Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the Kentucky Catholic students and what actually happened:

There were three parties to the dustup that occurred on January 18.

Catholic students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, who had participated in the March for Life, assembled on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial waiting for buses to take them home. In the same vicinity were Native Americans; they had come for the Indigenous Peoples Rally. Black Israelites, who believe that black Americans are God’s chosen people (they claim to be the real descendants of the Hebrews), were also there.

Initial news reports blamed the students. One of the students, Nick Sandmann, was shown smirking at a Native American man, Nathan Phillips—who was standing very close to the student beating a drum—and it quickly became a social media sensation. Much was made of the Donald Trump hat that Sandmann and other students wore, “Make America Great Again.” The students were shown in a short video laughing and chanting. They were accused of mocking the 64-year-old Phillips.

The Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School issued a joint statement apologizing for what happened and pledged to investigate the matter; they said sanctions would be forthcoming, possibly expulsion.

Politicians, pundits, and bloggers went wild. A second video emerged, one that was much longer, and it shows that the black Israelites were the real thugs. Moreover, interviews given by Phillips show him to be a liar.

Here is a selection of news reports on the second video that was published on January 21.

The following was taken from abc.net.au/news.

“The Black Israelites had a spot on the steps where they quoted from the Bible and yelled abuse, some of it racist.

“‘You got all these dirty-ass crackers behind you with a red Make America Great Again hat on,’ one of the Black Israelites said in the video of the event filmed by another of their members.

“Later, the man told another person: ‘I bet you’re a dumb-ass Puerto Rican.’

“He also abused African Americans nearby.

“As the abuse continued, the school students surrounded the Black Israelites and started to sing songs, dance and cheer each other on, drowning them out.

“At one point in the video one of the black men told the students around him, ‘You got on the back of the court system ‘In God we trust’, on the back of the dollar bill it says ‘In God we trust’, but you give faggots rights.'”

The news story also said “Footage does not show students seeking out Mr. Phillips, or ‘attacking’ him,” thus corroborating the statement by Sandmann that was released to the press. It was Phillips who approached the students.

The following was taken from CNN Wire.

“In the new video, another group taunts the students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky with disparaging and vulgar language. The group of black men, who identify as members of the Hebrew Israelites, also shout racist slurs at participants of the Indigenous Peoples Rally and other passersby.

“The men [black Israelites] repeatedly use the n-word to refer to the black teens in the group, prompting cries from the group. The men ask the students if the water they’re drinking ‘tastes like incest’ and call the students ‘young Klansmen.’

“The teens listen for a few minutes longer, accusing the men of being racist and booing when the main speaker uses the word ‘faggots’ when talking about equal rights.

“Then, the students get a signal from off camera to leave. They cheer and wave, chanting ‘let’s go home’ as they run off.

“The video continues for another 20 minutes as the men turn their focus to a prayer circle that formed while they were talking to the students. The lead speaker shouts denunciations of the Catholic church, calling its members ‘child molesters’ and quotes scripture.”

The following is from the New York Times.

Speaking of the first video, the paper notes that the students were widely criticized. “But on Sunday, Mr. Phillips clarified that it was he who had approached the crowd and that he had intervened because racial tensions—primarily between the white students and the black men—were ‘coming to a boiling point.’

“In his statement, Mr. Sandmann said he did not antagonize or try to block Mr. Phillips. ‘I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gesture or other aggressive moves,’ he said.

“I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation,” he said. ‘I am a faithful Christian and practicing Catholic, and I always try to live up to the ideals my faith teaches me—to remain respectful of others, and to take no action that would lead to conflict or violence.'”

The following is from the Washington Post:

“The Israelites and students exchanged taunts, videos show. The Native Americans and Hebrew Israelites say some students shouted, ‘Build the wall!’ although that chant is not heard on the widely circulated videos, and the Cincinnati Enquirer quoted a student at the center of the confrontation who said he did not hear anyone say it.

“At one point, the Hebrew Israelites began arguing with Native American activists, telling them the word ‘Indian’ means ‘savage,’ according to the video.”

Regarding Phillips, the Native American told the Washington Post that he sought to act as an intermediary between the white students and the black provocateurs. But peacemakers don’t taunt, and that is what he did: he taunted Sandmann by beating his drum in his face. More important, he told the Detroit News that the white boys provoked the black men, which is (a) not true and (b) does not square with what he told the Post.

The critics of the students have a lot of explaining to do. I will address them in a separate statement.

