Bill Donohue

There are many radical organizations in the country, but none has achieved a more inflated status than the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Its undeserved status is due to its perceived expertise in assessing hate groups. While its tracking of hate groups includes some that are undeniably hateful, its list also includes many that are merely conservative organizations who are anything but hateful. By smearing these entities, SPLC is proving that it is the master of hate.

[This is Part I of a two-part series.]

The following organizations are listed by SPLC as hate groups, and the quotes are cited by it as proof that they are a Klan-like organization. Judge for yourself.

Alliance Defending Freedom

“Allowing males to compete in the female category isn’t fair and destroys athletic opportunities. Males will always have inherent physical advantages over comparably talented girls – that’s the reason we have girls’ sports in the first place. And a male’s belief about gender doesn’t eliminate those advantages.” ADF legal counsel Christiana Holcomb

“Men who self-identify as women are still biological men. Sure, they can take synthetic hormones to make themselves appear more feminine, style their hair, and wear makeup (or not). But being a woman is more than a physical appearance or a feeling – it is a biological reality.” Marissa Mayer, senior web writer, on the ADF website

“The only surprise is the rapidity with which this degradation of our human dignity has occurred. It has occurred, with raging effect, and within twelve months, on the heels of government mandated recognition of same-sex ‘marriage’ – an oxymoronic institution if ever there was one.” ADF-affiliated attorney Charles LiMandri

American College of Pediatricians

“Transgenderism is a belief system that increasingly looks like a cultish religion – a modern day Gnosticism denying physical reality for deceived perceptions – being forced on the public by the state in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.” Andre Van Mol, co-chair of ACPeds’ Committee on Adolescent Sexuality

“Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.” Gender Ideology Harms Children, ACPeds article

“Sex is hard-wired from before birth, and it cannot change.” Michelle Cretella, former president of ACPeds

Family Research Council

“People with gender dysphoria or transgender identities are more likely than the general public to engage in high-risk behaviors, which may result from or contribute to psychological disorders (or both).” FRC senior fellow Peter Sprigg 

“I know they’ll mock at the idea, but look, if you are a male – genetically you are a male, biologically you’re a male – and you say, ‘Well, I’m not a male. I’m a female.’ I mean what’s to keep you from saying that you’re an animal?” Tony Perkins, president

“By ignoring underlying conditions, the demands of transgender supremacy ignore our unique kids, especially those with autism and mental health diagnoses. They deflect much-needed resources away from the pandemic of autism.” Sarah Perry, FRC director of partnerships and coalitions coordinator

Liberty Counsel

“Homosexual conduct can result in significant damage to those involved who engage in such conduct. There is no evidence that a person is born homosexual. And there is evidence that people can change.” Liberty Counsel website.

“One of the most significant threats to our freedom is in the area of sexual anarchy with the agenda of the homosexual movement, the so-called LGBT movement. [It]   undermines family and the very first building block of our society [and] secondly…it’s a direct assault on our religious freedom and freedom of speech.” Mat Staver, president

“Statistically, sexual promiscuity is increased among those who engage in homosexual conduct, the result of which is disease found predominantly, if not exclusively, among homosexuals.” Mat Staver

Pacific Justice Institute

“It is fundamentally unjust for the government to treat some crime victims more favorably than others, just because they are homosexual or transsexual.” PJI  president Brad Dacus

“Most parents do not want their first through fifth graders bombarded with pro-homosexual messages at school. If LGBT advocates really want to stop name-calling and bullying, they should start with themselves.” Brad Dacus

“Forcing boys and girls to share bathrooms, locker rooms and sleeping arrangements is not equality; it is insanity.” Brad Dacus

Ruth Institute

“Transgender is a political category. Invented for political purposes. It has nothing to do with either psychology or medicine. It is a political category.” Jennifer Roback Morse

“Compared to children raised by their own biological parents, married to each other, children whose parents had a same-sex relationship are at elevated risk for the following…emotional problems, pleading guilty to a non-minor offense, learning disabilities.…” Ruth Institute pamphlet

“It’s really important to be well informed about what the church actually says about homosexual practice…The church is very clear that same-sex sexual action are intrinsically disordered and can never be morally acceptable.” Jennifer Roback Morse

Note: Because of its outsized influence, we are sending our series to Washington lawmakers and many others.

