Tonight, Comedy Central will air a special by Denis Leary, “Merry F#%$in’ Christmas” (it first aired two nights ago and is scheduled to air again on Dec. 17).  The show consists of several skits, a cartoon and musical performances.

There is a skit about lesbian nuns, and a song by “Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering Church Choir” about a hooker.  But by far the most offensive part of the show is the monologue by Denis Leary on the origins of Christmas.  Here is part of what he says:

“Merry Christmas.  Tonight we celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus, whose mom, Mary, just happens to be a virgin—even after she apparently gave birth to Jesus.  At least that is what the Catholic Church would have you believe.

“Tom Cruise is taking a lot of s— for belonging to a religion, Scientology, that believes aliens came to this planet 75 million years ago.  That is nothing.  I was raised Catholic.  We believe Mary was a virgin and Jesus ended up walking on water, creating a bottomless jug of wine and rising from the dead.  Oh, yeah, and Tom Cruise is crazy.

“Listen, Christmas is built on a line of bulls—.  Do I believe there was a baby Jesus?  You bet your ass I do.  But I believe that nine months before he was born someone sure as s— banged the hell out of his mom.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:

“I am asking Catholic League members, and friends of the Catholic League, to e-mail Doug Herzog, the president of Comedy Central, requesting that he nix the Dec. 17^thshowing of this vile special, and any future showings that might be planned.  He can be contacted at [email protected].

 “Hate speech dressed in humorous garb is still hate speech.  Leary is obviously bedeviled by some disorder, but nothing excuses this crap.”

On December 7, menorahs were removed from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in West Palm Beach. On December 10, they were restored. The initial complaints were made by those who contended that the menorah is a religious symbol and should therefore not be displayed on government property. The second round of complaints came from the Jewish War Veterans. Even though they won, some were still upset because they said the display of menorahs should not have to be conditioned upon their placement next to a Christmas tree.

Bruce Rogow, a Nova Southeastern University law professor, was quoted in the local newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, saying that the problem could be resolved by banning all holiday displays. He also said the courts have determined that the Christmas tree and menorah have been transformed into secular symbols.

In reference to the 1989 Allegheny decision, County of Allegheny v. ACLU, Rogow added that the U.S. Supreme Court held that a nativity scene had to be removed because it was placed on the steps of the Allegheny County Courthouse and therefore had the appearance of government endorsement; he added that the high court ruled that placing a menorah next to a Christmas tree resolved the issue by representing both holidays with secular displays.

The Catholic League pointed out to the press that this account was so full of errors that it “couldn’t be outdone by Saturday Night Live.” First of all, the high court ruled in the Allegheny decision that the menorah is a religious symbol. The reason they allowed it to stay on government property was because it was placed next to a secular symbol, the Christmas tree. The nativity scene had to go because it was not placed next to secular symbols.

Accordingly, we argued that “if the VA Hospital is going to allow menorahs, it should also allow nativity scenes.” We called upon the Catholic War Veterans in that area to press the case.

What is overlooked with regularity is that there are two ways the government can be neutral: by being intolerant and banning all religious symbols or by being tolerant and allowing all of them. Unlike professor Rogow and other civil libertarians, the Catholic League prefers the latter option. And yet they have the nerve to call us the intolerant ones.

We urge you to write a letter of protest to Edward Seiler, Director, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 7305 North Military Trail, West Palm Beach, Florida, 33410.

By Michael Phayer, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis (2000)

Reviewed by Robert P. Lockwood

Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) faced Nazi Germany, as Secretary of State to Pius XI and as pope, with a remarkable consistency. The Nazis considered him an implacable foe, and he was hailed both during and after World War II as the strongest voice – often the only voice – speaking out in Europe against the Nazi terror. Pius’ combination of diplomatic pressure, careful but sustained criticism while maintaining an essential neutrality in war-torn Europe, as well as direct action through his nuncios and the local Church where possible, saved hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives.

Yet, in the face of this clear historical record, Pope Pius XII has come under attack since his death. Accused of an alleged “silence” in the fact of the Holocaust, recent critics have gone further, insinuating that he may have been a crypto-Nazi sympathizer.

Michael Phayer, professor of history at Marquette University, has authored a new book on the Catholic response to the Holocaust. In The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965 (Indiana University Press, September 2000), Phayer states that his purpose is to go beyond the issue of the alleged silence of Pope Pius XII. His intent is to explore how the Church in various countries, and through various individual Catholics, responded to the Holocaust, and how that response eventually led to the Church’s formal rejection of anti-Semitism during the Second Vatican Council. But throughout the book, he paints Pope Pius XII as a meek pontiff unwilling to engage the Nazis. He sees the pope as driven by a desire for a negotiated peace that will leave a powerful Germany as a European defense against an aggressive communist Soviet Union.

Phayer does not examine the allegation of silence on the part of Pope Pius XII, but merely accepts it as a given, bowing to contemporary conventional wisdom rather than the historical record of what was accomplished for Jews by Pius and the Church during the horror of the Shoah. For a book that claims to go beyond the debate over the alleged papal silence, his indictment of Pius is draconian. He claims that Pius “did little for Jews in their hour of greatest need.” While acknowledging that working through his papal nuncios he was able to save Jewish lives, his “greatest failure…lay in his attempt to use a diplomatic remedy for a moral outrage.”

Phayer argues that if Pius XI had lived five more years, Church reaction would have been different to the Holocaust and to Nazi Germany. In doing so, Phayer ignores or downplays the important role played by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, in determining Vatican reaction to the Nazis in the 1930s. Phayer cites a series of events under Pius XI that he interprets as signaling a new direction under Pius XI that was reversed under Pius XII. He notes, for example, the 1937 encyclical of Pope Pius XI, Mit brenneder sorge, which condemned racism and idolatry of the State. He makes no mention that it was Cardinal Pacelli who drafted the encyclical. In 1938, Phayer describes how Cardinal Theodore Innitzer of Vienna was called to Rome for a dressing-down after he publicly welcomed the Nazi Anschluss of Austria. He does not mention that it was Cardinal Pacelli who summoned Cardinal Innitzer to Rome and told him he must retract his statement. He states that when Hitler visited Rome on an official visit to Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, “the pope snubbed the dictators by leaving the city.” He fails to mention that Cardinal Pacelli departed with the pontiff.

He charges that Pope Pius XII contributed by his silence in the Nazi slaughter of Catholics in occupied Poland, particularly from 1939 to 1941. Yet Phayer himself acknowledges that Vatican Radio was the first to inform the world of the depths of the Nazi atrocities in Poland just months after its occupation through broadcasts in January, 1940, broadcasts given at the direction of Pope Pius XII. The pope raised the issue in his Easter and Christmas messages in 1940 and 1941, in articles in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, as well as in the first encyclical of his pontificate, Summi Pontificatus. In a March 1940 confrontation with Joachim von Ribbontrop, Hitler’s foreign minister, Pius XII read to him in German a detailed report on Nazi atrocities in Poland aimed at both the Church and the Jews. That meeting received in depth coverage in the New York Times. The nuncio to Germany was also instructed by Pius repeatedly, as Phayer himself notes, “to plead for better treatment of Polish priests and lay people.” Yet, Phayer proclaims papal silence and complains that “Pius XII chose a diplomatic rather than a moral approach,” without citing what other approach would have been feasible or successful in the face of Nazi aggression.

In his annual Christmas message of 1942, Pius XII condemned totalitarian regimes and mourned the victims of the war, “the hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction.” The statement was loudly praised in the Allied world. German leadership was it as the final repudiation by Pius XII of the Nazis. Oddly, Phayer claims that this Christmas message was not understood and that “no one, certainly not the Germans, took it as a protest against the slaughter of the Jews.” He states this despite the negative German reaction, Allied praise for the statement, and a prominent Christmas Day 1942 editorial in the New York Times lauding the pope for speaking out.

Phayer makes a number of broad statements that are at best open to contrary interpretation, and at worst seem to misstate the facts. Phayer claims that the Vatican  “refrained from promoting a separate Italian peace with the Allies because it would necessarily weaken Germany.” Pius had, in fact, pressed Mussolini to negotiate a separate peace and advised the Badoglio regime that succeeded him to do so as well. Phayer states that while Archbishop Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, engaged in the rescue of many Jews, he quotes another historian who claims that he may have done so without Vatican orders and “possibly even against them.” This would make Archbishop Roncalli a liar as he clearly stated that as nuncio he acted at the direction of Pope Pius XII.