Bill discusses the Covington Catholic controversy with Laura Ingraham.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on how abortion endangers women:

Honest men and women know that abortion kills, but what about the dangers to women who elect to have one?

Last month, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio argued that “abortion is one of the safest medical procedures.” Not for the child it isn’t, but that was not her point: Iris Harvey was talking about women who undergo an abortion.

On January 16, the far-left wing website, rewire.news (it is cheering the end of the “anti-Christ,” meaning President Trump) called abortion “extremely safe,” maintaining that it “does not cause mental or physical health problems.”

The truth of the matter can be found by listening to what doctors who work in the Emergency Room have to say about abortion, not by swallowing the moonshine of pro-abortion activists.

Last year, I was contacted by Dr. W. Matt Zban, a well-respected emergency room physician from Charlotte, North Carolina. He relayed some disturbing news about his encounter with women who have had an abortion. Here is his first missive.

“I am an emergency room physician and see complications of abortion several times a year. Endometritis (uterine infection), sepsis (blood stream infection), pelvic pain, heavy vaginal bleeding, and death are all complications of legal abortion. Occasionally hysterectomies have to be performed following these complications.”

These women may very well die in New York State if Gov. Andrew Cuomo gets his way. He wants to allow non-physicians to perform abortions. None will be able to help women the way Dr. Zban has.

Here is Dr. Zban’s second email correspondence, sent to me on December 14, 2018.

“Approximately one week ago a young woman was sent to ER (from abortion clinic) as she was given too much sedation resulting in depressed consciousness, slow breathing and low blood pressure. Narcan was given to reverse the effect of the narcotic. She was approx. 15 weeks pregnant. She came w/no records from the clinic and when we called to get info on the patient and what happened the clinic would not respond. They created a complication and ‘washed their hands of it.’ We didn’t even know if the baby was still in her, or not.

“Their website said they closed at 2:00 p.m. and we started calling them at 12:45 p.m. Our nurse was on hold for 30 min w/o answer. We called more times and from different numbers (cell) and they did not answer.

“That said, this could happen at any medical office that performs sedation. It seems to occur notoriously more often from these clinics. It aggravates me when abortion advocates state that women don’t suffer physically and emotionally from abortion…not to mention the babies that are killed.”

Almost 40 years ago, Stanley Rothman from Smith College and others studied the media elite. They found that almost all the senior members of the elite media were abortion-rights advocates. If anything, matters have gotten worse. So don’t expect “60 Minutes” to interview Dr. Zban. The code of silence on this subject is astounding.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State and Budget Address:

On January 15, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo cited a quote by Pope Francis that he said offered support for the Child Victims Act; Cuomo’s remarks were included in his State of the State and Budget Address. In doing so, he seriously misrepresented what the pope said. Indeed, he exploited the pope to serve his own political interests.

The Child Victims Act would amend the statute of limitations, making it easier for alleged victims of sexual abuse to bring suit, even if the offense took place decades ago.

Cuomo began his statement on this issue by rolling out his Catholic credentials. He was an altar boy, he said, and his religion is important to him. But it is obviously not that important: if it were, he would not have taken the occasion to inform the audience of his disagreements with the Catholic Church.

The New York Governor said it has been “painful” for him to differ with the Church’s teachings on marriage and abortion. Unlike the Catholic Church, Cuomo supports the right of two men to marry; he also believes that the unborn child should have no rights.

Cuomo also mentioned his disagreement with the Catholic Church on the Child Victims Act—meaning in this instance his disagreement with New York State bishops, especially New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

What Cuomo did not say is that the bishops support holding every institution, public and private, to the same standard with regard to all future cases of sexual abuse. With good reason, the bishops do not support the “look back” provision which allows for the adjudication of old cases: most of the alleged offenders are either dead or out of ministry.

Cuomo told the crowd that he is “fully aware of the position of the Catholic Church, and of the opposition of the Catholic Church” to the Child Victims Act. This was deceitful.

He knows that the Catholic Church does not stand alone in opposing this legislation: Jewish groups, the Boy Scouts, and the insurance industry are all opposed to it. Why did Cuomo single out the Catholic Church? In doing so he sowed the seed in the minds of lawmakers that the Church opposes justice for victims, which is a cruel distortion of reality.

Worse was Cuomo’s total misrepresentation of what the pope said.

Here is the quote that Cuomo cited. (Initially, he did not attribute the quote to the pope, saying only that these were the words of a “wise man.”)