Contact LaShawn Warren, Chief Policy Officer, SPLC: lashawn.warren@splcenter.org

Bill Donohue

In January, Fr. Jerome Kaywell, a priest at Sacred Heart Punta Gorda, in the Diocese of Venice, Florida, was accused of sexual misconduct dating back to the winter of 2013-2014. The accused, whose name has not been made public, was a minor at the time, but is now an adult. When the diocese learned of the accusations, Kaywell was removed from ministry pending an internal review. The authorities were immediately notified.

On February 13, the diocese received a letter from the law firm representing the alleged victim. The accuser withdrew the charges, apologized and blamed the accusation on a “false memory.” On March 14, the diocesan review board concluded that there was no evidence of wrongdoing, and Fr. Kaywell was allowed to resume his ministry.

There are a lot of problems with what happened.

• Why do we know the name of the accused but not the accuser?
• Why did it take a month before the priest was restored to ministry when it is plain that the accuser said the offense never happened?
• Why did the diocesan review board not conduct its own investigation of the charges before removing the priest from ministry, choosing instead to accept the validity of the allegation?
• What is the difference between a “false memory” and lying?
• Why are “false memories” treated as a variant of “repressed memories”?
• How did the media react to the accusation and the exoneration?

Regarding the latter question, we did a probe of how the media handled this issue. Here is what we found.

The print media and the online media coverage was mostly fair; they covered both the accusation and the exoneration. TV coverage in Fort Myers was also pretty good, though CBS, NBC and Fox ran slightly more stories on the accusation than on the exoneration. ABC actually ran one more story on the exoneration than the accusation. Now to the other issues.

It is outrageous that adults who make public accusations can remain anonymous while the accused can be smeared all over the place.

Why aren’t review boards—not just in the Diocese of Venice—immediately summoned to meet, virtually or in person, when the accuser withdraws his claims? If there are many people on the panel, there should be an executive committee that can quickly step in so that accused priests in Fr. Kaywell’s situation can return to ministry ASAP.

Why do review boards remove a priest from ministry, based on an allegation, without first assessing the veracity of the accusation? No other organization acts this way.

When an accuser later claims to have suffered a “false memory,” this should be the beginning of a new chapter in this case, and not treated as if everything has been resolved.

A close cousin to “false memory” is  “repressed memory,” the condition whereby someone who says he was violated in the past only now claims to remember what happened.

What follows is taken from my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes.

“Repressed memory” is a fiction. It doesn’t exist. Sociologist Richard Ofshe and journalist Ethan Watters studied this notion and concluded that it “has never been more than unsubstantiated speculation tied to Freudian concepts and speculative mechanisms.”

Dr. Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has long dismissed it as a dangerous idea that literally manufacturers victims.

The American Psychological Association rendered its judgment and concluded that “repressed memory” is a “cultural creation having no basis in science.”

Clinical psychologists from the University of Nevada, Reno, led by William O’Donohue, studied the literature on this subject and concluded that “there is a large amount of scientific evidence that clearly shows that repressed memories simply do not exist.”

It cannot be said too strongly that the rights of priests in the United States cry out for reforms. The scale of justice is tipped against them. They should have the same guarantees and protections afforded every other American. That is not the case now, and it hasn’t been for decades.

Fr. Gordon MacRae was sent to prison in Manchester, New Hampshire in 1994 for offenses that he allegedly committed between 1979 and 1983. The accuser, Thomas Grover, said he periodically repressed his memory of the assault. He had prior convictions for fraud, forgery, theft, assault, and drug charges.

When MacRae was offered a plea deal, he turned it down, insisting on his innocence, even knowing that he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. He was sentenced to 67 years in prison. Worse, more recent evidence shows that he was railroaded by the authorities.

It’s time the bishops revisit the issue of due process for priests. It can begin by asking for the input of people like Msgr. Thomas Guarino, a Seton Hall professor who has written authoritatively on this subject.

Note: We are sending this article to diocesan officials across the country.

This is the article that appeared in the March 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

On three occasions in the first two months of this year, we have been mobilized to respond to a series of decisions made by elites in the federal government that are hostile to religion in general, and to Catholics, in particular. This is unprecedented.

