Catholic human rights champion, Jimmy Lai, has been “found” guilty by a three-judge Hong Kong court— there was no jury—of conspiring to endanger national security and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. The 78-year old journalist and businessman had spent over four years in solitary confinement for “destabilizing” the ruling party.

Judge Esther Toh said, “There is no doubt” that Lai “had harbored his resentment and hatred of China for many of his adult years.” Wrong. His resentment and hatred were aimed at the Communist Party, not the country or its people.

The Beijing-led crackdown on protests in 2019 against the Hong Kong regime was criticized by the now defunct Apple Daily newspaper, founded by Lai in 1995; ever since he has been in the crosshairs of the Communist Party. His participation in the Tiananmen Square vigil in 2020—to commemorate the freedom fighters who died there in 1989— also angered the Communists.

Beh Lih Yi, the Asia-Pacific director of the Committee to Protect Journalism, said the verdict was a “sham conviction,” a sentiment echoed by many international human rights organizations. Lai had been nominated for a Noble Peace Prize several times.

There was no way Lai was going to be found innocent. What sealed his fate began years ago when the Chinese Communists took control of Hong Kong in 1997. They promised civil liberties for 50 years, but only someone hopelessly naïve was inclined to believe them. After all, this is the same political party that had murdered tens of millions of its own people under Mao Zedong. They do not take kindly to dissent.

Lai converted to Catholicism in 1997 and was baptized by Cardinal Joseph Zen. The Chinese prelate, who was at the courthouse, has been very critical of the Catholic Church’s response to the plight of Catholics in China, saving his harshest comments for Pope Francis. Zen has stood by Lai for many years.

Wall Street Journal journalist Bill McGurn, who is godfather to Lai, has called the Vatican’s approach a “disaster.” Similarly, Benjamin Rogers, co-founder of Hong Kong Watch, accused Pope Francis of turning a blind eye to what is going on in China. He maintains that the leader of China, Xi Jinping, “wants the Catholic Church to kowtow to the Marxist-Leninist Chinese Communist Party regime.”

In October, Pope Leo XIV greeted Lai’s wife and daughter after the general audience in St. Peter’s Square, but it is not known if the new pope is planning to make a public statement about this matter.

While in custody, Lai was routinely denied the Eucharist. But nothing broke his will. He once told the judges that “[At] the end of the day, the truth will come out in the kingdom of heaven, in the kingdom of God, and that’s good enough for me.”

Keep Jimmy Lai in your prayers. He is not in good health and will be sentenced January 12. He faces life imprisonment.

As 2025 comes to a close, it is sad to note that Christians are being persecuted in many countries, the extent of which is deeply troubling. There are two faces to this crisis: some of it is violent in nature; some of it is more invidious. All of it is being done by extremists: religious fanatics and secular fanatics.

No one saw this being played out in detail better than Pope Benedict XVI. Faith and reason are critical components to the good society, he counseled, but when either is taken to extremes, it bears ugly fruit. He properly saw Muslim fanaticism as the greatest threat stemming from those whose faith perspective became unhinged from reason; he saw European secular fanaticism as the greatest threat emanating from those whose embrace of reason became unhinged from faith.

The data make it clear that Benedict got it just right.

Pope Leo XIV is correct to note that Muslims are also being slaughtered in Nigeria. But according to the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, of the 30,000 civilians killed in a four-year period, roughly 6,000 were Muslims and 17,000 were Christians. At least 7,000 Christians have been killed in 2025—an average of 35 a day—and 19,000 churches have been destroyed. It is radical Muslims in the north who are killing Christians in the southern part of the nation, the lion’s share of whom are Catholics.

The other face of Christian persecution is taking place in Europe. We are witnessing what Pope Francis called “polite persecution.” Typically, it is “disguised as culture, disguised as modernity, disguised as progress.” It centers on thought control. “God made us free,” he said, “but this kind of persecution takes away freedom.” It is the devil, he said, who is the sponsor of “polite persecution.”

What Francis observed is happening in Europe.

The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe) recently released a report noting more than 2,200 anti-Christian hate crimes throughout Europe in 2024. France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Austria have the worst record. The crimes run the gamut from killings and arson to conscience violations and parental rights abuses.

