William A Donohue

Politics is everywhere, and it’s getting out of control.

We now have the likes of LeBron James and Serena Williams, two talented athletes, publicly taking up the cause of Black Lives Matter, a racist band of activists. We also have the likes of Colin Kaepernick and Joakim Noah, two talentless athletes (Kaepernick’s 49ers won two games this past season and Noah is averaging two points a game for the Knicks) protesting the National Anthem and the Army, respectively.

Hollywood has a long history of politicizing the culture. From the Hollywood Ten—all were card-carrying members of the Communist Party—to Meryl Streep and her screed against the president, Tinseltown has been a political circus for decades. Nowadays it is routine for actors, singers, and musicians to offer their wisdom on the latest person or event that bothers them.

The newest entry into the politicization of the culture is corporate America. Led by Goldman Sachs, the big business boys and girls are literally in love with the radical gay movement. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are politically absorbed on many issues, and standing up right behind them is an array of smaller companies. Macy’s and Nordstrom’s are hopelessly political, setting an example for small stores.

We couldn’t even watch the Super Bowl without being treated to one political ad after another. Subtle statements about how racist and sexist America is were highlighted throughout the game. Even a company that makes lumber couldn’t limit itself to selling wood.

There is one thing these individuals and institutions have in common: every one of them promotes the politics of the Left.

Conservative athletes and actors keep their politics to themselves and do what we expect them to do: play and act. Similarly, conservatives in the corporate world keep their distance from politics, sticking to business interests. Not so with their left-wing colleagues.

There is something else that these athletes, actors, and corporate officers have in common: they are all super rich. How does that explain their politics? Just like the intellectuals who spoon-feed them their politics, none of them are forced to live with the consequences of their ideas.

They can complain about stop-and-frisk police policies because they don’t live in high crime areas. They can oppose school choice and avoid lousy public schools because they can afford to send their children to private schools. They can promote gun control because their bodyguards are already armed. They can rail about carbon footprints because they can’t see theirs from their private plane. They can support a hands-off homeless policy because they don’t have to see men defecating in the street on their way to work.

Worse than their hypocrisy is what these elites are doing to our society.

By politicizing the culture, the high flyers are dividing America.

When we go to a ballgame, we expect to witness athletic excellence. We also come together to root for our team, showing the players how much we appreciate their efforts. As fans, we may be of different races, ethnic groups, religions, and classes—and we may have a different set of political beliefs—but what brings us together is the game.

Politics undoes that. When a player refuses to stand during the National Anthem, he sends a divisive political message. The same is true when we go to a concert and have to listen to a singer shout his politics from the microphone. These celebrities not only abuse their platform—no one came to hear their political inanities—they pit one American against another.

The advent of corporate America entering the political fray is most disturbing. Many people think that because the Republican Party has the reputation of catering to the rich that the financial and corporate sectors are in the pocket of Republicans, promoting their candidates and policies. Not the big ones: in the last election, Wall Street and Madison Avenue put their chips on Hillary Clinton.

The big corporations may tout the virtues of a market economy, but in reality they loathe competition, which is why they favor the regulatory schemes of the Democrats: it keeps new entrepreneurs from competing against them.

It would not help matters if conservative athletes, actors, and corporate officials became more political. The answer is not to even things up by escalating a new wave of politicization; rather, the answer is to depoliticize the culture.

This is not a call for passivity. Letting athletes and actors know how we feel about their abuse of power is critical. We also need to take our business elsewhere when confronted by corporations that get too political. Our side did that well by patronizing Chick-fil-A after left-wing activists sought to crush it because its founder espoused traditional values (he is a practicing Christian).

The elites occupy the command posts but we outnumber them. We need to flex our muscles and tell them to get off their soapbox. Laura Ingraham got it right when she named a book on this subject, Shut Up and Sing. We can now add “Shut Up and Play Ball,” and “Shut Up and Sell.”

Bill Donohue comments on the lack of data presented by those making the case for a “mass grave” in Tuam, Ireland:

Reform advocates, for any cause, have a tendency to exaggerate the problem they seek to remedy, and the extremists in their ranks are even worse. A case in point is the “mass grave” issue.

I have a doctorate in sociology from New York University, and I am accustomed to rendering decisions based on data, empirical evidence, and logic. Everyone has an opinion on any given subject, but those that are unsubstantiated do not carry as much weight as those that are. On this score, the mass gravers come up short. Much of their reasoning is based on conjecture, and some of it is pure fiction. It hardly exaggerates to say that their evidence is lacking.

Take the widely bandied about figure of 800 children found buried outside the Mother and Baby Home run by the Bon Secours Sisters. The evidence is non-existent. Here is what we do know.

On March 4, the Irish government reported that “significant human remains” were found outside the home.

Barry Sweeney says he saw “15-20 small skeletons” in a hole there in 1975. He is cited by Catherine Corless, the source of the “mass grave” thesis, as her prime eyewitness.

Douglas Dalby, writing in the New York Times, said in 2014 that “Ms. Corless surmised that the children’s bodies were interred in a septic tank behind the home….” (My italic.)

Last week, I was interviewed on the Irish radio program, “Newstalk.” The host, Sean Moncrieff, is a mass graver, as is Mick Heaney of the Irish Times. Both are furious at me for saying that the 15-20 figure is not proof of a “mass grave.” Their response—that the government found a “significant” number—makes my point, not theirs.

From the beginning, my position has not been that no wrongdoing ever occurred in these homes, but that assertions of a “mass grave” have not been proven by anyone. Moreover, such wild accusations only feed the prevailing animus in Ireland against the Catholic Church.

Moncrieff and Heaney are livid over my statement that there is a “huge” difference between saying that a “significant” number of remains have been found and claims that 800 bodies have been discovered. They accuse me of playing “hair-splitting games.”

This is precisely the kind of lame response I would expect from those who have no evidence to support their claims. Like Corless, they are free to surmise all they want, but they cannot expect serious scholars to allow conjecture to substitute for fact.

Why does this matter? Because of all the scurrilous accusations that have been made about the nuns creating an “Irish Holocaust.” Extreme mass gravers are throwing around numbers with abandon, all designed to smear the nuns.

For example, the Irish Mirror ran a headline on March 3 saying, “Order of Nuns that Dumped Up to 800 Babies into Septic Tank Must be Disbanded.” Nowhere in the story is there any evidence about 800 babies being “dumped” in a sewer, but, ironically, the article does provide evidence of my charge: throwing around huge numbers feeds anti-Catholicism.

It should also be noted that Corless has explicitly separated herself from accusations that the nuns “dumped” the bodies of babies in a septic tank. “I have never used the word ‘dumped,'” she told Dalby.

Irish Central is leading the mass graver extremists.

On March 4, it ran the following headline: “Tuam Mass Infant Grave is Confirmed, Now What Are We Going to Do About it?” In fact, no confirmation was given. The article cites the “significant” number account, but offers no proof that the government confirmed the existence of a mass grave.

On March 8, in an article on women’s rights, Irish Central said, “Just last week 800 babies were found buried, abandoned in an unmarked grave in Tuam.”

This is an out-and-out lie. The bodies of 800 babies have not been found buried. Irish Central literally made this up. It is pure fiction.

Irish Central has a moral obligation to provide pictures of the 800 bodies found in an unmarked grave in Tuam. Where are the pictures? Time to put up or shut up.

Contact Niall O’Dowd at Irish Central: niall@irishcentral.com

Bill Donohue

This article is adapted from Bill Donohue’s longer piece, “The Noble Legacy of Father Serra.” To read the full text, click here.

Who Was Father Serra?

Junípero Serra was born on the Island of Majorca, off the coast of Spain in 1713, and died in Monterey, California in 1784. Partly of Jewish ancestry, this young and sickly boy applied to enter the Order of St. Francis of Assisi; he became a Franciscan in 1731.

He is known as the greatest missionary in U.S. history, traveling 24,000 miles, baptizing and confirming thousands of persons, mostly Indians (in 1777 the Vatican authorized Serra to administer the sacrament of confirmation, usually the reserve of a bishop). He had but one goal: to facilitate eternal salvation for the Indians of North America.

Were the Indians Perceived as Being Inferior?

Culturally, the Indians appeared inferior, but they were not seen as racially inferior. Take, for example, the Chumash Indians of Southern California, the first California Indians to be contacted by Spanish explorers. When the Franciscans first met them, they were struck by how different they looked and behaved. The women were partially naked and the men were totally naked. Serra, in fact, felt as though he was in Eden.

Moreover, the Indians had no written language, and practiced no agriculture. They lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering. They ate things that the missionaries and the soldiers found bizarre, including roots, seeds, birds, horses, cats, dogs, owls, rats, snakes, and bats. These primitive habits, along with other practices, convinced them that changes had to be made.

How Did Father Serra Get Along with the Indians?

