No one has been more obscene, and more relentless, in attacking the pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests than Bill Maher; he does so every week on HBO. Twenty times this year alone Maher used his platform to attack Catholics.

After Maher’s obscene attack on March 22nd, the Catholic League went to work compiling an exhaustive list of Bill Maher’s anti-Catholic remarks dating back to 1998.  It was unclear where HBO officials stood with respect to Maher’s remarks: either they agreed with what he had to say, or they were afraid of him.

Since HBO had not taken any action in response to Bill Maher’s bigotry, the Catholic League contacted the board of directors at Time Warner, the parent company of HBO. After the season finale of “Real Time” which aired November 22nd, the Catholic League sent every member of Time Warner’s board of directors a copy of 54 anti-Catholic statements made by Bill Maher on TV. The league called for the show to be canceled once and for all.

Additionally we wrote to the more than 400 active and retired bishops across the United States and urged them to contact Time Warner’s CEO. Many bishops responded and echoed our call for Maher to be taken off television.

What bothers us about Maher is his obsession with portraying all bishops and priests—including the pope—as sexual abusers. This is malicious and morally indefensible.

Included here are examples of Maher’s hate speech that he spewed in 2013. Our entire report, “Bill Maher’s History of Anti-Catholicism,” is available on our website under the “Special Reports.”

November 22, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], Maher and guest Dan Savage on priests and gay marriage: Maher commented on gay couples who adopt children, alleging that a Hawaiian bishop said these kids had a greater chance of committing suicide. Here is how Savage responded: “That’s total bulls***. He’s confusing children of gay parents with children who are raped by Catholic priests. Sorry, I am just done being lectured about children and their safety by Catholic-f***ing bishops, priests, cardinals.” Shortly thereafter, Savage again remarked about “kiddie-f***ing Catholic priests.”

November 19, 2013, “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” [MSNBC], on religion: Maher was a guest on the show. While discussing the government shutdown that occurred in October and the threat of another shutdown, Maher said: “I never understood why people who hate government go into government, that’s why I’m not a priest.”

November 15, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], Maher attacks the Pope: In Maher’s rant, he took after the pope, Sarah Palin, and Palin’s daughter, Bristol.

The skit was a series of mock tweets featuring the pope and Palin:

• Pope: “Listening to you, I’m reconsidering my stance on birth control.”
• Palin: “Yeah. How’s that sex with teenage boys working out for you?”
• Pope: “I don’t know. How’d it work out for your daughter?”

November 8, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], Maher mocks Christianity: During a segment titled “Cheap of Faith” Maher discusses how Christians don’t want to help or feed the hungry because it goes against the Bible. He believes that Christians should admit they are selfish because their beliefs do not mirror the actual teachings of Jesus. Maher states that “there is always a good moral Christian reason to tell everyone you meet to f*** off and die.”

November 1, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], Maher brands Pope a child rapist: Maher showed a picture of a young boy who approached Pope Francis, and then sat on the pope’s chair. Pope Francis welcomed him, but Maher’s picture showed the pope’s hand on the child’s head and Maher said “No, Pope Francis, I thought you were different,” implying that the pope is a child rapist.

October 30, 2013, “Piers Morgan Live” [CNN], on religion: Maher was a guest on the show. While discussing the government shutdown, Maher says that “If you hate government, you shouldn’t do it. That’s why I’m not a priest.”

October 25, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], repeatedly insults and attacks Catholics, Christians and Pope Francis: Maher made reference to German Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst and claimed that Pope Francis “fired the [German] bishop of bling” because he was “getting the altar boys drunk on Cristal.”

Later on, Maher’s panel of guests consisted of Michael Moore, Al Sharpton, Valerie Plame and Richard Dawkins. According to Maher, liberals are “worried they’re going to be called racist if they criticize Muslims.”

Sharpton: “There were Christian klansmen that were Christians, KKK members who burned crosses.”
Plame: “Yeah, but now there are Christian Dominionists that are just as extreme.”
Maher: “This is not just the same. Look, I’m no f**king Catholic or Christian, but one is herpes [Christians] and one is cancer [Muslims].”

October 9, 2013, “The Arsenio Hall Show” [WPIX], on religion: Maher was a guest on the show. While discussing the government shutdown, Maher said “You should not be in government if you hate government. That is why I am not a priest.”

August 2, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], implies that Pope Francis and all clergy are homosexual:  “… In other gay news, did you see the pope got drunk again and, ah, I love this pope, he just says what he thinks. He said gay Catholics shouldn’t be marginalized. He said, ‘Who am I to judge them?’ And I think it’s like anybody else, you know, when you get to know gay people, they don’t, you know, come off as gay, they come off as people. You stop being anti-gay. And who has more gay friends and co-workers than a pope?”

Later in the show Maher announced he would be taking a five week vacation and predicted what the headlines will be while he’s off. He displayed several mock headlines including a mockup of the headline, “Pope Francis Moves to Massachusetts Marries Longtime Companion.” Below the caption was a picture of Pope Francis and an elderly man.

July 19, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], on World Youth Day: “This is World Youth Day for the Catholic Church … I mean this is a big jamboree – look at that! This is where all the kids in the world get together with priests. What could go wrong?”

July 16, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” blog, on Pope Francis clearing Pope John Paul II for sainthood after a second miracle was confirmed: “I’m sorry, for those believers out there, aren’t these ‘miracle’ tales kind of a tell that this religion is completely full of s**t?”

June 14, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], on Pope Francis and the alleged “gay lobby” in the Vatican: Maher implied that Pope Francis is homosexual when he said the following: “The other big story, Pope Francis…This week he said there is a gay network inside the Vatican…They go by the code names cardinals and priests…Hey, Padre, I hate to tell you, there’s also a gay network here, it’s called BRAVO. And this fall they’re presenting the real homosexuals of Vatican City.  ‘Whatever, Monsignor, I didn’t come here to make friends’ (gay affectation)….and he has vowed to find out where all this gayness was coming from. And then he gathered up his long white dress, he turned on his bright red heels and he flounced right out of the steam room.”

May 31, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], on Pope Francis, the Church, and priests: The following occurred between host Bill Maher and Paul Rudnick, author of the anti-Christian play, “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told”:

Maher: “I want to ask you and everybody else about something that happened this week that was important to me because I am an atheist…You know when somebody says something obvious, ‘Oh, is the pope Catholic?’ I think he might not be. I think the Pope might be an atheist.  There I said it. Like I think Obama is, because, he said this week, Pope Frank said, ‘The Lord has redeemed all of us, not just Catholics, even the atheists.’ And I was like, I am going to book my flight to heaven right now.”

“And then of course, it’s funny, because, you know, it’s just like politics. The hierarchy at the Vatican was like, ‘What the f**k did this guy just…?’ You could almost see them preparing the poison. You know, it’s like, luckily we’ve got a spare pope. This guy, ixnay on the… You know, one of the key things in this religion and most religions is, ‘Oh, monopoly, only through us.’ Even hippie Jesus said that. ‘Only through me.’ So this guy’s saying everybody gets into heaven. So then they had to walk it back…and the Vatican said – I don’t, do you have it?”
Rudnick:  “I have it. The Vatican spokesman quickly intervened Father Thomas Rosica said quote, ‘People who truly know the Catholic Church cannot be saved if they refuse to enter or remain in her.'”
Maher: “Remain in her?” [sexual innuendo]
Rudnick: “Yeah, presumably without using a condom. You wonder if they ever vet any of their statements.”
Maher: “It made me think that, you know, I remember when I was making ‘Religulous,’ and we talked to a lot of priests. And we found out that a lot of priests really aren’t believers. They do it because, no, some of them do it for the sex. That’s true, but some of them, I mean, no, there’s a lot of good ones, and they do it because it’s a way to help people and they know they can’t tell the masses that it’s all a crock. But they themselves don’t believe it. I think Pope Frank – what’s his real name?…his Argentinian name…it sounds like a very expensive pair of shoes. He’s a sophisticated guy from that era, and I think he’s, I’m telling you, I think the Pope’s an atheist.”

May 10, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], on priests: The following exchange occurred between host Bill Maher and actor Zachary Quinto:

Maher: “They have to get right with the idea that more people who are rapists and violent go into the military. I mean, that’s sort of understandable. It’s a violent organization. Their job is violence…”
Quinto: “Maybe they should have a roundtable with the Catholic Church and try to come to some understanding of how to navigate this.”
Maher: “Well, you know, it’s funny you say that, but I think the reason why more rapists go into the military is the same reason why predators go into the Catholic Church: it’s a place they know they can get away with it.”
Quinto: “And that hierarchical structure prevents them from really being accountable to anybody.”
Maher: “Right, and they’re protected.”

May 3, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], on Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: During the opening monologue, host Bill Maher referred to the pontifical summer residence at Castel Gandolfo as “Club Ped,” implying that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is a pedophile.

April 2, 2013, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” [ABC], on teachings of the Catholic Church: Maher was a guest on the show and he called the Bible “a bunch of Bronze Age malarkey.” He stated that Catholic tradition “was not from Jesus or the Bible,” claiming that “most of this stuff” was “made up hundreds of years later by clowns in the Church.” When Kimmel asked Maher whether the Trinity was in the Bible, Maher responded: “No! Neither is Confession. They just pulled this out of their ass in the 12th century.” Referring to Limbo, Maher said “they just shamelessly invent it as they go along.”

March 22, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], on Pope Francis: After labeling the pope a “virgin bachelor,” Maher opined, “What other business could you be in where your company gets caught running a child sex ring since forever and you still keep your customers?”

March 15, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], on Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: After displaying pictures of notable persons holding signs mocking themselves, Maher showed a picture of the pope emeritus holding a sign saying, “Not actually sick…I just hated that f***ing job.”

February 15, 2013, “Real Time with Bill Maher” [HBO], on the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI: “Now…as you all know, this week, Pope Benedict told Vatican Radio—you know, Vatican Radio, playing the hits from the 8th century, 9th century and today—Benedict told them he was going to resign because the Church needs a fresh, young face, somewhere other than a priest’s lap.”

“It’s okay to let go. No one can fault you for losing faith in an organization that won’t even allow women as priests, because, the reasoning goes, Jesus didn’t have any female apostles. Yeah, you remember the Last Supper: a total sausage party.”

“The fact is that any enterprise that excludes women almost always descends into sexual deviancy. At least at my bathhouse.”

“Show me any culture that’s traditionally hostile to women, and I will show you a culture that is screwed up. Like the Taliban. Like our military with its enormous rape problem. And like the Catholic Church.”

February 11, 2013, “Conan” [TBS], smearing priests: Maher was a guest on the show. “We found early this year or last year in the Republican primaries when the Republicans made contraception an issue, 98% of Catholics use birth control and the only ones who don’t are the priests. They would if altar boys could get pregnant.”

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The following article by Bill Donohue was published by Newsmax on December 18, 2013:

There are signs that the “War on Christmas” is abating. In 1994, a year after I took over as president of the Catholic League, we successfully pressed Barneys, the upscale clothier on Madison Avenue, to remove an obscene manger scene from its storefront window. We erected a nativity scene in Central Park a year later, something we’ve done every year since. In subsequent years, we’ve been actively engaged in scores of skirmishes, winning some and losing some. Now it seems that things are calming down.

An examination of Catholic League activities in the “War on Christmas” is not dispositive, but it is an index of what has been happening in the dominant culture. Our records show that our involvement peaked in the years 2005-2007. Those were the years when we took on Wal-Mart, exacting an apology after we threatened a boycott following revelations that the mega-store was discriminating in its treatment of Christmas. Things got so bad that Jackie Mason and other Jewish leaders joined with us in protesting anti-Christmas attacks. TV shows and movies also featured assaults on Christian sensibilities during those years. 

This year we have seen a clear downward tick in attempts to bash Christmas. Indeed, even vandalism is down: the number of nativity scenes being trashed is relatively low. But not all is well. 

In 2013, as compared to previous years, the “War on Christmas” is being led more by national organizations, and less by local activists, than ever before. American Atheists, Freedom from Religion Foundation, and various humanist organizations are leading the way. Their weapon of choice is an array of billboards designed to denigrate Christmas. The Catholic League answered by erecting an enormous pro-Christmas billboard in Times Square, and two digital ones in New Jersey. 

Militant atheists have also targeted the schools, seeking to deny any religious component to classroom celebrations, and Christmas-themed events. But there is a decided pushback, and it is not being led by the Catholic League or any other national organization: The good news is that Christians are taking things into their own hands, pressuring local authorities to accede to their reasonable demands.

Contrary to those who sell the bogus idea that the “War on Christmas” is not real, Christians who are fighting back are not obsessed with who is saying “Happy Holidays,” and who is saying “Merry Christmas.” On the contrary, they are engaged in serious efforts to stop those who want to censor Christmas. The evidence is clear that a small minority are hell bent on banning, trashing, and diluting the public expression of Christmas.

Nearly 80 percent of Americans are Christian, and 96 percent celebrate Christmas. Of the remaining four percent, most are indifferent, but are not hostile, to Christmas. That leaves a small, but dogmatically extreme, band of secularists (many of whom are ex-Christians) who are seeking to impose their agenda on the rest of us. It is up to decent Americans of all faiths, and indeed no faith, to see to it that the cultural fascists do not win the day.

September
Bar Harbor, ME – The City Council voted not to extend a lease that allowed a lighted evergreen tree to remain on town property year round. The tree was installed as a memorial to veterans who gave their lives and was accompanied by a plaque that read in part “The Christmas They Never Had.” The group which had sponsored the tree was ordered to remove it.

October
Wausau, WI – The school board issued a notice to the Music Department of the Wausau West High School that the song list for their Master Singers concert had to be edited to reduce the number of proposed religious songs for their annual holiday shows. A ratio of one religious song for every five secular songs was proposed, as was the suggestion that the concert be postponed or not include any holiday music at all. In response, music director Phil Buch disbanded the Master Singers.

On October 15, the school board reversed its decision, instead deciding to hold off on making any decisions surrounding holiday musical selections. The Master Singers immediately began practicing for the holiday shows.

October 16
Deerfield Beach, FL – The city banned all holiday displays on public property that were not installed by the city itself. As a result of this new ban, a nativity scene that was traditionally placed in front of the local fire station was not displayed this year because it was provided by a private business. The new rule is in response to a protestor, who last year installed a “Festivus” pole made out of beer cans next to the nativity.

October 18
Alton, IL – Vandals caused damage at the town’s Christmas Wonderland display in Rock Spring Park before the volunteer tradesmen known as the “Grandpa Gang” could even finish setting up. The Christmas Wonderland is one of the region’s most popular Christmas attractions and helps raise money for local charities.