Who’s committing these offenses? Radical Muslims lead the way, followed by radical left-wing ideologues. No demographic group is more wary of exercising their religious rights than Catholic priests. This is due in no small way to leftwing media portrayals of them. In fact, in the OIDAC survey, 90 percent of respondents said they perceive a consistent media bias against Catholic priests and bishops. Regrettably, 81 percent of priests said they did not report anti-Catholic incidents to the authorities.

It is not radical Muslims who are stocking the command centers in Europe. No, it is radical secularists. To be exact, it is the political and cultural elites who are drunk on secular extremism, and it is they who are the masters of “polite persecution.” Here are some examples.

• In France, a Catholic media outlet was fined for reporting that abortion was a “cause of death”
• In Scotland, a Christian midwifery student was suspended from her school after she shared her conscientious objection to abortion in a private Facebook forum
• Scotland has become so extreme that it is warning Christians about restrictions in their homes. If their pro-life activities can be seen or heard from outside, they risk violating the law
• In England, an army veteran was found guilty for silently praying within a designated “buffer zone,” 50 meters from an abortion clinic. He did not speak or engage with anyone
• In Spain, over 20 persons have faced prosecution since 2022 for peacefully praying near abortion clinics
• In Spain, a Christian father who took his child to church, over the objections of the child’s secular mother, was told to stop. He was also told he had no right to read the Bible to his child
• In the Netherlands, Christians have been detained for peacefully distributing pro-life literature outside abortion clinics
• In Finland, a court convicted an elderly Christian couple of “assault” after they prayed with a man about his struggles with sexuality
• In Germany, a crucifix was removed from a state secondary school because he was declared “compulsory, recurring, and unavoidable”
• In Italy, the town mayor of Manduria banned all “on-foot” funeral processions, including traditional funeral bands

There are examples of “soft totalitarianism” in the United States, as well, but on this score, the Europeans win first prize.

Michael P. McDonald

As the cultural pendulum swung back towards tradition, reason, and faith, the Catholic League made significant contributions to the culture war in 2025. There are critical battles still raging, but we gained significant ground this year.

As a parting gift, Joe Biden would give the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award, to George Soros, a notorious anti-Catholic bigot who has done more to undermine western civilization and the United States than any single person. While disgraceful, this would be the last major insult from Biden. A few weeks later, President Trump would be inaugurated and the federal government began advancing the cause of religious liberty.

Trump quickly established his Religious Liberty Commission to end the weaponization of the government against Catholics and other people of faith. We eagerly looked for ways to assist the commission. Bill Donohue traveled to Washington to meet with a Department of Justice (DoJ) liaison. The Catholic League staff prepared a report that we shared with DoJ and the senior members of the commission to aid them in their work. This report was praised as the most detailed report on antiChristian bias that the DoJ received.

Similarly, we renewed our efforts to get to the bottom of the FBI spying on Catholics. We continued to work with House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, and we contacted FBI Director Kash Patel, who pledged to crack down on anti-Catholic bigotry. As part of these efforts, the Trump administration released new documents on this scheme. We learned that the FBI’s hostility to Catholics was more widespread than we were initially led to believe.

Another major story was the passing of Pope Francis. On April 21, he died from complications after a long illness. He served as pope for 12 years, leaving behind a mixed legacy. Progressives cheered his emphasis on social justice and his pastoral approach; traditional minded people were outraged by his near ban of the Traditional Latin Mass and other changes he was making, especially regarding the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Of course, Pope Francis’ legacy was more nuanced than that and in multiple media appearances we explained that.

As we watched the conclave to select the successor to Pope Francis, we did numerous interviews. On May 8, Pope Leo XIV was elected. As a relatively unknown candidate, we pushed back on the narrative that he would be Francis II. More importantly, we were the first Catholic organization to spring to his defense against trumped up charges from activists claiming he mishandled abuse cases in Peru.

This June, Bill participated in Fidelity Month by making a video about Flag Day and Father’s Day. Begun two years ago by Princeton Professor Robert George, Fidelity Month is a time to celebrate God, family and country.

We also sent a letter to Apple TV over a scene in the popular show “Your Friends & Neighbors,” which disgustingly mocked the Eucharist. We hit them hard for their defaming the Blessed Sacrament, and since then, there have been no repeat offenses.