On January 19, Bill Donohue sent a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, regarding decisions reached by Noah Bishoff, the former Director of the Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

Under his tutelage, FinCEN investigators asked financial institutions to provide them with customer transactions of an “extremist” nature. Such terms such as “MAGA” were flagged as problematic. Of interest to the Catholic League was earmarking “the purchasing of books (including religious texts)” that might the meet the test of “extremism.”

Donohue asked Jordan, “which kinds of religious books were of interest to Bishoff’s team of investigators? For example, those written by orthodox Catholics, or those written by Catholic bashers? I doubt it was the latter.”

On February 6, Donohue wrote to Rep. Chip Roy, Chairman of the House Security Committee, asking him to keep the pressure on the Biden administration’s Justice Department for selectively targeting non-violent pro-life protesters for violating the FACE Act, while letting violent abortion-rights protesters skate.

This becomes especially important given the admission of FBI Director Christopher Wray last November that 70% of FACE offenses have been committed by abortion-rights activists. Moreover, we know from Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta that pro-lifers are being disproportionately targeted. We also know why: the Biden administration is angry that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

On February 15, Donohue wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking him to settle the issue of the agency spying on Catholics. Wray was supposed to have answered several questions, posed by U.S. Senators, about this issue but did not reply on time.

We have been actively engaged in this FBI issue dating back to February of last year. That is why we treated this as the most serious of the three matters. Donohue’s letter is on p. 5.

We are well aware that most federal employees are good men and women who are doing their best to serve the public. But we are also well aware of too many recent examples where the elites in charge have either failed themselves to act in a just manner, or have allowed those below them to do so.

Anti-Catholicism, stemming from any source, must be taken seriously. But when it emanates from the federal government—it is alarming.

This is the article that appeared in the March 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Disney had a strong fourth quarter last year, but overall 2023 was not kind to the company. How much a role our documentary played in that development we cannot say with any precision, but it is fatuous to say it was without effect.

In terms of market share, Disney slid to second place last year; Universal Pictures came out on top. Also, for the first time in many years, Disney didn’t have one of the top three movies. Pixar, the Disney branch most responsible for pushing the LGBT agenda, did so badly that it shed 20 percent of its staff; more than 300 employees have been let go. In addition, attendance at Disney theme parks declined in 2023.

The good news is that there are signs that Disney got the memo. In September, after a summer of lousy box office receipts, its CEO, Bob Iger, told investors he will seek to “quiet the noise.” The noise came from parents who do not want to expose their children to raunch.

At the end of November, we learned from a corporate disclosure that Disney is rethinking its woke policies. It admitted to being out of touch with public sentiment.

When investors revolt, even guys like Iger have to listen. He said something in early December at a summit in New York that was unexpected. “Creators lost sight of what their No. 1 objective needed to be. We have to entertain first. It’s not about messages.”

Hopefully, Disney is wising up.

This is the article that appeared in the March 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

 William A. Donohue

Most Americans want abortion legal but restricted. Most but not all. There are some who favor abortion unlimited—for any reason and at time of gestation. The media will tell you this isn’t true. They’re lying.

Last September, Vice President Kamala Harris was interviewed on “Face the Nation” by Margaret Brennan. Brennan made the point that Republicans are saying they support abortions “up until, you know, birth.” Harris replied, “Which is ridiculous.” Brennan agreed, saying, “Which is statistically not accurate.”

When Chris Christie was a Republican candidate for president, he told Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC that in his state of New Jersey abortion is legal “up to nine months.” She disagreed, saying, “It’s not an abortion at nine months. And there’s not a doctor that would do it. And it only happens in extremely severe circumstances.”

“The claim that Democrats support abortion up until the moment of birth is entirely misleading.” That’s what former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on her MSNBC show.

Jim Acosta of CNN took issue with a family leader on this subject, saying, “Democrats are not in favor of abortion right up until birth.”

On “Meet the Press,” former President Donald Trump said that some Democrats support abortion up to “nine months and even after birth you’re allowed to terminate the baby.” The NBC host, Kristen Welker, said, “Democrats are not saying that.”

Steve Benen, an MSNBC producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” also took issue with Trump’s claim that some Democrats support “after-birth” abortion. “There is no such thing. The claim is simply insane.”

All of these people who defend the Democrats on this issue are wrong. I will prove it.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman believes in no restrictions on abortion. When asked during a debate, “Are there any limits on abortion you would find appropriate,” he answered, “I don’t believe so.”