The central thesis in Phayer’s book is that Pius wanted a strong Germany to face down the threat of Soviet communism. Yet, nowhere in the book does Phayer cite documented statements of Pope Pius XII to support that assertion. Pius XII did not change his position when Germany began its war with Russia, and he never spoke, even by means of allusion, about a “crusade” against Bolshevism or a holy war. There is no documented evidence of such a policy. But much is known to the contrary. It is known, for example, that Pius intervened to assure American supplies to the Soviet Union. Pius also agreed to an American request not to publicly raise Stalin’s past persecution of the Church after he joined the Allied cause.

There are elements in Phayer’s book that are interesting and worthy. He outlines well what the Church – and individual Catholics – were able to accomplish in rescuing Jews. He makes clear that the Church did not sit by idly as the Jews were taken to slaughter. Of particular interest is his overview of what the Church did and did not do within Nazi Germany itself.

Yet, rather than “go beyond” the issue of Pius XII as he claims to be the intent of his book, Phayer returns to him repeatedly. “To the extent that Pope Pius chose to intervene at all, he did so through intermediaries, the nuncios, rather than by responding to the Holocaust publicly from Rome. In other words, when the pope chose to deal with the murder of Jews, he did so through diplomatic channels rather than through a moral pronouncement such as an encyclical.” But that is precisely the point. There was no absolute “papal silence” on the Holocaust. Pius XII spoke carefully, certainly. But the Holy See and its representatives condemned Nazism and its atrocities long before any governments raised the issue. Yet Pius XII was primarily concerned with saving lives, rather than high-minded pronouncements that would have accomplished little or nothing.

The Church under Pius saved more Jews from the Holocaust than any other entity in that terrible time. That is the undeniable fact that critics of Pius, whatever their motivation, must answer. Phayer does not.

For a complete understanding of the role of Pope Pius XII in World War II, we strongly recommend Ronald Rychlak’s Hitler, the War and the Pope (Our Sunday Visitor Press, $19.95 plus shipping and handling. Call 1-800-348-2440). While there are a few good sections in Michael Phayer’s book, his overall treatment of Pius XII is prejudiced and unconvincing.

Denver’s annual Parade of Lights will take place on December 3^rd and 4^th.   This year parade organizers have decided to ban the words “Merry Christmas” from all floats; Christmas songs have also been banned.  The chief sponsor of the parade is KUSA-TV, the local NBC affiliate.

Catholic League president William Donohue spoke to this issue today:

“Michael Krikorian, the parade’s spokesman, explained the decision to discriminate against Christians by saying, ‘we want to avoid that specific religious message out of respect for other religions in the region.’  The specific religious message that he was referring to, but could not bring himself to say, is ‘Merry Christmas.’  Unfortunately, he does not say which people in the Denver area find it disrespectful to celebrate Christmas.  Is there a problem with local Jews?  If so, he should say so.  Perhaps the Muslims are angry.  If so, he should say so.  Or maybe he’s just lying—maybe the only bigots in town are the parade organizers.

“It most certainly is a lie to maintain that the parade officials have decided to ban all religious themes from the parade.  As a matter of fact, they are honoring homosexual and lesbian American Indians as ‘Holy People.’  The implication is that straight Indian guys and gals are less than holy.  Either that or gay anti-Christians have hijacked the parade.

“For NBC to sponsor this bigotry is the real story.  In its packet called ‘Volunteer Instructions and Policies,’ it notes that ‘the parade has a no tolerance alcohol and drug policy.’  It can now add Christians to the list.

“I am writing to Bob Wright, the chairman of NBC, to let him know how his Denver affiliate is sullying NBC’s good name.  In the meantime, the Catholic League is trying to find a holy gay Indian in Denver who is willing to sing ‘Joy to the World’ during the parade.  What a conundrum that would be for parade officials.”

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INTERNET

January 13
Syndicated radio host Rabbi Shmuley Boteach accused Pope Pius XII of “mass kidnapping” of baptized Jewish children who were saved from the Nazis by the Catholic Church. He based his charge on an unsigned 1946 memo by an unknown writer that was found in a French church archive. The memo was soon discovered to be an inaccurate summary of an official Vatican document that called for the return of Jewish children to their families, even if baptized. Of Pius, Rabbi Boteach referred to “the rancid and hateful morals that defined this profound religious hypocrite.”

May 4
Landoverbaptist.org is a website dedicated to mocking the Catholic Church. The titles of articles posted on the website include, “The Shrine of The Virgin Mother’s Impenetrable Vagina” and “The Pope’s Message from Hell.” The site also features a store in which to purchase anti-Catholic buttons, T-shirts, bumper stickers and even a “Holy Thong” with a picture of Jesus on it.

May 4
Misspoppy.com, an Internet store affiliated with the Landoverbaptist.org website, offers items like “Jesus Soap-on-a-Rope,” “psychedelic Crucifix Pope” and “What Would Jesus Do?” underwear.

June 7
Benjamin Uticone wrote on the “Online Journal” website that the religious right was the Taliban, “Except for headscarves and differing opinions on the topic of pork.” He also wrote that William Donohue “ought to spend less time telling people in AIDS ravaged Africa not to use condoms, and more time making sure that your priests aren’t raping children.”

June 28
The Internet site, cafepress.com, sold a bumper sticker that read, “So Many Right-Wing Christians, So Few Lions.”

July 13
An ad appeared on the Worldnetdaily.com website for the anti-Catholic group Tomorrow’s World. The group claims that the pope is the anti-Christ and that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon. An article about the “Anti-Christ” by Roderick C. Meredith stated, “Recent news reports from many nations have indicated that Roman Catholic persecution against religious minorities continues. Although the Roman Catholic Church has learned to smile and act agreeably in nations where Protestants or others are in the majority, the old demons of hate and authoritarianism come out very quickly when it is in control.”

October
CBS producer Bruce Rheins sought a patent for a wine he called “Jesus Juice.” This is the name that pop-singer Michael Jackson used when he allegedly served wine to his young accuser. On the label of the Merlot wine is a picture of Jackson in the image of Christ on the cross. Cafepress.com was the website where he was advertising the wine before it was pulled.

MAGAZINES

March 7
Christopher Dickey wrote in the “Periscope” section of Newsweek about Pope John Paul II’s health, saying he refuses to step aside and let someone else take his place. In an article entitled, “He has Willpower—But No Living Will,” Dickey questioned why the pope continued to make public appearances while sick. Dickey also said that “Even as the aged pope’s body shuts down in the late stages of Parkinson’s disease, his will to live—and impose his will on the Roman Catholic faithful—remains as stubborn as ever.”
William Donohue responded with the following statement: “When presidents like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt continue in office despite poor health, they are regarded as courageous, even heroic. But not Pope John Paul II—he has a duty to die. That’s because the pope, unlike presidents, stubbornly imposes his will on the people. What is really astonishing—and maybe Dickey could address this—is the extent to which this dictatorial pope is loved the world over.”

May 17
The Protestant magazine Christian Century published an editorial saying that conservative Christians are like Nazis because “the Nazis removed judges who did not follow their party platform and conservative Christians are doing the same thing.”

June
In an article published in the Archives of Dermatology, co-authored by four scientists, it was maintained that a 55-year-old man’s intestinal tract was infected with S marcescens, bacterium that produced a reddish stain on his clothes. The bacterium was also named Monas prodigiosum, “the miracle bacterium”; the first reported account of this in Denmark occurred in 1169 and was found in a bleeding host. It was also written that the bacterium “thrives on starchy matter such as polenta, bread, and sacramental wafers and apparently flourished in the damp churches of medieval times.” This was fine, but what was not was the conclusion: “No doubt, S marcescens has contributed to human death more because of religious fanaticism than because of pathogenicity.” When Bill Donohue wrote to the lead author asking her to verify this remarkable conclusion, he received no reply.

July 13
Charles Gasparino, business writer for Newsweek, attacked Pope Benedict XVI over comments that he made about the Harry Potter novels several years ago. On the MSNBC program “The Situation with Tucker Carlson,” Gasparino responded to a question posed by Carlson about calling the pontiff “insane.” Carlson followed up by questioning, “The pope is insane?” Gasparino reiterated, “I think so.” Later in the interview Gasparino stated, “Listen, if you want to know why the Catholic Church is becoming increasingly irrelevant, it’s because these guys are doing this. They’re not paying attention to the pedophiles.”

September
In the September edition of Maxim magazine, the “How To” section listed four ways to meet women at religious services, or “Score At Church.” It also featured pictures of three scantily clad women, one receiving Communion and the other two sitting in a pew. One of the women was quoted as saying “Should I confess again, Father? I just had another dirty thought.”

November
In the November issue of Atlantic Monthly there was a brief article by Tyler Cabot titled “The Rocky Road to Sainthood.” He wrote of Padre Pio, “Despite questions raised by two papal emissaries—and despite reported evidence that he raised money for right-wing religious groups and had sex with penitents—Pio was canonized in 2002.” Cabot made no mention of the fact that the priest who accused Parde Pio of sex with penitents later recanted his story and repented on his deathbed.

