Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the HBO film, “The New Pope,” which starts tonight:

HBO previously treated us to “The Young Pope,” and tonight it is ready to roll out its new mini-series, “The New Pope.”

We have been tracking what the New York Times and the Washington Post have been saying about the Catholic Church for decades, and it will shock no one to learn that they are not exactly our biggest fans. More proof was offered today with the reviews of the first episode of “The New Pope.” What they said tells us as much about them as it does HBO, another media outlet that likes to stick it to the Church.

Here are some excerpts from Mike Hale’s review in the New York Times:

• “The initial series ended with Pius XIII, the beautiful young pope [Jude] Law embodies, collapsing just as he appeared to find his faith.”
• “‘The New Pope’ begins nine months later with Pius in a coma….Our first sight is a naked Pius receiving a sponge bath from a trembling young nun. She gazes at the small cloth covering the papal package, then lies down while the camera pulls in on her Vermeer-like visage.”
• The film deals with “the real-world issues that dog the church—pedophilia scandals, retrograde attitudes toward homosexuality, lousy treatment of women.”
• “Opening credits play over recurring scenes of cloistered nuns shrugging off their shapeless smocks and dancing before a towering neon cross.”
• “[Cécile] De France, as the church’s image director, and [Ludivine] Sagnier, as a woman closely connected to Pius, are consigned to subsidiary and often half-clothed roles. In a particularly risible conjuration of the virgin-whore paradigm, Sagnier’s Esther slides into prostitution to the sound of ‘Ave Maria.'”
• “Among the men, Law’s Pius is a silent presence through much of the season and [John] Malkovich’s John Paul is mostly sad-eyed and mopey. Malkovich makes the ennui pretty consistently amusing, especially in a scene in which a star-struck John Paul gets to meet Sharon Stone (playing herself), complete with sophomoric ‘Basic Instinct’ joke.”
• “And the real theme of ‘The New Pope,’ as it tracks the machinations of the small circle of cardinals and laypeople who operate behind the papal skirts, is not philosophy or God but the exercise of power. It has strong elements of workplace sitcom, but it even more closely resembles another venerable genre: the Mafia movie.”

Here are some excerpts of Hank Stuever’s review in the Washington Post:

• The film is “filled with forbidden delights, such as the sight of young nuns disrobing and dancing to this season’s throbbing new theme song (‘Good Time Girl’ by Sofi Tukker featuring Charlie Barker, one of many ace picks on the show’s playlist) as their cloister house pulses with colorful strobes. Their superior—a cigar-chomping little person in full habit—dances her own jig.”
• “The director is similarly committed to conveying church corruption as something one senses rather than reveals, picking up on visual cues that range from the awkward to the sinfully repugnant to outright garnish and menacing, all set against extravagant interiors and exquisite exteriors.”
• “Though [Cardinal Angelo] Voiello aspires to be the next pope, the college of cardinals elects an easily intimidated Franciscan, who names himself Francis II and immediately goes on a power trip, bringing in a troop of enforcer monks to liquidate the Vatican’s wealth and give it all to the poor. Small wonder, then, that he mysteriously drops dead.”
• “John Paul muddles through an agenda that seems primarily focused on meeting his favorite celebrities. These include Marilyn Manson, playing himself, a rock star so out of touch he has no idea who or what the pope is, and Sharon Stone, also appearing in a brief cameo as herself. (Stone tells the pope that it’s time for the church to approve same-sex marriage. ‘Can’t the Bible be upgraded?’ she asks.”)

No one at the Catholic League will be watching. That’s because we’ll be tuned in to the LSU-Clemson game. No doubt the giddy crowd will be watching.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a bill that targets the Confessional seal:

Utah Rep. Angela Romero, a Democrat, is sponsoring a bill that would gut the seal of Confession. She maintains that it is necessary because priests learn of the sexual abuse of minors in confession and do not report this to the authorities.

I wrote to Rep. Romero today asking her some pointed questions. To read my letter click here. We are contacting all of her colleagues in the Utah legislature.

It would be great if you contacted the Speaker of the House, Rep. Brad R. Wilson, a Republican, to express your concerns about Romero’s bill. If Romero hears from you, she may not want to tell her colleagues of all the correspondence she is receiving, but if the Speaker hears from you, it is not likely that your voice will be ignored.