In 2015, when Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, was asked if she was okay “with killing a 7-pound baby that’s just not born yet,” she replied that she supports “letting women and their doctors make this decision without government getting involved.” Senator Rand Paul rightly noted, “Well, it sounds like her answer is yes, that she’s OK with killing a 7-pound baby.”

In 2020, when Vice President Mike Pence called out Democrats for supporting abortion without restrictions, he was challenged by Jane Timm of NBC News. “Elective abortions do not occur up until the moment of birth,” she said.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, rebutted her argument. “Believe it or not, 22 states—almost half—allow birth day abortion. And in seven of those, women don’t need a reason. A pregnant mom at 39 weeks can literally walk into a willing clinic and ask for an abortion, no questions asked.”

Perkins knows what he is talking about. Quite frankly, under Roe v. Wade, abortion-on-demand, while not a de jure right (it was not permitted after viability except in limited cases), was a de facto right. For proof, consider Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe; it opened the door to abortion-on-demand.

In Roe, the high court said the states may outlaw abortion “except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.” The ruling in Doe defined what an “appropriate medical judgment” was. It entailed the “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the women’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient.”

Not surprisingly, every state law that attempted to limit post-viability abortions to those necessary for the physical health of the women failed in court when challenged. In effect, the joint decisions in Roe and Doe legalized abortion up until birth. So when Democrats say they simply want to codify Roe, what they are saying is they want to make all abortions legal, at any time during pregnancy.

Some Democrat governors actually favor allowing a baby who is born alive from a botched abortion to die unattended.

On January 22, 2019, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that allows premature babies who survive a chemical abortion to be denied treatment. Shortly thereafter, the Democrat Governor from Virginia, Ralph Northam, signaled that he was not satisfied with sanctioning abortion up until birth.

If a baby survived an abortion, he said, “The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

It was so thoughtful of Gov. Northam, who is a pediatrician, to assure us that the baby would be “kept comfortable” before they put him down or let him die.

So there we have it. Contrary to what the media and the Democrats have been saying, there are plenty of Democrats who support legalized abortion through nine months of pregnancy, for any reason whatsoever. There are even those who are okay with infanticide.

Mary Ann Glendon

Mary Ann Glendon, In the Courts of Three Popes: An American Lawyer and Diplomat in the Last Absolute Monarchy of the West (Penguin Random House Image Books, 2024)

Veteran Vatican journalist John Allen once wrote, after years of observing the Holy See, that “You could make a pretty good case that your odds of accomplishing something positive in the Catholic Church actually increase by a percentage point for every 25 miles or so of distance you put between yourself and Rome.”

After 23 years of service to the Holy See, I tend to agree with Allen’s judgment. But at a time when the Church is facing grave challenges on many fronts, I also believe that it needs all the assistance it can get, at all levels, including the Holy See.

One of my reasons for writing about my experiences during the pontificates of Saint Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, was to provide encouragement to young people like the college and law students who have told me over the years that they feel called to devote some of their time and talents to the Church in this time of turmoil.

Some of us remember that the Second Vatican Council was supposed to initiate a whole new era where the role of the laity is concerned. It was “the hour of the laity,” we were told. To their credit, the Council Fathers tried hard to waken “the sleeping giant” (as John Paul II would later describe the lay faithful). They reminded us that it is the laity who have the primary responsibility for evangelization of the secular sphere where we live and work: “The effort to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws, and structures of the community in which one lives, is so much the duty and responsibility of the laity that it can never be performed adequately by others” (Apostolicam Actuositatem, 13).

They also made it clear that none of us has the option of retreating from the world, withdrawing into a closed circle of family and friends. Even the members of our cloistered contemplative religious orders do not spend their time in abstract meditation. They are praying for the world.

But the sleeping giant proved hard to arouse. For one thing, the Council was woefully late in addressing the challenge of a world falling into disbelief, even though Saint John Henry Newman and others had forcefully sounded the alarm a century earlier. And, when they finally acted, they neglected the problem of formation. As Newman had warned, the lay faithful needed to be prepared to be a transformative presence in a world that was rapidly changing.

Then, just as the Council closed its doors in 1965, a profound cultural revolution in western countries presented the Church with a whole new set of challenges! Catholics, like everyone else, were caught up in the maelstrom. The Church and its leaders were wholly unprepared for the up-ending of moral and religious principles regarding sex, marriage, honor, and personal responsibility.