Later in the summer, the IRS gave a great boon to religious liberty, when it updated its enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, giving greater freedom to 501(c)(3) organizations to participate in politics. After a Soros-funded “Catholic” organization used the IRS to attack us in 2008, we are glad to know that we won’t have the IRS looking over our shoulder even though these changes won’t have a substantial impact on how we operate.

When the media were totally silent about a report by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops noting the almost complete eradication of clergy sexual abuse, we highlighted this good news. Unfortunately, more Catholics do not underscore these accomplishments allowing militant secularists to use this issue as a red herring to justify their attacks.

For instance, in Montana and Washington State, politicians tried to break the Seal of Confession alleging priests learn about abuse through the sacrament. Of course, neither state could point to any evidence that this was a problem. Bill wrote letters to lawmakers in both states. Montana killed their legislation within a week of our intervention, but the rabid secularists in Washington were undeterred. It was only after the DoJ won in court that the assault on Confession stopped.

But, it is not just politicians that use clergy sexual abuse to harangue the Church. The Free Press had an article that grievously misrepresents the scandal, making it appear that it is ongoing and far more widespread. This screed should never have been published.

But worse still is the friendly fire from within the Church. We were contacted by lawyers representing the Diocese of Camden. They wanted help to prevent the New Jersey Attorney General from using a grand jury to target the dioceses, which would be contrary to state law.

We were glad to help. Our legal counsel submitted an amicus brief and delivered an oral argument before the New Jersey Supreme Court. Needless to say, we were the only organization to offer any support for the diocese.

But, just one week after the arguments, Bishop Joseph Williams decided to walk away from the case. Even though the diocese had won twice in lower courts, Bishop Williams threw in the towel on defending the due process rights of priests.

We were never contacted by anyone associated with the diocese about this decision. Instead, we found out from a priest in New Jersey. This is the thanks we get for trying to help. Ultimately, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided that the grand jury could proceed.

Another instance of friendly fire occurred when Brooklyn Bishop Emeritus Nicholas DiMarzio was sold out by the Archdiocese of Newark, after it agreed to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to two men who accused the bishop of abuse, even though a Vatican investigation cleared him of all wrongdoing.

Transgenderism remained a critical issue. We published approximately 25 articles and reports pushing back on this anti-Catholic and antiscientific ideology, focusing on its inherently violent nature. While we dealt it serious blows, the elites and the secular-left are still wed to this issue. This is not only harmful to the poor people who have been seduced by transgenderism, it is also dangerous to everyone around them. Tragically, we saw that on several occasions.

On the morning of August 27, Robert Westman, a man who pretended to be a woman, opened fire on Catholic school children attending Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. Two children were tragically killed by this transgender extremist. Many in the media and political life tried to spin his biography to suggest that it wasn’t his adherence to transgenderism or hatred for Church teachings that prompted this attack. We quickly set the record straight.

Two weeks later, on September 10, a man, who identified as a furry online and in a relationship with a man who thought he was a woman, shot and killed Charlie Kirk at a rally at Utah Valley University. Kirk was assassinated because he was an outspoken Christian, and the shooter and his boyfriend held a deep animus for Kirk’s Christian message.

These incidents highlight why the fight against transgenderism remains so pivotal.

We were also involved in several other cultural battles.

We marked the 10 year anniversary of the New York St. Patrick’s Day parade allowing LGBT groups to march under their own banner with Bill recounting the betrayal.

Higher education remained a hotbed of culture war activity. At Columbia, a Catholic Ph.D. candidate faced disciplinary actions for making comments on social media that accurately reflected Church teachings. Meanwhile, Northwestern offered an “Introduction to Christianity” class that was nothing more than an assault on the Catholic Church. At St. John’s University in New York, a law student verbally abused Cardinal Dolan. We vigorously called out the guilty parties and asked for the situations to be remedied.

We also took an in-depth look at the data on assisted suicide. Needless to say, the most secular states in the nation lead the way in this horrific trend, and this will continue to grow into a major flashpoint in the culture wars. We were able to get out in front of this battle and laid down a crucial marker.