For the most part, they got along well. This had something to do with the fact that the Catholic Church led the protests against inhumane treatment of the Indians; the Spanish crown ultimately agreed with this position. It cannot be said too strongly that the primary mission of the Franciscans was not to conquer the Indians, but to make them good Christians. The missions were supposed to be temporary, not some permanent take over.

The Indians drew a distinction between the way the Spanish soldiers treated them and the way the Franciscans did. So when some Indians would act badly, the soldiers blamed them and sought harsh punishments. The priests, on the other hand, saw murderous acts as the work of the Devil. Also, the soldiers were always anxious to take land from the Indians, but they were met with resistance from the priests.

Both the colonial authorities and the missionaries vied for control over the Indians, but their practices could not have been more different. With the exception of serious criminal acts, Serra insisted that all punishments were to be meted out by the priests. While he did not always succeed in challenging the civil authorities, he often did, the result being that the Indians were spared the worst excesses.

The Franciscans also sought to protect Indian women from the Spaniards. The missionaries carved out a very organized lifestyle for the Indians, keeping a close eye on attempts by Spanish men to abuse Indian women. The Friars segregated the population on the basis of sex and age, hoping to protect the females from unwanted advances. When sexual abuse occurred, it was quickly condemned by Serra and his fellow priests.

Was it Violence that Decimated the Indians?

No. What killed most of the Indians were diseases contracted from the Spaniards. According to author James A. Sandos, “Indians died in the missions in numbers that appalled Franciscans.” He describes how this happened. “When Spaniards in various stages of exploration and expansion entered into territory unacquainted with disease,” he writes, “they unwittingly unleashed disease microbodes into what demographers call ‘virgin soil.’ The resulting wildfire-like contagion, called ‘virgin soil epidemics,’ decimated unprotected American Indians populations.” Professor Gregory Orfalea is no doubt correct to maintain that it is doubtful if Serra ever understood the ramifications of this biological catastrophe.

Isn’t It True that the Clergy Flogged the Indians?

By 21st century standards, flogging is considered an unjust means of punishment, but it was not seen that way in the 18th century. Fornication, gambling, and the like were considered taboo, justifying flogging.

Serra, who never flogged anyone (save himself as an expression of redemptive suffering), admitted there were some excesses, but he also stressed something that is hard for 21st century Americans to understand: unlike flogging done by the authorities, when priests indulged the practice, it was done out of love, not hatred. “We, every one of us,” Serra said, “came here for the single purpose of doing them [the Indians] good and for their eternal salvation; and I feel sure that everyone knows that we love them.”

There is also something hypocritical about using 21st century moral standards to evaluate 18th century practices. Abortion-on-demand is a reality today and that is barbaric.

Some Contend that the Indians Were Treated the Way Hitler Treated Jews?

This is perhaps the most pernicious lie promoted by those who have an animus against the Church. Hitler committed genocide against Jews; there was no genocide committed by Serra and the Franciscans against the California Indians. Hitler put Jews in ovens; the missionaries put the Indians to work, paying them for their labor. Hitler wanted to wipe out the Jews, so that Western civilization could be saved; the priests wanted to service the Indians, so that they could be saved.

Sandos pointedly refutes this vile comparison: “Hitler and the Nazis intended to destroy the Jews of Europe and created secret places to achieve that end, ultimately destroying millions of people in a systematic program of labor exploitation and death camps. Spanish authorities and Franciscan missionaries, however, sought to bring Indians into a new Spanish society they intended to build on the California frontier and were distressed to see the very objects of their religious and political desire die in droves. From the standpoint of intention alone, there can be no valid comparison between Franciscans and Nazis.”

Moreover, as Sandos writes, even from the standpoint of results, the comparison fails. “Hitler intended to implement a ‘final solution’ to the so-called Jewish problem and was close to accomplishing his goals when the Allies stopped him. In contrast, neither Spanish soldiers nor missionaries knew anything about the germ theory of disease, which was not widely accepted until late in the nineteenth century.”

Those who make these malicious charges know very well that Jews never acted kindly toward the Nazis. They also know, or should know, that acts of love by the Indians toward the missionaries are legion. No one loves those who are subjecting them to genocide.

Were the Indians Treated as Slaves?

No. The historical record offers no support for this outrageous claim. Slaves in the U.S. had no rights and were not considered human. The missionaries granted the Indians rights and respected their human dignity.

It is also unfair to compare the lifestyle of the Indians to slave conditions in the U.S. “The purpose of a mission was to organize a religious community in isolation that could nourish itself physically and spiritually. Surplus production was to feed other missions and local towns and presidios. Profit was never a consideration, unlike plantations, where profit was the purpose and reason for their creation.”

Did the Missionaries Eradicate Indian Culture?

No. While missionary outreach clearly altered many elements of Indian culture, as Orfalea notes, “the fact is, the California Indian did not disappear. From the low point at the turn of the [20th] century (25,000 remained), the Indian population has grown to well over 600,000 today, twice what it was at pre-contact.” Indeed, today there are over one hundred federally recognized California tribes with tribal lands, with many others seeking recognition.

Not only did the missionaries not wipe out the native language of the Indians, they learned it and employed Indians as teachers. Some cultural modification was inevitable, given that the missionaries taught the Indians how to be masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, and painters. The Indians were also taught how to sell and buy animals, and were allowed to keep their bounty. Women were taught spinning, knitting, and sewing.

“Although many historians once thought that Indian culture had been eradicated in the missions,” Sandos says, “anthropologists and other observers have provided evidence to the contrary.”

Should Serra Be Made a Saint?

The evidence which has been culled for over 200 years, from multiple sources, is impressive, and it argues strongly for including Father Serra in the pantheon of saints.

A total of 21 missions were established by the missionaries, nine of them under the tenure of Serra; he personally founded six missions. He baptized more than 6,000 Indians, and confirmed over 5,000; some 100,000 were baptized overall during the mission period. Impressive as these numbers are, it was his personal characteristics that made him so special.

“To the Indian,” Orfalea writes, “he [Serra] was loving, enthusiastic, and spiritually and physically devoted.” His devotion was motivated by his embrace of Christianity and his strong sense of justice. To put it another way, his love for the Indians was no mere platitude. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” was routinely put into practice; he knew no other way. But it was his humility, coupled with his merciful behavior, that distinguished him from all the other missionaries.

Serra was so merciful that he said, “in case the Indians, whether pagans or Christians, would kill me, they should be pardoned.” This was not made in jest. He insisted that his request be honored as quickly as possible, and even declared, “I want to see a formal decree” on this matter.

Father Serra deserves to be made a saint. He gave his life in service to the Lord, battled injustice, and inspired everyone who worked with him to be a better Christian. That Saint Serra will now inspire people all over the world is a certainty, and a great testimony to his noble legacy.

Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in today’s Washington Post:

“On the most explosive and morally subversive challenge facing the Roman Catholic Church—clerical sexual abuse of children, and the bishops who tolerate it—Pope Francis has said the right things but done too little.”

This remarkable comment is the first sentence in an editorial in today’s Washington Post. The newspaper is living in a time warp. It cited not a single piece of new evidence, resting solely on a book by an Italian journalist that covers cases extending back over a half century ago. To make matters worse, Crux editor John Allen Jr. noted the author’s “sloppiness with facts,” about which the Washington Post is either unaware of or simply doesn’t care to mention.

NEWSFLASH: THE SCANDAL ENDED OVER 30 YEARS AGO

What’s the source of my comment? The Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Independently, they represent the most authoritative accounts of priestly sexual abuse.

The timeline of the abuse scandal is 1965-1985; it was during that period that the lion’s share of the problem occurred. Not to acknowledge this is to feed a vicious stereotype, one that suggests this issue is an on-going problem in the Church.

In fact, no institution has a better record on this issue today than the Catholic Church. The most recent data, collected between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015, shows there were seven substantiated allegations against clergy for the sexual abuse of minors made by current minors. Given that the data covered priests (35,987) and deacons (16,251), this means that .01 percent of the 52,238 members of the clergy had a substantiated allegation made against him.

Will the Washington Post admit that 99.99 percent of the clergy had no such accusation made against him? Not on your life.

The Washington Post also engages in fake news: there is no crisis now—nor was there ever one—involving the sexual abuse of children. That is a lie and a cover-up. The John Jay studies reveal that less than 5 percent of the victims were prepubescent. In fact, 78 percent of the males who were abused were postpubescent, and since all the victimizers were male, that means that homosexuality—not pedophilia—is at the root of the scandal.

The Washington Post needs to do its homework and stop advancing invidious stereotypes. Living in a time warp is bad enough, but when it affects innocent persons, it is pernicious.

Contact Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor: fred.hiatt@washpost.com

William A. Donohue

In every society throughout history, young men have been the most violent, risk-taking, promiscuous, and reckless segment of society. If men have been the most morally destitute, women have been, or at least are expected to be, the most temperate. But that hasn’t been true for some time, and now it is clear that women have at least caught up to men: their moral descent is incontestable.

