On a recent episode of Conan O’Brien’s TBS show, the host took a cheap shot at the pope and the Church. Unlike Jay Leno and David Letterman, the Catholic League has rarely had a problem with Conan O’Brien. But recently he took several shots at the Catholic Church, one of which was clearly below the belt.

In a monologue on Pope Francis, light fun was made of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Baptism. It was the one-liner subtitle about children being molested by priests that was a low blow: “Kids can opt out of fondling by texting #nothanks to the Vatican.”

Religious profiling—portraying all priests as molesters—is not out-of-bounds with late-night hosts. Now if Conan had said, “Kids can opt out of fondling by texting #nothanks to gay priests,” he may have been fired. But just smearing all priests is considered perfectly acceptable. These are the rules in liberal land.

At the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, a new study has recently been released by the school’s Center for the Study of Global Christianity, titled “Christianity in its Global Context, 1970-2020.”

What are the study’s conclusions? Well, it looks as if the best days for agnostics and atheists are long past. In 1970, for example, agnostics were 14.7 percent of the world’s population, while atheists were 4.5 percent. However, by 2010, the figures had dropped to 9.8 and 2.0 percent, respectively; by 2020, it is estimated that agnostics will constitute 8.9 percent, and atheists will make up 1.8 percent.

Much of the decrease is attributable to the demise of that atheistic genocidal wonderland called Communism: the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a spike in religious affiliation, both in Russia and in Eastern Europe; China is also in the throes of a religious revival. Russia was 38 percent Christian in 1970, and in 2010 the number jumped to 71 percent. The world’s first officially atheistic state, Albania, is now 63 percent Muslim and 32 percent Christian. Clearly, religion is on the rise worldwide.

It is expected that by 2020, the percentage of the world’s population that is Christian will have witnessed a slight uptick; the increase will be far greater for Muslims. Asia, as a whole, is witnessing a sharp drop in agnostics and atheists, as are those who live in the Caribbean. Even in Europe it is expected that atheists will decrease markedly: they were 8.2 percent in 1970, and are projected to be 2.1 percent in 2020; agnostics are expected to stay steady at 13.1 percent. It is in places such as Northern America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand where non-believers will realize some gains.

Data like these undercut the superstition that the world is becoming increasingly secular. In the U.S., for instance, we hear a lot about the growth of the “nones,” those who are not affiliated with any religion. But even among this segment of the population, only 2.6 percent of Americans are agnostic, and a mere 1.9 percent are atheist.

In the United States, as well as globally, the belief in nothingness is mostly confined to white people who stayed in school for a long time. Too bad they didn’t learn to think independently.

In June, both Israel and B’nai B’rith International blasted a totally politicized report by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child that condemned Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. The disgraced Committee then attacked the Holy See: it demanded that the Vatican turn over every document it has on priestly sexual abuse, and wants to know what the Catholic Church has done about discrimination between boys and girls; it is concerned about sexual stereotypes in school textbooks.

The Committee should be dissolved—its moral authority is shot. Of the 18 nations that comprise this entity, Freedom House rates half of them either “not free” or “partly free.” In other words, at least half of these nations have a record of oppressing its own people, many in ways that are positively shocking. And they have the audacity to point fingers at the Holy See?

If discrimination in school textbooks is a serious issue for this Committee, perhaps it can demand that one of its members, Saudi Arabia, stop depicting Jews as pigs and Christians as the enemy. When Muslims can freely convert to another religion without fear of being legally killed for doing so, then reasonable people may listen to what this body says. These member states have a lot of house cleaning to do, and the sooner they attend to their own human rights abuses, the better.

Family Research Council (FRC) president Tony Perkins and allies have urged support for Rep. John Fleming’s military religious freedom amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, to secure religious liberty for members of the armed forces.

The Catholic League joined with them, noting how Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has repeatedly smeared Evangelicals.