Today, the sad truth is that laity and clergy alike have been relatively unresponsive to the Council’s exhortations. Recently, when Cardinal Francis Arinze, one of the few still-living Council Fathers, was asked: “What are the most challenging issues facing the Church today?”, he replied: “First, convince each member of the Church—lay faithful (who are 99% of the Church), clerics and religious—to do his or her own specific part in the general mission of the Church. And second: Convince the clergy of the importance of the lay apostolate and therefore that the lay faithful have their own distinctive role as leaders.” In other words, the Church is facing the same challenges that it has always faced since the beginning of Christianity.

Cardinal Arinze was right to put his primary emphasis on the role of the laity in the general mission of the church—the mission that requires all of us, laity and clergy alike, first and foremost to be witnesses to Christ wherever we find ourselves.

But it is more important than ever, in my view, for lay men and women to contemplate whether and how they might fit service to the institutional church within that general mission. With religious vocations declining in many parts of the world, lay people with their varied skills and talents can enable the clergy to do more of what they are called to do, what they have been trained to do, and what they know how to do best.

So, when consulted by young men and women interested in service to the Church, I have always encouraged them to be attentive to their promptings, while keeping in mind that there are bound to be setbacks as well as advances, disappointments as well as satisfactions, as with any other form of service. One of my hopes for In the Courts of Three Popes is that the account of my experiences will both encourage and inform the discernment of laypersons pondering how they might aid the Church in these difficult times.

As a lawyer and a student of politics, I had another reason for writing about those experiences, namely, to share some of the insights I had gained into the predicament of an absolute monarchy as it attempts to operate in the world of modern states. (I am aware of the view that the Holy See is not an absolute monarchy because the Pope is subject to divine law, but I use the term here in a political sense.)

The opinions I express in the book are based on my observations of the government and administration of the Holy See. They are not the views of an “insider,” but those of an outsider with a variety of vantage points. They were gained through heading Holy See delegations to three UN conferences; serving on the Council for the Laity, the Commission for the Jubilee 2000, the Commission of Reference for the Institute of Religious Works (Vatican Bank), and the Board of Superintendence of the Vatican Bank, as well as by chairing the Holy See Secretariat of State’s Committee on Legal Affairs in the United States and serving for ten years as President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

One of the principal features that distinguishes the Holy See from most modern states is that it is a court, a court with its own distinctive internal culture. Today’s Roman curia still bears many of the marks of its medieval predecessors where the courtiers are inescapably and permanently bound to one another and to the ruler; where they are acutely conscious of their own and each other’s place in the hierarchy; and where intrigues over rank and favor abound. Curial culture is also inevitably influenced by aspects of the Italian culture by which it is surrounded and from which it draws much of its ecclesiastical and lay personnel.

The internal culture of the Holy See has hampered its ability to function in the modern world in a number of ways. To understand the current situation, it helps to recall that neither John Paul II nor Benedict XVI, for all their great accomplishments, was a hands-on administrator. During the long pontificate of John Paul II, the Pope’s mode of governing had been to set broad goals and leave trusted people to pursue them. Pope Benedict continued in that mode. Sometimes it worked out well thanks to faithful and competent prelates, but the combination of court culture and relaxed oversight created an atmosphere conducive to financial and other scandals.

Dysfunction was most noticeable in the area of finances, where the Holy See was slow to modernize and to align its operations with internationally recognized best practices. When I began my service to the Holy See in the 1990s, I was astonished, for example, that travel expenses were being reimbursed in cash and upon minimal documentation. Later, one of things that worried me and other members of the committee overseeing US litigation against the Holy See was that the Holy See does not have a centralized department to coordinate its legal affairs. Cardinal Pell was similarly surprised when he found that there was no central management of the financial holdings of the Holy See, and he was dismayed when then-Sostituto Cardinal Becciu vigorously opposed his plan to have an external accounting firm perform an audit.

It might seem obvious that if there is one area where the Church is in particular need of lay assistance, it is where money is involved. But the problem has not been easy to solve. Just as few prelates are equipped with the skills to manage the finances of a sovereign entity, most are no better equipped to choose and oversee honest and capable lay experts—as witness the history of the Vatican bank where time and again trusted laymen turned out to be foxes in the chicken coop.