Politically, one of the biggest events was the election of Zohran Mamdani to be New York City Mayor. Bill authored an 18-page report unmasking Mamdani’s phoniness. We made several other statements and media appearances warning of the threat Mamdani poses to religious liberty. Unfortunately, New York is too far gone, and Mamdani won. Worryingly, his victory may set a pattern that the left might use across America. Not to be deterred, we started a comprehensive “Mamdani Watch” to track what he is doing, providing a check to his hostility to people of faith.

We scored a big victory when we convinced Sen. Dick Durbin to decline a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Archdiocese of Chicago. We were the only lay Catholic organization to press Durbin to turn down the award. We sent him several letters pointing out that most of the policies he supported were contrary to Catholic teaching. The tipping point came once we provided the email of his chief of staff, and our subscribers to pound away. One day later, Durbin yielded.

The war on Christmas remains a critical flashpoint.

Initially, we sought to run a billboard in Washington with the message, “Christians Take Note. Religious Liberty is Thriving Again. Celebrate Christmas Like Never Before!”

Unfortunately, we were informed that D.C. bureaucrats would not approve the message unless we removed “Christians.” We refused to bend to these dictates and looked for a new way to promote religious liberty.

We often get complaints from members about homeowners associations (HOA) being too restrictive with religious symbols at Christmas. To counter this, we took the resources we were planning on using for the D.C. billboard and used that to contact over 2,000 HOA officials asking them to respect the religious rights of the people in their communities. This helped minimize the attacks on religious liberty this Christmas.

We called out officials in Portland, Oregon, who used their Christmas tree lighting ceremony to promote woke causes. We contacted officials in St. Petersburg and Pensacola, Florida, about a drag show that mocked Christmas that was using city-owned theaters for the performances. We once again had to battle with a co-op in Larchmont that refused to display a crèche alongside a menorah. Like last year, they chose to be intolerant and have no decorations, but at least we were able to end the anti-Christian discrimination. We also continued our decades-long tradition of displaying a life-sized nativity scene in Central Park.

Just days before Christmas, it was announced that the Vatican accepted Cardinal Dolan’s resignation. His support of our mission was unyielding. We will miss our close relationship with him and look forward to getting acquainted with his successor.

Looking back, 2025 was a banner year. We made great strides in advancing religious liberty and pushed back on anti-Catholicism. While we reclaimed significant ground in the culture war, there are still critical battles ahead. As we look forward to 2026, we will keep pushing the advantage and joyfully look forward to the fights and, more importantly, the victories to come.

Lena Müller sports pink hair. She is not in the circus. No, she is a Berlin Protestant minister. She recently presided over a “poly wedding.” To be specific, she “married” four men. In keeping with the spirit of diversity, two of the guys were Latvians, one was Thai and the other Spaniard.

The minister belongs to the Evangelical Church of Berlin Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia; it goes by EKBO. She promotes a “queer-inclusive” approach, and said the four men now constitute “one family.” Would God approve? Of course. “We saw that there was a lot of love between them. What could God possibly have against there being four of them instead of two?”

Did the EKBO approve this “marriage”? Formally it did not but that is because church weddings cannot be sanctioned unless they are a legally registered marriage, and polygamy is still prohibited by German law.

The EKBO had to bow to the civil law but that doesn’t mean they didn’t like what the renegade minister did. Instead of rebuking her, they stood by her, saying they were “appalled”—not by what she did, but by her critics. They even threatened legal action against her most vocal adversaries.

These EKBO Protestants have been actively subverting Christianity for years. That is their goal—to destroy Christianity from the inside. To wit: they seek the “decolonization of hierarchical and Eurocentric prayer language.” This is short for hating Christianity and Western civilization.

Their agenda is political, having nothing to do with religion. Indeed, they are in open rebellion against human nature and the very stuff that constitutes society. They are also phonies—they are not against all hierarchies—they love telling others what to do.

It boasts on its website that its texts “do not use binary language.” Translated, this means that the fictional world they live in does not recognize men and women. That’s too restrictive. Indeed, they take umbrage at the very word “women,” arguing that doing so validates the notion that such a biological group exists.

This is the culture that the pink-haired minister was nurtured in, so it was hardly a big leap for her to “marry” four men. It wasn’t all that risky, and the fact that the EKBO elites rushed to her defense proves it wasn’t.