November/December
The November/December edition of the Chick publication “Battle Cry” contained two anti-Catholic articles. The first article, “Jesus Wafer Auctioned On Ebay; Priests Horrified,” was about three recent auctions of the Eucharist on eBay. One passage in the article snidely explained the Eucharist as follows:

So, how could a simple, round orb of wheat create such a stir? The answer is in the “consecration.” Catholicism teaches that when a priest is “ordained,” he receives the magical power to change the “substance” of the wafer into the actual “body, blood and divinity” of Jesus Christ.

The second article discussed the recent synod and how Protestants are gaining ground on the Catholic Church in Africa and Latin America. “Millions of people are discovering that they can trade the dry rituals of Catholicism for a dynamic relationship with Jesus Himself instead of depending on a harried priest to connect them to their wafer god or Virgin Mary goddess,” the article said.

December 
A JoAnn Wypijewski piece in Mother Jones magazine attacked Padre Pio and the Vatican document on gays in the seminary. She claimed that Padre Pio had “sexual dalliances with women” and was addicted to drugs when he died, but offered no documentation to support these scurrilous charges. She also accused the Church of engaging in an anti-gay witch-hunt.

MOVIES

February 2
The movie “Constantine,” starring Keanu Reeves, opened. The movie is based on the “Hellblazer” comic books about a man with the ability to recognize the half-breed angels and the demons that walk the earth in human camouflage. Constantine is depicted as being suicidal, and as one who is doomed to Hell because of his failed suicide attempt. Moreover, Constantine is alerted to a crisis by an alcoholic priest and begins performing exorcisms with a holy shotgun. According to the Scripps Howard News Service, “He’s well known to the Big Guys both upstairs and downstairs, as well as to their lieutenants, Gabriel and Balthazar.” The movie also misrepresents Catholic teaching on suicide.

February 23
The Oscars showed Hollywood’s true colors. Movies that were nominated painted positive portraits of murderers, pedophiles and abortionists while a film about religion was snubbed. Films based on perverts like J.M. Barrie (“Finding Neverland”) and Alfred Kinsey (“Kinsey”) were rewarded for spinning a positive picture of their lives, instead of telling the truth about their lifestyles. Two films were nominated based on the topic of euthanasia (“Million Dollar Baby” and “The Sea Inside”); another extolled the virtues of an abortionist (“Vera Drake”); and yet another painted a positive picture of the Latino thug, Che Guevera (“The Motorcycle Diaries”).

By contrast, Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ” received three nominations for cinematography, makeup and original score, but failed to be nominated in any of the major categories.

May 20
“Kingdom of Heaven,” the film by Ridley Scott about the Crusades, depicted Christians as violent, warlike people and Muslims as the peaceful heroes. Don Feder, head of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, said it best in his review of the film:

“Kingdom is the latest in a long line of films that smear Christianity. Entertainment Weekly notes ‘the film’s prominent villains are militant Christians behind centuries of bloodshed in the medieval Middle East.’ French actress Eva Green, one of the film’s stars, predicts, ‘I think Muslims will be extremely proud and happy, because they’re seen as noble, chivalrous characters.’ Green continues: ‘Especially in this crusade, the Arab people behaved in a more noble way than the Christian people. Saladin was such a great character. He was the hero of his time.’ Any resemblance between ‘Kingdom’ and history is purely coincidental. They should have called it ‘Dances With Camels.’

“Saladin was not the noble soul portrayed in the movie, but a tyrant who presided over savage slaughters and personally beheaded captives—sort of like the founder of his religion. In the movie, when he conquers Jerusalem, the gracious Saladin gives Europeans safe conduct to Christian lands. The historical Saladin allowed Jerusalem’s defenders to ransom themselves. Those who could not were enslaved.

“But ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is more than revisionist history seeking to sanitize Islam. It’s also yet another heavy-handed indictment of religion per se, and Christianity in particular. In ‘Kingdom’ there’s an inverse relationship between decency and a commitment to Christianity. The more overly Christian a character is, the more he’s sadistic, bloodthirsty, callous, cowardly or hypocritical. On the other hand, the casual Christians are uniformly wise, generous and courageous—like the movie-land Muslims.”

William Donohue’s remarks about the film “Kingdom of Heaven” appeared in the New York Post: “Britain’s leading authority on the Crusades, professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, labeled the movie ‘rubbish,’ ‘ridiculous,’ ‘complete fiction’ and ‘dangerous to Arab relations.’ But it is being defended by the Council on American-Islamic Relations as ‘a balanced and positive depiction of Islamic culture during the Crusades.’ It is not likely that both are right, but if they are then the Muslims should be embarrassed. It is a matter of historical record that Muslim violence—in the form of a jihad—was responsible for Christians striking back, hence the Crusades. Yet in the film, it is the Christians who are the bad guys. This is on the order of doing a movie on the Warsaw ghetto and blaming the Jews for all the violence.”

July 22
Richard Linklater, the director of the remake of the “Bad News Bears,” discussed concerns he had with making sure the movie was PG-13. “We were worried about the line where Engelberg tells Billy Bob, ‘You better shut up before I tell someone you touched my pecker!’ Oooo, talking about genitalia? That’s an R! So I shot an alternate line— ‘You better shut up before I tell someone you got all Catholic on my privates!'”

September 16
Brookline, MA—The film “School of the Holy,” directed by Norifumi Suzuki, was screened at the Coolidge Theater as part of “Naughty Catholic Fantasy Night!” The movie is about a young woman who joins a convent “and as soon as the doors close, she finds herself immersed in a world of unholy sin: blasphemous rites, sadistic torture practices, burning sapphic desires, and a lecherous, god-hating archbishop who’s at the very center of this debauchery.”

Prior to the screening of the film an acoustic group called “Systyr Act” preformed. “Systyr Act” is three men dressed as nuns playing music. Also, there was a “Hot Nun Wrestling” event.

NEWSPAPERS

January 7
In the Jewish weekly the Forward, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen accused Pope Pius XII of issuing a post-World War II directive to “kidnap Jewish children, perhaps by the thousands.” The charge was based on an Italian newspaper’s discovery of an unsigned French-language document found in a French church archive. The document falsely claimed that the Vatican’s policy was to refuse to return baptized Jewish children to their families. The document was soon discovered to be an inaccurate summary of an official Vatican directive written in Italian that ordered the opposite. The Catholic League did not quarrel with calls from Goldhagen and others for a further opening of the Vatican’s archives; rather it condemned the baseless charges that the Church took part in a criminal enterprise.

January 22
Louisville, KY—The Courier-Journal, a Gannett-owned newspaper, published a full-page version of the notorious advertisement, “Earth’s Final Warning.” The ad, which calls the Catholic Church “the Mother of Harlots,” is the work of Eternal Gospel Church of West Palm Beach, Florida, a breakaway sect of Seventh Day Adventists. Courier-Journalpublic editor Pam Platt responded to complaints about the ad in a column pointing out that the newspaper has a policy not to accept advertising that “unfairly attacks, criticizes or casts reflection against any individual, firm, race, religion, organization, institution, business or profession.” Although “Earth’s Final Warning” clearly violated these guidelines, Platt wrote that “I’m not sure the ad wouldn’t have been printed” if the matter had been discussed ahead of time. She concluded: “I am genuinely conflicted about the matter.”

February 9
National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. wrote a newspaper column for Universal Press Syndicate entitled “Death for the Pope.” It began: “At church on Sunday the congregation was asked to pray for the recovery of the pope. I have abstained from doing so. I hope that he will not recover.” Later in the piece, Buckley asked, “So, what is wrong with praying for his death?” (Had Buckley simply said it was time for Pope John Paul II to resign, the Catholic League would not have objected.)

February 14
Pittsburgh, PA—A column by Dimitri Vassilaros printed in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review charged that celebrating St. Valentine’s Day in public schools constitutes a breach of church and state. The column asked, “Since public schools embrace Valentine’s message and allow their children to celebrate it, should the schools do the same for Jesus Christ?” Even Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, did not share the column’s objections about Catholicism still being thought of on St. Valentine’s Day, saying: “I think this day has been so denuded of religious significance in the culture.”

March 2
New York, NY—The March 2-8 edition of the New York Press, a free weekly paper, featured a photo of Pope John Paul II on the cover, with the headline, “THERE’S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THIS MAN DYING—OR IS THERE?” The cover story contained 52 crude and vulgar jokes about the pope’s death. They included:

* Beetles eating Pope’s dead brains.
* Gurgling sound during embalming process; real fluids in dead Pope’s body sucked out into jars.
* Doctors examining the body discover that the Pope was not only a woman, but also Hitler.
* Can’t move. Can’t reach penis.
* Throw a marble at the dead Pope’s head. Bonk!