“The abuse of minors is an offense so brutal. The Church cannot remain indifferent to this, and the Church must punish such priests, and that includes support for legal action. There is no other way out of this, because it’s a crime. No, worse! It’s leaving them alive, but destroyed.”

Immediately following Cuomo’s recitation of these remarks, he told the audience that these were the pope’s words. “We stand with Pope Francis and we [must] pass the Child Victims Act this year, because if you believe in justice for all, then you believe in passing the Child Victims Act and follow the leadership of Pope Francis.” A huge photo of the pope was shown on a screen at this point, allowing Cuomo to further exploit the Holy Father.

Cuomo stands with the pope? Not on cohabitation. Not on marriage. Not on abortion. Not on transgender issues. Not on school choice. Not on drug legalization. And no, not even on the Child Victims Act. There is nothing the pope has ever said that could be interpreted as justifying the singling out of the Catholic Church for legal redress. Nor has the pope ever spoken to the issue of suspending statutes of limitation for old cases.

Cuomo’s Catholicity is his business, but it is our business to call him out when he hijacks Catholicism to buttress his agenda.

Bill Donohue discusses how the Oxford Union has now stacked the deck, filling both sides in this “debate,” with anti-Catholic bigots.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest game played by the Oxford Union:

Is the Oxford Union committing suicide? It is one thing to lie to me after being disinvited from participating in a debate on February 28, quite another to knife itself by staging a phony debate on the Catholic Church.

“This House Believes That England Can Never Pay For Its Sins Against Irish Catholics.” Imagine a debate on this subject with representatives of the Irish Republican Army on one side and Sinn Fein (the political arm of the IRA) on the other. This is what the Oxford Union is doing by stacking the deck against the Catholic Church on the motion, “The House Believes The Catholic Church Can Never Pay For Its Sins.”

The three defending the House motion are Mitchell Garabedian, Elizabeth Coppin, and Thomas Reilly.

Garabedian is a good choice. Last year he appeared on WGBH (PBS) in Boston arguing that the Catholic Church should be stripped of its tax-exempt status. In 2011, he was accused by a reporter for the Boston Globe (not exactly a Catholic-friendly source) of maligning the good name of an exonerated priest whom the attorney was hounding. When I called Garabedian to see if he had any regrets about trying to destroy Father Charles Murphy, he went berserk, screaming like a madman. He fits in with this circus like a glove.

I do not know Elizabeth Coppin, but since she is there to give voice to alleged victims of the Magdalene Laundries, perhaps someone from the audience will ask her why the McAleese Report (the official Irish government study) on this institution found that most of the horror stories were pure bunk. For example, there is zero evidence that any woman was sexually abused by the nuns. That’s not my opinion—it is the testimony of women who lived in the laundries, as recorded in the report.

The third person making the case against the Catholic Church is also a splendid choice. He showcased his contempt for separation of church and state when he was the Massachusetts Attorney General: He said he wanted his office to be involved in the recruitment, selection, training, and monitoring of priests.

If a Boston bishop, acting on reports of corruption in the state government, said he wanted the Church to police public officials and their staffs, he would be accused of trampling on the First Amendment. Indeed, he would be called a fascist. Perhaps Reilly can be asked why he never returned a single indictment of a Boston priest in 2003, and why he thinks he was justified in wasting a colossal amount of public funds on a wild-goose chase (he knew the statute of limitations had long run out on miscreant priests).

The side that was selected to defend the Catholic Church is even better. It includes only two persons, one of whom, Dr. Jay R. Feierman, is a former psychiatrist who treated offending priests. Perhaps someone can ask him how he feels about all the glowing reports that the psychiatrists fed the bishops for decades—telling them how they “fixed” these men—knowing now how wrong they were.

The big prize is Marci Hamilton. For the Oxford Union to treat her as a champion of the Catholic Church is analogous to selecting a supporter of the Klan to defend African Americans.

To begin with, Hamilton and Garabedian are one and the same. They have jointly sued the Holy See, unsuccessfully, and have served on the same panels at anti-Catholic conferences for years. She has quite a resume.