What’s next? If all it takes is “love” to justify a marriage, then Sam and Sally, brother and sister, can tie the knot. Indeed, they can add their cousins to the mix, Saul and Susan, and have a happy foursome. This is what happens when our imagination governs our thought processes, substituting make-believe for reality. It’s also what happens when those who want to subvert Christianity are seen as heroes.

The German Bishops’ conference has issued a document to be implemented in Catholic schools that rejects the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Gone is the teaching that there are but two sexes, male and female. The bishops, with three exceptions, teach that there is a “diversity of sexual identities.” Not only that, they falsely claim it is a “fact,” rooted in science.

Should teachers address a boy named Sam, who now claims he is a girl named Sue, as Sam or Sue? The bishops say teachers should use language that reflects “the diversity of sexual identities,” allowing students to make their own judgments. So the right answer is “Sue.”

This division in the Catholic Church is taking place at a time when Pope Leo XIV embarked on his first international trip, the purpose of which was a call for unity in the Christian world. He has his hands full.

Leo has already affirmed Church teachings on sexuality, saying the family is founded on the “stable union between a man and a woman. When he was the bishop of Peru he spoke against the idea that there is a “diversity of sexual identities,” which is what gender ideology holds to be true.

“The idea of promoting gender ideology is confusing because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist. God created man and woman, and the attempts to confuse ideas about nature will only harm families and people.”

This is consistent with what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches. “God created man in his own image…male and female he created them.”

Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, was even more blunt. He once referred to gender ideology as “demonic.” In his 2016 exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, he wrote, “We cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation,” saying the “biological elements” are “impossible to ignore.”

In 2019, the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education issued an authoritative document, “Male and Female: He Created Them.” It said that gender ideology “denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.”

In 2024, the Vatican Declaration on Human Dignity, Dignitas Infinita, underscored Church teachings on this subject. It said gender ideology “is extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal.” Similarly, this ideology “intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”

Let’s pray that the German bishops find their way back.

Bill Donohue

Zohran Mamdani took over as mayor of New York City on January 1. In December, he chose someone just like himself—a unrepentant radical—to join his transition team, so it is likely we will be hearing more about him.

Alex Vitale and I have some things in common: we both have doctorates in sociology, have taught courses on criminology, and have written extensively on the subject. But that’s where the similarities end: I like cops and he hates them.

This wouldn’t mean much if he never left his Brooklyn College classroom. But once Mamdani put him in charge of public safety issues, we decided to give him a closer look.

Vitale is the author of The End of Policing, and a study guide that accompanies his book. The latter is the basis of my analysis of his work.

In Chapter 1, we learn that “racial profiling is still endemic.” He sees that as a problem. That’s funny—this was never an issue for Rev. Jesse Jackson. “There is nothing more painful for me at this stage of my life than to walk down a street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery—then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

What Jackson understood intuitively is borne out in the statistics. In 2021, black New Yorkers were 24 percent of the population, but they made up 65 percent of those murdered in 2020 and 74 percent of the shooting victims. Just as important, the typical victimizer was also black.

Chapter 2 informs the reader that “police do not prevent crime.” But if he were right, then NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch would not have been able to drive down the crime rate. She did it by deploying more police to high crime areas. Of course, he wants to defund the police, as does Mamdani. They even want to abolish the prisons.

The problem for them is that blacks want nothing to do with their anarchic ideas. In 2020, when the “defund the police” movement was surging, 79 percent of blacks nationwide who said they had had an interaction with the police in the past year said they wanted the police to spend the same amount of time—or more time—in their neighborhood.

Cops don’t belong in the schools. That’s what we learn in Chapter 3. He calls their presence “damaging.” Yet a study published two years ago by the University of Albany found that police in the schools reduced fights and threats by 30 percent and increased detection of firearms by 150 percent. He also says that the money saved by moving cops out of the schools “could be given to schools directly to build a better academic program.” If he were sincere, he would endorse charter schools and school choice initiatives, but he doesn’t.

In Chapter 4, Vitale argues that the reason why the police don’t work effectively with mentally ill offenders is because they are “trained to view every scenario as a potentially deadly one.” Thank God for that. Only someone hopelessly naïve would confront a suspected violent offender—mentally acute or disabled—with a relaxed attitude.

