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.

When Joe Biden was running for president in 2020, he pledged that no one—no matter how heinous the crime—should ever be executed. Instead, the guilty should “serve life sentences without probation or parole.”

Merrick Garland was Attorney General for just a few months before he declared a moratorium on the death penalty. He and the president announced that they would seek to abolish capital punishment once and for all.

On January 12, 2024, Biden and Garland changed their mind. They finally found an execution they like. It is not hard to figure out why they pivoted. It has everything to do with race.

In the last three years that Biden has been president, there have been nearly 2,000 mass shootings. But never once did Garland authorize the death penalty. So the question is, why did Biden and Garland make an exception for Payton Gendron?

The reason they want Gendron dead is because they see in him something that transcends his persona—he is seen as fodder for virtue signaling. Quite simply, they are discriminating against him because he is a white man who killed blacks, and they want to show blacks that they won’t stand for it.

Black people kill black people with stunning frequency, yet such stories are given short shrift by the media, and politicians fail to say a word about it. But when a white person, such as Gendron, kills black people, he’s a suitable candidate for execution. If black lives really mattered as much as white lives, then the race of the killer wouldn’t matter. But it does.

Gendron is a self-confessed white racist who killed 10 black persons at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022 when he was 18. New York State does not allow the death penalty but the Department of Justice can override this in hate crime cases. They did so in this case.

Biden wants Gendron executed because he wants the public to know that he won’t tolerate white supremacy. That’s what he told a black congregation in South Carolina on January 8. He called white supremacy a “poison” that is infecting America. Just last spring he told a black audience at Howard University that “the most dangerous terrorist threat” to America is white supremacy.

One likely reason why Biden is pursing the death penalty in this case is because he wants to shore up his base with black voters. It is slipping badly, especially among young blacks. His approval rating with blacks under the age of 50 is 32 percent.

When Garland addressed the death penalty for Gendron, he said, “The Justice Department fully recognizes the threat that white supremacist violence poses to the safety of the American people and American democracy.” This is a ruse.

Crime data show that in almost 90 percent of the cases where a black person has been murdered, the killer was black. Whites are responsible for 8 percent of blacks who are murdered; the figure is double (16 percent) for whites killed by blacks. In other words, the greatest domestic threat to black people today stems from black people, not white supremacists.

Further proof that Biden and Garland have a racial motive in treating Gendron differently can be seen in their treatment of the El Paso mass killer. In 2019, Patrick Wood

Crusius killed 23 people in a Wal-Mart racist rampage. It has been described as the deadliest attack on Hispanics in American history.

Crusius received 90 consecutive life sentences. Why didn’t Garland pursue the death penalty? Don’t 23 dead Latinos count as much as 10 dead African Americans?

If Gendron had been the leader of some white supremacist group, but was otherwise regarded as fairly normal, he would fit the profile of someone who might be a candidate for unusually harsh treatment. But such is not the case.

Like so many mass shooters, Gendron was a classic loner. He was not in charge of any group, white supremacist or otherwise; nor did he belong to a white racist organization. His father was an alcoholic and a long-time drug addict; his chronic substance abuse resulted in the demise of two marriages.

Gendron was such a freak that he wore a hazmat suit to class. After he threatened a shooting at his high school, he was sent for a mental health evaluation.

He was fascinated by violence, even to the point of bragging how he killed a feral cat. First he stabbed it, then he smashed its head on concrete. He finished it by cutting off the cat’s head with a hatchet.

This is a sick man. Normal people do not act this way.

Make no mistake, his horrific crimes demand that he be put away for life.

But given what we know about his disturbed upbringing and his mental state, why are such factors being discounted? If he were just another screwed up young man, with no racist background, everyone knows that Biden and Garland would not be seeking the death penalty.

Looking at the world through a racist lens—which is what Biden and Garland are doing—inevitably results in disparate treatment. It’s obvious that they are exploiting the Gendron case for political purposes.

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.

President Biden’s pick of John Podesta to replace John Kerry as his top climate envoy is revealing on several fronts. All three Catholics worship at the altar of climate control more than they do the altar of the Magisterium, or the teaching body of the Catholic Church. In the case of Podesta, not only is his fidelity misplaced, he has actively sought to subvert the Catholic Church.

To be specific, we learned in 2016 that Wikileaks documents from 2012 showed how Podesta created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a bogus lay Catholic entity. He did so with the express purpose of mobilizing Catholics to challenge the Catholic hierarchy, forcing changes that advance the left-wing agenda.