April 9
St. Could, MN—The following two ads appeared in the “Personal Notice” section of theSt. Could Times: “DOES Jesus eat swine? Oh yes, he eats worms, rats, dogs, or anything that moves.” The other said, “WE see this Catholic nonsense on TV. Abortion? Why do Catholic girls commit fornication?” After being contacted by the Catholic League, the paper’s ad manager stated that such ads would not be accepted in the future.

May 2
Pittsburgh, PA—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Michael McGough referred to William Pryor, a nominee for the federal bench, as a “Papist puppet” in his column “Murmur in the Cathedral.”

May 4
Raleigh, NC— An ad titled “Celibate Priests” ran in the News and Observer that stated celibacy is “an unnatural aberration producing the evils presently rocking Catholicism…Isn’t it likely that a system which for so long has taught error relative to celibacy is wrong also concerning the salvation of your soul?”

May 12
Ludington, MI—The Ludington Daily News ran a column by Jim Waum that was a vicious attack on Catholicism. He called Catholic doctrine an “elaborately constructed straw house.” Waum also accused Cardinal Ratzinger, who headed Congregation of Doctrine of the Faith before being named Pope Benedict XVI, of continuing the Inquistion. In addition, the Catholic Church was blamed for the AIDS crisis. Waum concluded his piece by saying, “It’s more likely that one final straw added to the flimsy structure swaying in the wind will bring the house down under its own weight.”

May 14
The New York Times published an op-ed piece by Arthur Hertzberg, a visiting professor of humanities at New York University, that slandered three popes. He wrote that Pope Pius XII remained “Silent while Europe’s Jews were murdered.” He also charged that John Paul II taught Catholics that the “sin of letting the Holocaust happen at its doorstep need not haunt the church.” Hertzberg concluded his attack with this remarkably anti-Catholic statement: “What Cardinal Ratzinger did not do… was question the orthodox Catholic position that though individual Catholics can err morally, the church and the pope cannot. Until the Vatican reconsiders that outlook, one of the Holocaust’s greatest wounds will continue to fester—namely, the major European institution that stood for morality looked away from genocide.”

May 15
San Francisco, CA—Printed in the middle of Neva Chronin’s article, “The Father. The Son. The Holy Joke,” was the cartoon character of a woman crucified with the words, “LIVE! RUDE! GIRL!” underneath it. It appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.

May 15
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN—B.R. Simon Rosser, a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, wrote a column for the Star Tribune castigating the Vatican for its policy of banning people from Communion who wear rainbow sashes. Actually, there is no Vatican “policy” on this issue. Moreover, the sashes are meant to symbolize public dissent with the Church’s teachings on sexuality, and that is why many bishops refuse to give them Communion. But no matter, Rosser equated this with Nazism.

The last time homosexuals were ordered how to dress was by Adolph Hitler, who ordered them to wear a pink triangle prior to dentition and, in any cases death in concentration camps. Thus, this directive is particularly odious to a community that suffered under the Holocaust, even more so when coming from an ex-German solider who served under Hitler.

Rosser also stated that “the church perpetuated the largest and first truly global child sex ring in history.”

May 19
Miami, FL—Jack King, a columnist for the Sun Post, claimed in a column that the Sisters of Mercy bribed a neighborhood association so that they could build a small medical office and parking garage. He also wrote that the “new pope was a member of the Hitler Youth and he has a real problem with anyone who is not of the real white race.”

May 23
New York, NY— Nicholas Von Hoffman’s column in the New York Observer claims that Christians cannot and do not keep religion to themselves. “Like the Islamist, with whom they are brothers under the skin, they are intent on imposing a Christian form of sharia on believers and non-believers alike.” He also compared Christian missionaries to communist operatives of 50 years ago.

May 24
Los Angeles, CA—Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer dubbed the Catholic Church “one of the most sexually repressed institutions in human history” that is responsible for a “horrific drumbeat of child molestation revelations” led by a new pope who is “a longtime leader of a vicious church attacks on ‘evil’ gays.” Pope Benedict XVI was also accused of scapegoating the media.

June 5
Portland, OR—The Portland Press Herald printed five separate stories on the priest sexual abuse scandal after the Attorney General of Maine released the names of nine dead priests accused of sexual abuse. The paper showed its anti-Catholicism because some of the priests had been dead for 15 years and had no way to defend themselves against questionable accusations.

June 9
Marci Hamilton wrote in her USA Today column that the best way to stop the sex abuse crisis is to take away the Catholic Church’s tax-exempt status. Hamilton falsely claimed that “pedophile priests” were the cause of the scandal, ignoring the fact that most of the abuse was committed by homosexual priests abusing post-pubescent males.

June 17
New York, NY—In her column on Father’s Day for the New York Post, Cindy Adams suggested the following gift-giving idea: “And to your holy fathers, your parish priest, a sampler cross-stitched with: Abstinence makes the Church Grow Fondlers.”

October 6
Long Island, NY—Columnist Ed Lowe of the Long Island Press attacked Pope Benedict’s proposed policy barring active gays from the priesthood. He claimed that banning gay priests would “wipe out the Church in America.” Lowe also said, “You also may aspire to and earn the Roman collar if you are a man not sexually attracted to any element, animal or plant, in the universe, which is to say, if you are an inhuman man, an oxymoron.”

November 1
“The Roman Catholic Church could have a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court if Samuel Alito is approved to join the body” (our emphasis). That’s how the United Press International (UPI) saw the possibility of Alito joining the high court.

November 2
Wichita, KS—The Wichita Eagle printed a letter about the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court that read, “How many more Catholics does Bush intend to pack the Supreme Court with? We might as well save money by shutting down the government and letting the pope tell us what to do.”

November 9
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN—Diablo Cody’s article entitled “Finding My Religion” in City Pages discussed, “What’s a lapsed-Catholic former sex worker who doesn’t like religious dogma to do when she finds out she still believes?” The accompanying illustration, by Dan Picasso, depicted an image in which the Blessed Mother is shown with a spiked haircut, a bracelet of spikes, and a nose-ring. The Sacred Heart was on her chest, but it was pierced by a dagger and a fountain pen. It was also decorated with jewels. Cody described her Catholic upbringing as follows: “We had drunk the consecrated grape juice. We were the best kind of disciples: blindly obedient and willing to believe anything that was said in that massive red brick church with the bats in the rafters.” She added, “Well-schooled by geriatric nuns and priests whose sensibilities were formed long before Vatican II, we often invoked obscure dogma that even our parents had forgotten about.”

November 4-10
Los Angeles, CA—LA Weekly published an article by Greg Burk titled, “Virgin/Whore; The Catholic Church and women—can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.” Here’s a sample of what he wrote: “Most of the faithful worldwide, grappling against real-world pitchforks of overpopulation, tribalism, political chaos and economic collapse, are giving the big finger to Rome’s medieval pronouncements on birth control. And you might’ve heard a word or two about priests and boys—kind of a pain in the ass, not to mention the wallet. The Holy Father’s even under legal assault for molester shielding. Pity the Pope. Or, what the hell, piss on the pope. Especially if you’re a woman.” There were two other anti-Catholic articles within the same issue. One was entitled “Immigrant Women Speaking About Leaving the Church” and the other was “My Life With the Radical Nuns.”

RADIO

April 22
Syndicated radio talk-show host Tammy Bruce commented on her show that Pope Benedict XVI should admit he was in the Hitler Youth (this is not something he has ever denied, rather the pope has related that he was conscripted against his will) and said he is probably a child molester. She also claimed that the Church permitted abortions until the time of Napoleon, when Napoleon convinced the Church to outlaw it as he wanted more troops. She has no evidence to support this outrageous theory.

May 6
New York/New Jersey—The host of the Spanish radio program “El Vacilon de la Mañana” on WSKQ (la Mega 97.9) accused Monsignor Mark Giordani, pastor of John the Baptist Cathedral in the Paterson Diocese, of being a child molester despite there being no proof or even any accusation of it.

May 8
Albany, NY—Peter Berle said on his radio show that Pope “Benedict XVI could pope really well if he removed doctrinal objections to safe sex. If not, he could go down in history as the greatest threat to human health in our time.”

September 10
Los Angeles, CA—On a KABC radio talk show, listeners were urged to donate to hurricane relief efforts, but they were also warned not to give to Catholic Charities. The reason offered was that the “Catholic Church is totally corrupt and molest young boys.” An on-air apology was issued on September 24 that was satisfactory to the Catholic League.