Chapter 5 tells instructors that the police don’t work well with the homeless because of “a lack of compassion.” Really? I see cops interact with the homeless every day in New York—my office is across the street from Penn Station—and I have never once seen a cop mishandle, or be rude to, the homeless.

Vitale shows his compassion by endorsing “drop-in centers and emergency shelters” for the homeless, but even here he fails the test. Showing his radically secular stripes, he insists the caregivers must be “nonreligious.” In other words, he wants to discriminate against the clergy.

The next two chapters are on prostitution and drugs, respectively. Naturally, he wants to decriminalize both. Vitale needs to visit Jackson Heights, a Queens neighborhood that has been overrun by street prostitution, drugs, robberies, and muggings, and tell the residents that their quality of life is peachy keen.

In Chapter 8, we learn that “gang suppression” is the problem, not gangs themselves. So how do we deal with gangs? Vitale promotes “restorative justice.” This is a “nonpunitive” measure that in practice means having social workers talk to the thugs.

Chapter 9 targets “border patrolling.” He wants it to end. His entire focus is on the “rights” of those who have crashed our borders and have committed unspeakable crimes. He needs to meet with the surviving crime victims of illegal aliens.

Chapter 10 contends that “The threat of potential violence or destruction of property is not a sufficient excuse” for police violating the First Amendment rights of “protesters.” He cites what happened in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. What he did not say is that these “protesters” went on a violent rampage after a robbery suspect got into an altercation with the police—he assaulted a cop, reached for his gun, resisted arrest, and was then killed after charging the officer.

I challenged him to a debate, but he never responded. Typical.

It is not just Vitale who is a menace to New York. Mamdani has chosen several left-wing activists to work on safety issues, and every one of them share the same anti-cop attitude.

No matter, we are tracking everything that Mamdani, and his staff, do, and we will not hold back in confronting them. Look for a section on the front page of our website, “Mamdani Watch.” We are going to be very busy in 2026.

Bill Donohue

Chubb Insurance is the largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company in the world, valued at approximately $115 billion. “We stand behind the promises we make to conceive, craft and deliver exceptional insurance coverage and service, and to pay our claims fairly and quickly.” That’s how it describes its organizational culture.

Anyone who knows anything about the way it has handled clergy abuse claims against the New York Archdiocese knows this is patently false. Quite frankly, it is a master of delaying, denying and defending its services, and this is hardly confined to Catholics. More about Chubb in a moment. First, this issue must be looked at in context.

The clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church took place largely between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s. It occurred for reasons I detailed in my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes. Because of a law in New York State that allows the accused to file a lawsuit, regardless of how long ago the alleged abuse took place, claims against the archdiocese have mounted over the years.

This has now come to a head. On December 8, the New York Archdiocese announced it was raising at least $300 million to negotiate settlements that would benefit some 1,300 people who contend that they were abused as minors. To pay for this, the archdiocese reduced its operating budget by 10 percent, fired staff, and sold “significant real estate assets,” including its headquarters at 1011 First Avenue. The building was sold last year for more than $100 million.

The alleged cases date back to World War II. No other organization, secular or religious, has been subjected to anything like this, the most egregious example being the New York City public schools, where the sexual abuse of minors is ongoing. This is not a coincidence. There are ideological and financial motives for going after the Catholic Church.

One of the lawyers suing the archdiocese today is Jeffrey Anderson. He once admitted that his goal was “suing the [expletive]” out of the Catholic Church. In fact, he has made hundreds of millions of dollars doing exactly that.

Chubb is also compromised. It simply wants to cash its checks and move on. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, isn’t fooled. Here is what he said on October 1, 2024.

“It has always been our wish to expeditiously settle all meritorious claims. However, Chubb, for decades our primary insurance company, even though we have paid over $2 billion in premium by today’s standards, is now attempting to evade their legal and moral contractual obligation to settle covered claims which would bring peace and healing to victim-survivors.”

Chubb is still reneging on its responsibilities. It says the archdiocese’s policy covers accidents, “but does not provide compensation for knowingly allowing a pattern of abuse to persist for many years.” This is a sanitized way of saying what it has previously said with greater bluntness.