About a decade ago, several young black women came back from visiting Africa only to report how discouraged they were. The men treated them as sluts.

When these gals asked the guys why they were being treated as tramps, the young men said they took their cues from BET (Black Entertainment Television). The guys reported that their image of young black American women was taken from TV: what they were accustomed to seeing is girls gyrating and grinding to music, acting in a lewd fashion. So they acted accordingly. The girls were horrified.

The same could be said about white girls. The way they are depicted on MTV (Music Television) is the same way they are portrayed on BET. What is surprising is why anyone should be surprised when young men treat young women the way they are baited to treat them.

Take the story in this issue about Cosmopolitan and Glamour, two champions of abortion. One woman explains why she hates her newborn child, and the other explains why she lied to the father of their child about his paternity. The former “hated, hated, hated” her new status of motherhood, and the latter—who used to hate men—says she doesn’t want a husband around to raise their child.

The narcissism of these women is emblematic of the cultural descent of women. One speaks pointedly about how she “had a kid,” and how she hates being the “mother to an infant.” Her language is important: she did not have a baby, and she is not the mother of her child: she had a “kid” and she tends to “an infant.” Babysitters have been known to express more affection.

The other gal not only lied to the father of her child—she told him he wasn’t the father—she insisted she was going to do this by myself. As she put it, “I don’t need anyone, thanks.” Whether her child needed a father was irrelevant.

The woman who hates being a mother said she feels “trapped,” complaining that her life is “basically a middle-class prison.” How reminiscent of Betty Friedan’s 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique: she whined that women who lived in suburbia were housed in a “comfortable concentration camp.”

Then we have Ms. Autonomy, the one who doesn’t need anyone. She confesses that she was so bored sitting in a hotel room in Ireland that she decided to find a man in a pub. She bedded the first guy she met (she must have been raised in suburbia), and bingo—she got pregnant. “In the heat of the moment,” she explains, “condoms were discussed but never used, and although I took a morning-after pill, it didn’t work.” But I bet she aced sex ed.

If the authors of these sorry tales are sick, what does that say about their readers? Narcissists attract: the appetite these readers have for self-indulgence is insatiable, and the supply of writers willing to feed them is equally unlimited. But are they happy?

Trying to find happiness while going solo is a fool’s errand: it never works. Indeed, falling back on yourself is the road to hell, not happiness.

Virtually every study shows that those who have the strongest bonds—with God, their spouse, their children, and others—are the happiest and the healthiest. Those who have no one are the most miserable and the least healthy. Sadly, after all the progress women have made politically and economically, they are going backwards on the happiness scale.

Two University of Pennsyl-vania professors, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, examined men’s and women’s health and happiness over thirty-five years and found that “measures of women’s well-being have fallen both absolutely and relatively to that of men.”

Unfortunately, the role models available to young women today do not embody the characteristics that allow for happiness. A case in point is Amy Schumer.

The number three best selling non-fiction book this fall has been Amy Schumer’s The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo. She is known for her egomania, sexual exploits, and foul mouth—she wins every race to the bottom. Who likes her? Glamour says its readers “love” Amy. It can safely be said that she personifies the moral descent of young women better than anyone.

We are not left with a pretty sight. Many young women today are emotionally spent, living on empty. Some live in a “middle-class prison,” thoroughly “bored” with life. Others hate their children, as well as the men they use. Most important, all of them hate themselves.

Looks like the “comfortable concentration camp” still exists, at least for some women. Only this time, they are all alone.

October 2
Roseburg, OR – Here is what Chris Harper-Mercer said to his victims just before he killed them at Umpqua Community College: “Are you Christian?” After they stood up he said, “Good, because you’re Christian, you are going to see God in just about one second.” He then shot them. Another eyewitness account said that after he asked if they were Christian, “then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs.”

The following media outlets were among those that reported on this story but initially did not mention that Christians were singled out:

• ABC World News Tonight
• CBS Evening News
• NBC Nightly News
• PBS News Hour
• New York Times
• USA Today
• Slate
• Salon
• Gawker
• Daily Beast
• Yahoo
• Huffington Post
• Associated Press [This accounts for why so many papers across the nation made no mention of Christians in their early reporting.]

If African Americans or Muslims had been singled out, President Obama would have gone ballistic, Al Sharpton would have been calling for street rallies, and CAIR would have been asking for congressional investigations. But because Christians were cherry picked for murder, there was no call to arms. Indeed, many major media outlets weren’t even telling the truth. It’s obvious—”Christian Lives Don’t Matter”—either here or abroad.

Internet

 March 18
Facebook rejected an online advertisement from the makers of the independent film “I Am A Christian.” “Are You Christian?” the ad asked, “Stand up and declare, Yes, I Am A Christian!!!” Facebook responded that the ad “wasn’t approved because it doesn’t follow Facebook’s Advertising Guidelines for language that is profane, vulgar, threatening or generates high negative feedback.” Facebook later clarified, “We’ve found that people dislike ads that directly address them or their personal characteristics such as religion.”

April 8
Jewishbusinessnews.com posted an article about a lawsuit over anti-Catholic remarks allegedly made by a businessman. Amazingly, the reporter who wrote the article made patently anti-Catholic remarks himself. We protested and secured a sincere and extensive apology from the media outlet’s president.

According to the lawsuit, the businessman said, “You don’t really believe Jesus was born to a Virgin Mother, or are you that big of a moron?” He was also accused of saying, “Is it that stupid Ash Wednesday again? You better not come to work with ashes on your head.” The victim sued for $5 million for harassment that led to a hospitalized panic attack.

Jewishbusinessnews.com wrote about this story, mistaking the virgin birth for Mary’s Immaculate Conception. The reporter wrote the following:

“To be fair, generations of Jews have found that story hard to swallow, but, hey, if old man Joseph the carpenter took her word for it, who are we to argue. Still, to us Jews it always sounded like a good recovery line when you start showing. Certainly better than the classic, ‘I fell for it’ folks use in emergency rooms. ‘God put it there’ is much classier.”

Less than two hours after the Catholic League issued a press release about the Jewishbusinessnews.com article, Sima Ella contacted Bill Donohue:

Dear Friends,

 I am so sorry. I was not aware of this unbelievable issue, until you brought it to my attention and I read it with my own eyes. I fully understand your feelings; I would feel the same as you. I took the article down immediately. Please, please accept my sincere and heartfelt apologies—we are a lot better than that.

 Sincerely,
Sima Ella

Donohue responded: “Rarely have I seen a quicker and more sincere apology than this. All is forgiven. It is important that Catholic-Jewish relations remain good, especially these days. Case Closed.”

April 13
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, in a post on observer.com, trotted out the discredited thesis that Pope Pius XII was “silent” during the Holocaust. In fact, he went even beyond this falsehood, accusing Pius of having been “a collaborator with the Nazi government.” To do so, of course, he had to ignore the testimony of prominent media and Jewish leaders of the time, who credited Pope Pius with being a singular voice who did not remain silent. The New York Times for example, on Christmas Day, 1941, called Pius “a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas.” A year later, the Times said, “This Christmas more than ever he [the pope] is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent.”

Boteach accused the pope of watching silently when the Gestapo in 1943 rounded up the Jews of Rome. But one of the world’s experts on the Holocaust, the recently deceased Sir Martin Gilbert – author of Never Again: A History of the Holocaust – said just the opposite. “[W]hen the Gestapo came to Rome in 1943 to round up the Jews,” he attested, “the Catholic Church, on his [the pope’s] direct authority, immediately dispersed as many Jews as they could.”

June 14
On the online magazine Salon, Jeffrey Tayler, an editor at The Atlantic, attacked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as being “of unsound mind and unfit to serve” because of his Catholic faith, and went on to attack religious believers in general as suffering from “faith-derangement syndrome (FDS).”

In an undisciplined screed, Tayler went on to attack Catholics generally, whose priests he termed “pedophile pulpiteers of your creed [who] have…warped[ed] the minds of their credulous ‘flocks’ for two millennia.” He accused Pope Francis of sheltering child rapists and suggested that “what we ought to do is send in the vice squad” for him. He also opined “we should certainly send out notice that the votaries of the bizarre Catholic cult are to stay well away from our children.”

June 24
Susan Warner, in an article on the Gatestone Institute’s website entitled, “The Scorpion, The Frog and The Pope,” attacked Pope Francis for recognizing the Palestinian state, saying, “The Pope’s declaration inspires the already hate-infested Palestinians to commit murder with a symbolic pontifical blessing.” She characterized the history of the Catholic Church as “a two-thousand year old story of anti-Judaism, conspicuous by frequent massacres, murders, forced conversions, torture, pogroms, expulsions, demonization and other unspeakable acts of violence and offense.” She tied anti-Semitism to Catholic theology and asked the rhetorical question, “Is the Catholic Church, like the scorpion, simply standing against the Jewish state because it is part of the Church’s DNA?”