An FRC report detailed Weinstein’s irresponsible comments. His crusade rests on the premise that Evangelicals are victimizing Catholics. This is bunk. The Catholic League would know if Catholics were being badgered by Evangelicals, but not one Catholic in the nation has ever called the Catholic League’s office to register a complaint.

In 2005, following complaints by Weinstein, a report was released on religious liberty at the United States Air Force Academy. It found no “overt religious discrimination.” Weinstein was not happy. After reading the report, Bill Donohue noted that if Weinstein were correct, it would logically mean that Catholics, who are 30 percent of the student body, should have been feeling the pinch of “heavy-handed proselytizing efforts.” Yet the report did not cite a single Catholic who ever complained about this.

On June 10, 2013, Donohue sent Weinstein a letter asking him to provide evidence for his remark that he represents “over 33,000 members of the U.S. military,” and that “96 percent” are Catholics. It is simply not true. If 96 percent of his “clients” are Catholics, and if they are blasting Evangelicals for discriminatory behavior, then the Catholic League would have known something about it.

Mikey Weinstein is smearing Evangelicals, fabricating a “crisis” in the military, seeking to divide people on the basis of religion, and threatening the religious liberty of men and women in the armed forces and in the military academies.

A proposed amendment to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act would add atheist “chaplains” to the armed forces. The principal organization pushing this idea is the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, whose president, Jason Torpy, claims it’s unfair for Christians et al. to have chaplains, but not atheists.

Nationwide, atheists have no chaplains; vegetarians also have no butchers. No matter, Torpy says chaplains are needed to serve the 40,000 atheists in the armed forces. His figure is wrong: the Department of Defense says there are 9,400 atheists or agnostics among the 1.4 million active-duty personnel. Given that there are five times as many agnostics as atheists, nationally that means there are less than 2,000 atheists in the military. Torpy’s figure is 20 times the actual number.

The ploy is familiar. The main goal of atheist activists is to censor public expression of religion, especially Christianity. If this doesn’t work, they settle for contrived competition, thus hoping to neuter its effects. That’s why atheist organizations seek to censor Christmas displays on public property. When that fails, they erect anti-Christian statements next to nativity scenes.

Torpy’s group is on record opposing Christmas concerts on bases, Christian war memorials, and nativity scenes on public property (his organization brags about ending the “stranglehold” crèches have). His group also supports anti-Christian billboards comparing Christianity to slavery.

Ninety-five percent of all Americans who are affiliated with a religion are Christian. To be sure, atheists have rights, but not among them is the right to war on Christianity, even in a backdoor manner.

Everyone knows that the Catholic Church has a long and proud history of immigrant outreach. Everyone knows that the Catholic Church, like virtually every religion in the history of the world, believes marriage should be confined to one man and one woman. It should come as no surprise, then, that Catholics who financially support pro-immigrant organizations expect that their contribution will not fund entities that reject Church teachings on marriage.

The Chicago Archbishop, Francis Cardinal George, made a principled decision not to funnel funds, via the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), to the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a pro-gay marriage institution. This has led to an uproar among some in Chicago. Their angst is contrived.

As Cardinal George said in his open letter of July 29, organizations that apply for CCHD funding do so knowing that they are expected to respect Church teachings. No one forces them to apply; they are free to secure funds elsewhere. But when they violate their agreement, and are called out for doing so, they should not pretend to be victims.

Mark Brown, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote that all along he has said that “it’s a mistake for the church to use the grants to punish organizations that it knows to be doing good work in the community….” So when an organization applies for funding, and is then denied because it violated an agreement that it voluntarily entered into, it is being punished for doing so. Amazing logic. Hope any handyman who enters into an agreement with Brown knows about his moral compass.

If Cardinal George denied funding to a pro-immigrant organization that was aligned with racist or anti-Semitic causes, he would be heralded as a champion of human rights. But because the issue is gay marriage, he is condemned. The politics are so transparent that it’s making a joke of those promoting it.