Chubb has said that it is not obligated to settle claims against the archdiocese because the abuse of victims was “expected or intended.” This is an outrageous lie. Indeed, it intentionally maligns Cardinal Dolan’s predecessors, effectively saying that people like Cardinal John O’Connor deliberately intended to harm children. That would make them evil.

What is truly evil is what Chubb is alleging.

I worked with Cardinal O’Connor for many years. He was one of the greatest priests I ever met. Not only was he kind and responsible, he reached out to his staff, lay and clergy alike, who were going through a rough patch, offering the services they needed. He never willfully sought to hurt anyone, and this certainly included children. To imply otherwise is a vicious smear on his character.

Chubb’s position is morally indefensible and legally spurious. It is not only feeding anti-Catholicism, it is making mince meat out of its purported interest in standing by its promises. It is just as preposterous to argue that it is “delivering exceptional insurance coverage and service,” paying its claims “fairly and quickly.” Just the opposite is true.

It is one thing for an insurance company to balk on its financial commitments; it is quite another when it imputes vile motives to its carriers, and this is doubly true when it is aimed at the Catholic Church. Its credibility is shot.

The FBI still needs to answer more questions about the would-be Trump assassin. Here is the text of a letter written by Bill Donohue on Nov. 24 to Rep. Pat Fallon and Rep. Mike Kelly about this issue.

Thank you for speaking out about the less-than-candid information that has been disclosed regarding Thomas Crooks, the man who attempted to assassinate President Trump. You have both noted the shortcomings of the FBI disclosures on this subject, and have called for a new probe.

On November 20, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino were interviewed by Fox News reporters and they said the evidence was clear that Crooks acted alone and that there was no foreign involvement of any kind. This is good news, but it does not answer all outstanding questions.

The Catholic League urges you to call for a new investigation. While there are many aspects to this case, what concerns us most are the details about Crooks’ sexual identity and like interests.

Patel says there is “no evidence” of his involvement with those who run in trans circles. That may be but it does not empty our concerns.

He was living with a man who was in the process of transitioning from male to female, and he himself identified as “they/them.” He had a “muscle mommy fetish” and was also attracted to the “furry” community, people who identify as animals and who are sexually attracted to them. None of this is normal.

We are well aware of the travails of those who are caught up in these sexual lifestyles, and of the violence that marks their behavior. We are also aware of calculated efforts to keep the public in the dark about this matter.

Without full knowledge of what motivated Crooks, we will not be in a position to check the behavior of those who share his profile.

Transgender Day of Remembrance was held on November 20. According to GLAAD, the gay rights organization, it is “an annual commemoration of those whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence.” What they don’t say is that most of the violence against these people is being committed by other trans people. They would have the public believe that they are being killed by hate-filled heterosexuals.

Transgender Day of Remembrance honors the memory of Rita Hester, a man who falsely claimed to be a woman; he was killed in 1998. Others who are memorialized antedated the Hester murder. They are Chanelle Pickett, Debbie Forte and Monique Thomas; they were also men who falsely claimed to be women.

The more we know about these murders, all of which occurred in Massachusetts, the less convincing the narrative is that heterosexuals are a threat to the trans community.

After all these years, Hester’s case remains unresolved, but there are clear indications that he was done in by his own. His real name was William Hester; he changed his name when he “transitioned.” The 6-foot, 2-inch man liked to hang out in trans bars in Boston, dressed as a woman. After he left the Silhouette Lounge one evening, he went home to his apartment. Neighbors heard a lot of banging sounds and a loud yell. He was stabbed 20 times.

The police said there were no signs of forced entry, and that “the killer might have known the victim.” This suggests he was murdered by another trans person (they tend to associate with those of the same identity), though everyone is reluctant to draw the obvious conclusion.

Chanelle Pickett’s real name was Roman Pickett. Dubbed a “transsexual” by the Boston Globe, he was strangled to death five hours after he met William C. Palmer Jr. in a Combat Zone bar, located in the redlight district, in 1995. They hooked up at the Playland Café, one of Boston’s well-known “transsexual pick-up bars.” They smoked crack cocaine before heading to Palmer’s bedroom, where they had sex.