In 2022, Pope Francis took a step toward administrative reform with the issuance of a new Constitution for the Roman Curia. Besides making several changes in the organization and structure of the Curia, the document expanded opportunities for lay participation.

It will, however, take more than a new set of rules to change a deep-seated culture. Everything will depend on the character and competence of those who are charged with the Constitution’s implementation. The notorious scandals of the Vatican Bank, for example, were not due to flaws in its governing rules, but to spectacular failures to follow those rules, and to a general disregard for the rule of law as such. As Pope Paul VI wisely remarked after the last reform of the Curia (in 1967), “It does no good to change faces if we don’t change hearts.”

To say that what is needed is nothing less than a transformation of culture may sound like a tall order. But that, after all, is no more than what all Christians are supposed to be doing anyway. There is encouragement to be found in the fact that the Church has emerged rejuvenated in many other periods when it seemed to be in serious decline.

Mary Ann Glendon is Learned Hand Professor of Law emerita at Harvard University and a former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. In 1995, she led the Vatican delegation to the UN’s World Conference on Women in Beijing, becoming the first woman ever to lead a Vatican delegation.

Mary Ann Glendon is the most prominent lay Catholic person in the nation. An author, professor, ambassador—her work in defense of the family and religious liberty is astounding. Always humble, she never seeks the limelight. That is why I am happy to brag about her stunning accomplishments. We are delighted to have her serve on our board of advisors.

Bill Donohue

This is the article that appeared in the March 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Whether one agrees with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to bus illegal aliens to sanctuary cities around the country or not, it is indisputable that he is responsible for making immigration the Number One issue in the nation. His gambit was sociologically brilliant. He turned what was perceived by most Americans to be a regional issue into a national one.

What Abbott did was right out of the playbook of the Left’s favorite radical, Saul Alinsky. In his book, Rules for Radicals, Alinsky listed 13 tactics for activists. Abbott cites two of them.

The fourth rule is “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.” By busing migrants to sanctuary cities—making the “compassionate” ones experience what it is like for Texans to put up with the illegals—Abbott called their bluff. Now they are up in arms.

The eighth rule is “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.” Abbott has not only been relentless in shipping migrants to liberal cities, he has quickened the pace. He has also spread his goodwill around, from east to west, showing his penchant for diversity and inclusion.

We prepared a report on exactly how Abbott rolled out “Operation Lone Star.” Here is a quick synopsis. [The full report is available online.]

It was in April 2022 that he began transporting the migrants. At that time, approximately 200 were sent to Washington, D.C.; by the end of January 2024, the number topped 12,500. Since August 2022, over 37,500 had made their way to New York City; since August 2022, more than 31,200 have been shipped to Chicago; since November 2022, over 3,400 have been bused to Philadelphia; since May 2023, more than 16,000 had been sent to Denver; and since June 2023, over 1,500 were put on buses destined for Los Angeles.

Abbott has now bussed over 100,000 to sanctuary cities. In December, illegal aliens came in record numbers—over 300,000 crashed our southern border.

The data prove that Abbott’s policy is working.

We looked at surveys conducted by the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll examining the top three most pressing issues facing the nation, beginning with the start of “Operation Lone Star.”

April 2022

1. Price/Inflation: 33 percent
2. Economy and Jobs: 28 percent
3. Immigration: 22 percent

Approximately 200 migrants had been relocated by that time.

October 2022

1. Price/Inflation: 37 percent
2. Economy and Jobs: 29 percent
3. Immigration: 23 percent

Over 12,700 migrants had been relocated by that time.

April 2023

1. Price/Inflation: 34 percent
2. Economy and Jobs: 25 percent
3. Immigration: 24 percent

Over 19,040 migrants had been relocated by May 2023 (Texas did not provide data for April 2023).

October 2023

1. Price/Inflation: 32 percent
2. Immigration: 27 percent
3. Economy and Jobs: 24 percent

Over 58,900 migrants had been relocated by that time.

January 2024

1. Immigration: 35 percent
2. Price/Inflation: 32 percent
3. Economy and Jobs: 25 percent

Over 102,100 migrants had been relocated by that time.

The AP-NORC polls found similar outcomes.

2022

1. Economy, general: 31 percent
2. Inflation: 30 percent
3. Immigration: 27 percent

2023

1. Immigration: 35 percent
2. Inflation: 30 percent
3. Economy, general: 24 percent

The evidence is clear: There is a direct line between the expansion of Abbott’s busing and the nation’s intolerance for illegal aliens. Had he not done so, this would still be regarded as a regional issue, and those who live along the border would be its only victims.