November 1
Bordentown, NJ – Constance Bauer, superintendent of the Bordentown Regional School District banned religious songs from their schools’ annual “winter” concerts. “Religious music should not be part of the elementary program(s),” Bauer wrote. The decision was reached after two families complained and the school district’s legal firm recommended removing the songs.

After a public outcry, and the intervention of Alliance Defending Freedom, Bauer changed her mind and lifted the ban on November 5th. Bauer said, “In reviewing additional legal considerations and advice taken on this matter and the expressed sentiments of the community at large, I have reconsidered the decision on the musical selections for the upcoming winter programs.”

November 13
The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) launched a series of gifts and cards to celebrate the winter solstice, but also aimed at mocking Christmas. Cards include designs such as “Keep Saturn in Saturnalia” and “Yes Virginia …There Is No God.” FFRF also offers a  “Heathen’s Greeting” musical selection.

FFRF’s president said “people have been celebrating the winter solstice long before Christmas. We see Christianity as the intruder, trying to steal the natural holiday from all of us humans.”

November 14
College Park, GA – Students at the Main Street Academy, a charter school, were given permission slips to begin rehearsing “popular American holiday music.” The permission slip also stated “religious songs will not be included.”  The principal did not respond to numerous attempts by the media to ask him to explain his decision.

November 15
West Columbia, SC – The American Humanist Association threatened to sue the East Point Academy charter school over its annual Christmas toy drive. The American Humanist Association says that the toy drive violated the constitution, “because the purpose and effect of Operation Christmas Child is to induce impoverished children to convert to Christianity.” The school cancelled the toy drive because it did not have the funds to fight a legal battle.

November 16
Avon Park, FL – Businesses were asked to decorate more than 40 Christmas trees that lined Main Street in advance of the city’s annual Christmas parade. The flier for the event said that trees must be “tastefully decorated” with “no religious decorations.” A standing-room-only crowd turned out for the next City Council meeting and the ban on religious decorations was reversed before anyone needed to speak.

November 21
Highlands Ranch, CO – The American Humanist Association threatened to sue the Skyview Academy charter school over a student organized and student run Christmas toy drive to help needy children. The American Humanist Association says that the toy drive violated the constitution because it was sponsored by an evangelical Christian organization. While the school officially canceled the drive, concerned parents and students continued to collect toys and packaged them on the sidewalk in front of the school.

November 21
Rock Hill, SC – Fearing a lawsuit from the ACLU or other similar groups, the principal at York Preparatory Academy supported a decision made by the band director to ban all religious music from their upcoming concert. The ban even included instrumental versions of  “Joy to the World” and “O Come All Ye Faithful.” After being contacted by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which offered to represent the school against any lawsuit free of charge, the school reversed its policy and permitted the inclusion of the religious music in the concert.

November 23 – 24
Seattle, WA – All nine Christmas trees at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport were removed after a Rabbi threatened a lawsuit if a menorah was not displayed too. Officials at the airport decided that it would be easier to remove the trees.

November 26
Reno, NV – The city announced it would celebrate the lighting of their “holiday tree.” Reno Creative Services Manager, Sharon Spangler, stated “we really want to be respectful of everyone’s beliefs and their forms of celebration.”

November 29
Louisville, KY – A teacher at Brandeis Elementary School was asked to take down a paper Christmas tree made up of paper hands cut out to represent all the students. Above the tree was a caption that read “Santa’s Helpers.” The school principal ordered the caption to be removed after another teacher, who was Jewish, complained about it. After the teacher removed the entire display, it was pointed out that removing Christmas entirely counteracted the goal of being “multi-cultural.” The teacher was then permitted to repost the display with a new caption that read “Happy Holidays.”

December 
“Judith Owen & Harry Shearer’s Holiday Sing Along” kicked off its irreverent five city tour through New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New Orleans. The show is described as an “antidote to the holiday frenzy” and according to reports includes songs such as “F*** Christmas” “Christmas with the Devil” and “Jesus was a Dreidel Spinner.”

December
Arlington Heights, IL – The Freedom From Religion Foundation installed an anti-religion sign in a public park as a protest against a privately funded nativity that was on display in the park.

December
Claremont, CA – The Claremont United Methodist Church, known for using the Holy Family to make provocative social commentaries, installed a nativity scene that replaced the baby Jesus with a bleeding Trayvon Martin figure. Martin, the African American teen who was shot in Florida, was depicted sitting hunched over in place of the manger with blood dripping from his chest. This was the sixth year that the church has allowed local artist John Zachary to use the nativity to comment on social policy.

December
Somers, NY – A group of residents petitioned the Town Board against a plan to install a crèche in front of the Town House. The Town House’s front lawn has long been the site of a Christmas Tree and a Hanukkah menorah but the petition suggests these are “non-religious” symbols.

December
Tallahassee, FL – A nativity scene in the State Capitol has been the source of protest from several atheists. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) placed a banner in the capitol building, which is self described as a “light-hearted nativity scene parody.” The banner depicts Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the Statue of Liberty huddled around a manger with the Bill of Rights in it. FFRF calls the display the “Bill of Rights Nativity.”

Additionally, Chaz Stevens, an atheist from Deerfield Beach, FL received permission to install a “Festivus” pole in the capitol to celebrate the fictional holiday made up by the television show “Seinfield.” Stevens’ pole was 6 feet tall made up of empty beer cans and was displayed next to the nativity. Stevens admits the idea is ridiculous, but installed the display as a protest against the nativity. Stevens had installed a similar pole in his hometown last year, which led to a ban on any holiday display.

The displays in the Statehouse also included a “provHerb” from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster meant to mock Christians. A proposed diorama from The Satanic Temple was rejected because it was “grossly offensive.”

December 2
Buffalo, NY – Business owners were ordered to remove Christmas lights that had been placed in trees along the popular Elmwood Village shopping district. According to the city, the lights were illegal unless they had been installed by a licensed contractor and had a $1 million insurance policy.

December 3
Brooklet, GA – For as long as anyone can remember, teachers at Brooklet Elementary School have posted Christmas cards in the hallways outside their classrooms – until this year. When students returned from Thanksgiving break, they discovered that their teachers’ Christmas cards had been removed – under orders from the Georgia school’s administration. The Christmas card censorship took place as the Bulloch County Board of Education began to crack down on religious expression in their schools. Teachers were ordered to remove any religious icons or items from their classrooms – ranging from Bibles to Christian music.

December 3
New York, NY – American Atheists launched a campaign titled “Nobody Needs Christ at Christmas.” The ad campaign includes a series of electronic billboards across midtown Manhattan that cross out the word “Christ” and encourage people to “Celebrate the true meaning of Xmas.”  The advertisement then flashes several suggestions for celebrating including “Chinese food,” “Rockettes” and “parties.”

December 3
Providence, RI – After two years of lighting a “holiday tree,” Gov. Lincoln Chafee agreed to refer to the State Capitol’s annual lighting celebration as a “Christmas Tree.” However, Gov. Chafee was not available to attend the actual lighting event and instead delegated the Christmas tree lighting responsibilities to the Secretary of State.

December 5
Chicago, IL – The Freedom from Religion Foundation unveiled a large illuminated “A” for atheists in the city’s Daley Plaza. The plaza has long been home to a privately maintained crèche and menorah. The atheists’ display also included a banner meant to mock Christians by depicting the Founding Fathers standing around a crib that contained the Bill of Rights.

December 5
Frisco, TX – Students who attend Nichols Elementary School’s “Winter Party” have been banned from talking about Christmas or any other religious holiday. Christmas trees have also been banned along with traditional holiday colors – red and green. The principal defended the policy saying that she “didn’t want to offend any families.”

December 5
Nashville, TN – Two shoppers were asked to leave the Opry Mills Mall because they were dressed in Christmas costumes and wishing people a Merry Christmas. Mall security indicated that they were interfering with the mall Santa and asked them to leave. A mall spokesperson later apologized and invited the shoppers back.

December 5
Quincy, MA – Statues of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and a lamb were stolen from a nativity scene in Quincy Square. The statues of the Holy Family were later recovered but the lamb was still missing.

December 5
St. Joseph, MN – Several figures from the nativity scene outside the Church of St. Joseph were stolen. Originally just a shepherd was missing, but then thieves also stole Mary, Joseph and some of the animals. During the following week, on December 11, Mary, Joseph, the shepherd and some of the missing animals were returned.

December 6
Ellsworth, ME – The Downeast Humanists and Freethinkers sponsored a float in the town’s Christmas parade. They claim the purpose of the float was to educate parade goers about the pagan roots of the evergreen tree.

December 9
Mt. Pleasant, PA – The baby Jesus figure was stolen from two nativity scenes.

December 10
Sumter, SC – Shaw Air Force Base removed a nativity scene that was displayed on the base after being contacted by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). MRFF bragged that it took the Air Force only 2 hours and 15 minutes to remove the nativity after a complaint had been filed. Officials at the base later revealed that they had not received any complaints about the nativity from Airmen stationed at the base, and that the only complaint was from MRFF. The nativity was later reinstalled outside the Base’s chapel.

December 10
Valencia, CA – A baby Jesus figurine was stolen from the nativity scene outside the Westfield Valencia Town Center. The statue was returned later in the week.

December 11
Vancouver, WA – Children singing Christmas carols were booted from the front of a WinCo grocery store over fears that they might offend patrons who did not celebrate Christmas. A corporate official later said he “did not see any harm” in the girls singing, and granted them permission to return.

December 12
Kings Park, NY – Officials at the Ralph J. Osgood Intermediate School decided that 5th grade students would perform “Silent Night” during the school’s concert. However all religious references were removed from the song, resulting in the children singing a version of “Silent Night”  that omitted lyrics such as “Holy infant,” “Christ the Savior,” and “Jesus Lord at thy birth.” The school district has since apologized.

December 13
West Covina, CA – A 6 year old student brought candy canes with short messages attached that included a reference to Jesus Christ to Merced Elementary School as gifts for his teacher and first grade classmates. The teacher confiscated the candy canes, and after conferring with the principal told the student that “Jesus is not allowed in school.” The messages were ripped off the candy canes and discarded in the trash.

After a lawyer from Advocates for Faith & Freedom contacted the school on the student’s behalf, he was permitted to hand out the candy canes with the messages, but it had to be done off campus and on the last day before the students left for winter break. The school superintendent said the teacher’s intention was to “maintain an appropriate degree of religious neutrality in the classroom.”

December 17
Fairfield, CT – When students at Fairfield Ludlowe High School suggested using Santa and Christmas trees to decorate the classroom door as part of a school-wide contest, the teacher told them that no reference to Christmas would be permitted. The school’s headmaster said the school policy is decorations “should have no direct religious meaning.” The headmaster suggested using a wreath, candy canes or holly because they have no direct religious meaning.

December 17
Pitman, NJ – The Freedom from Religion Foundation rented a billboard that reads “Keep Saturn in Saturnalia,” a reference to an ancient celebration of the Roman God Saturn. This billboard was erected in protest to a Knights of Columbus banner that read “Keep Christ in Christmas.”

December 19

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – Two nativity scenes were removed from dining halls at the U.S. Naval base following a complaint from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). According to MRFF, they received an email signed by 18 active-duty service members protesting the crèches. A spokesperson for the base said there had been no complaints from personnel stationed at the base about the displays. The nativity scenes were moved to a courtyard outside the base chapel.

December 19
Temecula, CA – First grade students at the Temecula Valley Unified School District were given an assignment that required each student to bring in something that represented a family holiday for a one-minute presentation. One young student brought in a star of Bethlehem and began to recite a Bible verse, when her teacher interrupted her and told her to take a seat.  The student was reportedly told that “she’s not allowed to talk about the Bible in school.”

December 21
Lincoln, NE – A lighted baby Jesus figure was stolen from the front yard of a private home.

December 24
Augusta, GA – A group of high school students were banned from singing religious Christmas carols at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center. The hospital, which is run by the federal Veterans Administration, said it had a responsibility to “represent people of all faiths.” According to the hospital, the policy on “spiritual care” is set by the Veterans Administration to protect veterans from “unwelcome religious material.” The students who had performed without any problems in 2011 and 2012 were given a list of 12 approved secular Christmas songs that they could sing. The students did not have enough time to rehearse the approved songs and instead decided not to perform at all.

December 24
Dallas, TX – Christmas cards that were made by students for local veterans were not accepted by the VA North Texas Health Care System because the federal Veterans Administration has a policy that limits the distribution of cards containing religious references. The cards were instead donated to other private veterans’ facilities.

December 25
Erie, PA – Someone broke into a church after Christmas Eve services and stole the baby Jesus statue from the church’s narthex. Nothing else in the church was stolen or damaged.

December 27
Basking Ridge, NJ – A statue of baby Jesus was stolen from a nativity scene on the front lawn of a private home.

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January 7
New York, NY – At the New York Film Critics Circle Award, Michael Moore presented the Best First Film to David France for his documentary celebrating gay activism, “How to Survive a Plague.” In particular, the documentary honored the day when homosexual terrorists from ACT-UP invaded St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on December 10, 1989. They interrupted the Mass by shouting and waving their fists; they tossed condoms in the air; they spat the Eucharist on the floor; they chained themselves to pews; they stopped Catholics from going to Holy Communion. In an editorial at the time, the New York Times called what happened, “an act of desecration.” Moore said, “I personally like that one.”

January 11
Charlotte, NC – Someone broke into St. Thomas Aquinas Church and desecrated the altar causing $2,600 in damage. The vandals broke in through a stained glass window and then proceeded to knock over a crucifix, break a statue of Jesus in the church’s nativity, and leave blood stains on the altar cloth.

January 28
West Hollywood, CA – R&B singer Chris Brown depicted himself as Jesus on the Cross on Instagram. He was feeling angry after getting into a fight over a parking space and exploited Christian iconography to make a cheap personal point.

February 2
Wilmington, MA – Vandals struck St. Thomas of Villanova Parish, painting the word “Brainwashing” on seven doors in red spray paint. Images of a television and a brain were also painted onto each of the church’s 10 steps to the main entrance, and an exterior wall. A statue of St. Thomas was painted red as was a smaller garden statue. About a mile away St. Dorothy’s Church was also graffitied on the same night with similar markings. The graffiti was done using stencils and covered large sections of both churches’ property leading the pastor of both churches to assume that the crime was carried out by a group of organized people who had planned it out. In addition to the two Catholic churches, a nearby Congregational church was also struck by the vandals, although the damage to that church was minimal.