August 24
On the online magazine Salon, Jeffrey Tayler, an editor at The Atlantic, attacked the Catholic Church and its clergy at length, expressing a hope that the United Nations Convention Against Torture would lead to worldwide arrests and possibly executions of Catholic priests: “Courts may well decide that the sexual abuse of children constitutes torture, which could lead to sweeping arrests depopulating the ranks of the Catholic clergy, with shackled priests making perp walks the world over. One hopes a Nuremberg-style tribunal can be set up for them – with Nuremberg-style punishments.”

He also, much less luridly, attacked evangelicals. He called for the end of tax exemption for religious organizations, lamenting the loss of billions of dollars to “federal coffers,” called on his readers to urge presidential candidates to desist from professing their faith on the campaign trail, and concluded: “We need to act on the strength of our convictions, which must exceed in firmness the determination of the faith-deranged to impose their will on us.”

Movies

 The following article is the Catholic League’s official response to the movie, “Spotlight”:

SHINING THE LIGHT ON “SPOTLIGHT”
Bill Donohue

The movie “Spotlight” is bound to spark more conversation about the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, much of what the American public knows about this issue is derived from the popular culture, something this film will only abet. Therefore, the time is ripe to revisit what the actual data on this subject reveals.

When the Boston Globe sent the nation reeling in 2002 with revelations of priestly sexual abuse, and the attendant cover-up, Catholics were outraged by the level of betrayal. This certainly included the Catholic League. The scandal cannot be denied. What is being denied, however, is the existence of another scandal—the relentless effort to keep the abuse crisis alive, and the deliberate refusal to come to grips with its origins. Both scandals deserve our attention.

Myth: The Scandal Never Ended

When interviewed about the scandal in 2002 by the New York Times, I said, “I am not the church’s water boy. I am not here to defend the indefensible.” In the Catholic League’s 2002 Annual Report, I even defended the media. “The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the New York Times covered the story with professionalism,” I wrote.

A decade later things had changed. In the Catholic League’s 2011 Annual Report, I offered a critical assessment of the media. “In a nutshell,” I said, “what changed was this: in 2011, unlike what happened in 2002, virtually all the stories were about accusations against priests dating back decades, sometimes as long as a half-century ago. Keep in mind that not only were most of the priests old and infirm, many were dead; thus, only one side of the story could be told. Adding to our anger was the fact that no other institution, religious or secular, was being targeted for old allegations.”

It became clear that by 2011 we were dealing with two scandals, not one. Scandal I was internal—the church-driven scandal. This was the result of indefensible decisions by the clergy: predatory priests and their enabling bishops. Scandal II was external, the result of indefensible cherry-picking of old cases by rapacious lawyers and vindictive victims’ groups. They were aided and abetted by activists, the media, and Hollywood.

Regarding Scandal II, more than cultural elites were involved. “In 2011,” I wrote, “it seemed as if ‘repressed memories’ surfaced with alacrity, but only among those who claimed they were abused by a priest. That there was no similar explosion of ‘repressed memories’ on the part of those who were molested by ministers, rabbis, teachers, psychologists, athletic coaches, and others, made us wonder what was going on.”

The steeple-chasing lawyers and professional victims’ organizations had a vested economic interest in keeping the scandal alive; the former made hundreds of millions and they, in turn, lavishly greased the latter. But it wasn’t money that motivated the media and Hollywood elites to keep the story alive—it was ideology.

To be specific, the Catholic Church has long been the bastion of traditional morality in American society, and if there is anything that the big media outlets and the Hollywood studios loathe, it is being told that they need to put a brake on their libido. So when the scandal came to light, the urge to pounce proved irresistible. The goal was, and still is, to attenuate the moral authority of the Catholic Church. It certainly wasn’t outrage over the sexual abuse of minors that stirred their interest: if that were the case, then many other institutions would have been put under the microscope. But none were.

There is no conspiracy here. What unfolded is the logical outcome of the ideological leanings of our cultural elites. Unfortunately, “Spotlight” will only add to Scandal II. How so? Just read what those connected with the film are saying.

Tom McCarthy, who co-wrote the script with Josh Singer, said, “I would love for Pope Francis and the cardinals and bishops and priests to see this [film].” Would it make any difference? “I remain pessimistic,” he says. “To be honest,” he declares, “I expect no reaction at all.”

Mark Ruffalo plays a reporter, and, like McCarthy, he says, “I hope the Vatican will use this movie to begin to right those wrongs.” (My italic.) He is not sanguine about the prospects. Indeed, he has given up on the Church.

The view that the Catholic Church has not even begun to “right those wrongs” is widely shared. Indeed, the impression given to the American people, by both the media and Hollywood—it is repeated nightly by TV talk-show hosts—is that the sexual abuse scandal in the Church never ended. Impressions count: In December 2012, a CBS News survey found that 55 percent of Catholics, and 73 percent of Americans overall, believe that priestly sexual abuse of minors remains a problem. Only 14 percent of Americans believe it is not a problem today.

Commentary by those associated with “Spotlight,” as well as movie reviewers and pundits, are feeding this impression. But the data show that the conventional wisdom is wrong. The fact of the matter is that the sexual abuse of minors by priests has long ceased to be an institutional problem. All of these parties—Catholics, the American public, the media, and Hollywood—entertain a view that is not supported by the evidence. “Spotlight” will only add to the propaganda.

In 2002, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned researchers from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to conduct a major study of priestly sexual abuse; it covered the years 1950 to 2002. It found that accusations of the sexual molestation of minors were made against 4,392 priests.

This figure represents 4 percent of all Catholic priests. What was not widely touted is that 43 percent of these allegations (1881) were unsubstantiated. To qualify as “unsubstantiated” the bar was set high: the allegation had to be “proven to be untruthful and fabricated” as a result of a criminal investigation.

In other words, roughly 2 percent of priests were likely guilty of molesting minors. Accusations proven to be false should carry no weight in assessing wrongdoing, yet the fabrications are treated by the media as if they were true. It must also be said that this rate of false accusations is much higher than found in studies of this problem in the general population.

More than half of the accused priests had only one allegation brought against them. Moreover, 3.5 percent accounted for 26 percent of all the victims. As computed by professor Philip Jenkins, an expert on this subject, the John Jay data reveal that “Out of 100,000 priests active in the U.S. in this half-century, a cadre of just 149 individuals—one priest out of every 750—accounted for a quarter of all allegations of clergy abuse.”

These data give the lie to the accusation that during this period the sexual molestation of minors by priests was rampant. It manifestly was not. Even more absurd is the accusation that the problem is still ongoing.

In the last ten years, from 2005 to 2014, an average 8.4 credible accusations were made against priests for molestation that occurred in any one of those years. The data are available online at the USCCB website (see the reports issued for these years). Considering that roughly 40,000 priests could have had a credible accusation made against them, this means that almost 100 percent of priests had no such accusation made against them!

Sadly, I cannot name a single media outlet, including Catholic ones, that even mentioned this, much less emphasized it. The Catholic News Service, paid for by the bishops, should have touted this, but it didn’t. This delinquency is what helps to feed the misperception that the Church has not even begun to deal with this problem.

In 2011, researchers from John Jay issued another report, “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010.” While the document was often critical, it commended the Church for its forthrightness in dealing with this problem. “No other institution has undertaken a public study of sexual abuse,” the report said, “and as a result, there are no comparable data to those collected by the Catholic Church.” Looking at the most recent data, the report found that the “incidence of child sexual abuse has declined in both the Catholic Church and in society in general, though the rate of decline is greater in the Catholic Church in the same time period.”

So much for the myth that the Church has not yet “begun” to address this issue. Every study by the John Jay researchers shows that most of the abuse took place between 1965-1985. This is not hard to figure out: the sexual revolution began in the 1960s and fizzled out by the mid-1980s. Libertinism drove the sexual revolution, and it hit the seminaries as well, especially in the 1970s. Matters slowed once AIDS was uncovered in 1981. It took fear—the fear of death—to bring about a much needed reality check.

Myth: Celibacy is the Root Cause

On October 28, 2015, a columnist for the Boston Globe wrote an article about “Spotlight” titled, “Based on a True Story.” Similarly, script writer Tom McCarthy said, “We made a commitment to let the facts play.”

No one disputes the fact that predatory priests were allowed to run wild in the Boston Archdiocese; the problem was not confined to Boston, but it was the epicenter. That molesting priests were moved around like chess pieces to unsuspecting parishes is also true. Ditto for the cover-up orchestrated by some bishops. This is the very stuff of Scandal I. Where the factual claims dissolve, however, is when the script claims to know what triggered the scandal.

“Spotlight” made its premiere on September 3 at the Venice Film Festival. A review published by the international French news agency, AFP, noted that “in Spotlight’s nuanced script, few in the Catholic hierarchy have shown any inclination to address whether the enforced celibacy of priests might be one of the root causes of the problem.”

