrd in 1988. In a study of 393 people admitted to the coronary care unit at San Francisco General Hospital, the patients were divided into two groups.

Half the group was selected for intercessory prayer by devout Christians, and the other half received no such treatment; the patients were randomly assigned and neither the patients nor the health staff had a clue which was the experiential group and which was the control group. The former fared significantly better than the latter.

Two explanations are possible: praying for others works, or the results were due to chance. However, the odds that this was due to chance were one in 10,000. Those who did the praying were all devout Catholics and Protestants. Dr. Byrd concluded that these findings “suggest intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God had a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU [coronary care unit].”

In a similar study done in 1999 of nearly 1,000 patients in the CCU at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, it was found that those who were unwittingly prayed for fared better than those who got conventional care alone. In 1998, similar conclusions were reached with AIDS patients in a study published in the Western Journal of Medicine: those who were prayed for did better than their non-prayed for counterparts.

Numerous scientific studies have found that prayer lowers depression and suicide rates. It even lowers blood pressure.

There was a big study published in 2006 of 1,800 patients that did not confirm what these other studies found. It was led by Dr. Benson so it cannot be dismissed. The patients were broken up into three groups: two were prayed for and the third was not. Half the patients were told they were being prayed for, and half were told they might receive prayers. This time the researchers found no difference between the various groups.

In 2007, however, a new study published by a professor from Arizona State University found the prayer had positive effects. It is an important study because it was a comprehensive analysis of 17 major studies on the effects of intercessory prayer.

The author, David R. Hodge, explained its significance. “This study enables us to look at the big picture. When the effects of prayer are averaged across all 17 studies, controlling for differences in sample size, a net positive effect for the prayer group is produced.”

In other words, most studies done on the efficacy of intercessory prayer show the power of prayer—it works.

We should expect scientists to rigorously assess the data from all studies, regardless of what the subject is. That is their job. But we should also expect them to be open-minded enough to say that some findings cannot be easily explained. With a little prayer, maybe they can figure it out.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a letter issued on behalf of the bishops’ conference on the subject of pornography:

On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop Paul Coakley and Bishop David Konderla recently wrote to U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr asking him to vigorously enforce the obscenity laws. They also called upon him to launch an “investigation of pornography producers and website owners for criminality.”

“The current pandemic is exacting a heavy and widespread emotional, social, and financial toll in our communities,” the bishops said. They warned that “virtually unchecked proliferation of pornography fuels the demand that frequently results in commercial sexual exploitation.”

The bishops also noted that today’s unlimited supply of pornography “has led users to seek more and more extreme videos,” the result being an uptick in trafficking, child pornography and related problems. Finally, they raised concerns about the effects of pornography on “healthy human intimacy and relationships.”

As a sociologist who has written on this subject before, I can testify that everything the bishops said is accurate; it is amply supported by the data.

Researchers from Dartmouth studied the impact that sex on the screen has on teenagers. The study was based on nearly seven hundred popular films, all of which featured sexual content. The psychologists concluded that the more teenagers are exposed to sex on the screen, the more likely they are to be sexually active. “Adolescents who are exposed to more sexual content in movies start having sex at younger ages, have more sexual partners, and are less likely to use condoms with casual sexual partners.”

Ten years ago, an eye-opening report on pornography was issued by scholars representing several religions; agnostics and atheists were also included. The Social Costs of Pornography concluded that today’s internet brand of pornography was qualitatively different from what was available in the past. They particularly cited the harm done to women and children, and how it undermines marital and other intimate relationships.

What the bishops said, then, was good advice. Unfortunately, not everyone is as concerned about “commercial sexual exploitation” as the bishops are. Some are even okay with hooking up online. One of those persons is Dr. Anthony Fauci.

On April 14, 2020, he was asked the following question on Snapchat’s “Good Luck America.” “If you’re swiping on a dating app like Tinder, or Bumble or Grindr, and you match with someone that you think is hot, and you’re just kind of like, ‘Maybe it’s fine if this one stranger comes over.’ What do you say to that person?”

Here is Fauci’s response. “If you’re willing to take the risk—and you know, everybody has their own tolerance for risks—you could figure out if you want to meet somebody.” He concluded, “If you want to go a little bit more intimate, well, then that’s your choice regarding risk.”

This is the same man who made a name for himself seeking to combat AIDS, so he should have learned something about the consequences of anonymous sex. Just as important, he is the same man who tells us not to shake hands with people, and to stay six feet away from each other. Unless, it now appears, we are having sex with someone we met online.

The bishops make more sense. They have a more mature, and healthy, perspective about the human condition.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on anti-Catholic bigotry that surfaced over the weekend on TV: 

A new Gallup poll shows that coronavirus has led more Americans to deepen their faith. But judging from what aired on TV over the weekend, it is evident that the pandemic has done nothing to stop hate speech directed at Catholics.

Bill Maher has a long history of anti-Catholic bigotry, and as bad as he is, no anti-Catholic in public life is more vulgar than homosexual buffoon Dan Savage. Maher invited this “intrinsically disordered” man on his show this past Friday.