September 29
Chicago, IL—While discussing the National Catholic Reporter’s survey on issues within the Catholic Church, sports talk-show host Mike North alleged that the Church does not want to get rid of celibacy because “they would have to give up their boys’ club.”

November 
Chicago, IL—WSCR AM 670 radio sports talk-show hosts Dan Bernstein and Terry Boers implied that all Catholic priests are pedophiles. They also stated that Catholic bishops are involved in a cover-up and that gay orgies are ongoing in the seminaries.

November 1
National Public Radio reporter Dahlia Lithwick expressed misgivings over the specter of too many Catholics being on the Supreme Court: “People are very, very much talking about the fact that [Samuel] Alito would be the fifth Catholic in the Supreme Court if confirmed.”

TELEVISION

February 22
Burbank, CA—During an episode of the NBC-TV sitcom “Committed,” a Jewish character was mistakenly given Holy Communion at a Catholic funeral. Not knowing what to do with the Host, he and his Protestant friend tried slipping it into the pocket of a priest; it was dropped on a tray of cheese and crackers. At one point, the priest, portrayed as not knowing the difference between the Host and a cracker, went to grab the “cracker” from a tray of appetizers. After initially balking when he discovered it to be the last one, he changed his mind and decided to eat it, saying, “Oh, what the hell.” The most offensive scene occurred when what was thought to be the Host was flushed down the toilet.

William Donohue immediately e-mailed Alan Wurtzel, chief executive for NBC’s Department of Broadcast Standards and Practices, asking that this particular episode never be aired again. After reviewing the episode, Wurtzel agreed to Donohue’s request.

February 17
New York, NY—The Comedy Central program, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” ran a segment entitled “This Week in God” that mocked the Catholic Church and its teachings, while poking gentle fun at Muslims and Orthodox Jews. For example, Stephen Colbert, the segment host, after reporting that the Vatican teaches that condom use is immoral, exclaimed, “What would high Catholic Church officials know about immoral sexual conduct?” The segment also featured a wheel with religious symbols on it, one of which was labeled “the Immaculate Contraption known as the God Machine.”

March 11
The program “Wonder Showzen” aired on MTV2, a sister network of MTV. The show, which is styled like the PBS program “Sesame Street,” contained gratuitous sexual references and lewd portrayals of all things Christian. In one skit, a scrolling tape reading “Catholic Church approves condom-flavored breath mints” ran across the screen during a mock newscast. The show aired seven more episodes with anti-Catholic skits in them. For example, there was a scene where an animated Bible receives oral sex from a prostitute and then a priest is shown reading from the Bible in Church. Then Jesus is shown coming down from the cross, only to begin break dancing with Church statues that have been transformed into bikini-clad blondes.

March 13
An episode of the CBS program “Cold Case” titled “Revenge” depicted a priest breaking the Seal of the Confessional when he revealed to authorities that someone confessed involvement in a kidnapping during the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The priest’s behavior was not shown to be aberrant.

April 11
A “Saturday Night Live” skit on NBC depicted a debate between cardinals for the election of the pope. While much of it was not offensive, it was uncalled for to show “Cardinal Urbino” giving the finger while making rude remarks. And a character who played Al Sharpton said of the Catholic Church, “there is not enough touching of people’s hearts and too much touching of people’s kids.”

May 1
An episode of the drama “Crossing Jordan” on NBC had an investigator looking into the death of a cloistered nun. The nun was pregnant and died during child birth. The main investigator, a lapsed Catholic, commented about the nuns: “These women have shut themselves off from the real world. They would rather hide from life than to live it.”

May 12
The Fox News Channel ran a segment on “Dayside with Linda Vester” about a Baptist minister who got in trouble for denouncing John Kerry from the pulpit. The segment used footage of a Catholic Church, Catholic nuns in habits receiving ashes, and Catholic priests bowing. The Catholic League asked producers why Catholic footage was shown during a story about a Baptist minister, and they apologized.

May 23
Showtime’s “Penn and Teller” program aired an episode titled “Holier Than Thou” that attacked Mother Teresa in a most vile way. Penn Jillette accused her of exploiting the poor and letting them suffer, providing neither beds nor bathrooms. “She had the f—ing coin and pissed it away on nunneries. They had to suffer so that Mother F—ing Teresa could be enlightened,” he said. Penn also referred to William Donohue, who appeared in the piece, as “Catholic Boy.” The program also aired May 24 and 27.

After Donohue launched a protest, he received a call from the producer of the show on July 18. She apologized profusely saying she never would have gone along with the program had she known that it was a set up to mock Mother Teresa. She said she was asked to draw up a list of questions to give to a member of the technical crew so that he could interview Donohue (the questions were not disrespectful). After the filming was completed, her involvement ended and the editing was turned over to Penn and Teller’s crew. She expressed horror at the end result and told Penn and Teller’s executives that she would never work with them again. She also informed Donohue that a decision had been made never to show this particular episode again.

On August 17, Donohue received a hand-delivered letter from Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone. Redstone defended Showtime’s airing of the show, saying Showtime “frequently airs programs with controversial, differing points of view” and that “we as an organization are committed to artistic freedom.” Redstone went further when he stated that “it is tolerance for that which may be uncomfortable, unpopular and perhaps even offensive to some that defines and protects the liberties that all of our society enjoys.” Why Showtime seems preoccupied with making Catholics feel uncomfortable—and not others—he did not say.

June 6
On “This Week in God,” a recurring segment on the Comedy Central program “The Daily Show,” Stephen Colbert commented that the Vatican traditionally waits five years after someone dies before the cause of sainthood commences. He noted, however, that Pope Benedict XVI waved it for Pope John Paul II, adding, “what are you going to do about that, bitch?” Colbert then said that the reason why Mother Teresa’s canonization has been held up was due to a film, “Mama T Goes Wild 6: Calcutta Nights.” When he said this the program showed a picture of Mother Teresa made to look like she was flashing onlookers.

July 27
The Comedy Central channel re-aired a standup appearance by comedian Dane Cook where he mocked the Eucharist and the Mass. Cook joked that he wanted more than one Host at Mass so he could take the “whole dish” and fill it with milk and eat it like cereal.

August 
The FX program “Rescue Me,” starring Denis Leary as New York firefighter Tommy Gavin, had an episode wherein Mary Magdalene and Jesus visited Tommy. In one dream sequence, Tommy has sex with Mary Magdalene. Jesus catches the pair and declares Tommy is “just like Judas,” and then shoots him. In another episode, when Tommy was worried about the fate of a young burn victim and was waiting for Jesus to appear, Mary Magdalene informs Tommy that Jesus is “full of goddamn promises”; she said she had been “waiting for a ring since three weeks before the Last Supper.”

August 17
Max Kellerman, ESPN radio host and HBO boxing host, said on the CNN show, “The Situation with Tucker Carlson,” that he has “a problem with the Vatican being considered a foreign state.” He was referring to the diplomatic immunity that was afforded Pope Benedict XVI with regards to the sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. Kellerman went on to say that “If you mean to tell me—because it almost puts American Catholics in a position where they’re committing treason being Catholic. You mean to tell me that the head of a foreign state dictates the behavior of tens of millions of Americans? I have a problem with that.”

September 22
On the morning ABC talk show “The View,” Barbara Walters and her fellow co-hosts slammed the Catholic Church on the issue of sexuality and celibate priests. Walters, who is also the producer of the program, read a section of the Catholic Catechism about homosexuality and wondered aloud what the phrase “objectively disordered” meant. Co-host Joy Behar then chimed in and called the Church’s view “perverse.” Behar also asked “Why can’t you believe in God and also in sex?” During crosstalk she derided the Church again. Walters responded by saying that celibacy was “unnatural.”

September 29
Ken Schram, a commentator for the ABC-TV affiliate in Seattle, KOMO, said that a piece of art, which depicted a nude man reaching for a nude boy, should be called “the priest and the altar boy.” The Catholic League made several complaints and finally got Schram to apologize on October 7, but only after it contacted Fisher Communications, the Seattle-based firm that owns KOMO.

October 1
On the program “College GameDay,” while discussing the upcoming Purdue-Notre Dame college football game, ESPN broadcaster Lee Corso made a mock sign of the cross and said “they’ll beat the Catholics.”

October 10
On the CBS sitcom “Two and Half Men” it was asked, “Do Catholic priests make good babysitters?” The reply was, “Is the pope Catholic?”

October 18
On “Back in Black,” a recurring segment on the Comedy Central program “The Daily Show,” Lewis Black focused on organizations that have lowered their standards. He then attacked the Catholic Church by saying, “One institution refuses to lower its standards, the Catholic Church. It has started to investigate some of its seminaries for evidence of homosexuality. I’m sure they will find it. You can’t even spell seminary without semen. Why is it suddenly so important for the sex a priest is not having to be with a woman?” They also showed a clip of Msgr. Francis Maniscalco, the director of communications for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), saying that homosexuality and pedophilia are not the same thing. To which Black said, “Of course they are not the same thing. Homosexuality has no cure, pedophilia can be cured by a transfer to another diocese.”