Some say it is cruel to bus migrants to cities around the country. We think it is cruel to make Texans pay for the policy prescriptions of those who never suffer the consequences of their own ideas.

It is repulsive to hear Abbott’s critics say that those who support his policy are anti-immigration. Those who enter legally are welcome.

Our one complaint with Abbott is that he didn’t exclusively choose to bus the illegals to the wealthiest and most liberal neighborhoods in the country. Only when those who live in places like Beverly Hills and East Hampton feel the pinch of their politics will matters change.

This is the article that appeared in the March 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray about his apparent refusal to settle the agency’s investigation of mainline Catholics.

February 15, 2024

The Honorable Christopher A. Wray
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20535-0001

Dear Director Wray:

On January 31, 2024, the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, Charles Grassley, and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, Lindsey Graham, and several other senators, wrote to you regarding the FBI’s probe of Catholics as outlined in the Richmond memo. You were to answer their questions by February 14, but apparently that has not been done.

This issue has been festering for a year. It was in February 2023 that the public learned of a startling memo produced by the Richmond Field Office: it revealed an investigation of traditional Catholics. On February 9, 2023, I made public the concerns of the Catholic League. “What’s next? Will it be a war on Catholics who are orthodox?”

My hunch was proven right. The FBI subsequently said that “mainline Catholic parishes” and “local diocesan leadership” were selected for investigation.

On April 11, 2023, I wrote to you asking to make public those documents related to this issue. On July 24, July 26, August 10, September 21 and December 6, I wrote to the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, asking to get to the bottom of this issue.

It is vitally important that you answer the questions posed by the senators in their letter of January 31. They asked many serious questions that are of interest to Catholics nationwide.

For instance, they wanted to know why “the FBI permanently deleted critical records related to the memo.” They asked why the FBI relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center for information in its probe of Catholics; I asked Rep. Jordan to address the same question.

This is not a subject we will ever abandon. Catholics have every right to know what is going on at the FBI and why they have been spied on, without just cause. Not only are First Amendment religious liberty issues at stake, so is the legitimacy of the FBI.

I implore you to cooperate with those government officials who have contacted you about this issue. Hopefully we can settle this matter once and for all.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President

cc: Sen. Charles Grassley
Sen. Lindsey Graham
Rep. Jim Jordan

This is the article that appeared in the March 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Bill Donohue sent the following letter to the Chief Diversity Officer at The Johns Hopkins University wanting to see the evidence that Christians constitute a “privileged” group.

January 29, 2024

Dr. Sherita H. Golden
Chief Diversity Officer
The Johns Hopkins University
2024 E. Monument Street, Ste. 2-600
Baltimore, MD 21205

Dear Dr. Golden:

You recently posted a piece in the university’s “Monthly Diversity Digest” listing various demographic groups which, you claim, enjoy a “privileged” position in American society. They include “whites, Christians, males, and heterosexuals.”

I am aware that a spokesman for Johns Hopkins Medicine addressed the ensuing controversy and that you have since retracted your comments. That is all fine and good, but there is one demographic group that you mentioned that is of particular interest to me, namely, Christians.

I would like to know how you determined that Christians are a “privileged” group. As a sociologist and the president of the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization, I am concerned that if your assessment is wrong, it could have far-reaching consequences for Christians.

In a survey done by the Pew Research Center on the income of various religious groups, it listed 15 Christian ones. Only two of them—those who belong to the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)—have a family income above that of atheists and agnostics. (The two wealthiest religious groups are Jewish and Hindu.)

Those who earn less than atheists and agnostics, but who are nonetheless above the median income, belong to the following groups: Orthodox Christian, United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church in America, and Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Those who earn below the median income, and are considerably less well off than atheists and agnostics, belong to the following groups: Catholic, Churches of Christ, Southern Baptist Convention, Assemblies of God, American Baptist Churches USA, Church of God in Christ and National Baptist Convention.

The data do not support your conviction that Christians are a “privileged group.” But they do indicate that atheists and agnostics qualify as such. Could you explain why they were not listed as “privileged” groups but Christians were?