During the week Pope Francis visited Brazil for World Youth Day, late night comedians lined up to take cheap shots. On its website, USA Today took a poll asking respondents to choose which video they liked best: the one where David Letterman compared all priests to molesters, or the one where Jay Leno said Pope Francis could be mistaken for Lady Gaga.

While Leno’s jab was inoffensive, Letterman’s July 23 monologue was vile. His “altar boy” quip—World Youth Day is called by the Vatican “salute to altar boys”—is a vicious hit on 40,000 innocent priests.

USA Today took Letterman’s offensive remarks to a new level. It not only flagged his bigotry, it celebrated it. Predictably, many more respondents preferred Letterman’s obscene statement to Leno’s throw-away line.

USA Today is flustered over racial profiling, but considers religious profiling acceptable, at least when it comes to priests. And they consider themselves open-minded and fair.

On the August 6 episode of the Comedy Central show, “The Jeselnik Offensive,” the excerpt from the “Worst Best Thing of the Week” segment featured Anthony Jeselnik, Dave Attell and Joan Rivers:

Jeselnik: “Finally, the Vatican is giving gay priests the same respect they show pedophiles.”
Rivers: “The pope, surprise, is the gayest. The man wears a dress, lives with all guys, you know.”
Attell: “And the cool thing about it is I’m a Jew and I could really care less about the whole thing. I mean, you know, an Easter egg hunt is an Easter egg. If it ends in an ass, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care.”
Rivers: “He’s bringing the church into the 21st century, and let’s be happy about that. I mean, ass-less altar boy costumes….We all have to kiss the pope’s ring. I love it now because he likes gays, and he says, fine now—lower, lower, lower, and, uh, don’t forget the balls.”

In June, Kevin Hermanson contacted the Catholic League’s office several times trying to get Bill Donohue to go on this show. Donohue had never heard of Jeselnik, so he asked his staff to check Jeselnik out. They quickly discovered that he was a jerk. So Donohue said no.

By the way, when Hermanson learned that the Catholic League’s office was in New York, he said it wouldn’t have been possible to do the show anyway: he said they didn’t have a budget to fly Donohue out.

It’s a wonder they have a budget to pay these fools whatever it is they are paying them.

On July 18, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences made its announcement of the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards nominations. The show receiving the most nominations was without doubt the most anti-Catholic of the lot.

Over the past few years, few TV programs have been as thoroughly anti-Catholic as FX Channel’s “American Horror Story: Asylum.” This show, which leads the pack with 17 Emmy nominations, depicted a Catholic home for the criminally insane run by sadistic and libidinous nuns. The plot is sinister as well. The show’s characters include a nymphomaniac, a lesbian, a degenerate bully, a serial killer, and a doctor who enjoys torturing patients. What a bunch of characters!

When the Catholic League tried to put an advertisement critical of the series in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety magazines, the advertisement was rejected outright.

This should not have come as any kind of surprise. Hollywood’s hatred of Catholicism is almost pathological. Indeed, it is so pronounced that it extends even to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. This year’s Emmy nominations are a clear example of the bias that reigns in the media, in television as well as on film.

What other group receives such treatment? Once again, television has sunk lower than we ever thought possible. Talk about crazy!

In an August 2 monologue, Bill Maher made much of the pope’s remarks about not judging homosexuals for who they are, but none of his quips were below the belt. However, he couldn’t stop there.

Maher noted he would be away for the next five weeks, and offered his predictions for what the headlines will be while away. On the screen was a mock-up of the Fox News webpage, the headline of which read, “Pope Francis Moves to Massachusetts, Marries Longtime Companion.” Below the headline was a picture of the pope and an elderly man.

At the time, Ramadan was just ending. Maher had many chances to stick it to Muslims, but he demurred. His reticence was not based on ethics—he has none—it was based on fear. On the other hand, his hatred of Catholicism, which is pathological, continues to be expressed. That’s because he has no fear of being retaliated against.