Many normal people have no idea what a “glory hole” is, so please don’t be offended by the description offered here (it is necessary otherwise the offensive remark may not make any sense).

Homosexual perverts specialize in anonymous sex in many places, and among them are public bathrooms. They like to carve a hole in the stalls so they can place their erect penis in it hoping for oral sex. They call these “glory holes.”

Savage and Maher were discussing people having sex during the quarantine when Savage let loose. “I was going to predict the golden age of glory holes might return because initial tests show there wasn’t a virus in semen or vaginal secretions. If you can carve a hole in the wall and power wash that hole between uses, you can have sex that way and glory holes will come roaring back and it won’t be just for creepy closeted priests in truck stops anymore.”

“Family Guy” is an animated show created by gay rights activist Seth MacFarlane. Last night’s episode depicted cartoon characters at the Last Supper. Peter (who played Jesus) said, “Here’s the bread. Now everybody listen up. Take this, and eat it. It’s supposed to be, like, my body.” To which Quagmire (playing an apostle) says, “Ew, what part?” Peter: “I’m not gonna say what part, but you’re supposed to eat it while kneeling.”

These men are more than deranged. And their corporate sponsors are just as sick. 

Contact for Dan Savage: mail@savagelove.net

Contact for “Family Guy”: Marissa.Deems@fox.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest example of media bias (the following are all internet stories):

“More than 12,000 Catholic Churches in the U.S. Applied for PPP Loans—and 9,000 Got Them” (cbsnews)

“9,000 Catholic Churches Received PPP Loans Meant for Small Business” (drudgereport)

“Thousands of Catholic Churches Received PPP Loans: Report” (thehill)

“Almost Half of All Catholic Churches in the US Were Given Small Business Loans as Part of Coronavirus Emergency Funding” (thesun)

“More than 12,000 Catholic churches in the US Applied for Federal Small Business Relief Loans” (dailymail)

All of these media outlets evince an anti-Catholic bias. The first to do so was CBS; others followed. As often happens, the bias is in the headline, not the story.

Take the CBS News story. The first few paragraphs focus exclusively on Catholic churches which have received federal funds, but then it mentions that Protestant and Jewish houses of worship have received funding as well.

So why did CBS give the impression, in its headline, that Catholic churches were the only ones benefiting? Alternatively, why didn’t it offer, for example, the following headline: “Mosques in the U.S. Applied for PPP Loans—and Many Got Them”? And why did Drudge falsely suggest that Catholic churches managed to get money not targeted for them?

Some media outlets were responsible.

“PPP Loan Applicant Poll Includes Thousands of Churches” (nbcsandiego)

“Many Houses of Worship Have Sought Government Aid” (npr)

It’s not as though the biased media stories were unaware of the federal government explicitly stating that houses of worship were eligible for relief under the Small Business Administration guidelines—CBS actually published an excerpt from them.

It is common practice in the media for someone other than the reporter to write the headline. This needs to stop. It is what causes sensationalistic and often biased headlines. If the reporter writes the headline, it is more likely to accurately reflect the story. In addition, readers would know who is to blame when wildly inaccurate headlines are published.

Contact Christa Robinson, Senior VP Communications at CBS: robinsonc@cbsnews.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on President Trump’s record on religious liberty:

Cardinal Timothy Dolan was recently criticized for speaking positively about President Trump’s record on religious liberty (he has not hesitated to criticize him on other issues), and I was only too happy to answer them.

I have a challenge to Dolan’s critics. Read the attached and then provide evidence that President Obama outdid Trump on this score. I would love to see it.

Trump is fair game for criticism on many issues, but when it comes to the defense of religious liberty, he is more Catholic than JFK was.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Cardinal Dolan’s critics:

Cardinal Timothy Dolan is the source of one of the most unprincipled and well-orchestrated attacks against a bishop to surface in many years. The politics that underscore the campaign are palpable.

The trigger for this onslaught was a conference call that 600 Catholic educators had with President Trump on April 24. The president asked Cardinal Dolan to begin the exchange; the New York archbishop obliged. Days later Dolan appeared on “Fox and Friends” and took the opportunity to praise the president for his outreach to the Catholic community and for what he has done to promote religious liberty.

This is pretty standard stuff. The president of the United States wants to curry favor with religious leaders and religious leaders want to curry favor with the president. They both have something to gain by coming together, at least on some issues. Conversely, both parties have much to lose if they decide not to play ball. Grownups understand how this works. Indeed, many bishops (including Cardinal Dolan) did not hesitate to praise President Obama, even though they disagreed strongly on some key issues.

Some of Dolan’s critics are not grownups—they are hopelessly naïve— hence their inability to process these events. Most of them are worse: they are simply duplicitous. No matter, they have their friends in secular circles covering for them.

“Progressive Catholics and others who want to keep their church out of politics were dismayed” [by Dolan’s cordiality]. This gem is courtesy of National Public Radio. The truth is that nothing makes progressive Catholics happier than when they are politicizing the Church. What they object to are instances when their politics are not being adopted.