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President

cc: Ronald J. Daniels, President, The Johns Hopkins University
Louis J. Forster, Chairman, Board of Trustees

This is the article that appeared in the March 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The reason Bill Donohue wrote The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes was to debunk all the distortions and outright lies about this issue. He is proud that not one critic has been able to show where he misstated anything (it contains over 800 endnotes).

Not only has no one been able to challenge Donohue’s account, when several liberal experts on this issue were asked to debate him on a Fox News podcast, all refused to do so. That speaks volumes.

Yet there are those who continue to parrot the conventional moonshine on this issue. The latest to do so is Carrie N. Baker, a Smith College professor.

Baker wrote her screed for Ms. magazine, where she is a contributing editor. She states her conclusion right at the start. “The Catholic Church’s clergy sexual abuse scandals, combined with its efforts to control women’s reproductive choices by banning abortion and attacking contraception, expose a troubling pattern of sexual sociopathology.”

She is to be commended for putting her cards on the table. Now we know exactly where she is coming from.

Baker offers as evidence three items: the 2006 documentary Deliver Us From Evil; the movie Spotlight; and the 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report. Also, she wants us to believe that clergy sexual abuse is ongoing and that a victims’ group, SNAP, is courageously fighting back.

When Deliver Us From Evil debuted, Donohue said that if the writer-director, Amy Berg, had confined herself to the offenses of one predatory priest, Oliver O’Grady, she would have distanced herself from the criticism she rightly received for making sweeping generalizations about priests. That’s called bigotry. As it turned out, her real target was not O’Grady, it was the Catholic Church.

To her credit, Berg subsequently decided to expose the way Hollywood predators manipulated, intimidated and raped aspiring child actors. But her documentary, An Open Secret, was turned down by one Hollywood studio after another. Surprise, surprise. Years later it opened in a few cities.

Spotlight was the story of the Boston Globe’s team that won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the sexual abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese. When the newspaper’s series was published in 2002, Donohue said that “The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the New York Times covered the story with professionalism.” He was quoted on the front page of the Times saying, “I am not the church’s water boy. I am not here to defend the indefensible.”

Nine years later Donohue said it was apparent there were two scandals related to this issue. Scandal I was internal—”the church-driven scandal.” Scandal II was external—”the result of indefensible cherry-picking of old cases by rapacious lawyers and vindictive victims’ groups. They were aided and abetted by activists, the media, and Hollywood.”

The movie, Spotlight, which won an Oscar for best picture, was an example of Scandal II. It was not the film that was objectionable, it was the incredibly vicious comments made about the Catholic Church by producers, script writers and actors.

What made their remarks so outrageous was the fact that nine of those associated with the movie had worked for Harvey Weinstein, yet when his sexual misconduct was made public, eight said nothing about his sexual abuse and all nine refused to indict Hollywood the way they did the Catholic Church.

In another example of hypocrisy, after the Boston Globe did a story in 2018 on bishops who allegedly failed to deal adequately with clergy abuse, Donohue spent several weeks exchanging email correspondence with the editor and his staff asking to see the evidence. He was denied. Denied by the same people who condemned the bishops for lacking transparency.

The Pennsylvania grand jury report was a PR stunt pulled by the state’s attorney general (and now governor), Josh Shapiro. Almost all of the accused priests he named were either dead or thrown out of the priesthood. No wonder Shapiro was able to prosecute only two of them. None of the living was allowed to testify in court about his case, but we succeeded in hiring lawyers to defend eleven of the priests who had their reputations ruined. We sued and won, 6-1, in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The latest data on clergy sexual abuse, released last year, showed that .013 percent of the clergy had a substantiated allegation made against him by a minor for offenses in the past year. In short, the scandal has been over for about a half century; the timeline was the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Most of the abusers (8-in-10) were homosexuals, not pedophiles, and 149 priests were responsible for 26% of the allegations.

Finally, SNAP has long been moribund. It died after its chief was raked over the coals by prosecutors in 2017—David Clohessy was shown to be a fraud. After he was outed as a rogue by a transgender employee, Gretchen Rachel Hammond, he quit. Hammond verified everything Donohue had been saying about SNAP for years.

All that is left of SNAP is a website. It is a shell group comprised of a few people with a phone number and an email address—it has no office address.

Baker failed to lay a glove on the Catholic Church. Quite frankly, she is out of her league on this subject.