The celibacy myth was debunked by the John Jay 2011 report. “Celibacy has been constant in the Catholic Church since the eleventh century and could not account for the rise and subsequent decline in abuse cases from the 1960s through the 1980s.” But if celibacy did not drive the scandal, what did? The John Jay researchers cite the prevalence of sexually immature men who were allowed to enter the seminaries, as well as the effects of the sexual revolution.

There is much truth to this observation, but it is incomplete. Who were these sexually immature men? The popular view, one that is promoted by the movie as well, suggests they were pedophiles. The data, however, prove this to be wrong.

When the word got out that “Spotlight” was going to hit the big screen, Mike Fleming, Jr. got an Exclusive for Deadline Hollywood; his piece appeared on August 8, 2014. The headline boasted that it was a “Boston Priest Pedophile Pic.” In his first sentence, he described the film as “a drama that Tom McCarthy will direct about the Boston Globe investigation into pedophile priests.” This narrative is well entrenched in the media, and in the culture at large. Whenever this issue is discussed, it is pitched as a “pedophile” scandal. We can now add “Spotlight’s” contribution to this myth.

One of the most prominent journalists on the Boston Globe “Spotlight” team was Kevin Cullen. On February 28, 2004, he wrote a story assessing a report issued by the National Review Board, appointed by the USCCB, on what exactly happened. He quoted the head of the Board’s research committee, well-respected attorney Robert S. Bennett, as saying it was not pedophilia that drove the scandal. “There are no doubt many outstanding priests of a homosexual orientation who live chaste, celibate lives,” he said, “but any evaluation of the causes and context of the current crisis must be cognizant of the fact that more than 80 percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual nature.”

Bennett was correct, and Cullen knew it to be true as well. “Of the 10,667 reported victims [in the time period between 1950 and 2002],” Cullen wrote, “81 percent were male, the report said, and more than three-quarters [the exact figure is 78 percent] were postpubescent, meaning the abuse did not meet the clinical definition of pedophilia.” One of Bennett’s colleagues, Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins University, was more explicit. “This behavior was homosexual predation on American Catholic youth,” he said, “yet it is not being discussed.” It never is.

So it is indisputable that the Boston Globe “Spotlight” team knew that it was homosexuality, not pedophilia, that drove the scandal. Yet that is not what is being reported today. Indeed, as recently as November 1, 2015, a staff reporter for the Boston Globe said the movie was about “the pedophile priest crisis.” This flies in the face of the evidence. In fact, the John Jay 2011 report found that less than 5 percent of the abusive priests fit the diagnosis of pedophilia, thus concluding that “it is inaccurate to refer to abusers as ‘pedophile priests.'”

The evidence, however, doesn’t count. Politics counts. The mere suggestion that homosexual priests accounted for the lion’s share of the problem was met with cries of homophobia. This is at the heart of Scandal II. Even the John Jay researchers went on the defensive. Most outrageous was the voice of dissident, so-called progressive, Catholics: It was they who pushed for a relaxation of sexual mores in the seminaries, thus helping to create Scandal I. Then they helped to create Scandal II by refusing to take ownership of the problem they foisted; they blamed “sexual repression” for causing the crisis.

So how did the deniers get around the obvious? Cullen said that “most [of the molested] fell victim to ephebophiles, men who are sexually attracted to adolescent or postpubescent children.” But clinically speaking, ephebophilia is a waste-basket term of no scientific value.

Philip Jenkins once bought into this idea but eventually realized that the word “communicates nothing to most well-informed readers. These days I tend rather to speak of these acts as ‘homosexuality.'” Jenkins attributes his change of mind to Mary Eberstadt, one of the most courageous students of this issue. “When was the last time you heard the phrase ‘ephebophile’ applied to a heterosexual man?” In truth, ephebophilia is shorthand for homosexuals who prey on adolescents.

Even those who know better, such as the hierarchy of the Church, are reluctant to mention the devastating role that homosexual priests have played in molesting minors. In April 2002, the cardinals of the United States, along with the leadership of the USCCB and the heads of several offices of the Holy See, issued a Communiqué from the Vatican on this issue. “Attention was drawn to the fact that almost all the cases involved adolescents and therefore were not cases of true pedophilia” they said. So what were they? They were careful not to drop the dreaded “H” word.

Further proof that the problem is confined mostly to gay priests is provided by Father Michael Peterson, co-founder of St. Luke’s Institute, the premier treatment center in the nation for troubled priests. He frankly admits, “We don’t see heterosexual pedophiles at all.” This suggests that virtually all the priests who abused postpubescent children had a homosexual orientation.

The spin game is intellectually dishonest. When adult men have sex with postpubescent females, the predatory behavior is seen as heterosexual in nature. But when adult men have sex with postpubsecent males, the predatory behavior is not seen as homosexual in nature. This isn’t science at work—it’s politics, pure and simple.

I have said it many times before, and I will say it again: most gay priests are not molesters but most molesting priests have been gay. It gets tiresome, however, to trot this verity out every time I address this issue. That’s because it means nothing to elites in the dominant culture. Just whispering about the role gay priests have played in the sexual abuse scandal triggers howls of protest.

There is plenty of evidence that Hollywood has long been a haven for sexual predators, both straight and gay. The same is true of many religious and secular institutions throughout society. But there is little interest in the media and in Tinsel Town to profile them. They have identified the enemy and are quite content to keep pounding away.

There is no doubt that the Boston Globe “Spotlight” team deserved a Pulitzer Prize for exposing Scandal I. Regrettably, there will be no Pulitzer for exposing Scandal II.

 Music

 January 23
Singer Lady Gaga and her friends from her Catholic high school were celebrating a bachelorette party. They got drunk, wrecked the hotel room, ate like pigs, pole danced all night, and celebrated with phallic symbols: from the cake in the shape of a penis to the penis-shaped candles, the gals got as raunchy as it gets.

The pop star made sure to point out the Catholic roots of the girls’ friendship in her Instagram posts. “We love our girl so much we will be getting her drunk for the next 48 hrs #catholicschoolgirlsdoitbest” read one post, “Lord help the parents of Catholic school girls” read another.

September 9
Montreal, Canada – In Montreal to kick off her latest tour, Madonna launched into the obscene lyrics from her song “Holy Water,” ripped off her skirt to reveal a skimpy nun’s habit, and started to pole dance. She then used one of her dancers—also dressed as a nun—to ride like a surfboard. Then the dancers lined the stage to act out the Last Supper, with Madonna as the central focus.

Newspapers

 January 12
Newark, OH – The Newark Advocate published a cartoon by Milt Priggee titled “Pope Justifies Terrorist’s Attack on Charlie Hebdo.” The cartoon shows four gravestones representing the people killed inside a Jewish grocery store. A thought bubble above one headstone reads “Did you hear the pope understands why the terrorists attacked?”

February 1
Los Angeles, CA – On January 17, a crowd of 15,000, many of them young people, took to the streets of Los Angeles to participate in the first “One Life” march, a demonstration in support of the rights of unborn children. On February 1, ten people demonstrated outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to protest the proposed canonization of Father Junípero Serra, the priest who brought Christianity to California.

The Los Angeles Times ignored the former, even though the demonstration was held one block from its headquarters, but published an article highlighting the latter group.

The non-event protest was the work of the ill-named Mexica Movement. In fact, there is no movement: there is just a handful of Christian-bashing, European-hating activists. In 2000 the group mustered “a few dozen members” for a protest of Elton John. In other words, 15 years ago this rag-tag group marshaled more activists than it did last February. Some “movement.”

The few who protested Father Serra showed how low-class they are when they compared the priest to the devil and Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez to Hitler. For good reasons, Gomez is well-liked by minorities, though his few detractors garner the news. Shame on the L.A. Times for profiling them.

April 29
Kansas City, MO – Yael T. Abouhalkah, editorial writer for the notoriously anti-Catholic Kansas City Star, lectured Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, about his decision to have Bishop Robert Finn preside at two ordinations in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Finn had recently resigned as Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, and Naumann was the apostolic administrator of that diocese. Archbishop Naumann was celebrating the ordination of priests in his own diocese the same day as the ordinations in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. That is why he asked Bishop Finn—a bishop in good standing in the Catholic Church, whose success in galvanizing significant numbers of bright and able men to the priesthood makes him the envy of bishops in much larger dioceses—to preside over the ordinations in his former diocese. This upset Abouhalkah a great deal. He called the decision to empower Bishop Finn to preside over the ordinations “repulsive” and “reckless.” Bill Donohue called his condemnation malicious, obscene and intrusive, pointing out that Catholics no more report to the Kansas City Star than its employees report to the Catholic Church.

May 31
New York, NY – New York Daily News columnist Linda Stasi, writing about abuse allegations against former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, wrote the following: “Hastert looks like every pervy child predator priest and pastor with his creepy, pasty skin, wavy white hair and benevolent grin.”