February 17
Utica, MI – Burglars broke a window to get into St. Lawrence School, and then once inside they were able to gain access to St. Lawrence Church where they were able to penetrate a safe and make off with an undisclosed amount of cash.

February 28
Hoboken, NJ – Burglars broke into Our Lady of Grace Church and stole two guitars, a nail gun and an electric saw. They also attempted to steal a laptop computer but failed because the computer was locked to a radiator.

March
Westport, MA – Two vandals broke into St. John the Baptist church, broke a crucifix in half, stole several valuable items including a century-old tabernacle, and urinated in the holy water. Two brothers were later arrested and charged with various crimes relating to this incident.

March 7
Lady Lake, FL – A homeless woman was arrested and charged with using a baseball bat to behead a statue of St. Michael at St. Timothy’s Church. The woman had been hanging around the church for several hours before vandalizing the statue. After she was arrested she said she was trying to “fight the devil.”

April
Chimayo, NM – A statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe was stolen from the popular Catholic shrine, El Santuario de Chimayo.

April 7
Bozeman, MT – Holy Rosary Church was forced to cancel Sunday masses after it was discovered that vandals had caused extensive damage in the church. Spray paint covered the walls and basement, and several sacred items were destroyed. After several other houses of worship were vandalized, the FBI began investigating the matter as a hate crime.

April 26
Covington, LA – At St. Paul’s School, vandals spray-painted the chapel, cafeteria, baseball stadium, Founder’s Circle, main building and statues. Much of the graffiti was anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, pro-satanic, and obscene.

May 13
Lincoln, NE – A 19 year old aspiring adult film star snuck into the Catholic Pius X High School that she used to attend, in order to film a pornographic video. The girl posed nude in multiple locations across the school’s campus and filmed a video of herself masturbating with multiple objects including a crucifix. She said that the photo shoot was intended as revenge against her former classmates and teachers.

In December a county judge sentenced her to 45 days in prison for trespassing and public nudity.

June 10
Pottstown, PA – St. Thomas More Church was vandalized when perpetrators sprayed fire extinguishers throughout the church, dumped maple syrup on the floor and stole a bottle of wine.

June 10
Shelton, CT – Outside St. Margaret Mary Church, a statue of the Blessed Virgin was slammed to the ground and split into pieces. Inside, the Body of Jesus was ripped from the Cross. The left arm was severed at the shoulder. The altar was toppled over. The tabernacle, with Communion hosts locked inside, was torn from bolts and tossed to the ground. Shreds of shattered glass hung from an entrance door. Teak statues were torn off the crying-room walls. Oil was strewn everywhere; it is possible that the perpetrators intended to burn the church down. Cars belonging to one priest were splattered with white paint. Another priest in residence at the church said, “This is a hate crime. They knew the symbols of the Roman Catholic religion and targeted them.”

June 18
Eureka, CA – Thieves broke into the dormitory of St. Bernard’s Catholic School and stole the belongings of nearly 25 foreign exchange students.

July 6
St. Louis, MO – The general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals ordered the removal of a small cross that was etched in the pitching mound at Busch Stadium. The grounds crew had been carving the cross along with another symbol. One newspaper reported that this symbol was the number “6” in honor of the late Cardinal Stan Musial after his death in January. Another observer objected that the symbol was in fact an “Ichthys,” meaning a symbol for Christ. The general manager said, “It’s not club policy to be putting religious symbols on the playing field or throughout the ballpark. I didn’t ask for the reason behind it. I just asked for it to stop.”

July 15
Cheektowaga, NY – Two men robbed St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church while funeral services were being held inside the church.

July 30
Brooklyn, NY – A vandal spray-painted statues of the Virgin Mary as well as a Christ on the Cross with red paint outside St. Anselm’s Catholic Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The church was also struck by vandalism in May when two statues were defaced. Police arrested a 55 year old man and charged him with vandalizing 11 sites with red paint including a synagogue.

August
Staten Island, NY – St. Joseph Hill Convent and School were vandalized causing $15,000 in damage a week before school was scheduled to begin. Police charged three suspects with attempted break in.

August 23
Brooklyn, NY – A five-foot statue of an angel was knocked off its base at Our Lady of Consolation Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

August 25 – 26
Magna, UT – Vandals kicked in the basement door to the rectory and broke into Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, and then returned the next morning to do more damage and steal a television. Statues, benches, mirrors, frames and glass doors were smashed. Fire extinguishers were sprayed throughout the chapel. Beer was found in the holy water font. The vandals left behind blood stains, fingerprints, and a cell phone. The vandals urinated in the chalices both times they attacked. Garbage was strewn across the yard. The kitchen was ruined. Lights and computers were smashed. A television and all the sacramental wine were stolen. In total $12,700 in damage was done and $5,600 in property was missing. It was the fourth time in two years that the church was vandalized.

Three teenagers aged 14 to 16 were later identified by police as those responsible. One of the three, a 16 year old boy, was charged on December 3 with three first degree felonies. A second suspect, who had not yet been charged, was cooperating with the police.

August 26
Coos Bay, OR – An explosive device was ignited next to the Mingo Park Vietnam War Memorial cross. The cross had been the subject of controversy after the Freedom From Religion Foundation called for its removal. The cross remained standing and sustained superficial damage.

August 27
Phoenix, AZ – Vandals defaced the side of Sacred Heart Catholic Church with graffiti. The church was deemed a National Historic Site by the Department of Interior in 2012.

August 27
Brighton, MA – Vandals defaced billboards sponsored by the Catholic Radio Network in the Boston area. The original text, “Try God. 1060 AM Catholic Radio”, was altered to read “Try God. The other WHITE meat.”

September 19
Franklin Township, NJ – St. Mary’s Church, a part of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Parish, was vandalized while a vigil was being held inside the church. A total of 9 stone statues were severely damaged or destroyed.

September 23
Washington, DC – A stone monument of the Ten Commandments across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court was knocked over. The monument, which weighs 850 pounds and was reinforced with a steel rod, was toppled over, bending the rod.

October 7
Española, NM – While two people were praying, a man walked into the adoration chapel at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church and stole the monstrance along with the Eucharist that was inside of it. Police suspected that the criminal had planned out the crime the day before.

Police arrested a suspect and recovered the monstrance and the Eucharist later in the week.

October 12
Arlington, TX – Most Blessed Sacrament Church, along with a Lutheran church were vandalized with “unintelligible” Spanish graffiti relating to Mexican politics. The black and blue spray paint covered an exterior wall, several brick columns, the front doors, and a sign in front of the church.

October 12
Hamilton, MT – Officials at St. Francis of Assisi parish discovered that someone had vandalized the church’s sanctuary and destroyed a number of items. Among the damage was the glass altar, a piano, a kneeler and several other sacred items. Police arrested a 23 year old suspect the next day.

October 12
Staten Island, NY – The same convent that was the site of vandalism in August was now being investigated as the victim of an arson. In the early morning, the Daughters of Divine Charity awoke to find that the St. Joseph Hill Convent and Chapel was engulfed in flames. The Daughters were celebrating their 100th Anniversary in the United States during the weekend of the fire. Two nuns and four firefighters were injured in the fire. The New York City Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the possibility of arson.

October 21
Utica, NY – St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Catholic Church was vandalized by a local teen who spray painted obscenities on the steps of the church and on a sign promoting a festival. Witnesses alerted police to the incident and the suspect was arrested shortly thereafter. Police are investigating whether or not the 18 year old was involved with a similar incident a year earlier.

October 24
Appomattox, VA – A vandal broke into Our Lady of Peace Church through a window and caused a lot of damage both inside and outside of the church. Six windows were broken, including three stained glass windows and pieces of the altar were spread all over the place. Outside, a statue was broken, handicapped parking signs were vandalized and decorative pumpkins were smashed. Within a week police had arrested a 23 year old suspect in connection with these crimes.

October 31
Rockford, IL – Glass windows and doors were shot out at St. Bernadette Church, School, and Parish Center by three vandals using low powered weapons. The Halloween night destruction included shattering a parish center glass door and classroom window. Additionally, glass that protects the church’s stained glass windows was destroyed, but the actual stained glass was unharmed. In total 36 windows sustained damage and will require replacement.

November 7
Baltimore, MD – Fr. Michael Kolodziej was suspended from all public ministries by the Franciscans. Furthermore, the Archdiocese of Baltimore withdrew his faculties so that he can no longer serve as a priest. Father Kolodziej has not been found guilty of anything. His accuser says he was abused by the priest while they were wrestling at Baltimore’s Archbishop Curley High School in the mid-to-late 1970s. The supposed groping would have occurred while participating in a contact sport in front of spectators. As a result, we have the spectacle of a 69-year-old priest being subjected to public embarrassment about groping a teenager in front of spectators several decades ago.

November 10
Philadelphia, PA – Father John P. Paul stepped down as pastor of Our Lady of Calvary Parish in November. He resigned because of the emotional stress he has been under. In all his years as a priest, he has never had an accusation made against him (he was ordained in 1972). But now, out of the blue, he is being charged with abusing two boys in 1968, when he was a seminarian. It’s funny how both of these alleged victims decided to wait 45 years to make their case—in tandem, no less. The police were contacted but the case was dropped because the statue of limitations had expired. But Father Paul is still being investigated by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

November 11
Chicago, IL – A 73 year old priest from Chicago was shaken down for money by the same two con-artist brothers who had hustled him before. This time the priest said no. “We’ll say you touched us—read the paper—they’ll believe us,” they said.

November 14
Philadelphia, PA –  Charges of sexual abuse were made last September by the Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams against Father Robert Brennan. A month later, the charges were withdrawn, following the accuser’s death; he overdosed on drugs. Enter Marci Hamilton, a law professor who works at Yeshiva University in New York, a school that has had many recent sexual abuse scandals. In November, she joined other rapacious lawyers announcing that they were filing a lawsuit on behalf of the family of the alleged victim. Hamilton is obsessed with the Catholic Church in Philadelphia; it was her 18th lawsuit against the archdiocese.

November 23
Brighton, MA – Three individuals broke into Our Lady of Presentation Church, which is part of St. John’s Seminary, and spent nearly 6 hours vandalizing the property. They destroyed an organ, damaged doors, sprayed fire extinguishers, and defaced a painting of Pope John XXIII. According to police reports, the painting was slashed and graffitied with phrases such as “Devil’s Star,” “[Expletive] God” and “Scooby Doo.”

November 28
New York, NY – Vandals defaced a memorial dedicated to 9/11 victims at the Church of Good Shepherd. Graffiti was painted on a wall of the church adjacent to stones with the names of victims. The vandals also damaged the security gates of the nearby Good Shepherd School.

Back to Top

People often ask me what’s hopping at the Catholic League, and what issue we will be tackling next. After I bring them up to date, they’re usually perplexed to learn that I really don’t know what’s sitting in the dock. That’s because we typically react to events—we don’t generate them—and this means we often have no idea of what’s coming down the pike. Unfortunately, this indicates that an anti-Catholic outburst can occur at any time and at any place. Fortunately, we’re up for the fight.

Indeed, that’s where the fun comes in. While it is never pleasant to see unprovoked attacks on Catholicism, it’s invigorating to quickly develop a strategy to combat them. No two instances are identical: every situation demands its own unique response.

Those who work at the Catholic League intuitively know what I’ve said is true. After all, they experience the challenges before us. Vice President Bernadette Brady, our veteran officer who straddles both the policy and processing departments, directs most of the business traffic. Jeff Field, Don Lauer and Marcus Plieninger bring their verve to policy issues; Alex Mejia, Tom Arkin, Mary Ellen Kiely, Suzon Loreto, Dolores Varley and Michael O’Halloran ably cover the processing department. We may have different roles, but we are one team.

This annual report is not exhaustive of everything we did in 2012, but it does offer an accurate overview of the most pressing matters we faced. Because it is hard to quantify what are essentially qualitative incidents, there is room for disagreement on how serious the entries in this volume are. To be sure, they are not uniform. On the other hand, no fair-minded observer is likely to conclude that anti-Catholic bigotry is a myth.

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President

Anti-Catholicism is as ugly as any other form of bigotry, though many do not agree. That is why some bigots are condemned while others are tolerated, if not commended. Generally speaking, it’s the elites who are the problem, not ordinary Americans. Many have an authority problem, and often their issues revolve around sexuality. In their eyes, if the Catholic Church is being picked on, it’s probably justified.

No institution targeted the Catholic Church with greater vengeance in 2012 than the federal government. The year started with a January 20 slam: President Barack Obama informed the Catholic community that his ObamaCare legislation was adding a provision from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): Catholic organizations that serve mostly non-Catholics—charitable groups, schools, universities, hospitals, social service agencies, and the like—were deemed not to be sufficiently Catholic and must therefore provide insurance coverage to their employees. Such insurance must cover abortifacients, contraception and sterilization. Of course, what makes Catholic entities truly Catholic is that they do not serve only their own people. Now the federal government was threatening to punish them for not discriminating against non-Catholics.

After the winter dustup between the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan (he would soon be named cardinal), President Obama offered what he generously called an “accommodation”: the organizations wouldn’t have to pay for these services; however, their insurance companies would. But this was a distinction without a difference. After all, who pays for the insurance premium but the employer and the employees? And in the case of self-insured institutions (including many dioceses), the distinction rings completely hollow.

The media lined up, almost single-file, behind Obama. They did so by calling this the “contraception mandate,” thereby deflecting attention from the abortion-inducing drugs and the sterilization services that were also included in the HHS mandate. As virtually everyone conceded, poor women are never denied free birth control pills from Planned Parenthood. For middle class women, the cost of contraception is typically cheaper than going to Starbucks for coffee each month. So few were fooled.

The bottom line for Catholic non-profits was to stop being Catholic if they wanted the exemption. In other words, the Obama administration (following the thinking of the ACLU) intentionally crafted a perverse Catch-22 condition for Catholic organizations: the only way to avoid paying for abortion-inducing drugs was to start discriminating against Jews and Protestants. Either way, Catholic entities were being forced to prostitute their mission.

The Obama administration did not stop there. It went ballistic when the Archbishop for Military Services exercised his free speech rights by sending a letter to his military chaplains protesting the HHS mandate. On another matter, the Obama team quickly dispatched HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to misrepresent her mandate by maintaining there was an ongoing dialogue with Catholic leaders about this issue. In fact, there had been only one meeting between President Obama and Archbishop Dolan (and it was in late 2011); there were none during the contentious winter of 2012. Furthermore, under pressure from Senator Orrin Hatch, Sebelius admitted that the religious liberty issues involved were never subjected to a legal analysis, though 27 senators had asked for one. The deceit was rampant.