Contact: bradwilson@le.utah.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a video that seeks to divide Christians:

George Conway, the man whom no one would know of were it not for his successful wife, hates President Trump. Few care. But we do care when his mania seeks to drive a wedge between Catholics and evangelicals. That is exactly what his latest video attempts to do.

The Lincoln Project, of which Conway is a part, has posted a video online that portrays evangelicals as hypocrites for backing such an un-Christian man like President Trump. There is one part of the video—all the clips are spliced together in classic out-of-context form—that is particularly offensive. It implies that Trump (who was a presidential candidate at the time) called the pope a “pussy.” He never did.

On February 18, 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump said the following about Pope Francis: “I respect the pope, and I love the pope in many ways. I love what he stands for, and I like his attitude. He’s very independent, and he’s very different. He’s sort of a modern day pope if you think about it.”

Later that same day, Pope Francis was interviewed by reporters on the papal plane. A reporter from Reuters misrepresented Trump’s position on immigration, and then asked the pope “if an American Catholic can vote for someone like this.” The pope replied, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” He added an important caveat, saying, “I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that…and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.” (My italics.)

In the video, it shows Trump’s reply to what the media portrayed as an attack on him by the pope. Here is that part of the video.

Trump: “The pope would have only wished and prayed…”

Rev. Ramiro Peña: “Thank you, sir, for uniting our Nation and
calling us to prayer…”

Trump: “that Donald Trump would have been president…”

Rev. Robert Jeffress: “I think the pope needs to seek Donald
Trump’s forgiveness.”

Trump: “He’s a pussy.”

The video makes it seem as though Trump said this about the pope. He did not. It is a vicious lie. [Note: At the time, I criticized Jeffress for what he said, and I also criticized Sean Hannity for agreeing with Jeffress on his show.]

Here is what Trump said at the time: “If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened.”

This is an entirely different understanding of what the two men said. Inexcusably, it has been cruelly manipulated by Conway to slam the president. But if that is all it did, it would not interest the Catholic League. What angers us is the deliberate attempt to drive a wedge between Catholics and evangelicals.

The video suggests that Trump used a vulgar term to describe the pope, which he never did (in point of fact, Trump’s comment was actually a restatement of what a woman said about Sen. Ted Cruz at a rally).

This kind of propaganda—it is vintage Catholic baiting—by George Conway tells us much about the man. He wants Catholics to think that Trump insulted the pope, thus driving them away from the president’s evangelical supporters. The man must be desperate to stoop this low.

Contact Conway at his law firm: GTConway@wlrk.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an article that questions the Catholic Church’s strategy in handling abuse claims:

On January 8, Bloomberg News published a lengthy article by Josh Saul titled, “The Catholic Church’s Strategy to Limit Payouts to Abuse Victims.” While much of what he said is not questionable, the unstated premise deserves a response: the piece suggests that somehow it is unseemly of the Catholic Church to limit its exposure to abuse claims.

Saul notes that various dioceses have pursued different means of protecting their assets from being raided by alleged victims and their lawyers. He offers an example of what happened in Milwaukee when the archbishop there, now Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, moved $57 million into a trust for maintaining cemeteries.

It is true that monies from a perpetual care fund, which had been in archdiocesan accounts, were moved to a trust for the purpose of caring for the cemeteries. The Finance Council encouraged him to do so. When this was contested in the courts, Dolan won. End of story.

It would be instructive if Saul were to tell readers which institutions—secular as well as religious—refuse to limit their liability when they are sued. Moreover, does he, or anyone at Bloomberg, know of any individual or family that doesn’t try to minimize their risk?

Come to think of it, are we to believe that when Saul’s boss, Michael Bloomberg is sued (or one of his endless holdings) that he doesn’t try to limit his exposure to liability? Of course he does—he buys the best lawyers money can buy to protect his wealth. Why shouldn’t he?

The article begins with the usual error: it talks about pedophile priests. Wrong. Most of the abusers were homosexuals. This is indisputable.

The second error is saying that “victims and their families” were “intimidated or shamed into silence,” which is why they signed confidentiality agreements. No doubt some were. But many insisted on confidentiality. Saul never mentions this. Nor does he mention the fact that unlike Hollywood molesters, the Church has had a ban on such agreements for many years.

Here is something else Saul never mentioned, and with good reason: it reflects badly on Bloomberg (see the January 7 article on this subject published by businessinsider.com).