July – August
Philadelphia, PA – Over the summer, Waldron Academy, an independent Catholic school in the Philadelphia area, decided that it could no longer employ its director of religious education because it had become publicly known that she was involved in a lesbian “marriage.” A protest raged all summer against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, even though it does not run this school. Even more bizarre, the critics were led by a group of anti-Catholics who are funded by an atheist billionaire.

The media, led by the Philadelphia Inquirer, gave legitimacy to this contrived protest. The Inquirer ran a dozen stories on this incident, all of them in support of Margie Winters, the fired teacher. Most of the stories appeared on the front page of the B section, and a few made it to p. A1. Although the issue seemed like a clear-cut case of a private sectarian organization enforcing its own house rules, the media and activist organizations kept up a relentless pressure against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and Archbishop Charles Chaput.

July 19
New York, NY – The Forward, a Jewish newspaper of some reputation, published a gratuitous nasty piece by Anna Katsnelson entitled “I Am a Fugitive from a Catholic School.” Katsnelson told us how her Jewish parents elected to place her in a Catholic elementary school in New York. Along the way we learned about the Holy Eucharist, which she disrespectfully compared to matzo, attendance at Mass, religious instruction, the nuns, etc. She casually boasted of receiving the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confirmation without any belief on her part.

She expressed disappointment with her parents for subjecting her to Catholicism, complaining that they should have known more about the Inquisition before sending her to the school. “Although there was no Judas cradle, Spanish donkey, head crusher or rack in her office,” Katsnelson writes, “the local Torquemada of my junior high school was not below chastising me for chewing gum and interrogating me about my pseudo-Christian identity.” Moreover, the nuns tried to instill chastity, something she said backfired. For good measure, she added that “Catholic schoolgirls dressed like sluts in training.”

August 9
New York, NY – The Associated Press (AP) joined the ranks of press outlets obsessed with the story of the lesbian school teacher who was fired from an independent Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In the fourth AP story on this non-story, reporter Maryclaire Dale misrepresented what Pope Francis said about gays, and then accused Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput of “wading into the issue.” It must be said that AP was the one who was guilty of “wading into the issue”—not the man whose job it is to discuss schools in his archdiocese.

September 15
Paris, France – The French magazine Charlie Hebdo, notorious for its vile offenses against the sacred beliefs of Muslims, Christians and Jews, published two disgusting cartoons mocking the death of little Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed up on the shores of Turkey during the Syrian refugee exodus. One cartoon showed a little boy’s body washed up on shore, next to a fast food billboard advertising two kid meals for the price of one, with the caption, “So close to making it.” The other cartoon showed a Jesus figure walking on water, with a child’s body upside down in the water next to him. The Jesus figure said, “Christians walk on water”; the drowning child said, “Muslim children sink.” And the caption read, “Proof that Europe is Christian.”

Radio

January 29
The “Imus in the Morning” radio show featured guest Rob Bartlett doing his impression of Pope Francis where he implied priests were sexual deviants. While wearing a white skullcap and speaking in a mock Italian accent Bartlett discussed a toy designed by the Vermont Teddy Bear Company inspired by the film “Fifty Shades of Grey”: “So what is this I hear, Vermont Teddy Bear has got a Fifty Shades of Grey bear? How do you take a cute sweet little thing and exploit it for your own twisted sexual appetite? I’m asking myself the very same thing, I’m trying to get some of these priests into another line of work.”

February 12
Rob Bartlett returned as a guest on the “Imus in the Morning” radio program, which is simulcast on the Fox Business Network, to do his impression of Pope Francis. Imus, and his producers, allowed Bartlett to engage in an extended rant, pretending to speak as Pope Francis. It was a mixed bag: some of it was funny; some of it was plain stupid; and some of it crossed the line.

It is not clear whether it is Bartlett’s ignorance or malice that best explains his ugly comparison of bondage, domination, and sadomasochism—ala “Fifty Shades of Grey”—to mortification, a method of Christian asceticism practiced by some Catholics in service to virtuous living. Either way, he unnecessarily offended Catholics.

February 13
The “Bill Handel Morning Show” on KFI Radio, an ABC affiliate in Los Angeles, obscenely mocked the pope:

Bill Handel: “Do you think the pope masturbates?”
Gary Hoffman [co-host]: “No.”
Michelle Kube [producer]: “No I don’t think…”
Handel: “I’m willing to bet there have been times when…”
Hoffman: “He’s tearing that little fella right now.”
Handel: “I think so too.”
Kube: “Oh stop it.”
Handel: “Now, if he doesn’t masturbate, do you think the pope has wet dreams? Where that cassock of his, he wakes up in the morning and there’s the old stain there. What do you think?”
Hoffman: “Yes.”
Handel: “OK.”
Hoffman: “Not now. Probably when he was a teenager.”
Handel: “Oh come on.”

February 20
Rob Bartlett, a regular guest on “Imus in the Morning,” did an impression of Pope Francis on the radio show. The segment mocked gay priests.

Bartlett: “I’m Pope Francis, the real Pope Francis, all you bishops named Francis don’t take no chances. Keep your pants up, keep your pants up.”

He then spoke about the Oscars:

Bartlett: “I see the ‘Boyhood’ because a lot of the bishops are very excited to see it. I don’t know why.”

Television

January 5
The host of “Late Night with David Letterman” on CBS took a shot at the pope’s new appointment of cardinals. Letterman pretended to have a video of the pope notifying a new cardinal of his selection. A clip was then shown of Michael Sam, the failed homosexual football player, crying when he was selected in the draft to play in the NFL. Sam is then shown kissing his boyfriend. Then the screen went black and “Please Stand By” was posted, along with an image of the pope and some crosses.

January 7
Bill Maher was a guest on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Talking about accusations of sexual assault by celebrities, Maher discussed the accusations against Michael Jackson, but made a gratuitous reference to Catholic priests: “I don’t know [if the accusations are true]. What I think happened, he was a little grabby grabby under the covers, which is wrong. It is. That is a crime to grabby grabby, but it’s not like, you know, what Catholic priests were doing.”

January 16
On his HBO show, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” the host criticized Pope Francis’ comments on insulting people of faith. Maher then made a vulgar remark about the pope. “He’s dead to me now. Oh yeah, f*ck the pope.”

January 22
“Reign” on the CW Network, a weekly drama based on the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, debuted its winter premier. The episode “Getaway” included a Catholic cardinal who was using the Swiss Guard to hunt members of a rival group. The cardinal is gay and is shown in bed with his male lover. The other characters plot against the cardinal by branding his lover with their symbol, forcing the cardinal to choose between having his lover killed as a heretic or exposing himself as gay.

 January 29
In only the second week on the air, Comedy Central’s new show, “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore,” attacked priests. The host introduced the topic about the New England Patriots team supposedly deflating footballs during games. Wilmore said he was not going to make any ball jokes, but instead invited comedians Ricky Velez and Mike Yard to make them.

Velez: “A priest, a rabbi and two deflated balls walk into a bar.”
Yard: “What happened?”
Velez: “The priest immediately fondles the deflated balls.”

February 2
The host of “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” on Comedy Central made gratuitous jokes about Jesus during a segment about obesity.

Wilmore: “It’s true, even if you go to church you see a P90X version of Jesus on the cross. Right? [Jesus is shown on the cross with a 6-pack. Nervous laughter from audience.] I mean talk about cross-fit, am I right? Am I right Christian ladies?”

Wilmore then immediately issued a mock apology for insulting Jesus:

Wilmore: “I’d like to issue an apology to my Christian ladies. ‘My mockery of Jesus, though accurate, was way out of line. Unlike the Michael Moore blah blah blah, et. al.’ My point is, if Jesus looked like this [a fat Jesus on the cross is shown] More Galifianakis than Caviezel…”

February 10
On the Fox sitcom “The Mindy Project,” Mindy Kaling, who stars in the show in addition to writing and directing it, has learned that she is pregnant and is trying to tell her Catholic boyfriend Danny, played by Chris Messina. In this scene, they insult loyal Catholics, and mock the Church’s teaching on masturbation.

February 21
Comedy Central debuted a stand-up act produced by Kevin Hart. The show featured comedian Keith Robinson. Robinson introduced his tirade by stating how easily offended people have become these days to what others say.

“Even criminals have the nerve to be sensitive about what the hell you say to them. Pedophiles don’t want to be called pedophiles. They want to be called priests.”

The audience responded with nervous laughter. “That was a delicious joke. I don’t give a damn about what nobody say [his illiteracy], that was a delicious joke.”

Robinson then attacked someone who didn’t clap, wondering “What the hell is your problem?” He then asks, “Are you Catholic, sir? Did a priest ever get to you? Put some baby oil on your feet so you couldn’t run in the marble hall?”

February 26
On NBC’s “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” there was a gratuitous mention of sex and the Vatican. The detectives were investigating complaints that a 79-year-old man was being sexually abused by his new younger wife. The man denied the abuse and implied he married the younger woman because he was deprived of sex while working at the Vatican. He said “My third wife took up with a bartender because I got distracted by my book on the pope. Now you spend 6 months at the Vatican, and you see what happens to your testicles.”