Catholics in Alliance was funded by George Soros. We fought this shell group from the get-go, exposing them as a fraud. When Wikileaks documents confirmed our allegations, Podesta claimed he could not be anti-Catholic because he is a Catholic.

Here is what Bill Donohue said on October 17, 2016, in reply. “Bigotry is determined by what is said and done and does not turn on biographical data. For example, putting a swastika on a synagogue is no less anti-Semitic if done by a Jew. Similarly, making anti-Catholic statements, or engaging in anti-Catholic conduct, is no less anti-Catholic if done by a Catholic.”

If a non-Catholic president chose Podesta for a senior post in his administration, we would brand it as anti-Catholic. When a president who identifies as a Catholic does it, it is aiding and abetting sabotage within the Catholic Church.

Podesta is not only duplicitous about his Catholic status, he is just as duplicitous about his commitment to the environment.

Last November, Podesta went with John Kerry, the climate chief at the time, to the U.N.’s COP28 summit. They had a good time hammering fossil fuels. More important, they got there by taking a private jet. Sen. Joni Ernst took note. “Once again, the Biden administration exposes the hypocrisy of their own radical green fantasy.”

Podesta loves jetting around in private planes. In fact, he averages 11,000 miles per year in private jet travel. He also owns nine luxury cars. In other words, his lifestyle is responsible for emitting so many pollutants into the air that he has to be in the top 1 percent of the nation’s polluters. And when he gets to his destination, he bashes polluters.

John Podesta is a quintessential phony. That is why he was chosen to be the Climate Czar by our “devout Catholic” president. The Czar of Duplicity is a perfect fit.

Bill Donohue

Militant secularists would like to erase our religious heritage, but they are clearly in over their heads. Our nation’s Capitol abounds with Judeo-Christian iconography, so much so that it overwhelms attempts to cancel it.

• The dome of the U.S. Capitol was inspired by the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, as well as St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
• The Supreme Court building is modeled after a Roman temple.
• St. Joseph’s church on Capitol Hill was built in 1868.
• The Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress features The Court of Neptune Fountain; it resembles a grotto.
• The west end of the Mall—from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial—has a statue of Lincoln surrounded by comments he made about his respect for God. At the far end of the Mall, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, and the Capitol building have inscriptions honoring our Judaic heritage.
• Within the Capitol there are statues of Catholic priests and nuns and medallions of Pope Innocent III and Pope Gregory IX.
• On the first floor of the Main Reading Room in the Library of Congress there is a statue of St. Paul.
• In the Library there is a quote from the Book of Proverbs and a reference to God from Shakespeare.
• There is a chapel in the U.S. Capitol. Moreover, prayer meetings for Senators and Congressmen are commonplace throughout.
• Crucifixes abound in the Capitol.
• On the front doors of the Capitol are pictures of Franciscans with rosaries, symbolizing the history of Columbus.
• In the Rotunda, there is a painting of Hernando De Soto and his armies standing on the banks of the river rejoicing, as well as a depiction of priests planting a cross.
• There is also a painting in the dome of the burial scene of De Soto depicting a Mass being celebrated; a barge is carrying his body for burial in the Mississippi. A priest is shown holding a crucifix during burial prayers.
• In front of the Federal District Court, across from the National Gallery of Art, there is a depiction of pilgrims praying before a cross—a splendid recognition of religious liberty.
• On the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 7th St. N.W. is the Temperance Fountain with the inscription of Temperance, Charity, Hope, and Faith. Nearby is a quote from St. Paul.
• Near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, engraved on the sidewalk, there is the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial with an inscription referencing our “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”
• There is a frieze on the Supreme Court Building that depicts Moses.
• The entrance doors to the Supreme Court, made of oak, have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door.
• Inside the Supreme Court, right above where the Justices sit, there is a display of Moses and the Ten Commandments.

These are just some of the tributes to our Judeo-Christian heritage found in Washington, D.C. Noticeably absent are tributes to the contributions made by secularists. Small wonder.

P.S. To read more about this issue, see One Nation Under God: Religious Symbols, Quotes, and Images in Our Nation’s Capitol, by Fr. Eugene F. Hemrick.

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 National Football League (NFL) paired with an anti-Catholic LGBT organization, GLAAD, during Super Bowl week, celebrating what it calls “A Night of Pride with GLAAD.” Sponsored by Smirnoff, the fun and games began on February 7 and were carried on CBS Sports, GLAAD, and NFL social channels.