In October, 2019, a former Bloomberg LP employee who alleges she was discriminated against, asked the court to invalidate her non-disclosure agreement. In December, her lawyer went further, asking New York Supreme Court to void all confidentiality agreements for similarly situated employees. The complaint says Bloomberg LP fraudulently coerced employees to sign these agreements, maintaining they were vague, misleading, and strewn with errors and omissions.

Why hasn’t Michael Bloomberg seen to it that confidentiality agreements are banned, the way they are in the Catholic Church? Is he acting ethically if he pays blue chip lawyers to fight for his right to maintain hush-money settlements?

Like many practicing Catholics, I contribute to my parish, as well as to my diocese. When my diocese is hit with a lawsuit for past cases of abuse—most of the molesting priests are either dead or out of ministry—I want justice done. That means reasonable compensation for victims. It does not mean breaking the bank.

Therefore, any legal tactic that the diocese can use to limit its liability, is entirely justified. Not to do so would be to punish those who are counting on diocesan funding today (many of whom are sick, disabled, or poor) so that lawyers can skim a third of the cash right off the top for old cases of abuse.

As usual, it is the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church alone, that is under the microscope of reporters. We know why.

Contact Joel Weber, Bloomberg Businessweek Editor: jweber66@bloomberg.net

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on lawsuits filed against the Boy Scouts of America:

Several states have passed laws suspending the statute of limitations for crimes involving the sexual abuse of minors; they provide for a look-back period, usually 1-3 years, where offenses that previously were time barred can be filed. In those states that have not passed such laws, attorneys for Boy Scout victims filed a lawsuit yesterday in federal court in Washington, D.C. seeking to establish the nation’s capital as a legitimate venue for such suits.

The lawyers are taking a novel approach: the Boy Scouts of America were incorporated in D.C. in 1910, and six years later it received a congressional charter there. Ergo, D.C. should qualify as a proper venue to hear a national case against the Boy Scouts. Will it work? No one knows.

Leaving this atypical case aside, the larger question is: Why are the Boy Scouts the subject of a wave of new lawsuits? Many would say it is because the suspension of the statute of limitations allows the suits to be filed. That is true. Still, why are the Boy Scouts being hit so hard? There is no avalanche of lawsuits against the public schools, even in states where they are subject to being sued under new laws.

The reason the Boy Scouts are being sued is the same reason why the Catholic Church is being hit with a flood of new lawsuits: both are bastions of traditional morality.

In the summer of 2000, six Boy Scouts and one adult leader walked on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. They were roundly booed by delegates and some held signs expressing their displeasure. These homosexual activists and supporters were unhappy with Boy Scout rules prohibiting homosexual Scouts and leaders.

The pressure was enormous and eventually the Boy Scouts caved. In 2013, homosexual scouts were allowed, and in 2015 so were homosexual leaders. In 2017, girls who considered themselves to be boys were welcomed.

The Boy Scouts, like the Catholic Church, are a rich target. The first Scout Oath, published in 1911, required boys to pledge that they would be “morally straight.” This was considered unexceptional until the dawn of the gay rights movement: ever since it has been seen as a dog whistle to bar homosexuals.

Ironically, just as in the case of the Catholic Church, the typical victimizer in the Boy Scouts was not a pedophile—he was a homosexual. This, of course, is almost never acknowledged. In fact, in the lawsuit attempting to establish Washington, D.C. as a proper venue to file suits, it accuses the Boy Scouts of acting as “magnets to tens of thousands of pedophiles.” In truth, homosexuals infiltrated the Boy Scouts, not pedophiles.

It is worth noting that there has never been a wave of lawsuits charging the Girl Scouts with sexual abuse. That is because the leaders, being women, rarely commit sexual crimes against minors. It must also be said that in the case of the Boy Scouts, it was not heterosexual men who created the problem. Moreover, the relative scarcity of heterosexual pedophiles—they are disproportionately homosexual—is another telling factor that is generally overlooked.

This is perverse. Those who are mostly responsible for these crimes in the Catholic Church and in the Boy Scouts are the very ones being given a pass. We don’t need, nor should we desire, witch hunts. What we need is a commitment to the truth and the prudential exercise of reforms. To do that, however, requires fortitude, a cardinal virtue that is unfortunately in short supply.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on how WTSP St. Petersburg responded to our news release yesterday:

On January 6, we issued a news release on WTSP, the CBS affiliate in St. Petersburg, for posting on its website a misleading headline in a story about a Protestant bishop charged with battering a child. The headline said, “‘It’s Disheartening’: Former Catholic Church Abuse Victim Says Local Bishop Could Have More Victims.” In the story, mention was made of a Catholic man who says he was abused 50 years ago. No Catholic bishop had anything to do with this story.