October 31
On the CNN program “Larry King Live,” CBS reporter Mike Wallace made reference to a remark by the mother of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito to the effect that her son is “definitely against abortion.” Wallace sneered, “He’s a nice Catholic boy and he doesn’t believe in abortions.”

November 3
The CBS program “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” aired an episode titled “Secrets and Flies.” The episode revolved around the murder of Christina, a single mother. After an autopsy revealed that Christina was a virgin, it was learned that she adopted a fertilized embryo from Project Sunflower (an organization devoted to finding surrogate mothers for abandoned embryos).

Christina was described as a “prude” for being chaste, and was also referred to as “our Virgin Mary.” The pro-abortion forensic investigators sneered at her work, claiming that a pope once decreed that a baby isn’t human until quickening.

November 27
Comedy Central aired a special by Denis Leary titled “Merry F#%$in’ Christmas.” The show consisted of several skits, a cartoon and musical performances. There was a skit about lesbian nuns, and a song by “Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering Church Choir” about a hooker. But by far the most offensive part of the show was the monologue by Denis Leary on the origins of Christmas. Here is part of what he said:

Merry Christmas. Tonight we celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus, whose mom, Mary, just happens to be a virgin—even after she apparently gave birth to Jesus. At least that is what the Catholic Church would have you believe. Tom Cruise is taking a lot of s— for belonging to a religion, Scientology, that believes aliens came to this planet 75 million years ago. That is nothing. I was raised Catholic. We believe Mary was a virgin and Jesus ended up walking on water, creating a bottomless jug of wine and rising from the dead. Oh, yeah, and Tom Cruise is crazy. Listen, Christmas is built on a line of bulls—. Do I believe there was a baby Jesus? You bet your ass I do. But I believe that nine months before he was born someone sure as s— banged the hell out of his mom.

December 6
The “Boston Legal” episode “Gone” featured lawyers looking into a missing child who was taken by a pedophile. They discovered that a priest had information, culled from the confessional, on who the pedophile is. Posing as FBI agents, the lawyers break into the priest’s office and find that the priest is selling counterfeit papal blessings. The lawyers tell the priest that if he reveals what he learned about the pedophile in the confessional, they will keep his secret about the papal blessings. The priest ends up revealing what he knows even though he is aware he is violating Canon law.

December 7
In the “South Park” episode “Bloody Mary” a character gets a DWI and is ordered to attend AA meetings. Told about the 12-step program, he concludes that he needs a miracle to cure him. The plot then focused on a statue of the Virgin Mary who was “bleeding out her ass.” The Vatican then dispatched a cardinal to investigate. He, in turn, was sprayed with blood when he walked behind the statue. After the cardinal declared this to be a miracle, more people than ever before are drawn to see the statue. The alcoholic, now in a wheelchair, was also sprayed with blood. Pope Benedict XVI goes to investigate and he, too, is sprayed with blood. A reporter says, “The pope investigated further and determined that the statue was not bleeding out its ass, but its vagina.” To which the pope replied, “A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time.”

December 29
On the ABC show “Prime Time,” host Diane Sawyer did a segment called “On the Trail of Pope Joan.” It focused on an alleged female pope that reigned in the eighth century. Sawyer used Donna Cross and Mary Malone as sources to back up the claim of a Pope Joan. Cross wrote a novel about the mythical Pope Joan and has no standing among scholars; Malone is an ex-nun who lost her faith and hates the Catholic Church. None of the serious scholars who dismiss the existence of “Pope Joan” as ludicrous were interviewed.

Reactions to the sexual abuse scandal in 2002 ranged from legitimate criticism to wildly unfair generalizations; we have no interest in addressing the former.

Most Catholics were understandably angry, hurt and dismayed by the news, which provoked some activists to speak and act irresponsibly. Regarding the media, newspaper and television reporting on this subject was mostly professional. But the same cannot be said of commentators, cartoonists and TV dramas; there were many examples of sensationalism. Attorneys for alleged victims were sometimes fair, other times not. In other words, it would be difficult to render a blanket judgment.

It is important to remember that the best studies of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church show that 98 to 99 percent of priests over the past half-century have not been charged with abusing a minor. Whether the source is the New York Times, the Associated Press or authors in the academy, the result is still the same. While no one can say for sure how priests compare to their counterparts in other religions (or to school teachers, social workers and psychologists), no one has ever been able to demonstrate that the Catholic Church is an anomaly: the Church has no monopoly on this problem.

This needs to be said because some states’ attorneys general and some victims’ attorneys acted in 2002 as if the Church were the only institution that had this problem. This may explain why they zeroed in on the Church to the exclusion of others, but it does nothing to justify their behavior. It must be said that either this shows a profound ignorance of the problem or it shows an anti-Catholic bias.

Thomas Reilly is the Massachusetts attorney general. He also is a man known to engage in hyperbole when addressing the scandal; so much so that he had to back off when confronted with a torrent of criticism. To be exact, Reilly said he wanted his office to involve itself in the recruitment, selection, training and monitoring of priests. Why he didn’t say he wanted to pick the next pope is a mystery.

The establishment clause of the First Amendment was written primarily to keep the government from encroaching on religion. It is not easy to see how someone like Reilly, who obviously knows something about constitutional law, could float the idea that his office ought to vet prospective seminarians. To the extent this was a public relations stunt, the implications are even scarier: it suggests there is a market for such anti-Catholic fare.

Jeffrey Anderson is perhaps the most well-known victims attorney in the nation. He is also one of the most reckless. His attempt to use the RICO statute against the Vatican was more than mischievous—it was legal thuggery. Others have exploited this law before but few have been more brazen about it than Anderson.

District Attorneys in New York, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire also showed how biased they were. They explicitly said they had no interest in obtaining the personnel records of any clergymen save Catholics. Ditto for teachers and other professionals who work with youngsters.

Now if the goal is to protect children, then mandatory reporting laws should ideally cover all adults in every walk of life. If, however, the goal is to “get the priests,” then only the Catholic clergy will be targeted. This, unfortunately, is exactly what happened in many parts of the country.

Take New York State. Jeanine Pirro is the Westchester D.A. She has admitted that not one Catholic priest has ever contacted her office regarding the sexual abuse of a minor. She has also said that not one minister, rabbi or clergyman of any other religion has ever contacted her office regarding this crime. Yet her focus is on priests and only priests.

Not only did Pirro decide to go after priests, while giving others a pass, she unfairly blamed the Catholic Church for blocking a mandatory reporting bill in New York State. It cannot be said too strongly that the Church had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was Family Planning Advocates, the lobbying arm of Planned Parenthood, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, that sought to have the mandatory reporting law apply only to the clergy; they did not want the law to extend to abortion providers. Why? Because if it did, the truth would come out: it has been known for years that when Planned Parenthood learns of cases of statutory rape, which it does on a regular basis, it rarely reports such crimes to the authorities. It wouldn’t be good for business if they did.

The report card of the media was better. It was a rare event in 2002 to read a newspaper account of the scandal that was patently unfair, much less anti-Catholic. TheBoston Globe, the Boston Herald and the New York Times covered the story carefully and with professionalism. The evening news anchors on television similarly did what they are supposed to do—report, not editorialize. Peter Jennings did a one-hour special on the scandal and handled himself with distinction. The problems we had with the media were mostly limited to pundits, cartoonists and script writers for TV shows. Now it might be argued that commentators should be given free reign to opine and not be held to the same standards as reporters. There is much truth to this point. But no one is exempt from responsibility and that is the gravamen of our charge: a line has been crossed when wild accusations and attempts to impugn the character of innocents are made. It matters not a whit who is doing it.

Bill Maher is a comedian. Comedians are given, quite rightfully so, plenty of latitude to score points. Again, though, it is unacceptable to maintain that their line of work exempts them from all criticism. Maher is a textbook example: in 2002 he repeatedly made the most sweeping and damning statements about Catholic priests. This was vintage Maher: his hatred of the Catholic Church is deep. What is even more disturbing is that many applaud his bigotry.

Many comedians took pot shots at the Church but no night-time host showed the kind of fixation that David Letterman did. There was a time during the year when we wondered whether Letterman was capable of ever moving on to some other group; that his comments were often unfair made things worse. “South Park” chimed in as well, as did “MADtv.” But it was the drama shows that were particularly bad. Shows like “The District,” “CSI: Miami,” “Law and Order,” “Boston Public” and “The Practice” were the biggest offenders. And no one in Hollywood showed his resolve to slam Catholics more than David E. Kelley. In fact, when one examines his record, it is no exaggeration to say that Kelley is positively obsessed with Catholicism.