GLAAD has a history of anti-Catholic antics, ranging from celebrating anti-Catholic plays to bashing popes. More recently, it heralded the decision by the Los Angeles Dodgers to honor an anti-Catholic group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, at its June 16 game in 2023; the Dodgers reversed its earlier ruling to disinvite the Sisters.

On June 17, NBC Los Angeles noted the role of the Catholic League in getting the Dodgers to initially disinvite the bigots. “The Dodgers pulled the Sisters from their Pride Night the day after Bill Donohue…had emailed Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to urge the team to yank the group.” Manfred was bombarded with emails from our subscribers.

But then the Dodgers caved in to gay pressure groups. Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, said the ruling to reinstate the Sisters restored “fairness.” Fairness to whom? Not to Catholics.

As we recounted at the time, the Sisters have a long history of Catholic bashing extending back to 1979.

Why is the NFL cheering homosexuals and the sexually confused (males who think they are females and vice versa)? Why is the NFL now aiming at the kids? To be precise, why is it hosting its second annual Pride Flag Football Clinic for young boys? Does it really expect that these kids are the future of the NFL? Or are they pandering?

More seriously, why has the NFL teamed with GLAAD, an organization that is not shy about bashing Catholics? If it is wrong to host an anti-gay group during Super Bowl week, why is it acceptable to host an anti-Catholic group?

For that matter, if the NFL is reaching out to young LGBT boys, why doesn’t it reach out to young Christian boys? Why doesn’t it have a clinic for young Jewish and Muslim boys?

The NFL, under its woke commissioner, Roger Goodell, is not content to promote professional football. Its foray into left-wing politics is no secret, but less well known is its embrace of anti-Catholic bigotry. But now the word is out. Our fans will surely weigh in against him.

Bill in the News (Breitbart): A record high number of Americans say the role of religion in public life is shrinking and most believe this to be bad for the country, the Pew Research Center reports.

A remarkable 80 percent of U.S. adults currently believe the influence of religion in American life is dwindling, Pew finds, and over 60 percent of these think this is a bad thing.

Commenting on the report, Catholic League president Bill Donohue said that Americans’ concern for the decline in religion in public life likely has to do with the fact that “the inculcation of religious values has a stabilizing effect on individuals, and hence on society.” READ MORE HERE

Bill Donohue

Is it a good thing, or a bad thing, for a free society to have a vibrant role for religion? The Founders, not all of whom were practicing Christians, were unanimous in their conviction: the public role of religion is indispensable to the crafting of a free society. The American people in 2024 seem to agree.

In a recent survey by Pew Research Center, 80 percent of Americans say that religion’s role in American life is shrinking, and most conclude that it is not a good thing. This is significant given that this is the highest percentage ever recorded in a Pew survey on this issue. It was also found that 57 percent of Americans express a positive view of religion’s influence in American life.

The survey did not ask why it is not a good thing for religion’s role to recede, but it is likely that it has something to do with the fact that the inculcation of religious values has a stabilizing effect on individuals, and hence on society. Also, character building, which is essential to citizenship, is facilitated by religion. Unfortunately, American society has become more unstable and character building has become more difficult.

Another bad sign: the faithful are in a precarious state. Almost half, 48 percent, say there’s “a great deal” of or “some” conflict between their religious beliefs and mainstream American culture (up from 42 percent in 2020). In fact, 3-in-10 (29 percent) now think of themselves as religious minorities. This is what we would expect from an increasingly secular society—religious Americans are in an uneasy spot.

The public looks to the president of the United States to defend the faithful. Indeed, 64 percent say it is important for the president to stand up for religious Americans. Interestingly, most don’t believe that either Trump or Biden is very religious: the figures are 13 percent and 4 percent, respectively. This is striking given that Biden has gone out of his way to hawk his Catholic credentials.

While Americans are concerned about the declining effect of religion on society, they are wary about extremists, and not just religious extremists. They do not support those who are too aggressive in pushing either a religious or a secular agenda. This is prudent: extremists are not a good role model.

Regarding this issue, it is interesting to note that secularists—atheists, agnostics and the religiously unaffiliated—are more likely to say that conservative Christians have gone too far with their agenda (72 percent) than Christians are to say that liberals who are not religious have gone too far with their agenda (63 percent). This helps to explain why the faithful believe there is a tension between their beliefs and the mainstream American culture. In short, it seems likely that they are feeling the pinch of militant secularists.