The good news is that the response from other religions, especially from evangelical Protestants, Mormons and Orthodox Jews, was considerable. They stood by Catholics, often saying they knew they would be next if they were silent in the face of the anti-Catholic onslaught. Meanwhile, major media outlets continued to refer to the religious liberty issue as the “religious liberty” issue. Thus did they make plain their contempt for what most Americans saw as a clear First Amendment matter.

The Administrative Committee of the USCCB released a statement on March 14 that was the clearest exposition of contemporary Catholic thought on religious liberty in America. The bishops refused to budge, knowing there were certain constitutional issues that were not open to compromise. Importantly, Bishop William Lori (who was to become the Archbishop of Baltimore) was named to head the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of the ObamaCare legislation. But it didn’t change matters dramatically for the Catholic community: the HHS mandate was not issued until after the high court accepted a challenge to ObamaCare; thus, the religious liberty implications of the directive were not addressed.

Still, the USCCB raised three objections to the ruling: (a) ObamaCare allowed the federal government to fund elective abortions, as well as plans that cover abortion (b) it did nothing to ensure conscience rights (something Obama pledged to do when he gave his commencement address at the University of Notre Dame in 2009), and (c) it did nothing to protect immigrant workers in need of healthcare. The second objection was the most serious as it set the stage for the HHS mandate to become operative.

The fall was dominated by the presidential debates. For eminently good reasons, the HHS mandate did not receive as much attention as fiscal matters. But it never went away. When the year ended, the issue was still unresolved as dozens of lawsuits were still pending. Filing suit were dozens of dioceses, Catholic business owners, universities, and other Catholic entities. Importantly, they were joined by a host of non-Catholic groups.

Speaking of the presidential election, if there was one subject the media did not want to touch, it was the reaction which the two Catholic candidates for vice president had garnered from bishops over their careers. This matters because the media gave considerable attention to those few bishops and lay Catholics who questioned the Catholicity of Paul Ryan’s budget. What the media did not want to discuss was the large number of bishops who had sanctioned or otherwise reprimanded Vice President Joe Biden over the years; most of their problems with him stemmed from his pro-abortion positions. For practicing Catholics, at least, this was not exactly a side issue.

In previous years, we exposed the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) as a small band of professional victims’ advocates who hate the Catholic Church. In 2012, I issued a report, SNAP UNRAVELS, that critically analyzed statements made by its leader, David Clohessy, at his court-ordered appearance in Missouri.

As it turned out, Clohessy has been lying to the media about his work for years. He has also falsely advertised his group as a rape crisis center. Worse than working with some unseemly lawyers, Clohessy has engaged in counseling men and women, though he has absolutely no qualifications in this area. Even more disturbing, it was revealed that SNAP has never contributed funds for licensed counselors. All in all, Clohessy’s court appearance did more to undermine his credibility than anything his critics have ever said about him. SNAP, it is fair to say, will never be the same.

Another activist group with an animus against the Catholic Church is American Atheists. Owing partly to competition with other atheist outfits, American Atheists went for the jugular at Christmastime by displaying a huge billboard in Times Square depicting Jesus with a Crown of Thorns. The billboard, which showed a picture of Santa above Jesus, offered the message, “Keep the merry! Dump the myth!” The hate-filled campaign not only crossed the line with Christians, many agnostics and atheists said it was offensive.

When TV talk-show host Jon Stewart laughed at what he called the “vagina manger,” we knew we had to act. As he spoke, a picture was shown behind him of a naked woman with her legs spread; a nativity scene ornament was placed in between. This offense was so vulgar and uncalled for that it demanded much more than a statement condemning Stewart’s antics. So we unleashed a relentless campaign that lasted approximately six weeks.

We did not seek to get Stewart fired; all we wanted was an apology. He refused. So we contacted his sponsors asking them to put pressure on him to do so. The best of the lot was Delta, which pulled its advertising. The worst was Kellogg’s; it brazenly took a dismissive attitude. We also contacted the board of directors at Viacom, the parent company of Comedy Central, sending them all a copy of the photo. Indeed, we mailed the photo to a select number of secular and religious elites all over the nation. The response was incredible. We know this because many bishops and civic leaders sent us a copy of their letter to Comedy Central. We ended our campaign with an op-ed page ad in the New York Times titled, “Jon Stewart’s Legacy.”

At the end of the year, the New York Times was itself of interest to us. After BBC chief Mark Thompson was chosen to be the new president of the New York Times Company, questions surfaced about his possible role in a cover-up at the BBC. Here’s what happened.

Jimmy Savile, a BBC icon, died at the end of 2011, and shortly thereafter he was exposed as a serial molester. “Newsnight,” a BBC version of “60 Minutes,” decided to do an exposé on Savile, but it was suddenly spiked. At issue was Thompson’s role, if any, in killing the story. At the very least, many parties wanted to know what he knew, and when he knew it.

Thompson survived, but his reputation took a hit. Our interest had less to do with Thompson than it did with those commentators—and there is no end to them—who have said that everyone at the Vatican, from the pope on down, knew of priestly sexual abuse and did nothing about it. Well, if Thompson had no knowledge of the Savile issue, and he ran an organization with 23,000 employees, why should we expect the pope, who runs an organization in excess of one billion members, to know what his people are doing? It is one thing to know that some priests are molesters, quite another to know exactly who they are; there are more than 400,000 stationed around the globe.

The universities are hot beds of anti-Catholicism. Much of the hostility, it seems plain, is a function of the Church’s teachings on marriage and sexuality. This issue surfaced in a really ugly way when a professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin, Mark Regnerus, was attacked for merely publishing a study on parenting that homosexual activists didn’t like. It is a sad chapter in higher education when radical activists off-campus can lead a charge against a scholar and receive a serious hearing from university administrators.

Those who led the attack were bereft of academic credentials, yet the University of Texas said the episode met its standards for launching an inquiry; if matters warranted it, an investigation would follow. We were happy to get involved by alerting the university of our concerns: at stake was more than academic freedom—Regnerus’ religion (he was a recent convert to Catholicism) had been called into question by one of his accusers. Thus, the civil rights of the professor were in play (as a sociologist myself this case was of special interest to me). In the end, Regnerus was cleared of any wrongdoing and no investigation was initiated.

Besides marriage and sexuality, if there is one issue that is a perennial for Catholic bashers, it is the role of Pope Pius XII in combating Nazism. In the spring, the University of Minnesota, Duluth, hosted a series of events commemorating the Holocaust. What got our attention was a postcard that was sent to the Duluth community about the conference: on the front of the postcard was a drawing of a Catholic prelate and a Nazi standing on top of a Jewish person; the drawing suggested that the Catholic Church supported Hitler.

There were many other facets of the conference that we objected to as well, and we made plain our objections. For the record, we don’t object to serious scholarship that seeks to uncover the response of world leaders to the Holocaust, and we don’t regard mere criticism of the pope as evidence of bias. But we do take strong exception to those who harbor an agenda. When seriously discredited work is presented as authoritative, it must be exposed for what it is. We did our part by offering a lengthy rebuttal to the conference’s most absurd claims.

No year would be complete without an assault from artists. What surprised us was the decision of a New York gallery to go back to the well (“sewer” would be more accurate) by hosting Andres Serrano’s classic, “Piss Christ.” Now it is likely that we would have given this “art” a pass had it been displayed in some obscure venue in Queens, but when a noted gallery on 57th Street off of 5th Avenue in Manhattan welcomed it, that changed matters. We knew we had no choice but to protest Serrano’s crucifix in a jar of urine.

We assembled outside the gallery on the night Serrano’s exhibit opened. I was holding a jar with a bobblehead of President Obama sitting in what appeared to be feces (it was actually brown Play-Doh). I wanted to let the media know that this was my contribution to art. Moreover, I wanted to interview Serrano (who was inside the gallery). Specifically, I wanted to know the best way to secure a federal grant to support my magnum opus. After all, the National Endowment for the Arts funded his “art” in 1989, so maybe I could get in on this game as well. But I didn’t get the chance. When I tried to enter the gallery, the free speech mavens from the gallery told security not to let me inside.

It is important to note that this report does not include information about all the incidents that have come to our attention in 2012. For example, lots of material crosses our desks that some have found objectionable, but we don’t. If there are some skits or lyrics that are untoward, but are not patently offensive, then we throw them out. We look at context, as well as other factors, and ultimately make a decision based on those criteria.

To be sure, the range of offenses varies widely, as does the range of our concerns. While some of our critics say we respond too harshly, we say there is a difference between being responsibly aggressive (which is what we are) and being ballistic. In the end, our many victories have taught us a valuable lesson: If you truly want to defend the faith, then learning to raise your voice is a must.

William A. Donohue, Ph.D
President

January – February
Cranston, RI – The Cranston School Committee voted not to appeal a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Lagueux mandating the removal of a prayer mural from the wall of an auditorium at Cranston High School West because the process could be prohibitively expensive. In January, the judge had sided with the complainants—a student atheist and the ACLU. The atheist group, American Humanist Association, applauded the school’s decision not to appeal.

January 2
David Clohessy, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), was deposed regarding his role in cases of priestly sexual abuse pursuant to an order by a Missouri judge issued at the end of 2011. Clohessy fought the order vigorously, but he lost. The deposition was made public in March and is available on the Catholic League website. It demonstrated SNAP’s fraudulence beyond any reasonable doubt. Bill Donohue noted in a news release, “Even if Clohessy started out as an activist for justice, it is crystal clear that he has evolved into something altogether different.” For Donohue’s special report, SNAP UNRAVELS, [click here].

January 6 – 8
Boston, MA – The “10th Anniversary Celebration & Conference” was convened to “celebrate” media reports of 2002 on the Boston clergy sexual abuse scandal. The speakers included actors, artists, activists from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, psychiatrists, lawyers, and journalists. They were all representatives of the professional victims’ lobby and had a demonstrated history of anti-Catholicism. The event ended on a Sunday at Boston’s Holy Cross Cathedral, not for the purpose of going to Mass, but to hold a demonstration, even though the scandal ended in the 1980s. Seventy-five people attended the conference, 25 of whom were the speakers.

February – November
Kalispell, MT – Since 2010, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) had waged a campaign to remove a statue of Jesus from a mountainside location; the Knights of Columbus (KofC) erected the statue in 1955 as a memorial to the fallen of World War II.  FFRF had initially pressured the U.S. Forest Service to remove the statue from its location on federal land in Montana. After public outcry, the Forest Service reversed its decision in February. FFRF responded by suing to have the memorial removed permanently.

On May 30, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, on behalf of the KofC and several other members individually, petitioned the U.S. District Court to intervene as defendants on First Amendment grounds. The petition was granted the next day by order of the judge, who acknowledged that the First Amendment rights of the KofC were at stake.

The KofC had asked the judge to throw out FFRF’s legal challenge because it had not named anyone actually harmed by the statue. In response, FFRF found an atheist who submitted a statement saying he had skied past the statue many times and had been offended by it. As a result, on November 27, a U.S. District Judge threw out the KofC’s request. A trial was scheduled for March 2013.

February 6
Republican lawmakers wrote a letter of protest to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, urging them to restore the original logo of the the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO). In December 2011, RCO expunged a reference to God on its logo, changing it from the Latin phrase for “Doing God’s Work With Other People’s Money” to “Doing Miracles With Other People’s Money.” The Air Force capitulated after months of pressure from the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, which claimed victory.

March 7
Vatican City – After a failed attempt in August, the activist hacker group Anonymous twice attacked the Vatican’s website, rendering it inaccessible. The group issued an anti-Catholic statement saying why it targeted the “corrupt” Catholic Church: “Anonymous decided today to besiege your site in response to the doctrine, to the liturgies, to the absurd and anachronistic concepts that your for-profit organization spreads around the world.”

March 9
The opening salvo of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s anti-Catholic ad campaign was a full-page advertisement in the New York Times. The timing of the ad coincided with threats to religious liberty from the Obama administration. Variations of the ad appeared on May 8 in the Washington Express as well as the Washington Post, on June 1-3 in the weekend edition of USA Today, and on July 4 in the the Los Angeles Times.

The pretext of the ad was the Catholic Church’s opposition to the Health and Human Services mandate forcing Catholic non-profits to include abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization in its insurance plans. Many in the media vilified the bishops in framing opposition to this mandate as a “war on women.”

The ad began: “It’s time to quit the Roman Catholic Church. Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages?” The ad blamed the Catholic Church for promoting “acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, overpopulation, social evils and deaths.” It said the bishops are “launching a ruthless political Inquisition” against women. It talked about “preying priests” and corruption “going all the way to the top.” In an appeal to Catholic women, it opined, “Apparently, you’re like the battered woman who, after being beaten down every Sunday, feels she has no place else to go.” The ad took the form of an open letter to “liberal” and “nominal” Catholics. It ended with a pun on the phrase “exiting en masse,” imploring Catholics to “Please, Exit en Mass.”

March 24
Washington, D.C. – A “Reason Rally” attended by atheists expressed an animus against Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular. “Hey Kids,” one sign read, “It’s Okay—GOD is PRETEND.” “Religion is Like a Penis,” another sign read. “It’s OK to have one…But it is NOT OK to whip it out in public, shove it in my face, or tell me what to do because you have one….” One woman held a sign demanding that adherents of the three monotheistic religions “Get Out of My Panties.” There were signs such as “So many Christians, so few lions.” There was a man dressed as Jesus riding an inflatable dinosaur; another man held a large wooden cross with a mask of “The Joker” on top.

The entertainment featured Australian songwriter Tim Minchin, who thrilled the crowd with “The Pope Song.” The lyrics were explicit: “I don’t give a f*** if calling the pope a motherf***er means…You see I don’t give a f*** what any other motherf***er believes about Jesus and his motherf***ing mother.”

The big draw was atheist Richard Dawkins. He implored the crowd to “ridicule and show contempt” for people of faith. “Mock them, ridicule them in public,” he bellowed. Dawkins not only mocked the Eucharist, he advised the crowd to ask Catholics, “Do you really believe…that when a priest blesses a wafer, it turns into the body of Christ?”

March 28
The Air Force removed a mandatory reading from its Squadron Officer School correspondence course in response to pressure from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). The document was intended for a part of the course called “Spiritual and Ethical Responsibilities” and connected regular chapel attendance with good leadership: “If you attend chapel regularly, both officers and Airmen are likely to follow this example. If you are morally lax in your personal life, a general moral indifference within the command can be expected.” These words offended one atheist captain taking the course. He enlisted the help of MRFF to expunge any mention of the connection between religion and morality.