We are happy to report that after giving our readers the email address of Kelly Frank at WTSP, the station issued an apology. Here is the reply.

“After reading the headline and the story, we have added language to the headline and provided a clarification to make it clear that while the alleged victim we spoke to was a member of the Catholic Church, the Bishop in question represented a non-denominational church. We regret this omission and apologize for it.”

Good for WTSP. It is always better to remedy a wrong and apologize for making it than to stonewall your critics.

Thanks to all of those who made their voice heard. Unless you follow through, progress will not be made. We can’t do this by ourselves.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a story that recently aired on a CBS affiliate in Florida:

On January 3, the CBS affiliate in St. Petersburg, Florida, WTSP, posted on its website a news story that read, “Former Sarasota Bishop Charged with Sexually Battering Child.” It was about a former bishop at the Westcoast Center for Human Development in Sarasota; he was arrested and charged with battering a child.

We have no problem with that story. But we do have a problem with a similar story on this bishop that was posted the next day. It was titled, “‘It’s Disheartening’: Former Catholic Church Abuse Victim Says Local Bishop Could Have More Victims.”

In fact, there was no Catholic bishop charged with sexual abuse—it was the same Protestant bishop mentioned in the first story. The story began by stating that this bishop was “behind bars.” Then—out of nowhere—it says that sexual abuse is happening across the country, citing a man who says he was abused 50 years ago by a Catholic priest.

The headline was totally dishonest. Furthermore, mentioning that a Catholic priest victimized someone a half-century ago was as gratuitous as it was scurrilous.

Something broke down. How could this CBS affiliate get it right the first day and then take cheap shots at the Catholic Church the next day—in a story unrelated to the bishop?

It would be like doing a story on a current reporter from a Sarasota newspaper charged with sexual misconduct, and then adding a story about a former WTSP reporter who was accused of a sexual offense 50 years ago, mentioning WTSP in the headline!

This was not a mistake. It was deliberate.

Contact Kelly Frank, Director of Content: kfrank@wtsp.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest attack by the Associated Press (AP) on the Catholic Church:

Something is going on at AP that needs to stop. There is a concerted effort on the part of this American wire service to smear the Catholic Church. This is the third time in the past three months that AP has unfairly slammed the Church on the subject of clergy sexual abuse.

In October, AP was critical of the Church for not keeping tabs on priests removed from ministry—as if other institutions monitor the behavior of their former sex offenders. In November, it published anecdotal stories—with no summary evidence—of some Catholics who were unhappy with their diocese for the way it investigated cases of alleged abuse.

Never once did it report that this problem is almost non-existent in the Catholic Church today: the stories are all about dead priests or those who were kicked out of the priesthood. Now it is back again, with another installment of its “investigation.”

“Church Offers Little Outreach to Minority Victims of Priests.” That is the title of the story it released over the weekend. AP put three reporters on this non-story: they could not come up with one statistic to prove their point that somehow the Church treats minority victims different from non-minority victims.

Even the anecdotes the reporters roll out don’t support their thesis. No one claimed that he was treated differently because of his minority status. Didn’t an editor catch this? Embarrassing.

It begins with a lie: the reporters say “the church has done little to identify and reach sexual abuse victims.” It must be thinking about the public schools. In fact, no institution has established independent compensation programs for alleged victims, asking them to come forward with their story, other than the Catholic Church; many dioceses have followed the lead of the Archdiocese of New York.

The reporters follow up with an accusation that is hollow. They claim that there is no “concerted outreach” to minority victims. That’s right. Like every institution in the nation, the Church does not employ bean counters, or play identity politics, in its handling of sexual misconduct.

If AP is unhappy with the Catholic Church for not collecting data on the racial and ethnic profile of alleged victims, perhaps it can open its own books to the public showing how it keeps racial and ethnic data on its miscreants.

Then the story gets worse. It quotes some professor from Case Western Reserve University, Brian Clites, who is supposedly an expert on this subject (I never heard of him). He says the Church has a practice of shipping predator priests to poor minority neighborhoods. What evidence did this “leading scholar on clergy sexual abuse” provide? None. It was his unsupported opinion.