March
After the fourth episode of this season’s Netflix program, “House of Cards” aired, Bill Donohue asked those who receive our news releases to contact Jonathan Friedland, VP, Corporate Communications at Netflix, and ask him to explain why the character who played the president of the United States, Frank Underwood, found it necessary to spit on the face of Jesus and then knock the crucifix to the floor, smashing it to bits.

March 5
Comedy Central aired another attack on the church during its game show “@Midnight.” The contest featured Neal Brennan responding to a question by host Chris Hardwick about confession. “Forgive me father for I have sinned, I went to Catholic school growing up. While I was never molested, I did f*ck a few priests.” Not surprisingly, Brennan won the contest.

On the premier of his own show, which aired January 19, 2014, Brennan commented that he went to Catholic school for 12 years. “No, I didn’t get molested, I f*cked a few priests, but I didn’t get molested.”

 March 10
“The Mindy Project” on Fox took a totally gratuitous stab at Catholicism, and mocked the Eucharist. Mindy’s boyfriend, Danny, invited the local priest over for dinner, and lied to him telling the priest that Mindy was Catholic. “Why would you lie and tell him that I was Catholic? I don’t have a Catholic bone in my body, except yours” Mindy replied mocking the Church’s teachings on sex.

April 2
The host of CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman” made ten jokes about the pope’s annual physical: all of the comments were attributed to the attending physician. The joke listed as #1 was: “I know you don’t use it, but I still have to take a look at it.”

April 3
On Good Friday, David Letterman joked about the pope’s physical on his CBS “Late Show.” Letterman attributed the pope’s weight gain to “a little too many Communion wafers.”

April 5 – May 10
PBS aired “Wolf Hall” a six-part television mini-series adapted from Hillary Mantel’s novel of the same name. The mini-series was originally produced for the BBC in England. Mantel is a bitter ex-Catholic who admits the aim of her novel is to take down the image of St. Thomas More popularized by the film “A Man for All Seasons.”

Thomas More is presented as a religious zealot who condemns anyone opposed to the Church. While Thomas Cromwell, who prosecuted More, is a sensible, pragmatic man who gets things done.

April 6
On the night after Easter, Chris Hardwick, the host of Comedy Central’s game show “@Midnight,” took a shot at Jesus’ resurrection: “Jesus woke up from a nap and now all sins have been wiped clean to make room for even more heinous ones. Whatever you did doesn’t matter so you can go out and be a d*ck for another 365 days.”

 April 10
During a previous show, Bill Maher had compared former “One Direction” singer Zayn Malik to one of the Boston bombers. The Council on American-Islamic Relations objected to the Muslim stereotype. Responding to that criticism Maher said, “It turns out Zayn Malik is a Muslim. Neither I nor anyone on our staff knew that. How could we? The whole joke is I don’t know who the f*ck he is. I don’t know his relation or his birthday or his favorite food because I don’t spend every waking hour obsessing over teenage boys like a Catholic pries- [Maher cuts himself off] I mean like a 12-year-old girl.”

 April 24
During this episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO, Maher lashed out at Pope Francis and Jesus in a particularly vulgar way. Discussing the Armenian genocide, Maher said, “You know who said it’s a genocide? The pope. The pope was like f*** yeah it’s a genocide. The pope has huge balls. You would too if you were 78 and never had sex.” Maher’s assault on the Eucharist was vile. He spoke about a toaster that can customize a burnt image of your face on it. When an image of Jesus was shown on the screen, Maher asked, “What kind of needy loner says, ‘hey look at that bread you’re eating, it’s really me.'”

May 13
Reza Aslan, the Iranian-American religion scholar who once converted to Christianity, then later back to Islam, is so offended by Christians in America celebrating Christmas, that his response is to deliberately offend Christians. On “The Daily Show” Jon Stewart, citing a Pew Research Center study that found 7 in 10 Americans identify as Christians, cracked that that means you have a 30 per cent chance of offending someone when you wish them a Merry Christmas. “As a Muslim,” Aslan responded, “whenever someone wishes me a Merry Christmas I am obligated to say ‘f*ck you.'”

September 28
“The Daily Show” began with a voiceover: “After being greeted by the president, the vice president and an adoring crowd at Andrews Air Force Base, he [Pope Francis] was whisked away in a tiny Fiat dwarfed by the Secret Service vehicles surrounding him.” Host Trevor Noah then said “That’s a tiny car. Somebody’s compensating. I’m saying the pope has a huge c**k [bleep]. That was a joke. That is a joke. And what a waste.”

The most historic Catholic event of the year was Pope Francis’ visit to the United States. While it occasioned much goodwill, and overall very fair media coverage, there were some notable exceptions. A selection will be recounted in this section.

We anticipated that the media would give high profile to surveys of Catholics showing that many disagree with Church teachings on a variety of subjects. We got in front of this issue by commissioning our own survey. We chose Kellyanne Conway’s organization, The Polling Company, to do the survey.

We also knew that the decision by Pope Francis to canonize Father Junípero Serra, a courageous 17th century defender of human rights for Indians, would ignite a backlash from radical activists and revisionist authors. That is why Bill Donohue wrote an 18-page booklet defending the pope’s decision. He chose an easy to read Q&A format to debunk many myths about this Franciscan priest. It was widely distributed and widely praised.

Bill Donohue and Vice President Bernadette Brady-Egan met Pope Francis on September 23 in Washington, D.C. They are grateful to Catholic University President John Garvey and Washington Archbishop Cardinal Donald Wuerl for arranging the meeting.

Everywhere Pope Francis went he flagged religious liberty; it was his most consistent theme.

He opened his trip by addressing religious liberty at the White House, arguing that we are called “to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it.” That he did so in the company of President Obama, at the White House, was critically important. If there were any doubt about what he meant by those words, it was removed altogether when he made his unscheduled visit to the Little Sisters of the Poor later that day.

By embracing this order of nuns, Pope Francis laid down an unmistakable marker: He has rejected efforts by the Obama administration to force Catholic nonprofit organizations to pay for, or even sanction, abortion-inducing drugs in their health care plans.

The pope also met privately with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused, on religious grounds, to issue a marriage license to a gay couple. “Thank you for your courage. Stay strong.” These words by the pope need no interpretation. Moreover, his invocation of conscience rights as a fundamental human right can only be read as a statement against the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. These two unscheduled meetings by Pope Francis should convince everyone that he is an ardent advocate of life, religious liberty, and marriage (properly understood).

The next day, he admonished the Congress of the necessity of “safeguarding religious freedom.” At the U.N. he emphasized “religious freedom” again, calling attention to “natural law.” He saved his most extensive remarks on this subject for Philadelphia.

In Philly, Pope Francis spoke outside Independence Hall, summoning the crowd to embrace an expansive interpretation of our first freedom. “Religious liberty, by its nature,” he said, “transcends places of worship and the private sphere of individuals and families.” Thus did he shoot down the Obama administration’s position that we should be satisfied with freedom to worship. Similarly, the pope lashed out at attempts “to reduce it [religious freedom] to a subculture without the right to a voice in the public square….” He wanted a full-throated exercise of religious expression, one that is not marginalized by secular elites.

Aboard the plane on his way home, Pope Francis was asked about Kim Davis. He stated that “conscientious objection is a right—it is a human right.” He added that all human beings are entitled to human rights, including conscience rights.

August

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), a rabidly pro-abortion Catholic, sent a letter to Pope Francis — signed by 93 of her House Democratic colleagues — that urged him to focus on certain topics when he addressed Congress Sept. 24. Not content to have him speak in general terms about concerns like economic justice or the environment, they wanted him to advance specific items on their agenda, like paid sick leave, a higher minimum wage, and climate change. Nowhere, of course, did they express openness to what he might have said on marriage, family or the sanctity of life.

A front page story in the Philadelphia Inquirer asked why there was just one session on LGBT issues at the World Meeting of Families. That’s easily answered: the event featured over 100 speakers, and gays comprise 1.6 percent of the population. That seems proportionate. Moreover, Bill Donohue’s analysis of the program yielded five areas of interest: theological, demographic, sexuality, challenges to the family, and family adversity. In each of these areas, the meeting explored a number of issues. For instance, demographic issues included “Family and Demographic Dynamics in the World”; “Blended Families”; “Hispanic Families”; “Immigrant Families”; “Women in the Family”; “The Elderly”; and “Grandparents.” Challenges to the family included “Parents as Primary Catechists”; “Growing in Virtue”; “Fostering Vocations in the Home”; “Interfaith Marriage”; “Health Finances”; “Infertility”; and “Disabilities.” Given the tremendous variety of topics for the World Meeting of Families to explore, the only segments of society that were unhappy with the program were gays and their allies in the media.