A jury found Palmer guilty of assault and battery, but not murder. He told the court he did not know Pickett was trans. But this account was shot down by several others, including Pickett’s brother, who also falsely claimed to be a woman. They said he was a frequent customer at the trans bar. Moreover, six trans people came forward admitting they had sex with him, and two of them testified against him.

Debbie Forte’s real name was John J. Forte Jr. He was dressed as a woman the night he was murdered by Michael Thompson in 1995. The killer said they were “messing around” and after he discovered Forte had a penis, he killed him. There is no evidence to the contrary.

Monique Thomas’ real name was Rufus Thomas. He was killed by George Stallings two months before Hester was murdered by asphyxiation. His body was found next to his bed. That does not appear to be a coincidence. We know that after he was sexually abused by a family member growing up, he became confused about his sexuality.

In other words, in three of the four most heralded cases where a trans person was killed—they are the basis of Transgender Day of Remembrance—the killer was apparently a trans person himself. And since we know that most of the violence against trans people today is an inside job, the day of remembrance should focus on the violence within their own community.

Bill Donohue

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The average Joe spends his time at work, and with his family and friends. He may vote, but politics is not his passion. He basically wants to be left alone. But the ruling class—the decision makers who run our institutions—won’t let him. They are interested in getting him to do what they think is in his best interest. They don’t need to consult him, and that is because they know better.

Radical intellectuals and activists are just as arrogant, and just as intrusive. They entertain grandiose plans about socially engineering society, and they have all sorts of plans on how to steer the average Joe. Just like the ruling class, they feel confident in making decisions for him.

What unites the ruling class and radicals is power. They lust for it. Why? Their goal is to control the average Joe, getting him to dance to their every beat. But he is not easy to control, and that is because his primary allegiances are to his family and religion. If they can pry him away from the grip of his family and religion, there is a good chance he will find a sense of community with them. Then they can proceed to implement their vision of the good society.

Standing in their way, more than any other factor, is Christianity. It is committed to the family and traditional moral values, and that is something that makes elites uneasy and radicals unhappy.

It used to be that the ruling class and radicals stood in opposition to each other, but something new has been happening. There has been an alignment of large sectors of the ruling class and radicals. They may still clash, but more often than not they have joined hands. There is one big wrinkle—the success of Donald Trump. It is clear that he has punctured the ruling class bubble (which explains why many hate him). But there are still large sectors of elite decision makers who have broken bread with radical thinkers and activists. They have Christianity in the crosshairs.

The ruling class has almost nothing in common with the average Joe. They are wealthy, well educated and are mostly secularists who devalue, if not disparage, Christianity. President Ronald Reagan knew them well. In a famous speech he gave branding the Soviet Union the “evil empire,” he quoted from C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. Lewis warned that the greatest evil in the world was being done by the “quiet men,” the clean-cut men who run our institutions.

Yes, it is the “quiet men” who run our institutions that we need to guard against, many of whom have adopted the radical agenda. What they seek was best said by Bill Ivey, a ruling class member who advised Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. Speaking of elite Democrats, he said, “we’ve all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry.”

That is their goal—to establish a “compliant citizenry.” To achieve this goal they rely on “soft totalitarianism.” Unlike the violence that is practiced by the architects of “hard totalitarianism” (Hitler, Stalin and Mao), they seek to seduce and coax the average Joe to do what they want him to do. Pope Saint John Paul II warned about this development, saying the elites want a subservient population.

Radicals despise religion, in general, harboring a special hatred for Christians. They know that as long as the average Joe lays anchor with his religion, he is not likely to bow to their secular appeals. In some instances, radical activists resort to violence, as in firebombing crisis pregnancy centers. Appeals have also been made by educators and celebrities to shoot Trump supporters.

Their allies in the ruling class are more careful, preferring to unleash the FBI to spy on ordinary Catholics. The Biden administration took direct aim at pro-life Catholics and Protestants, thus doing the dirty work egged on by radical intellectuals and activists.

To be sure, there are good members of the ruling class and there are good intellectuals, professors and activist Americans who seek to make our society better. But there are way too many on the other side, elitists, writers and activists who are working overtime to hurt our country. They have chosen to disable the family and religion because if they succeed in doing so they will be well on their way to securing victory.

The ruling class and radicals want us to despair. Let’s make sure they fail.