Two columnists from the National Catholic Reporter, a publication that openly rejects the Church’s teachings on marriage, the family, sexuality, priestly celibacy, ordination, and other issues, were first out of the box to criticize Dolan. They were followed by a reporter for America magazine, a Jesuit publication whose theological meanderings have drawn the attention of the Vatican. Then came the letter to Dolan lecturing him on putting “access to power before principles.”

Talk about calling the kettle black. Those who signed the letter, at least those who have a public name, are not known for their principled fidelity to the Church’s teachings on an array of issues, most of them dealing with sexuality.

The letter campaign was funded by the number-one enemy of the Catholic Church: George Soros. The atheist billionaire funds John Gehring’s Faith in Public Life, and the letter to Dolan was written on the organization’s letterhead. Gehring was the first to sign it. It does not speak well for the Catholic signatories that they allowed themselves to be used by Soros.

Soros funds dozens of organizations, both nationally and internationally, that have attacked the Catholic Church. They range from Catholics for Choice, an anti-Catholic front group with no members, to a host of pro-abortion entities.

In 2012, I outed Gehring when he sought to manipulate the media against the bishops. In a document that was leaked to me, Gehring sent a memo to reporters on June 7 instructing them how to frame their questions to the bishops concerning their “Fortnight for Freedom” initiative, a religious-liberty series of events. For example, he recommended they ask, “Are you willing to sacrifice Catholic charities, colleges and hospitals if you don’t get your way on the contraceptive mandate?” Once I unmasked Gehring, the bishops ripped him in a long statement.

Gehring previously worked for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (perversely, he also worked for the bishops’ conference). It was a dummy Catholic front group, funded by Soros, that was created by John Podesta. Wikileaks disclosed that Podesta launched this group so they could infiltrate the Church and ultimately undermine it. This was part of the “Catholic Spring” revolution sought by the enemies of the Catholic Church.

Sister Simone Campbell was next to sign the letter. She showed how principled she was when she spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention supporting President Obama’s Health and Human Services mandate: it required Catholic non-profits to pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans. Campbell is also on record saying abortion should not be illegal—she would never say this about racial discrimination—and more recently she has thrown her support behind the Equality Act, the most anti-religious liberty piece of legislation ever written.

Sister Pat McDermott, President of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, is the third name listed on the letter. She proudly defended Sister Margaret Farley when the Vatican concluded that her book on sexuality contradicted the Church’s teachings; the nuns are big fans of gay marriage.

Another signatory, Father Bryan Massingale, is so wedded to the gay rights movement that he gave a talk in 2017 on this subject before New Ways Ministry. It is a rogue Catholic entity that has been condemned by senior bishops in the United States, as well as the Vatican, for its promotion of homosexuality. He teaches at Fordham, a Jesuit school where the chairman of the department of theology claims to be married to his boyfriend.

The latest attack on Cardinal Dolan is from Sam Sawyer, a Jesuit who works at America. He is in anguish. Dolan’s comments have caused “actual pain,” “fear,” and “suffering.” Wow! His threshold for pain must be quite low. Either that or he is playing us.

Sawyer is unhappy that Dolan and other bishops on the call “did not challenge the president or voice reservations about his policies.” He brands this a “pastoral failure,” and is particularly piqued at Dolan for the manner in which he made his remarks (they were too cheery).

Here is what America said in 2009 when some Catholics, including bishops, reacted negatively to the news that President Obama was invited to speak at the University of Notre Dame. “If the president is forced to withdraw, will that increase cooperation between the Catholic Church and the Administration, or will it create mounting tensions and deepening hostility?” Sounds like they wanted our side to play ball. So why the double standard?

In a plea to be realistic, the editorial said, “Taking account of what serves the greater good of the mission of the church is not opportunism. It is what Catholic tradition calls prudence.” Well said. But why wouldn’t this apply to Dolan as well?

“The bishops and the president serve the same citizens of the same country. It is in the interests of both the church and the nation if both work together in civility, honesty and friendship for the common good, even where there are grave divisions, as there are on abortion.” Why doesn’t this principled stand apply to Dolan?

Here’s my favorite. The editorial says that “it does not improve the likelihood of making progress on this and other issues of common concern if we adopt the clenched fist approach.” That is exactly what all of these critics are doing—adopting a “clenched fist approach” to President Trump, hammering Dolan for not punching back.

When Pope Francis came to the U.S. in 2015, he made an impassioned speech to some 300 U.S. bishops. He implored them to “face [the] challenging issues of our time,” hastening to add that they refrain from using “harsh and divisive language.” He understood that if the bishops are going to participate in the public square, they need to do so without alienating those they seek to persuade.

A conference call is not the right place to settle differences. That can be done in other settings. Those who run organizations know this to be true. Those who opine for a living haven’t a clue.

Bill In The News (Breitbart):

Catholic League president Bill Donohue has decried a coordinated left-wing attack on the project of the U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights in an attempt to downgrade religious freedom and elevate LGBT and “reproductive” rights.

Dozens of international left-wing organizations “recently signed a statement lecturing the U.S. State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights,” Dr. Donohue noted, including “the Center for Reproductive Rights, Human Rights Watch, and the International Women’s Health Coalition.” READ MORE HERE