March 31
Fort Bragg, NC – Atheists organized a festival called “Rock Beyond Belief” at Fort Bragg in retaliation against “Rock the Fort,” a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association event that took place in 2011. The organizer of the festival stated that he was personally offended by a Christian event on the base. The festival was promoted with a music video celebrating the burning of churches and synagogues.

April 12
Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued a press release attacking the “Fortnight for Freedom” as “thoroughly misguided.” Americans United executive director Barry Lynn accused the bishops of seeking to “maintain their privileged status.”

April 16 – 30
Woonsocket, RI – The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) issued letters to the mayor and fire chief demanding that a memorial cross dedicated to fallen soldiers of the two world wars be removed from its location outside the fire department headquarters. FFRF’s demands also extended into cyberspace when the group effectively called for censorship by requesting that the Fireman’s Prayer and the image of a grieving firefighter consoled by an angel be removed from the Woonsocket Fire Department’s web page dedicated to honoring fallen firefighters. The Mayor of Woonsocket stood his ground and said: “I’m not going to fold. This monument is not going to go away.”

April 19
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed a formal complaint with the IRS against Bishop Daniel Jenky of the Diocese of Peoria. In a press release, Americans United executive director Barry Lynn claimed that Bishop Jenky was in “violation of federal law” when he said that “every practicing Catholic…must vote their Catholic consciences.” This was an attempt to intimidate and silence a bishop who had every right to voice his opinion on the political process.

April 25
The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF) pressured the Air Force to remove Bibles from on-base lodging. A legal review by the Air Force Services Agency demonstrated “no requirement to have Bibles in the lodging checklist.” Although the Air Force did not comply with MAAF’s demand and cited “multiple First Amendment practices and obligations,” a revised checklist was slated to take effect in October 2013.  Although MAAF declared, prematurely, that “Air Force Services Operations has promised to end their Bible requirement,” whether or not the Air Force will comply with the atheist demand remains to be seen.

April 25
Faithful America, a non-Catholic group, petitioned Bishop Robert McManus of the Diocese of Worcester to change his mind after he disinvited pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage Catholic Victoria Kennedy (widow of Sen. Edward Kennedy) from giving the commencement address at Anna Maria College. After collecting 20,000 signatures, Faithful America delivered them to the bishop, who remained firm in his decision.

April 27
Catholics for Choice (CFC) issued a dissident “open letter” in a ploy to discredit the bishops’ authoritative defense of Catholic teaching on contraception. This was an attempt to frame the bishops’ defense of religious liberty against the Health and Human Services abortifacient mandate as a “war on women.” What was more pernicious, however, was that CFC, an anti-Catholic front group, claimed to speak for all American Catholics, pitting them against the authority of the bishops.

Predictably, instead of the Magisterium, the letter invoked “our tradition of social justice.” The letter said: “The bishops’ insistence on eliminating access to contraception does not reflect our view or the views of many of the 68 million Catholics in the United States.” The letter concluded by saying that “if you want to know what Catholics think about contraception, ask us—not the bishops” and implored readers to sign on in support.

May 23
Hamilton County, TN – The Freedom From Religion Foundation lashed out at the Hamilton County Commission for holding Christian prayers before meetings. The group sent a letter asking commissioners to “discontinue official, government prayers before government meetings.”

June 7
John Gehring, an official at Faith in Public Life (an organization funded by atheist billionaire George Soros), sent a memo to his comrades in the media, a copy of which was leaked to the Catholic League. He instructed them on how to handle the bishops and the “Fortnight for Freedom” events that were to be conducted from June 21 to July 4. He recommended they begin by questioning the prelates why the Obama “accommodation” wasn’t good enough. “You have to ask why the bishops can’t take yes for an answer,” he wrote.

Teaching them how to handle the “war on the Catholic Church,” Gehring advised, “Several bishops have used inflammatory and irresponsible rhetoric that conflates a process of working through complex policy issues with a fundamental attack on the Catholic Church.” He also worried about the politicization of the religious liberty campaign, an effort made possible, he neglected to say, because of the politicization of religion by President Obama.

Gehring pressed his lackeys to victimize the victim, beckoning them to ask the bishops—all of whom refuse to prostitute their principles— “Are you willing to sacrifice Catholic charities, colleges and hospitals if you don’t get your way on the contraceptive mandate?”

Finally, Gehring provided a go-to list of Catholic activists who can be counted on to subvert the bishops’ message.

June 13 – August 6
Clifton Park, NY – In a June 13 letter, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) wrote to Shenendehowa Central Schools of Clifton Park demanding that a music teacher refrain from having children pray. FFRF also took offense at “pervasively Christian music.” FFRF followed with another letter on July 24 and another on August 6, insisting on the removal of songs which mention God from the curriculum. One FFRF lawyer stated in a letter, “It is deeply troubling that the school district will not take action to remove prayers—even in the form of songs—from the curriculum.” The offending songs were “Thank You for the World So Sweet,” which contains the line, “Thank you God for everything,” and “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,” which contains the verse, “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” FFRF accused the school district of “improper proselytizing” and threatened the use of “legal options.” In response, a school attorney said that the songs “did not violate any of the District’s First Amendment obligations” and that “none of the songs were taught, or used, as a prayer.” The attorney was careful to point out that “the musical selections…were used appropriately to teach specific musical concepts, and as the basis for secular classroom activities.”

June 19
St. Louis, MO and New York, NY – After placing it’s “Quit the Church” ads in papers across the country, the Freedom from Religion Foundation erected billboards in two major cities. In New York, the billboard was located in a prominent part of Manhattan: Times Square. In St. Louis, the billboard was located at I-70 and North Broadway, allowing 300,000 people driving by each week to see it during its four-week run. The billboard read, “QUIT THE CHURCH.” Underneath this headline were the words, “PUT WOMEN’S RIGHTS OVER BISHOPS’ WRONGS.” This was an attempt to denigrate the U.S. bishops and frame Catholic opposition to the Health and Human Services abortifacient mandate as a “war on women.”

June 20
Westchester, NY – A class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of a lesbian employee of St. Joseph’s Medical Center. She was seeking medical coverage for her “spouse.” Because St. Joseph’s Medical Center is self-insured, it is not bound by New York State law that recognizes gay “marriage”; it is therefore exempt from granting medical benefits to a “married” lesbian. That is why the attorney for the lesbian employee was challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal statute.

June 21
The Freedom From Religion Foundation launched a major TV ad campaign. In allusion to the French Revolution, the militant atheist group described their campaign as “storming the ‘Bishops’ Bastille.’” The campaign ran for two weeks on CNN, Comedy Central, Discovery, History Channel, Science Channel, MSNBC, and Fox. In the ad, actress Julia Sweeney declared that she is a “cultural Catholic” and is “no longer a believer.” She demonized the U.S. bishops for their opposition to the Health and Human Services abortifacient mandate: “…the Catholic bishops are framing their opposition to contraceptive coverage as a religious freedom issue, but the real threat to freedom is the bishops, who want to be free to force their dogma on people who don’t want it.”

July 10
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) ran an ad in the New York Times demonstrating just how disgraceful the professional victims’ lobby had become. The ad was part and parcel of SNAP’s agenda to sunder the Catholic Church while purporting to protect children. Instead of looking at the positive reforms made by the U.S. bishops over the last decade, SNAP rehashed its claim that there is an ongoing abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Indeed, 99.98% of Catholic priests did not have a credible accusation made against them in 2011.

July 31 – October 5
Frankenmuth, MI – A steel cross was erected with private funding in 1976 as part of the city’s celebration of America’s Bicentennial. It came under attack from Americans United for Separation of Church and State. In July, Americans United demanded that the city promptly remove the cross, threatening litigation on the grounds that it violated the constitutional prohibition against the “establishment of religion.” In a letter, the group claimed to have received a complaint regarding the cross, but did not disclose the name of the complainant. The Thomas More Law Center sprung into action on September 6 to defend the city against this attack. On October 5, the city rejected the demand. Chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center responded on behalf of the city: “The cross was raised up by a grateful community. And this community will fight to keep it.”

August 13
Cranford, NJ – At a press conference, American Atheists unveiled their billboards that were to appear in Charlotte, North Carolina in time for the Democratic National Convention. The billboards attacked Mormonism and Christianity as part of a campaign that “exposes the foolishness of religion in the political landscape.” The billboard attacking Christianity read “Christianity: Sadistic God; Useless Savior / 30,000+ Versions of ‘Truth’ / Promotes Hate, Calls it ‘Love’ / Atheism: Simply Reasonable.” The billboard attacking Mormonism read: “Mormonism: God is a Space Alien / Baptizes Dead People / Big Money, Big Bigotry / Atheism: Simply Reasonable.” Both billboards implored viewers to join American Atheists.

August 16 – 19
Milwaukee, WI – A complaint by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) claimed that a promotion by organizers of the Milwaukee Irish Fest was discriminatory and violated civil rights laws. According to the Irish Fest website, “guests who donate nonperishable food items prior to the liturgy are admitted to the festival free of charge after the Mass.” In response to FFRF’s intolerance, Irish Fest organizers stripped their promotion of the Mass attendance requirement and offered free admittance to everyone who dropped off a food donation by 11 A.M. In the name of “tolerance,” a tradition that had been going on for years was stamped out to appease a few, described by FFRF as “some Irish folk who have been attending the event for years, but do not subscribe to the Catholic faith—or any faith for that matter—and felt ostracized by festival officials.”

August 18
The Freedom From Religion Foundation ran a feature spot on select national public television affiliates for three months, reaching three million people. There were two versions of the ad, which was called “Spotlight on Freethought and the First Amendment.” In the ad, the narrator ascribed the worst bloodshed in world history to religion: “More wars have been waged, more people killed, in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history.” Furthermore, the ad falsely spun American history to say that Christianity had no role in the founding of America.

August 21
Rossville, GA – The Freedom from Religion Foundation sent a letter to the superintendent of Walker County Schools, taking offense at the activities instituted by the coach of Ridgeland High School’s football program. The alleged offenses included: team trips to a church; post-game prayers led by the coach; team apparel sporting Bible verses; the participation of the coach in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes; and advocating a Christian football camp for students.

August 21
The public relations director for American Atheists explained on Fox News that the reason the group was filing a lawsuit against the display of the Ground Zero cross at the 9/11 museum was that it made non-Christians “physically ill.” However, the great majority of people who died in the September 11 attacks were Christians. The cross to be displayed was a non-denominational symbol formed by two beams retrieved from the rubble.

August 22 – September 28
Jefferson City, MO – The ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Call to Action, and the Voice of the Faithful-Kansas City to block a new state law prohibiting the disruption of worship services. The “House of Worship Protection Act,” was signed into law on July 8 and went into effect on August 28. It prohibits the intentional disruption of a house of worship through profanity, “rude or indecent behavior” or noise. It also prohibits “intimidation” of those “exercising the right of religious freedom in or outside a house of worship or seeking access to a house of worship.” The plaintiffs claimed that the law would be used to “chill” them “from engaging in expressive conduct,” which could potentially include SNAP’s demonstrations near churches. After a hearing on the plaintiff’s motion on September 11, their request for preliminary injunctive relief was denied on September 28.

August 23
Lyndonville, VT – Two lesbians settled a discrimination lawsuit filed against a Vermont inn that refused to host a homosexual wedding reception; they were represented by the ACLU. The Catholic owners agreed to the settlement because of the threat that litigation posed to their business. According to the settlement, the Wildflower Inn had to pay a civil penalty in the amount of $10,000 to the Vermont Human Rights Commission for violating Vermont’s Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act. In addition, the inn had to pay $20,000 to a charitable trust which would be disbursed according to the couple’s discretion.

September 3
Worcester, MA – A “married” homosexual couple filed a “discrimination” lawsuit against the Catholic Church, alleging that the Diocese of Worcester backed out of a transaction to sell them a mansion that they wanted to turn into an inn for the purpose of hosting homosexual weddings and other events. This was an attempt to criminalize the Church for its defense of traditional marriage. One of the plaintiffs said: “Here we are in the 21st century in Massachusetts and we’re experiencing this kind of discrimination.” Lawyers for the diocese said the plaintiffs did not come up with the financing.

September 18
New York, NY – A New York City Catholic priest was accused of promoting Mitt Romney for president after the weekly bulletin of an Upper East Side Catholic church included a letter by six former U.S. ambassadors to the Vatican; the letter endorsed Romney. The priest responsible for including the letter became the subject of a petition asking New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan to do something about it. The petition drive was a staged by two groups unconnected to the parish: Catholics United and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The Catholic League pointed out at the time that Catholics United is a left-wing group funded by atheist billionaire George Soros with virtually no support in the Catholic community. It continually misrepresents Catholic teachings while working against the religious liberty rights of Catholics. Americans United was founded in the 1940s as an expressly anti-Catholic organization (it was known as Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State), and was responsible for fomenting hatred against Catholics at the time. It has since worked relentlessly to diminish religious liberty.

September 18 – October 18
Kountze, TX – The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) sent a threatening letter to the superintendent of the Kountze Independent School District claiming that the banners and signs used by football cheerleaders were unconstitutional because they contained bible verses. In response to FFRF’s letter, officials prohibited the cheerleaders from displaying these messages. The edict went into effect on September 18. Students and parents were so outraged that they filed a lawsuit against the district on September 20. On October 18, the judge ruled in favor of the cheerleaders.

September 21
San Francisco, CA – Homosexuals paraded around naked at the annual Folsom Street Fair and, as always, mocked the Catholic clergy and religious. They dressed as cardinals, bishops, and nuns. There was even a group that disparaged the Jesuits, the “Society of Janus”; their specialty is BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism and masochism).

October 3
A petition demanding the resignation of Bishop Robert Finn was found on the website of change.org, home to mostly left-wing activists. Anyone could sign it—one didn’t have to be Catholic or from Finn’s diocese. There was no grassroots rebellion against Bishop Finn: Almost 7,400 signatures were sent to the diocese, and all but approximately 150 were from outside the area; the signatories even included activists from foreign countries. The Catholic League responded with a press release exposing the petition and the real source behind the phony petition drive, none other than Bishop Finn’s enemies: the Kansas City Star and the National Catholic Reporter. Both are located in Kansas City, Missouri. Both had been calling for Finn to resign. The petition drive was evidence of the most important goal of anti-Catholics for the past decade: to bring down a bishop.

October 5
Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice (CFC), issued a statement attacking Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of media relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Sister Walsh had warned on her blog that “Some agenda groups who oppose one or more Catholic teachings, for example use the name ‘Catholic,’ even when there seems little evidence of Catholics in their ranks and no evidence that they represent Catholic teaching.” She singled out CFC and pointed out that, for 25 years, the organization was led by the former director of the National Abortion Federation. O’Brien lashed out, going even so far as to say that “the bishops haven’t said or done the right thing” when it comes to “matters of social justice.”