• Hamilton’s career attacking the Catholic Church began when she was sought out by Jeffrey Anderson, the most anti-Catholic, Church-suing lawyer in the U.S. His goal, he once said, is to “sue the s*** out of the Catholic Church.” He has made good on his promise.
• A few years back, Hamilton teamed up with Anderson to sue the Holy See. They lost.
• Hamilton is opposed to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the seminal bill protecting religious liberty that was overwhelmingly passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
• Hamilton falsely accused Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, of hiding $55 million from victims when he was the Bishop of Milwaukee. She has never apologized.
• In 2013, Hamilton said that the Catholic Church’s objections to having Catholic non-profits pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans was proof of its “all-out war on women.”
• Hamilton always seeks to rescind state laws on the statute of limitations so that she can sue the Catholic Church for decades-old offenses, while at the same time arguing that such legislation should not apply to the public schools. She made this case in her 2008 book, Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children, and worked to implement her ideas in Colorado and other states.
• In 2016, Hamilton told the press that the U.S. bishops pay my salary. I emailed her on May 5, 2016 calling her a liar. She had no response.
• When discussing the Muslim terrorists involved in the Danish cartoon issue, Hamilton said, “There is no meaningful difference between the reasoning of imams and the Catholic League on these issues,” thus maliciously claiming the Catholic League engages in, or promotes, violence against its critics.

There we have it. The Oxford Union is in free-fall. It is hosting anti-Catholic bigots to defend the Catholic Church, making a mockery of its once stellar reputation.

If any of these haters would like to debate me, I will arrange it and pay for all the expenses. But I won’t hang by the phone. At least Christopher Hitchens, whom I debated many times, was honest, which is more than I can say for the Oxford Union and its stooges.

Contact Oxford Union president Daniel Wilkinson: president@oxford-union.org

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an artistic controversy in Israel:

A crucified sculpture of Ronald McDonald, called “McJesus,” is on display in the Haifa Museum of Art. Christians have protested, and some of them have turned violent.

While the violence must be condemned, it is encouraging to see Christian leaders speaking out against this in-your-face exhibit. Leaders of the Greek Melkite Catholic Archeparchy of Akko have been especially outspoken in denouncing this insult.

The man responsible for the “McJesus” sculpture, Finnish artist Jani Leinonen, is no stranger to controversy. In January 2011, he led a group called the Food Liberation Army to crash a McDonald’s restaurant in Helsinki: they were protesting the company’s ethics. They walked away with a life-size statue of Ronald McDonald, threatening to “decapitate” the figure. He and his thuggish friends were later arrested.

Leinonen is not content to simply offend Christians: he is driven by hatred of Jews.

Leinonen is a rabid supporter of the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), an effort to hurt Israel’s economy. It has attracted many left-wing activists, penetrating higher education and, more recently, the Democratic Party. Because of his allegiance to the BDS movement, Leinonen said he objects to his work being displayed in Israel.

“I joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, that upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity,” Leinonen said. If we ignore what the BDS cause is, there is no trace of hatred there. But he was not finished. “Israel overtly uses culture as a form of propaganda to whitewash or justify its regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people.” There is there, and plenty of it.

To believe this is to believe that there is an orchestrated attempt on the part of the Israeli government to manipulate the culture—poisoning the minds of the people—so that it can justify its oppressive agenda. This is the voice of hate, one in service to crippling the nation in the name of liberation.

Israel is not the enemy—those who seek to disable it are.

Bill In The News (Oxford Mail):

Bill Donohue was invited to participate in a debate titled “The House Believes The Catholic Church Can Never Pay For Its Sins.”

But after appearing to have his place on the panel confirmed for February 28, the Union said it had offered Donohue’s spot to someone else ‘as we did not hear back from you’. Read More Here

Bill In The News (The Telegraph):

The Oxford Union has been accused of “no platforming” the head of a prominent right-wing Catholic organisation.

William Donohue, President of the Catholic League, an American civil rights group, claimed he had been unceremoniously “uninvited” to speak at an upcoming debate.

The debate, titled This House Believes The Catholic Church Can Never Pay For Its Sins, is due to be held this term. Mr Donohue said he is “appalled” at the way he has been treated by the 800-year-old debating society. Read More Here

Bill In The News (Breitbart):

The Oxford Union has disinvited William Donohue, President of the Catholic League, an American civil rights group, to speak at an upcoming debate.

The debate, titled “This House Believes the Catholic Church Can Never Pay for Its Sins,” is due to be held this term, the Telegraph reported, but will be going ahead without the participation of Dr. Donohue.

Donohue, who holds a doctorate in social science, said he is “appalled” at the way he has been treated by the nearly 200-year-old debating society. Read More Here