Secularists have made a lot of hay lately over the threat of so-called Christian nationalists. But if these people were really the threat that secularists say they are, the majority of Americans wouldn’t say they have never heard or read about Christian nationalism. So much for this bogeyman. It would be more accurate to say that it is not those being charged as extremists who are the problem; it is those making the charge.

The survey also found that while most Americans don’t want Christianity to be the official religion, a plurality (44 percent) of those who think this way nonetheless believe the federal government should promote Christian moral values. There is nothing inconsistent with this view. In fact, it is identical to the beliefs of the Founders: they did not want an established church, but they also maintained that the nation would benefit by advancing Christian-inspired values.

It would be instructive to learn what Americans consider secular values to be and why they are not supportive of them. The findings would no doubt prove to be enlightening, both for the faithful and for secularists.

Bill Donohue

A new poll on LGBT rights has been published by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), a left-wing outfit with a reputation for crafting politically skewed surveys. Its most prominent researcher, sociologist Robert P. Jones, is well known for demonizing so-called Christian nationalists.

PRRI recently released its 2023 American Values Atlas report, “Views On LGBTQ Rights In All 50 States.” It offers more proof that the aforementioned flaws are extant. As a sociologist and a Catholic leader, I have great interest in this subject.

First a word about LGBT people (there is no need to add a “Q”—it stands for Queers and is therefore a redundancy).

The typical LGBT person is a young Democrat with no religious affiliation. This makes perfect sense.

Transgenderism, the ideology that falsely holds that the sexes are interchangeable, is a culturally induced phenomenon that is more attractive to young people than older Americans. Democrats are mostly liberals, and as such they have an expansive view of sexuality. Secular-minded persons reject nature, and nature’s God, and are therefore easy bait for transgender influencers.

To put it differently, the older a person is, the less likely he is to buy into this mad idea. Republicans tend to be conservatives and are therefore more immune to trendy fashions unhinged from reality. Religious Americans appreciate nature, and nature’s God, and are thus inhospitable to militant secular ideas.

There are two aspects of the survey that deserve a riposte.

One of the questions asked respondents was whether they supported or opposed “allowing a small business owner in your state to refuse to provide products or services to gay or lesbian people if doing so would violate their religious beliefs.”

This is a dishonest question. In fact, it is a red herring designed to make religious persons look intolerable.

It is dishonest because PRRI knows that this issue, which was broached in two similar Colorado cases that wound up in the Supreme Court, had nothing do to with denying homosexuals products or services because of their sexual orientation. It had to do with the religious rights of Christians being violated for having to affirm conduct they could not in good conscience do.

Neither Jack Phillips nor Lorie Smith ever denied serving a customer who was gay or lesbian. Phillips sold them cakes and Smith serviced their websites. But when Phillips was asked to personally inscribe a wedding cake for two men, he refused. Smith issued a preemptive strike by publicly stating that she would not provide web services celebrating gay weddings. The high court agreed with them, noting the obvious religious liberty issues involved.

PRRI, following Jones’ obsession with Christian nationalism, claims that those who believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and should return to its moorings are a threat to democracy.

If someone were to say that America was founded as a secular nation and should become even more secular, would it be fair to say that this person is a threat to democracy? Of course not. One may disagree, but to assert that we are on the verge of a despotic secular regime would be as irresponsible as saying that Christian nationalists are about to establish a theocracy.

PRRI is not simply reporting survey results—it is setting the political table for liberals.

For example, Politico, a mostly responsible liberal media outlet, seems to go off the rails when it comes to Christian nationalism. Last month it maintained that if Trump wins in November, his allies are ready to infuse Christian nationalism in his second administration. It claimed to have the evidence to buttress its position, yet it conceded that “The documents obtained by Politico do not outline specific Christian nationalist policies.” That’s because there are none.

Heidi Przybyla wrote a piece for Politico last month that set off the alarms. The issue was the conviction, shared by millions of Americans, and encoded in the Declaration of Independence, that our rights come from God, not from government (that was what Stalin, Hitler and Mao believed). This simple observation was enough to send her into orbit. Now it would have come as a shocker to Jefferson, who was not exactly a religious guy, that he was a Christian nationalist.

PRRI knows what it is doing. None of what they did was a mistake. Which is why they are not to be trusted.