October 18
Yelm, WA – A YouTube video captured the profanity-laced, vitriolic anti-Catholicism of JZ Knight, a spiritual leader of the cult, Ramtha School of Enlightenment. Her tirade included the following statements: “F*** you, you Catholics, you a**holes!” “I take your f***ing faith on.” “We will come to you in a terror. We will quake your g**d*****, God-released country. We will bring … Saint Peter’s temple down and we’ll swallow it in the sea.” “F***ing, absolute, g**d*****, demon-possessed religion of the earth.”

October 24 – January 15
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed an amicus brief with the First Circuit Court of Appeals concerning a case in which the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) gave the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) control over a program assisting sex-trafficking victims. The USCCB refused to fund other social service agencies that would not promise to not use public funds for abortion or contraceptive services.

The ACLU challenged this arrangement, claiming that it violated the separation of church and state and that it denied essential services to sex trafficking victims. Although a federal district court had ruled in the ACLU’s favor, the USCCB and HHS were now both claiming that the case should be thrown out on the grounds that taxpayers lack the “standing” to bring such matters into court.  Americans United claimed that there was a “taxpayer right” to “challenge government grants that violate church-state separation.” In this tag-team effort, one activist group abetted another in trying to usurp the legal autonomy of the Catholic Church using the canard of “essential public services.”

November
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) claimed five victories:

In Buhler, Kansas, as a result of a complaint from FFRF, the city of Buhler agreed to redesign its city seal and replace a large sign in the city’s park. FFRF objected to the appearance of a cross on both.

In Rosenberg, Texas, the principal of Deaf Smith Elementary School was instructed by the school district to refrain from sending his newsletters because of their biblical references after FFRF complained.

In Elkhorn City, Kentucky, intimidation by FFRF resulted in the cessation of prayer at a public school. Religious fliers were banned, as well.

In Barnsdall, Oklahoma, FFRF forced Barnsdall Junior/Senior High School into removing the reference to God in the Student Creed, which formerly included the words, “reverence to our God.”

In New Haven, Michigan, FFRF pressured Endeavor Elementary School into removing a promotional church sign located on the school’s lawn. The school would now only display the sign on Sundays, when the church rents its cafeteria.

November 7-13
For standing fast in their commitment to the civil rights of the unborn, the defense of marriage, and the cause of religious liberty, the bishops were condemned by three entities: Catholics for Choice (CFC), Catholics United, and Faithful America. CFC told the bishops that they need to “realize the error of their ways.” Catholics United and Faithful America told the bishops to “refocus their attention on caring for the poor and vulnerable,” by which they meant pushing for more welfare.

November 14
Riverside, CA – Americans United for the Separation of Church and State threatened to sue the City of Riverside unless it removed a giant cross atop Mount Rubidoux, where it has stood since 1907.

November 15
Brentwood, MD – Americans United for the Separation of Church and State retaliated against the Brentwood Town Council for reciting the Lord’s Prayer in council meetings. Americans United sent three letters asking that they terminate the practice or make it inclusive to also encompass other religions’ prayers.

December 4
The American Humanist Association, an atheist group, advised all newcomers to the U.S. House of Representatives to stay away from the Congressional Prayer Caucus because it believes in the National Motto (“In God We Trust”) and wants to continue the practice of opening Congress with a daily prayer.

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SNAP UNRAVELS

On March 13, the Catholic League issued this report [click here] by Bill Donohue examining the deposition of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) director David Clohessy. The deposition made clear that Clohessy has been (a) lying to the media about his work (b) falsely advertising his group as a rape crisis center (c) working with unseemly lawyers (d) exploiting his clients by providing unauthorized “counseling” services (e) ripping off those who are truly in need of help by failing to contribute even a dime for licensed counselors, and (f) pursuing priests on the basis of legal criteria he admits he cannot explain. The report was also mailed to the bishops.
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SNAP’S DEFENDERS RETALIATE

After the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) was issued subpoenas demanding 23 years of the group’s communications with victims in the course of lawsuits in St. Louis and Kansas City, supporters in the media as well as activist groups fell in line behind SNAP director David Clohessy and his discredited activist organization.

March 13: Terence McKiernan, the president of  the activist group BishopAccountability.org,  declared his belief that “SNAP’s achievements, and their leading role in the worldwide movement for children’s rights, will earn Barbara Blaine and David Clohessy the Nobel Peace Prize.”

March 13: Terry O’Neill, president of the  National Organization for Women, attacked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: “In addition to playing a major role in the right-wing war on women, the all-male hierarchy of the Catholic Church is trying to silence an organization dedicated to helping women and men who have been victimized by clergy.” She accused the bishops of “shooting the messenger,” i.e., SNAP.

March 13: Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, said, “The bishops are playing hardball with survivors of priest abuse, but the bishops are not playing hardball with priest predators. The Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to focus on stopping cleric sexual abuse and the hierarchy’s cover ups.”

March 13: In a blog post entitled “The Hierarchy Re-Abuses the Sex Victims,” Andrew Sullivan attacked Catholic League president Bill Donohue for defending the Catholic Church: “Donohue is a thug. But he is for the hierarchy what Hannity is for the GOP base.” Sullivan took issue with Donohue’s remark that the Church does not need “altar boys” for lawyers, who need to get tough. Sullivan remarked, “Sometimes, you realize that for some Catholics, nothing has changed since the revelation of the mass rape of children, altar boys often a prime target.”

March 13: The New York Times ran a front-page story on Clohessy’s deposition. Bill Donohue was quoted in the story, and his comments set off a firestorm.

March 14: A New York Times editorial entitled “Hurting Victims’ Advocates” was critical of the Catholic Church for allowing “aggressive” lawyers to press Clohessy. In doing so, the newspaper provided cover to SNAP’s rapacious activism abetted by vengeful lawyers using methods that are unethical at best and illegal at worst. Clohessy was quoted as saying, “The real motive is to harass and discredit and bankrupt SNAP, while discouraging victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers, police, prosecutors and journalists from seeking our help.” To which the Times responded, “Given the aggressive legal tactics, it’s hard not to think that he is right. The judges asked to rule on motions to compel information must reject unfairly burdensome discovery requests. When the sex-abuse scandal erupted a decade ago, church leaders spoke of reconciliation with the victims. Now, in threatening to expose private files compiled by advocates for abuse survivors, they are giving victims new reason to retreat into fear and secrecy. For the church to target SNAP compounds the horror.” At the time, the Catholic League remarked, “When the Times is sued, does it hire wimpy lawyers? Does it allow itself to be a punching bag? Not on your life: they hire the most agressive attorneys they can buy.”

March 19: In an opinion piece, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni said of the Catholic hierarchy that it “keeps giving American Catholics fresh reasons for rebellion.” He contended that widespread media coverage of priestly sexual abuse was not the result of “anti-Catholic and anti-religious bias,” but instead resulted from a “magnitude of the violation of trust.” If this were the case, the Times would have covered with equal intensity the epidemic of child sexual abuse by rabbis as well as the alarming rate of child sexual abuse in the public schools.

March 19: The Newark Star Ledger demonized the Church in no uncertain terms: “The church’s new legal assualt on SNAP is unconscionable. For decades, pedophile priests created thousands of voiceless victims. SNAP gives those victims a voice–and now the bishops want to silence that, too.” Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded by sending our report on Clohessy to the editorial page editor, pointing out in no uncertain terms that “the man is a liar and a fraud.”

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Back to Top

February 29 – March 4
Fort Lauderdale, FL – Parker Playhouse featured a five-day run of Matthew Lombardo’s play, “High,” with Kathleen Turner starring as a recovering alcoholic, gutter-mouth nun. Convinced of his special claim to victim status because of his own penchant for drug addiction and homosexuality, the playwright narcissistically invented a self-denigrating nun character as a reflection of himself. In doing so, he symbolically trashed the character of real-life nuns. The play ran for only six days when it opened on Broadway in 2011. Though Turner protested that the “New York critics were wrong,” the play was anything but a success.

April 28-30
San Francisco, CA – The Terrence McNally play, “Corpus Christi,” which depicts Christ having sex with the apostles, was performed three times in San Francisco at Southside Theater at Fort Mason Center as well as at the Small Chapel in the First Unitarian Church. The performances were part of a national tour of both the play and a documentary about the play called “Corpus Christi: Playing with Redemption.” The director said his mission is to “change the story on religious bullying and homophobia.” Proponents of the play masquerade as advocates of tolerance only to attack Christians in the most vile terms. The play depicts the Christ-figure, Joshua, having sex with the apostles, branding him “King of the Queers”; it portrays Jesus saying to the apostles, “F*** your mother, F*** your father, F*** God”; and it shows Philip asking Jesus to perform oral sex on him. The script is replete with sexual and scatological comments.

May 19
New York, NY – Artist Sebastian Errazuriz handed out his magnum opus: his “Christian Popsicles”— wooden popsicle sticks shaped as a cross and inscribed with the image of Jesus. The flavors were reported by one news network as “frozen holy wine transformed into the blood of Christ”; the wine was “inadvertently blessed by the priest while turning wine into the blood of Christ during the Eucharist.”

September 27 – October 26
New York, NY – The Edward Tyler Nahem gallery in mid-town Manhattan hosted the exhibit, “Body and Spirit: Andres Serrano 1987-2012,” which featured Serrano’s “Piss Christ” showing a crucifix submerged in a jar of his own urine. The Catholic League objected not only to the work of “art,” but also to the venue and the timing. The gallery is located on 57th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, the most expensive rent district in the city, just two blocks from the Plaza Hotel, Central Park, and high-end jewelry stores. In other words, it was the artistic establishment of New York sticking it to Christians. Cheering for them were other segments of the cultural elite, e.g., the New York Times fawned over it. It was the political elites who made the timing of the exhibit so offensive. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were busy condemning an anti-Islam video that they (erroneously) said sparked Muslim riots in the Middle East. When Todd Starnes of Fox News called the White House asking if there would be a statement condemning Serrano’s anti-Christian art, he got no response.

At a press conference organized by the Catholic League, Bill Donohue unveiled his own magnum opus: a bobblehead of Obama sitting in a jar of faux feces (it was actually brown Play-Doh). If Serrano got $15,000 back in the 1980s for his “art,” Donohue reasoned that his contribution should be worth about $50,000 today, correcting for inflation. He wanted to ask Serrano (he was present at the exhibit) if he would help him write a grant. When Donohue went to enter the gallery to see the exhibit, he was turned away by gallery officials, effectively censoring him. In addition, a gallery spokeswoman lied when she told the New York Times that the police showed up after they were summoned, that thirty or so protesters barged into the building, and that Donohue balked when Serrano confronted him to discuss the controversy. The Times reporter confirmed with police that no officer showed up during the press conference; no one barged into the building, as was confirmed by the video that the Catholic League posted to YouTube; and Serrano and Donohue never met, as Serrano himself later admitted to the Times reporter.

November 27
Boston, MA – The Bunker Hill Community College Arts Gallery hosted a painting by Michael D’Antuono, a left-wing artist known for exploiting racial tensions.

The painting was entitled “Truth” and depicted President Barack Obama with outstretched arms wearing a Crown of Thorns, against the backdrop of the Seal of the President of the United States.

“Truth” was supposed to debut on April 29, 2009 in New York’s Union Square to commemorate the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency. But D’Antuono withdrew his painting after being hit with angry e-mails. Now he was back, apparently thinking that after Obama won reelection, the time was ripe to rip off Christian iconography for the purpose of making a cheap political statement.

December 9
New York, NY – The off-Broadway musical “Bare: The Musical” opened at New World Stages. The show was a revival of “Bare: A Pop Opera.” According to the script, the story revolves around two high school seniors, adolescent boys, at a Catholic school who are in love with one another. The script contains many anti-Catholic elements and celebrates homosexuality. For example, confession is referred to as the “sacrament of oppression” and a “poor man’s therapy session.” In another scene, the Blessed Mother appears to one of the characters in a dream and tells him to tell his mother about his homosexuality. She says Joseph hasn’t done anything for her since he let her ride on the donkey to Bethlehem. In another scene, one of the characters in the play, a nun, tells another character to be proud of his homosexuality.

February 24
New York, NY – Rep. Michael Grimm requested that the Empire State Building shine red in honor of the elevation of New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan to cardinal. Grimm’s request was denied by the owner of the Empire State Building, Anthony Malkin. Similarly, in 2010, the Catholic League petitioned to have the tower of the Empire State Building shine blue and white on August 26, 2010 in honor of Mother Teresa’s centennial; this petition was also denied. Yet in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Revolution, which was responsible for 70 million deaths, the building was illuminated in red and yellow in 2009.

May 4
Battle Creek, MI – In the Catholic League’s campaign against Jon Stewart’s “vagina manger” stunt of April 16, we made sure the major sponsors of “The Daily Show” received a copy of the image that was flashed on the screen of a naked woman with her legs spread and a nativity scene ornament in between.

The image was used in a segment in which Jon Stewart attacked Fox News for not giving air to the “war on women” issue. He then ridiculed the cable station for covering the “war on Christmas,” asking, “What can women do to generate the same sense of outrage from Fox as the removal of decorative slightly poisonous holiday plants? Perhaps they could play into the theme?” At this point, the image was shown.

Delta’s response was responsible: It pulled its ads from Stewart’s show. But Kellogg’s response smacked of anti-Christian indifference:

“We understand that our customers come from a variety of backgrounds, experiences, lifestyles, and cultures and we respect their individual decisions to choose the television programs that they deem acceptable for themselves and their families. Consumers speak most loudly when they vote with their remote control and change the channel or turn off the TV if a program does not fit their personal criteria.”

In response, the Catholic League went on the offensive, sending the indefensible picture to Kellogg’s senior management and board, as well as to community leaders, religious and secular, throughout Battle Creek.

Kellogg’s “Global Code of Ethics” boasts, “our heritage is based on a commitment to treat everyone fairly and with consideration.” The Catholic League noted that this apparently excludes the 80 percent of Americans who are Christian.

September 11
Pembroke Pines, FL – A group of 75 students at Coconut Palm Elementary was scheduled to sing “God Bless America” inside the local Wal-Mart on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as a tribute to the vicitms. When the students arrived, the manager refused to allow them to sing. The choir director said that in an “effort to right a wrong,” the students went outside and performed the song in the parking lot. But, when students and parents were already heading to their cars, the police arrived and said they were responding to a “flash mob.” The manager on duty that night reportedly called the choir a “liability,” and the store manager with whom the choir director initially arranged the performance was fired. A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart later offered an apology to the school on behalf of the company and said the concert would be rescheduled.