The Catholic League’s complaints about these shows often triggers the refrain that this is just an example of art imitating life. After all, we are told, the scandal in the Church is real, so what’s wrong with script writers picking up on it? The problem is they never seem to do so when other segments of the population are in the news. Take Muslims. On September 11, 2001, we were bombed by 19 Muslim men and the first thing out of everyone’s mouth was let’s not generalize about all Muslims. Fine. But why wasn’t this same standard applied to priests in 2002?

Cartoonists that mocked a specific Church leader tied to the scandal generally did not incur our wrath. But those who painted all priests as perverts did. That’s the difference: when there is a jump from the individual to the collective, it’s the difference between criticism and bigotry. Sadly, there was no shortage of anti-Catholic bigots in this line of work in 2002; only a small sample of such cartoons is shown here.

Then we have the pundits. Here’s an example of what we consider anti-Catholic. In late October, Newsday columnist Sheryl McCarthy offered some cute ideas about Halloween costumes. Her list of characters included Martha Stewart, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, et al. Curiously, there was one entry that was not a character: it was a group. “A Catholic priest’s costume would also be a crowd pleaser this year,” McCarthy said, “replete with clerical collar and a lascivious grin.”

It is striking that McCarthy did not ridicule Muslims as a group, choosing instead to name specific men. But it is apparent that in her mind, Catholics merit a different response: it is quite okay to slam all priests for the behavior of a few. That’s why she’s included in our annual report.

The scandal was also exploited by a Columbia University student who made an obscene anti-Catholic remark about priests on the loudspeaker during the half-time activities of a football game with Fordham University. This incident drew considerable attention in the New York area and was made worse when the offending student refused to apologize. A meeting I had with Columbia president Lee Bollinger proved to be productive.

Perhaps the most vulgar and inexcusable event of the year was the fracas involving shock-jock hosts Opie and Anthony. A man and woman from Virginia entered St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York around 4:00 p.m. on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption, and proceeded to have sex in front of men, women and children. A detailed description of the encounter was relayed by cell phone to the “Opie and Anthony” show so that all listeners could be entertained. The event was planned, coordinated and approved by those associated with the show.

When we learned of the incident, we immediately contacted the FCC asking that it revoke the license of the offending station, WNEW. But after the station dropped the show like a pancake, we told the FCC it was not necessary to revoke its license. We had succeeded in getting Opie and Anthony fired (from all the stations that were carrying them) and thus had already accomplished what we really wanted to do.

The amount and variety of hate mail we received as a result of getting this show kicked off the air was astonishing. We’ve never seen anything like it. There are so many sick minds out there it is unbelievable, young men being the worst offenders. In fact, we could fill scores of volumes this size with nothing but the vicious, obscene, blasphemous and threatening hate mail we received from those crushed by our victory over their favorite show.

Not every issue we confronted featured some aspect of sexuality, though at times it seemed that way. The perennial Christmas wars heated up again at year’s end, though with a difference: this time we made good on our pledge of a year earlier to see to it that New York City was sued for religious discrimination.

During the Christmas season of 2001, we learned that New York City public schools were explicitly allowing Jewish and Islamic religious symbols in the schools while barring Christian ones. To be specific, the menorah and crescent and star were permitted but the nativity scene was not. That’s because the Schools Chancellor’s office declared the Jewish and Islamic religious symbols to be secular. Catholics were told they should be satisfied with a Christmas tree.

To get the kind of legal standing we wanted, we needed to find a Catholic parent who lives in New York City, sends her kids to public schools and was willing to be part of the lawsuit. We found such a person in Andrea Skoros. We then contacted our friend at the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Richard Thompson, to see if his firm would take the case. He agreed and the suit was filed. The final outcome may not be known for some time.

These kinds of battles occur with greater frequency every December as challenges are made to the display of Christian symbols on public property. At the core of this issue is the desire to dumb-down Christmas, making it a holiday centered on snowflakes and colored lights. Indeed, anti-Christian bigots around the country have even objected to both of these items!

Politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, have played some dirty games with Catholics over the years, and 2002 was no exception. This time it was the Democratic National Committee (DNC). In a move that was as astonishing as it was bigoted, the DNC provided a link on its website to a professed anti-Catholic organization, Catholics for a Free Choice.

During the latter half of 2002 we launched a massive public relations campaign against the DNC, but it stuck to its guns. So have we. If this issue hasn’t been resolved by the next presidential election, look for it to explode wide open. Our objection to Frances Kissling, who runs Catholics for a Free Choice, is not her position on abortion (wrong though it is); it is her commitment to undermining Catholicism. That is why the Catholic League wants the DNC to sever its links with her.

In the eyes of many Americans, the American Red Cross is about as American as apple pie. But something rotten happened to that image in March 2002. A chapter of the Red Cross in southern California had banned high school students from singing patriotic songs at one of its functions. The songs “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful” were censored because of “sensitivity to religious diversity.” Just so no one gets the idea that this was a freak decision made by a fringe chapter, it is important to know that this was supported by the top officials at the headquarters of the American Red Cross.

Four hours after we asked over 100 activist organizations to drop their support for the American Red Cross, we got what we wanted: an apology and a new policy allowing the dreaded patriotic songs to be sung.

This only goes to show how political correctness of the worst kind has penetrated the establishment. Had the kids wanted to sing a song with obscene lyrics, it is a sure bet that at least some of those who wanted to censor the religious lyrics would have risen to their defense. And the ACLU would have been there to defend these people.

Anti-Catholic artists are not hard to find. Consider that a Napa Valley museum, Copia, depicted the pope and nuns defecating, and a Florida college, Gainesville, showed Jesus being sodomized. We drummed up some free but unwanted publicity for the museum (we also sent it a giant “pooper-scooper”) and succeeded in pressuring the college to move the masterpiece to a remote location on campus.

At a community college in Los Angeles, it wasn’t art that was the focus of our attention—it was Catholic-bashing lectures being taught by someone with zero credentials that got us exercised. “The Sex Lives of the Popes” and “Crime and Immorality in the Catholic Church” were to be taught as part of an adult education series at Pierce Community College. I wrote a letter to the sponsors, both private and public, asking if their interest in academic freedom would also extend to sponsoring lectures on the “Sex Lives of Prominent Rabbis” and “Crime and Immorality in Islam—from Muhammad to 9-11”; we emphasized that they would be taught by someone with no credentials. The bottom line was they got the message and the lectures were cancelled.

These last few examples are typical of the way the Catholic League responds. We do not ask the government to censor art or lectures that offend; rather we use moral suasion and public pressure. This way we use our First Amendment right to freedom of speech to bring media attention to perversions of that right. While everyone may have a legal right to insult Catholicism (or any religion), no one has a moral right to do so. This is the turf we fight on, thus making the offender—not us—the center of controversy.

Gerard Bradley of Notre Dame Law School and Robert George of Princeton University filed an amicus brief in the landmark voucher case that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2002. The case, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, involved a dispute over voucher money going to parochial schools. The public monies spent on the program went overwhelmingly to Catholic schools in Cleveland because that is where the parents of indigent schoolchildren elected to send them. The high court ruled 5-4 to sustain the constitutionality of the program, over the objections of the familiar enemies of religion. Thus did the Catholic League play a role in this significant victory for liberty.

Finally, there has been a spate of anti-Pius XII books written in recent years. Deeply flawed though they are, most of them cannot be said to be explicitly anti-Catholic. The same is not true of the work of Daniel Goldhagen.

In Goldhagen’s book, A Moral Reckoning, he separates himself from others by demanding that the Catholic Church implode: he wants the Church to refigure its teachings, liturgy and practices to such an extent that no one would recognize a trace of Catholicism in this new construction. That is why Goldhagen is not simply against Pope Pius XII: he is an inveterate anti-Catholic bigot.
It must also be said that Goldhagen is a profoundly ignorant man. The number of historical errors in his book, as enumerated by author Ronald Rychlak, are so voluminous as to be embarrassing. But there’s more than sloppy scholarship at work. Goldhagen hasn’t a clue about Catholicism. He justifies his indictment of Catholic liturgy on the grounds that the liturgy is a public policy issue much the way school vouchers are. And he cites me as one who would defend this point!

These are some of the highlights of the annual report. There is, of course, much more in it. Not every entry will strike the reader as a convincing example of anti-Catholicism. We respect that judgment. We make the calls, explain our rationale and leave the rest to you. But no matter how much reasonable persons may quibble over some items, it is highly unlikely they will be unimpressed by the current state of anti-Catholicism in the United States.