Contact Robert P. Jones: rjones@prri.org

Bill in the News (Fox News): “Rob Reiner, more commonly known as ‘Meathead,’ released a movie last month that demonstrates the pervasiveness of religiophobia in Hollywood,” Donohue wrote. “’God and Country’ is about an alleged threat to American democracy posed by so-called Christian nationalists. The Meathead would have the audience believe that we are on the verge of a theocratic takeover, though few outside of Hollywood and other secular subcultures pay any attention to this fable.” READ MORE HERE

Bill in the News (77 WABC): To listen to Bill Donohue discuss St. Patrick’s Day and other topics with “Sid & Friends in the Morning” on 77 WABC, click here.

Bill Donohue

 [Note: We run this article each year in honor of St. Patrick]

The heroics of St. Patrick are not appreciated as much as they should be. He is the first person in history to publicly condemn slavery, and one of the first leaders to champion the cause of equal rights.

There is much to celebrate on March 17. Fortunately, his writings, though slim, are eye-opening accounts of his life: Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus and Confession reveal much about the man. Along with other sources, they paint a picture of his saintliness.

Patrick was born in Britain in the 4th century to wealthy parents. It is likely that he was baptized, though growing up he did not share his family’s faith. He was an atheist.

When he was 15, he committed what he said was a grave sin, never saying exactly what it was; it appears it was a sexual encounter with a young girl. No matter, it would haunt him throughout his life.

At age 15 or 16 (the accounts vary), Patrick was kidnapped and enslaved by Irish barbarians. They had come to plunder his family’s estate, and took him away in chains to Ireland. While a slave, he converted to Christianity, praying incessantly at all hours of the day. After six years, he escaped, and made his way back home.

His family thought he was dead, and with good reason: no one taken by Irish raiders had managed to escape and return. St. Patrick biographer Philip Freeman describes how his family received him, stating “it was as if a ghost had returned from the dead.”

After he returned home, he had a vision while sleeping. He felt called to return to Ireland. This seemed bizarre: this is where he was brutalized as a slave. But he knew what Jesus had commanded us to do, “Love thy enemy.” He was convinced that God was calling him to become a missionary to Ireland. So he acted on it, despite the reservations of family and friends.

Patrick became a priest, practiced celibacy, and was eventually named a bishop. Contrary to what many believe, he did not introduce Christianity to Ireland, nor was he Ireland’s first bishop. But he did more to bring the Gospel to Ireland than anyone, converting legions of pagans, especially in the northern parts of the island.

His missionary work in Ireland has been duly noted, but his strong defense of human rights has not been given its due.

No public person before him had denounced slavery, widespread though it was. Jesus was silent on the subject, Aristotle thought it was a natural way of life, and neither master nor slave saw anything fundamentally wrong with it. Patrick did.

Though he did not invoke natural law specifically, he was instinctively drawn to it. He taught that all men were created equal in the eyes of God, and that the inherent dignity of everyone must be respected.

Patrick did more than preach—he lashed out at the British dictator, Coroticus, harshly rebuking him for his mistreatment of the Irish. In fact, Patrick found his Irish converts to be more civilized than Coroticus and his band of thugs.

Patrick was way ahead of his time in the pursuit of human rights. Not only were men of every social status entitled to equal rights, so were women. In his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, he scolds “the tyrant Coroticus—a man who has no respect for God or his priests.” More important, he made a startling plea: “They must also free Christian women and captives.” His reasoning showed the power of his faith when he said, “Remember, Christ died and was crucified for these people.”

He did not mince words. “So, Coroticus, you and your wicked servants, where do you think you will end up? You have treated baptized Christian women like prizes to be handed out, all for the sake of the here and now—this brief, fleeting world.”

What makes this all the more dramatic is the way the pagan world thought about women: the idea that women were equal to men was totally foreign to them. But the women understood what Patrick was saying, and gravitated to him in large numbers. The Christian tenet that all humans possess equal dignity had taken root.

Did the Irish save civilization, as Thomas Cahill maintains? Freeman thinks not—”it had never been lost.” But everyone agrees that had it not been for St. Patrick, and the monasteries that followed, much of what we know about the ancient world would not exist.

Indeed, it is difficult to fathom how classical Greek and Roman literature would have survived had it not been for the Irish monks who attracted students from many parts of Europe. They are responsible for preserving the great works of antiquity. And all of them are indebted to St. Patrick.

It is believed that he died on March 17, sometime during the second half of the fifth century. That is his feast day, the source of many celebrations in his honor. His impact extends beyond the Irish and the Catholic Church—human rights are a global issue—making him a very special person in world history.