December 7
Ranger Up, an apparel company that sells “shirts for the military and the patriotic Americans who love the men and women of the Armed Forces,” put up a photoshopped image of Pope Benedict XVI on its Facebook page. The image of the pope was rendered to make him look like he is in the pose made famous by Marilyn Monroe in the movie, “The Seven Year Itch,” holding his cassock down. The pope is not standing on the streets of New York; he is in a tropical park. A little girl is running away from the pontiff’s bare legs. The image was also promoted on Ranger Up’s Twitter account.

January 21 – September 21
Nashville, TN – On January 21, Vanderbilt University administrators announced the new “nondiscrimination” policy that stipulated that religious student groups could no longer require their leaders to agree with the respective group’s religious beliefs. Furthermore, religious student groups could also no longer expect their leaders to lead prayer, worship, or Bible studies. Finally, leaders of religious student groups could no longer be asked to resign in the event that their religious beliefs change while in office.

In response, 13 Christian groups joined forces to resist the administration. A University Chair and Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Minnesota wrote that the school was “despising Christianity” with a policy to “expel the expression of views of which it disapproves.”

On October 24, 2011, the Catholic Chaplain for Vanderbilt Catholic wrote a letter to Vanderbilt’s chancellor about the burden being placed on the group.

On March 26, Vanderbilt Catholic announced that it would leave campus before before complying with the policy and allowing members of other groups to occupy its leadership. It eventually changed its name to University Catholic. Since the group decided not to register as an official organization, it was prohibited form using the name “Vanderbilt.”

On May 2, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam vetoed a Tennessee House bill aimed at rescinding the policy. Haslam said that, although he disagreed with Vanderbilt’s policy, he found it inappropriate for government to regulate a private institution.

According to Vanderbilt’s website, as of September 21, more than 480 student groups had complied with the policy and had been confered registered student organization status. Of this number, 29 were religious student groups. About 15 religious student groups had said they disagree with the policy. They chose not to comply.

February 10
Newark, NJ – Thomas Nast, the 19th-century artist who consistently inflamed hatred against the Irish and Catholics alike, was nominated to the New Jersey Hall of Fame (NJHF) in 2011. The Catholic League and the Ancient Order of Hibernians protested this decision. When the votes were cast and the results were announced in 2012, Nast did not make the cut.

February 29
Medford, MA – The campus newspaper of Tufts University, Tufts Daily, published an article called “Get Your Rosaries Off Our Ovaries.” The undergraduate author peddled anti-Catholicism, demonizing “uber-conservative” Catholic bishops as “an army of sexually repressed men who know nothing about birth control or women’s bodies and probably even less about sex.”

March 8
Washington, D.C. – In the March edition of GW Medicine Notes, Dr. Alan G. Wasserman, chairman of the George Washington University School of Medicine, attacked the Catholic Church in the front page section titled “From the Chairman.” He used the Health and Human Services abortifacient mandate to make gross generalizations of the most vile sort about bishops and priests:

• He attacked clergy for not showing the same “passion” when “they did such an effective job at hiding the Pedophile scandal of the Church for so many years.”
• He wrote that “it’s not separation of church and state that is the problem but separation of church and boys.”
• He used the “Pedophile scandal of the Church” to recommend a change to the priesthood: “Would this be a non-issue if women were allowed to be priests?”

Bill Donohue pointed out that if a Catholic professor were to engage in a similar public trashing of Jews, Dr. Wasserman would respond with rightful indignation.

March 19
Stony Brook, NY – State University of New York at Stony Brook decreed that its students would no longer be off for religious holidays. The administration said that the change was made in the interest of academics, but students and faculty voiced opposition, saying that the new policy, which would be in effect for the next four years, disrespected those who observe religious holidays. It was as an example of intolerance of religious observance enforced by bureaucrats at a state school funded by taxpayer money.

April 12 – 19
Duluth, MN – The University of Minnesota Duluth hosted a series of events commemorating the Holocaust in a way that was patently anti-Catholic. The event was advertised with an anti-Catholic postcard depicting a Catholic prelate and a Nazi standing on top of a Jewish person. The drawing, depicting the 1933 Concordat signed between Pope Pius XI and Hitler, has been used by enemies of the Church to paint the Vatican as an accomplice of the Nazis. The events also featured a production of the 1963 anti-Catholic play, “The Deputy.”

This attempt to smear the Church with ideologically motivated pseudo-scholarship was undertaken, in the words of one organizer, “to raise awareness.” Bill Donohue wrote an extensive rebuttal that was sent to the Duluth community on April 10 (it is available in the “Special Reports” section of the Catholic League website). In an opinion piece on May 5, Leonore Baeumler, a major planner and participant of the annual Holocaust commemoration events at the University of Minnesota, defended the events, insisting that “there was no censorship of any kind.”

April 13
Seattle, WA – Gay activist Dan Savage gave a keynote address at the National High School Journalism Conference sponsored by the National Scholastic Press Association and the Journalism Education Association. He insulted the students, used profanity, and trashed Christianity; many walked out. Ironically, Savage was there to protest bullying.

“We can learn to ignore the bulls**t in the Bible about gay people,” he said. “The same way, the same way we have learned to ignore the bulls**t in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bulls**t in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it.”

After the students walked out in protest, Savage retorted, “It’s funny, as someone who’s on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the bible, how pansy-a**d some people react when you push back.”

The National Scholastic Press Association initially defended Savage’s speech, commending him for his “level of thoughtfulness” and saying that it is important for journalists to “listen to speech that offends you.” Only after reconsideration did the group, along with the Journalism Education Association, say that Savage’s speech fell short of the standards of civil discourse and offer an apology.

April 20
Fort Wayne, IN – Emily Herx, a Catholic teacher at St. Vincent de Paul School, was fired for violating Church teachings by receiving in-vitro fertilization. Not only did she sue the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, but the teacher also made the rounds on TV trying to gin up public support. The Diocese was very clear: “The process of in-vitro fertilization very frequently involves the deliberate destruction of embryos or the freezing of embryos, which the Church holds to be incompatible with the respect owed to human life.”

April 26
Washington, D.C. – A letter signed by nearly 90 faculty members and priests at Georgetown University criticized Rep. Paul Ryan’s visit to campus, saying his budget plan represented a “continuing misuse of Catholic teaching” because it allegedly hurts the poor. In the past, there were no letters of protest from the faculty about the “misuse of Catholic teaching” in response to Georgetown’s pro-abortion clubs, the speech given by hardcore pornographer Larry Flynt on campus, or the removal of crucifixes and religious symbols by the Obama advance team.

April 29 – May 7
Elmhurst, IL – On the same day that gay activist Dan Savage issued an apology for the obscene remarks he made to high school students at the National High School Journalism Conference, he spoke before a crowd at Elmhurst College in Illinois. Here is what he said about Pope Benedict XVI’s rejection of gay “marriage”:

“What the pope is saying is that the only thing that stands between my d**k and Brad Pitt’s mouth is a piece of paper.”

“What the pope is saying, once we’re all gay married, we’re going to go extinct in a generation. Because once we’re all gay married, we’re going to forget which hole s**ts babies.”

The Catholic League responded with a strongly worded statement condemning this outrage. It was sent to the Elmhurst media, the college’s board of trustees, local government officials, and every Catholic high school principal in the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Diocese of Joliet. They were informed how this college, which boasts of its commitment to diversity and tolerance, treats Catholics.

On May 7, Rev. Robert Ullman, a member of the Elmhurst College Board of Trustees, responded by e-mail to the Catholic League’s news release on Savage’s obscene talk. The United Church of Christ minister accused Donohue of making racist statements against Elmhurst College’s president before wildly denouncing the Catholic Church:

“Given the recent New York Times’ column exposing the pope’s denunciation of women religious while at the same time defending the Roman Catholic church’s position on male-only ordination and covering up sexual abuse by some of those same male-only clergy should give you pause in denouncing a College, a President and a Church willing to walk into the murky waters of human sexuality and Christian morality.”

Bill Donohue responded in a press release, exposing Ullman as a “disgrace to higher education.”

April
Tampa, FL – A fourth-grader at Lewis Elementary School in Temple Terrace brought in to class invitations to an Easter egg hunt organized by members of a local church. The invitations said his classmates “would have fun and learn the true meaning of Easter.” The school’s principal prohibited the distribution of the invitations and sent a note home. The boy’s mother took the case to court. The school board’s attorney found it objectionable that the invitation came not from the boy, but from the church. His explanation omitted the fact that the boy had a First Amendment right to religious expression and free speech, a right that was violated.

May 18
Washington, D.C. – Georgetown University invited Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to speak at a commencement ceremony. The Archdiocese of Washington strongly criticized Georgetown with an editorial in the Catholic Standard, calling the university’s response to Sebelius “disappointing, but not surprising.”

June 15 – July 31
San Bernardino, CA – The “Annual Student Art Exhibition” at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) featured the work of Humberto Reynoso, whose ceramic figure, “Self Portrait,” depicted a man lying on his back with a red cross inserted in his anus.  There was a warning posted in the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art that housed this “art.” It said, “This exhibition contains explicit adult content and works that may be disturbing to some. Viewer discretion is advised.” Perhaps most telling was the statement below the warning: “Art is about many things, including—and especially—ideas; and a university is precisely the place for the free expression of ideas, especially controversial ones. CSUSB supports students’ rights to free expression.” (Italics in the original.) Bill Donohue noted that this statement was factually incorrect: “The university is not about ‘the free expression of ideas’: it is about the pursuit of truth.”

July 19
Lansdale, PA – After Ted Udinski was fired as the lacrosse coach at Lansdale Catholic High School in 2011, he made several accusations over a seven-month period claiming that the football coach and the new lacrosse coach were sexually abusing students. He also maintained that the principal of the suburban Philadelphia school, Tim Quinn, knew about the offenses. False accusations against priests are hardly uncommon, but, in this instance, anti-Catholicism accounted for lies against lay Catholics. After detectives spent 184 hours on this case, interviewing 97 people (at a cost of more than $8250), they determined that the charges were bogus. Udinski’s motive was revenge. He said, “I just wanted to get back at the church, Tim Quinn, and I was just generally mad.” (Italics added.)

July 23 – August 29
Austin, TX – The July issue of Social Science Research featured the published findings of University of Texas at Austin professor, Mark Regnerus, concerning how well children fare in households where gay parents reside. They were found not to do as well as children raised in homes where both a father and a mother live.

The article unleashed the ire of gay activist, novelist and freelancer Scott Rose (his real name is Scott Rosenzweig), who lodged a complaint against Regnerus with University of Texas president William Powers, Jr. An inquiry was immediately made in order to see if an investigation was warranted.

Rose’s letter to the university president was not the reasoned disagreement of a colleague in the field who sought to critique a peer-reviewed journal. Instead, it showcased the hateful attempt by an anti-Catholic bigot to malign a Catholic social scientist for his findings by suggesting that his faith played some nefarious role. Rose noted in his letter that, “Regnerus converted from evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism; his Church is very aggressively involved worldwide in fighting against gay rights, including in the United States…”

Bill Donohue weighed in on this issue, not on the content of Regnerus’ article, but solely as it related to the anti-Catholic animus displayed by Rose, noting his well-documented history of anti-Catholicism, which includes particularly vitriolic remarks about New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan as a “gay basher and child rapist enabler.” Rose had even contacted the IRS asking them to strip the Catholic Church of its tax-exempt status.

Donohue noted: “It is not the business of the Catholic League to sit in judgment of the way the University of Texas handles complaints against its faculty. But when it comes to bashing a professor because of his Catholicism, and when the Catholic Church is treated with vitriol in such a public manner, it takes on a dimension that transcends ordinary campus issues.”

No investigation of Regnerus was undertaken.

October 10
Shorewood, WI – After one parent complained that the inclusion of a bishop’s miter and cross on the logo of a school team’s football helmet violated the Constitution, the Shorewood School District ordered the school to change its logo. The district has a unique relationship with Messmer High, a private Roman Catholic school, which joined forces with another school to form a football co-op. The logo was designed by a student and approved by administrators and coaches. It included not just the bishop’s miter and cross, but also the greyhound logo of Shorewood. The superintendent of the Sherwood School District called the removal of the logo a “teachable moment.”

November 8
Marion, NC – At West Marion Elementary School, administrators censored a line from a first-grade student’s Veterans Day poem, referring to her grandfather’s belief in God: “He prayed to God for peace, he prayed to God for strength.” The student was supposed to read the poem at a Veterans Day ceremony to honor her grandfather, a Vietnam veteran. The Alliance Defending Freedom intervened and sent a letter to the school district requesting that administrators refrain from censoring students’ religious views.

November 13 – December 5
Medford, MA – At Tufts University, Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF), an evangelical Christian student group was in danger of losing its status after a branch of student government voted to withdraw recognition. It was claimed that the group violated the school’s nondiscrimination clause by requiring its leader to adhere to the faith that gives the group its specific character. TCF appealed the de-recognition. The Tufts University Committee on Student Life responded by making a policy change that safeguarded religious requirements for leaders of religious groups.

November 16
Hanover, NH – At Dartmouth College, the Atheists, Humanists, Agnostics club hosted an anti-Mother Teresa event. It featured the screening of an anti-Mother Teresa film and a discussion of Christopher Hitchens’ book, Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Only a few people attended.

December 10
Berkeley, CA – The University of California at Berkeley considered a ban of Salvation Army donation boxes on campus after a formal resolution was passed by the Associated Students of the University of California at Berkeley. The organization came under fire for holding Christian beliefs on marriage and the family.

December 11
Ypsilanti, MI – A student won a settlement after being expelled from a counseling program at Eastern Michigan University for not endorsing homosexuality. She had told professors that her Christian faith prohibited her from affirming homosexual behavior. She had been expelled afterwards, just a few classes shy of her Master’s degree. Her legal counsel from Alliance Defending Freedom said, “Public universities shouldn’t force students to violate their religious beliefs to get a degree.” The student emphasized, “I had never refused to counsel homosexuals, I had simply refused to affirm their lifestyle.” After asking for a formal hearing, the student noted that, “I was met with more intolerance…unanimously, they decided to expel me from the program.”

December 13
Philipsburg, NJ – A longtime substitute teacher at a middle school faced a 90-day suspension for sharing a Bible verse with a student and giving the student a Bible. The Philipsburg School Board said that the substitute teacher broke two policies. One prohibits the distribution of religious literature on school grounds; the other mandates that teachers be neutral when discussing religious material.