William A. Donohue, Ph.D. 
President

January 13
San Diego, CA – The “Usual,” a nightclub in downtown San Diego held a “Catholic School Girl Contest.” Posters on windows of shops in downtown San Diego advertising the event offered a $200 grand prize for the “hottest Catholic school girl.”

April
New Albany, OH – The Spring Break 2001 catalogue of Abercrombie & Fitch included an “Ask A&F” column with two questions posed by supposed Catholic high school students. The questions and answers mock nuns and priests under a theme of homosexuality. On another page, readers are advised to adorn their spring break hotel rooms with palm fronds that can be taken “for free if you crash a Catholic mass on Palm Sunday.” Another page reviews cult movies and includes “Cemetery Man.” “One viewing is all it’ll take,” the piece instructs, “but learning to make wry comments after bashing a dead nun’s head to a pulp couldn’t hurt either.”

May
The Book-of-the-Month Club continued to hype John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope. In a catalogue the book was described as “the explosive story of the Pope who helped sweep the Nazis to power.” In short, our problem was more with the Book-of-the-Month Club for uncritically endorsing the most radical interpretation of Cornwell’s thesis.

May
Fairmont, MN – At an On Cue store, T-shirts for the rock group “Rage Against the Machine” were sold. The T-shirts pictured five men dressed in full traditional nuns’ habits armed with rifles.

May 17
Santa Rosa, CA – Fridge Fun, Inc. offered a line of bath soaps under the name “Sonoma Bath Company.” They included titles such as, “Immaculate Consoaption: A Virgin Bath” and “Mother Soaperior: Cleanliness is Next to Godliness.”

June 7
Bradenton, FL – Firskins Chrysler Plymouth, Jeep, Suzuki ran an advertisement in the Bradenton Herald announcing a Mother’s Day special. The ad featured a semi-hidden picture of Mother Teresa along with an invitation to find the clues in the ad and win a prize. Among the clues was the phrase, “Lowest prices from Bradenton to Calcutta.”

June 12
Los Angeles, CA – The AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s thrift store ran an ad in print and on their website featuring a nun in a suggestive manner. The nun was shown with her hand covering a nude statue’s private parts. She had a shocked expression on her face.

June 15
New York, NY – Lipton, makers of everyday, household food items, ran an ad in the alternative weekly New York Press for the company’s “Lipton Recipe Secrets” onion dip. The ad showed a man waiting in line for Holy Communion holding a bowl of the dip. The ad quite obviously suggested the man was prepared to dunk the Host in the dip.

Following a number of complaints, the Catholic League contacted Unilever, Lipton’s parent company. Company officials wasted little time in apologizing for the ad, admitted it was an error in judgment and pledged to never let it happen again.

June 29
Cannes, France – The agency that designed the offensive Lipton Onion Dip ad (showing a person in line for Communion holding a bowl of the onion dip, ready to dip the Host in it) submitted the ad for an award at the Cannes Film Festival. B.B.H. of New York entered the “Press and Poster” competition given for print ads. They won. At the request of B.B.H.’s client, Lipton/Unilever, the award was declined in order to head off any more controversy.

August
Medford, OR – The billboard advertising company Outdoor Media Dimensions decided to rent billboard space to Larry Weathers, a local barber. The message on the sign read, “The Pope is the Antichrist” and then directed readers to a website. When the Catholic League voiced its objections, company officials said while they did not agree with the message, they supported Weathers’ free speech rights. The league then offered to rent a billboard of its own with the message, “Outdoor Media Dimensions sponsors anti-Catholicism.” The company at first hung up the telephone when they heard the proposal but finally relented and agreed to rent the space. The league felt it unnecessary after the company agreed not to rent any more space for anti-Catholic ads.

August
The September catalog put out by the Book-of-the-Month Club contained a description of James Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword. The book, which some critics denounced as simply the ruminations of an ex-priest, was described in the catalog as “confronting the Catholic Church’s historical hatred of Jews from the gospels to the church’s silence during the Holocaust.” Once again, the Book-of-the-Month Club featured a book highly critical of the Church by promoting the most radical interpretation of its thesis.

August
An Internet bookseller called Book Closeouts featured a write-up for the book Hitler’s Pope by John Cornwell. Despite being panned by critics as a work filled with errors of historical fact, Book Closeouts said Cornwell “shows that, even before the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII was instrumental in negotiating an accord that helped the Nazis rise to unhindered power—and sealed the fate of the Jews.” After we protested, the company apologized and rewrote the blurb for the book.

August 23
Englewood, CO – Dean Evans & Associates, a company that markets organizing software, launched a mass mailing to advertise its products. Many recipients were Catholic parishes and other religious organizations. The mailing featured a man with a displeased frown dressed as the pope. Attached to the pope’s mitre were a note and a pen. The note read, “Is managing your calendar by hand a nuisance?” The tag line on the mailing answered, “Does the pope wear a funny hat?” Following our complaint, the company issued a new mailing to every address that had received the offensive one, apologizing. The company also sent a letter of apology to the Catholic League.

September 20
The Internet auction website eBay listed as an item for auction a “Virgin Mary Immaculate Conception Condom.” On the condom was a picture of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus; the tag line read, “If you conceive, its [sic] a miracle.” On the back of the condom was a picture of Pope John Paul II. “It also includes inside the flap,” said the description of the condom, “instructios [sic] on how to put on the condom (drawings!) showing a certain someone on a cross with a woody and a glove….” Following a complaint from the Catholic League, eBay removed the item almost immediately. Before the company’s action, the item had reached a high bid of $11.50.

October
A company called Iparty published a flyer showing its Halloween costumes available. Featured were costumes of a priest’s cassock and gold cross and a nun’s outfit with a very short skirt and high heels. No other religion was represented.

October
Great Falls, NY – The company Party Universe published a flyer advertising all its Halloween items including costumes. Among the costumes available was one of a priest—with a gold cross accessory sold separately—along with a nun costume. No other religions were represented as costumes.

November
Deer Park, NY – The greeting card company Magic Moments put out a birthday card that stated on the front, “Happy Birthday To A Woman Who Can Be Best Described As Another MOTHER THERESA [sic]. The inside message then read, “You’ve Spent Half a Century in the Missionary Position.” There was a halo above the phrase.

December
St. Paul, MN – The Wireless Holiday 2001 catalog included a T-shirt that showed a crowded nativity scene. The caption above it read, “It’s a Girl.” No mention of Christmas is made in the catalog, only “Holiday.”

December
Melbourne, FL – Executives at the Melbourne Square Mall allowed menorahs to be placed around the mall but would not allow a nativity scene anywhere on the premises. When asked to defend the decision, a mall executive said a local rabbi convinced them the menorah was not a religious symbol.

December
Hoboken, NJ – the greeting card company NobleWorks offered two categories of greeting cards: “Nice” and “Extra” (which they call “naughty”). While there are no cards in the latter category for Ramadan, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, there are more than a dozen tailored to Christian holidays.
For example, the “Extra” selection has a Christmas card that comments on how someone exposed himself at a party. Another card has a picture of Our Blessed Mother holding baby Jesus with the inscription, “Losing those 15 pounds was sure to be a bitch.” And there is another one with the picture of an angel that remarks how she will still enjoy the holidays even though she is having her period.
The “Extra” selection of birthday cards include the following: two cards that mock Christ on the cross; one that shows a priest by a urinal with a sign overhead that reads, “Holy Water”; and a nun shown buying a card not from the “Wedding” or “Birthday” section of a card store but from the one that reads, “Castration.” There is also a Mother’s Day card that shows Mary commenting to Christ, “Uh, excuse me, Mr. Savior of Mankind, but did you remember to put on clean underwear in case you get crucified?”

December
A review of the more than 350 Christmas cards available on the home page of Yahoo! revealed that only 25 of them have a religious content. There are at least eight objectionable cards in the “Humorous” and “Naughty” categories. For example, these categories have cards that show naked buttocks, animals urinating, Santa on the toilet, etc. Most of the 48 Hanukkah cards show a picture of a menorah or a Star of David. Of the five “Humorous” cards, none was as offensive as any of the Christmas cards in this category. There was no “Naughty” category. American Greetings is the worst offender of the mainline greeting card producers.

December 17
Lafayette, LA – The World Wrestling Federation (WWF) show, RAW, featured a big-screen presentation of the wrestling characters Booker T. and Stone Cold Austin that mocked the Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Booker was shown hiding from Austin in a confessional. A young buxom woman walks into the confessional and proceeds to confess to the sin of adultery. Booker, posing as a priest, insists on the details. In a following scene, Booker questions a man in the confessional if he had ever been to a red-light district or smoked marijuana. Another offensive scene involved the two wrestlers and several people posing as nuns.