As it turns out, there is a reason why no one knows who this guy is. Clites is not a “leading scholar” of anything. He has never published a book on any subject. Type his name in the Amazon search engine under “books” and up pops, “Did you mean brian clothes?”

That’s how well known this “leading scholar” is. Oh, yes, there is a listing for him at Case Western and it says he is working on his first book (about alleged victims). Didn’t an editor catch this? Embarrassing.

There is something sinister going on at AP. It is cherry picking the Catholic Church, turning up nothing but old cases of abuse and inane “findings” like the one it just published.

Maybe the managing editor can explain what their game is.

Contact Brian Carovillano: bcarovillano@ap.org

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on reaction to Pope Francis’ altercation with a woman on New Year’s Eve as he walked a line of greeters:

The pope slapped an Asian woman twice on the hand and walked away in a fit of anger. That much is indisputable. Why he did it and what it means is a matter of debate. The Vatican attributed his reaction to being grabbed by the woman as she sought to shake his hand, causing “a shooting pain.”

The larger issue here is the way many in the media treated the pope’s reaction, and how they typically respond when the source of controversy is Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Benedict is rarely given the benefit of doubt when a controversy arises.

Claire Giangravé wrote a piece for Religion News Service noting the Holy Father apologized for “being grumpy.” The Vatican never indicated that he was grumpy on New Year’s Eve, or that he reacts intemperately when he is.

AFP, the French news agency, blamed the pope’s bodyguards—they should have been more vigilant.

Several commentators blamed the woman.

Dave Armstrong at Patheos said her reaching out to him with both arms was “shocking and staggering.”

International Business Times said the pope’s violent reaction was very “human.”

The Guardian said “the woman would not let go and in a gesture that appeared to cause him pain, he slapped at her hand before pulling his hand free.”

John Allen at Crux blamed the Asian woman as well. He said “it was the grasping woman rather than the pope” who was guilty. He also blamed the pope’s ethnicity, saying “the revelation that an 83-year-old Argentinean male has a temper wasn’t exactly a thunderclap.”

Why is it okay for those on the Left, who are the masters of identity politics, to blame a woman of color while using as exculpatory the pope’s alleged machismo upbringing?

There is a game going on here. We have the good pope, Francis, and the bad pope, Benedict. This is currently being played out on the big screen. Those who have reviewed “The Two Popes” have noted the unfair nature of the contrasting portrayals. This includes Commonweal, Bishop Robert Barron, First Things, the Washington Post, and Vanity Fair.

This is nothing new. On March 3, 2014, I published an op-ed ad in the New York Times titled, “Happy Anniversary Holy Father.” On the day of Pope Francis’ first year anniversary, March 13, I mentioned the Catholic League’s tribute to him in a news release. But I also took the opportunity to comment on the way the media were treating Francis and his predecessor.

“What is particularly odious is the increasing tendency of agenda-ridden Catholics to trash Pope Benedict XVI, as well as Blessed Pope John Paul II: this is done so that their inflated image of Pope Francis stands in sharp contrast to Benedict and John Paul II. What they hope to achieve is a sense of momentum—things are moving their way and we need to get in line. Their goal is as transparent as it is dishonest.

“The Catholic League loves all three popes, and we implore everyone to give due recognition to their very different strengths. But to those who constantly look at the world through a political lens, there are good popes (Francis) and bad ones (his predecessors). This is a jaundiced view of reality, and it is unfair to all of them.”

Looks like nothing has changed. There needs to be one level playing field, inside the Church, as well as outside.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds to the Detroit Free Press editor regarding his reply to our news release of January 2:

Here is what Detroit Free Press editor Peter Bhatia wrote in reply to our news release:

Thanks for your e-mail. However, the allegations made by Dr. Donohue are completely without merit. The story was responsible, deeply reported and factual, reporting on a difficult situation that has arisen over time in Catholic boys’ schools here. Take the time to read the story and I think you will see it is fair. To borrow a phrase from Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Dr. Donohue is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Peter Bhatia
Editor and Vice President, Detroit Free Press and freep.com
Great Lakes regional editor (Michigan and Ohio), USA TODAY Network

Here is Bill Donohue’s reply:

Mr. Bhatia’s reply is flatulent. He says the story’s facts are accurate. That was not my point, and he knows it. My point was that this was a contrived non-story with disjointed accounts spliced together to put a bad face on the Catholic Church. I even gave as an analogue how this might play out if the target were African Americans. His dodge is further proof of the dishonesty and juvenile journalism of the Detroit Free Press.