Back to Top

January 11
Washington, D.C. – In a unanimous decision (Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that churches are entitled to make employment decisions without interference by the government. In doing so, the high court affirmed what is known as the doctrine of “ministerial exception,” the long-standing right of churches to be shielded from discrimination lawsuits brought by employees.

The ruling was a victory for religious liberty and a defeat for the Obama administration. In October 2011, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in this case, the Obama administration’s lawyer stunned even the more liberal members of the high court: Leondra R. Kruger had made such an extremist argument that she even got Justice Elena Kagan to agree wholeheartedly with Justice Antonin Scalia.

When Justice Kagan asked Kruger whether she believed that the First Amendment protects the right of a church to hire and fire employees without interference by government, Kruger answered that the government’s argument was based on freedom of association instead of those parts of the First Amendment that deal with religious freedom. “We don’t see that line of church autonomy principles in the religion clause jurisprudence as such,” Kruger replied. “We see it as a question of freedom of association.” In other words, Kruger made the erroneous argument that ministerial exception is not in the Constitution, insisting instead on the same rights of secular organizations to freely choose their own affiliations.

When he heard this, Scalia responded: “That’s extraordinary! There, black on white in the text of the Constitution, are special protections for religion. And you say it makes no difference?”

January 19
Rawlins, WY – A warden at the Wyoming State Penitentiary denied the religious rights of inmates: candles were denied use at Catholic Mass; a priest was forbidden to assist Jewish inmates or hand out Catholic reading materials to Catholic inmates; restrictions were placed on the use of holy water, scapulars, medals, crosses, etc. Finally, a prison chaplain engaged in anti-Catholic proselytizing. After the Catholic chaplain contacted us, Bill Donohue contacted the warden, and the situation was resolved with the Deputy Director of the Department of Corrections of the State of Wyoming.

January 23
Philadelphia, PA – The Archdiocese of Philadelphia was named an “unindicted co-conspirator” by prosecutors in a case involving clergy sexual abuse. At the pre-trial hearing, Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti made accusations against a defrocked priest, Edward Avery, and against the archdiocese. Cipolletti said that “the archdiocese was supplying him [Avery] with an endless amount of victims.” With these words, Cipoletti maliciously crossed the line. Instead of attributing any alleged wrongdoing to bad judgment, he implied that the archdiocese as a whole was evil.

January 31
Philadelphia, PA – The presiding judge in the trial of two Catholic priests from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia expressed dissatisfaction with the following question for prospective jurors: “Do you believe child sex abuse is a widespread problem in the Catholic Church?” Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said, “Anybody that doesn’t think there is widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is living on another planet.” The Catholic League called for Judge Sarmina to step down immediately.

Her remark, whether based on ignorance or bias, demonstrated her inability to preside over any trial concerning allegations of priestly sexual abuse. We argued that her use of the present tense demonstrated that she was unfit to rule. Almost all the problem with priestly sexual abuse occurred between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s. In other words, the scandal ended a quarter-century ago.

Judge Sarmina later claimed that her words were taken out of context and refused to step down.

February 9
Detroit, MI – The Michigan Court of Appeals considered the question of whether a pastor should have to testify about a crime that a parishioner disclosed under the seal of Confession. The case involved a man, now 18, who allegedly confessed to his pastor at a Baptist church that he sexually assaulted a female cousin when he was 15. Prosecutors argued that priest-penitent privilege did not apply because Samuel Bragg, the penitent, did not approach his pastor for “priestly consultation and guidance.” By arguing instead that the pastor interrogated Bragg about the allegations, the state sought to dictate criteria by which a confession must be divulged. The fact that this argument could be made at all indicates that even the seal of Confession is no longer held to be protected by those advancing arguments for state encroachment.

April – August
The Catholic League was asked by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin if it wanted to comment on a reply to our grievance against attorney Rebekah M. Nett; the league sought to get her and her attorney client, Naomi Isaacson, disbarred for making incredibly anti-Catholic remarks in the courtroom in 2011. Among her anti-Catholic smears, Nett referred to Judge Nancy Dreher and other court personnel as “dirty Catholics,” adding that “Catholic deeds throughout the [sic] history have been bloody and murderous.” Among other things, Nett maintained that “All references made throughout the document to ‘Catholic’ something or another do not necessarily refer to the Catholic religion per se or to being a person who considers him or herself to be of the Catholic religious faith.”

Here is an excerpt from our response: “This is a classic example of intellectual dishonesty: there is no other way to interpret Nett’s vicious comments on Catholicism than to see them for what they manifestly are—bigoted assaults on the Roman Catholic religion. Quite frankly, no amount of spin can rescue her at this point. And it hardly helps her cause to rebrand Catholicism as a ‘type of political movement.’”

Our initial grievance stood without emendation. Nett’s words were proof positive of her anti-Catholic bigotry and her unsuitability to function as an attorney. We maintained that because the evidence of Nett’s bigotry presented in the report was clear and overwhelming, she needed to be disciplined in a manner that is commensurate with the gravity of her offenses.

On August 8, the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility in Minnesota (where she is also licensed) said that Nett should be suspended. As of publication, sanctions are yet to be handed down although a referee suggested a six-month suspension. It is now in the hands of the State Supreme Court.

April 9
Osaka-Kobe, Japan – Patrick Linehan, Consul General at the U.S. Consulate General in Osaka-Kobe, Japan, wrote a viciously anti-Catholic post on his Facebook page: “We should all quit the catholic church…it is a corrupt organization run by nazis and pedophiles…flee this church while you still have your dignity and humanity intact…” After his post he linked to a New York Daily News report on a homosexual member of the junior board of Catholic Charities who had recently quit. If such comments were made about any other group, the person making them would be fired immediately.

The comment ran afoul of the American Foreign Service Association Guidance on the Personal Use of Social Media. Senior State Department officials responded quickly, and Linehan removed the offensive Facebook post after 36 hours.

April 13
Rep. Rosa DeLauro wrote to New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan lecturing him to mobilize the bishops in a campaign to combat poverty, specifically with respect to Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget. Her request was disingenuous. She worked to kill school vouchers for children with disabilities and has voted against scholarship grants for African American students in D.C. But she is a big champion of abortion, including abortions where the baby is 80 percent born; she has even voted to fund abortion with federal dollars and she has a history of working against the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

April 30
Westchester, NY – The Westchester County Board of Legislators proposed a bill that would unjustly target pro-life protestors outside of abortion facilities. “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances” would allow the facility to sue anyone for harassing or intimidating “any person whose ability to access the premises of a healthcare facility has been interfered with.”

The Archdiocese of New York’s Respect Life Office issued a statement condemning the legislation, calling the bill “vague and ambiguous.” Bill Donohue wrote a letter to the lawmakers imploring them not to pursue additional legislation concerning access to abortion clinics and pointed out that pro-life protestors have a “distinguished record of protecting the rights of those with whom they disagree.”

June 10
Honolulu, HI – Governor Neil Abercrombie signed into law a bill extending the statute of limitations on civil lawsuits in sexual abuse cases. It was changed to eight years from the alleged victim’s 18th birthday or three years from the time the alleged victim discovers psychological injuries as the result of past abuse.

The governor had vetoed similar legislation in 2011 not only because it would have entirely done away with the statute of limitations for lawsuits involving allegations of child abuse, but also because it listed the state of Hawaii among those entities that could be targeted. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that “the administration warned that the bill could have threatened due-process rights and exposed the state to unknown liability.”

The protections which the state sought for itself in these matters were not construed so as to extend also to the Catholic Church.

June 18
Pittsburgh, PA – A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that Duquesne University must accept NLRB jurisdiction over personnel issues, despite the fact that federal courts have directed NLRB to exempt religious universities from its oversight. Duquesne wasn’t the only Catholic institution faced with this attack on religious liberty. Two other schools, Manhattan College in New York and St. Xavier University in Chicago, were also appealing NLRB regional rulings issued in 2010.

June 22
Philadelphia, PA – The jury in the trial of two Philadelphia Catholic priests reached a verdict. Msgr. William Lynn was acquitted of conspiracy; on the two charges of child endangerment, he was acquitted of one of them and found guilty of the other. The jury was deadlocked on two charges against Rev. James Brennan: one for attempted rape, and one for child endangerment.

The trial took place in the shadow of a failed witch-hunt that began in 2001, when Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham decided to summarily ignore what she was empowered to do, namely “to investigate the sexual abuse of minors by individuals associated with religious organizations and denominations.” Had she done so, those cases of minors who may have been sexually molested by ministers, rabbis, and others would also have been investigated. Instead, absolutely nothing was done about these cases, and she focused exclusively on the Catholic community.

On March 31, 2011, Bill Donohue sent Abraham a letter asking her to identify which “religious organizations and denominations” she pursued other than the Roman Catholic Church. She never answered.

The verdict was a loss for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and Church-chasing attorneys like Marci Hamilton. Had they won on the conspiracy count, they would have been in the driver’s seat to pursue other “conspirators” nationally.

June 29
New York, NY – After battling New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the right to worship in a school, Robert Hall, pastor of the Bronx Household of Faith, won when a federal judge ruled that religious groups cannot be prohibited from using public schools to hold services.

July 25
Boston, MA – A bill was passed by voice vote in the Massachusetts House of Representatives expanding the time period on civil claims of child sexual abuse. The bill did not apply to child sexual abuse that occurs in the public schools; it applied exclusively to private institutions, such as the Catholic Church. Unless a bill specifically targets the sovereign immunity status of the public schools, they remain exempt.

August – October
Steubenville, OH – Efforts by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) to intimidate city officials into banning a proposed new city logo that includes a chapel and a cross—symbols that represent the Franciscan University of Steubenville—incited the Catholic League to issue a news release calling on members to support the mayor.

Initially, city officials were wary of the costs involved. If the city had lost, it would have had to pick up court-ordered legal fees. Instead, they opted for a new logo: the university would be featured without a depiction of the cross and chapel.

After a groundswell of support for the initial logo, experienced pro-bono lawyers stepped forth. The Catholic League implored its members to e-mail the Mayor of Steubenville, Domenick Mucci, Jr., urging him not to buckle to the forces of censorship. On August 21, the Intelligencer, a local paper, reported that the mayor’s office received “nearly 500 e-mails” urging the mayor to “stand strong.”

At the “Stand up for Religious Freedom” rally on October 20, keynote speaker Michael Hernon, the vice president of advancement at Franciscan University, said outside secular forces were trying to force the city to alter its official logo “because there was a cross in it. We’re not ashamed of the cross. It’s happening right here in Steubenville.”

August 2
Spirit Lake Indian Reservation, ND – A doctor’s punishment for blowing the whistle on rampant child sexual abuse was rescinded only a day after being issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The whistle-blower, Dr. Michael R. Tilus, director of behavioral health at the Health Care Center on the reservation, had been reprimanded, reassigned, barred from promotion, and threatened with the loss of his professional license for trying to get HHS to do something about the atrocities at Spirit Lake. The crimes he reported included children abused, raped, and murdered—aided and abetted by negligence, tribal as well as institutional. The unprecedented scale of the abuse was underscored by the fact that while American Indians make up only 9 percent of North Dakota’s population, Indian children constitute nearly 30 percent of the state’s child abuse victims.

The Catholic League acted swiftly and decisively. We issued a press release noting that those who have been quick to condemn the Catholic Church remained silent about the atrocities at Spirit Lake. We also contacted three U.S. Senators. Justice was swiftly delivered when the doctor was reinstated, but we did not let go of the issue there.

Bill Donohue sought to uncover what disciplinary measures, if any, were taken against the HHS official who called for his punishment. He wrote a letter to Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, the director of the Indian Health Service, copying Senator John Barrasso, the vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Donohue wanted to know whether the official who initially sought to punish the whistleblower was reprimanded.

August 6
Nationwide, supporters of traditional marriage flocked to the defense of Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy’s statement that we are “inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.’”

Cathy never mentioned homosexuals, yet created a firestorm labeling him and his fast-food chain anti-gay.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that “Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members.” Indeed, Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno attempted to block the construction of a new Chick-fil-A partly due to worry about its “business practices.”

A New York Times editorial said, “Antigay remarks like these are offensive.” Boston Mayor Thomas Menino made it clear he wouldn’t welcome the restaurant in his city when he said, “I don’t want an individual who will continue to advocate against people’s rights. That’s who I am and that’s what Boston’s all about.”

The antipathy that Chick-fil-A provoked demonstrated not only a disturbing cultural trend but also a willingness to coerce and punish, with nothing less than the power of the state, those who hew to the traditional view.

Initial reports falsely indicated that Chick-fil-A had caved by withdrawing corporate giving from groups supporting traditional marriage. Chick-fil-A executives later reaffirmed the company’s commitment to “programs that educate youth, strengthen families and enrich marriages, and support communities,” while adding that their intent is “not to support political or social agendas.”

September 4
Charlotte, NC – At the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Democrats allowed the most notoriously anti-Catholic organization in the nation, Catholics for Choice (CFC), to host a panel on religious liberty. It was entitled, “Keeping the Faith in the Democratic Party: Protecting Religious Liberty for Everyone.”

Speaking at the event were activists from a CFC-organized umbrella group, the Coalition for Liberty & Justice. Several of the groups that comprise this entity have hijacked the Catholic label in service of their anti-Catholic agenda. They include: CORPUS, DignityUSA, New Ways Ministry and the Women’s Ordination Conference. An array of radical left-wing groups with a history of Catholic bashing were also on hand.

September 4
Charlotte, N.C. – A major PR disaster erupted during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) when it was discovered that the word “God” had been excised from the Democratic Party Platform.

The Platform deleted the word “God” when discussing our “God-given potential.” In 2008, the Platform spoke to the issue of having a government that “gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.” The italics, added here, were deleted from the 2012 Platform.

The night that the news broke about the removal, CNN’s Piers Morgan pressed DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the excision. She dodged the question by saying, “We have a commitment through all faith traditions that our values are reflected in our policy. And that means that we should look out for the least of these, that we should fight for the middle class, that we should let everybody in America have an opportunity to be successful.”

Morgan persisted. “This is, somebody has deliberately taken out the word ‘God’ because it was in the last one,” he said. In response, Wasserman Schultz remarkably said, “I can assure you that no one has deliberately taken God out of the Platform.” Morgan pressed her again, “So it was an accident?” She refused to answer.

After taking heat for removing the word “God” from its Platform, the DNC finally decided to put it back in. When it was proposed to place “God” back in the Platform, the delegates were not persuaded, so the DNC did so by fiat, and then lied about the entire event.

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