The Philadelphia Inquirer also featured a story about LGBT dissident Catholics turning to Methodists for recognition. It is hardly surprising that the World Meeting of Families Congress, which was being hosted by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, insisted that this Catholic event feature Catholic speakers. Yet the Philadelphia Inquirer still treated as breaking news the rejection of groups that have publicly professed their rejection of key Catholic teachings.

The four dissident Catholic LGBT groups that were invited to hold fort at a local Methodist church were:

• New Ways Ministry whose leaders were “permanently removed” from any “pastoral work involving homosexuals” under Pope John Paul II. Three U.S. cardinals have also said that it is a phony Catholic group.
• Dignity USA, which has also been blasted by bishops. In 2015, to show what side it was on, it featured as its Keynote Speaker, Dan Savage, the most obscene anti-Catholic in the nation.
• Fortunate Families, which refuses to accept Catholic teachings on homosexuality and marriage.
• Call to Action, whose members have been excommunicated in some dioceses. It has been in rebellion against the Church for decades.

An article in the Trentonian by L.A. Parker argued that Pope Francis should not come to the United States for a papal visit if he did not apologize for Jared Fogle, a former spokesperson for the fast food chain known as Subway, for having sex with minors. To demonstrate why the pope should apologize, Parker trotted out “Billy,” a guy who claimed to have been molested by Philly priests and teachers.

While warning cities who hosted the papal visit to respect church-state separation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State said nothing about the letter that Rep. Rosa DeLauro and 93 of her House Democratic colleagues sent to Pope Francis urging him to advance specific items on their legislative agenda. While Americans United actively opposes religious voices exerting influence on public policies, they apparently saw no problem with these government officials using their offices to try and influence a religious leader.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent a letter to officials and federal agencies warning that during previous papal visits, government officials tried to divert taxpayer money for religious purposes and said this could not happen during Pope Francis’ visit that occurred in September. In the letter, Americans United said “[G]overnment bodies must not provide any aid to a Pope’s religious activities that goes beyond the provision of services—such as police, safety and security—that are regularly given for comparable public events of a similar size.”

Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio that was critical of the city’s ticket giveaway contest for the pope’s procession through Central Park. FFRF’s letter concluded by advising the city to stop the ticket giveaway right away and requested a response from Mayor de Blasio. FFRF stated “By singling out this event for a ticket giveaway, NYC appears to be endorsing Pope Francis’ sectarian religious message. This practice violates the well-established constitutional principle that the government must remain neutral toward religion.”

A homosexual media lobbying organization known as GLAAD issued a guidebook called “The Papal Visit.” GLAAD is not a Catholic group. In fact its release of a papal guidebook for journalists is perverse, given its history of applauding anti-Catholic plays and movies and of condemning Catholics who defend the Church. The papal guidebook listed eight lay Catholics who the media should beware of. As Bill Donohue said, it speaks well for both of them that they never forget him.

September

Prior to the pope’s visit, anti-Catholic groups were selling the false notion that there is a “stark contrast between the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the laity,” and that “These bishops and cardinals are often greatly out of step with what the vast majority of Catholics believe.” The Catholic League-Polling Company survey done prior to the pope’s visit clearly contradicted this assertion. It showed faithful Catholics in support of the leadership role of the hierarchy as set forward by Christ himself and reiterated throughout the history of the Church.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) and Americans United for Separation of Church and State took various steps to limit the public’s access to Pope Francis during his visit to the United States. Americans United threatened a lawsuit if the city of Cape May, NJ went ahead with plans to broadcast the pope’s September 27 Mass from nearby Philadelphia at the Cape May Convention Hall. FFRF opposed New York City’s giveaway of tickets to see Pope Francis in Central Park September 25. They also protested the pope’s meeting with inmates at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia September 27, and the inmates being permitted to hand carve a chair to present to the pontiff even though they had volunteered to do so.

In an article in the Washington Post that was syndicated in other papers, conservative columnist George Will—an atheist—whose latest cause is assisted suicide, said “He [the pope] stands against modernity, rationality, science and, ultimately…open societies.” The Holy Father, Will opined, is known for emitting “clouds of sanctimony.” More important was his twisting of the pope’s position on materialism to mean that he is anti-electricity.

In an op-ed in the Boston Globe, long-time Catholic dissident Garry Wills comforted himself with the thought that there are two Churches: “Other Church,” which is the hierarchy, and “Our Church,” which is everyone else. It is the former, of course to whom Jesus gave his authority. Moreover, if Wills were to read the Catholic League-Polling Company survey of Catholics, it would have burst his bubble about the faithful being in rebellion against the Magisterium.

The least friendly administration to religion in history invited a collection of pro-abortion nuns, Catholic gay activists, assorted dissidents and religious rebels to attend Pope Francis’ visit to the White House. These included gay Catholic blogger Aaron Ledesma; Catholic gay activist and Church critic Nicholas Coppola; and Sister Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of the Catholic dissident group New Ways Ministry, who in 1999 was barred by the Vatican from working in ministry to homosexuals. Also attending were Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, and Sister Simone Campbell, leader of the “Nuns on the Bus” who actively campaigned for Obamacare with its blatant pro-abortion provisions. Members of GLAAD, the Catholic dissident group Dignity and various LGBT leaders also attended.

The Empire State Building did not light its towers in honor of Pope Francis. Instead, it acknowledged the opening night gala of the New York Philharmonic. In doing so, Anthony Malkin, the principal owner of the iconic building, showed his true colors once again: his disdain for Catholics is palpable. Malkin is, of course, most known for stiffing Mother Teresa on the anniversary of her centenary.

Radio host Michael Savage revealed to his listeners that it is tragic “to see a pope arise out of nowhere who espouses the very communistic principles that the church opposed.” He accused Pope Francis of promoting “the same philosophy” as the church’s persecutors and warned “Oh, beware the enemy within. He’s everywhere. He’s everywhere now.” Savage then said “Just make sure he’s not inside your own heart. You have to fortify yourself with knowledge. Knowledge is power and knowledge is really the only thing you have left against these con men and shysters who would steal your very freedom.”

Progressive Secular Humanist and CEO/founder of the popular Facebook page “Progressive Secular Examiner,” Michael Stone, wrote an article for Patheos.com titled “Pope Fatigue: Celebrating a Morally Bankrupt Institution is Wrong” in which he said “Pope Francis is a marvelous showman—a genius at public relations and media manipulation who has successfully hustled the media, and the public at large.” He accused the pope of being “guilty of perpetuating the institutional immorality of the Catholic Church.” Stone argued “In addition to being anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-birth control, anti-woman and anti-free speech, Pope Francis continues to protect and enable pedophile priests while presiding over a Catholic Church still fighting to keep accused sex abusers from going to trial.”

As thousands gathered around a video screen to watch the papal Mass at 15th Street and JFK Boulevard, a man holding a sign filled with Bible verses near a security checkpoint shouted various profanities, as well as “The Pope is an antichrist!” followed by “Priests are child molesters!” and finally “Idolaters!” The man then said “I rebuke you!” and “Turn from your sin and follow Christ!”

During the much anticipated papal Mass, anti-Catholic protests occurred throughout the city and counter protestors arrived to drown out the sounds of the anti-Catholic protestors. On 19th Street and Callowhill, people yelled obscenities on microphones as well as “You don’t have a God.” On the other hand, a man drowned out protestors exclaiming “Pope Francis is the Antichrist” with bagpipes.

Rutgers University’s student-run newspaper “The Medium” published an article after the pope’s visit to the U.S. titled “I KINDA WANT TO F*** THE POPE.” In the article, the author said “Call me crazy, but after this weekend I kinda want to f*** the Pope.” The author went on to say “Really, I want to feel the Pope inside my soaked p****.” Moreover, “I want to feel his papal fingers pulling my hair as he shoved his d*** down my throat.” “I know it may be frowned upon, since he has taken the oath of celibacy” it later read.

Charles P. Pierce at Esquire called Pope Francis’ meeting with Kim Davis “a sin against charity” and the “dumbest thing this pope has ever done.”

He went on to characterize it as a “hamhanded blunder.”

Gay activist Michaelangelo Signorile ripped the pope as “a more sinister kind of politician,” one who “secretly supports hate.”

We released a compilation of some of the most egregious expressions of anti-Catholicism from the right as well as the left during the papal visit:

• Ann Coulter tweeted that the Catholic Church was “largely built by pedophiles.” This is the kind of comment we might expect from the likes of Bill Maher, her good friend.
• “The Pope is a Lying Whore.” That’s the way the maniacs at the Westboro Baptist Church greeted the Pope. A few protesters from this group showed up in Philadelphia with signs that read, “Pervert Pope Francis.”
• Freedom From Religion Foundation loves abortion and hates the Catholic Church, so it was fitting that it spent over $200,000 in full-page ads condemning the church. Sounding like 19th century nativists, the atheists sounded the alarms in the New York Times warning us of “A Dangerous Mix.” What was so scary? The Pope’s speech before the Congress. On the same day, in the Washington Post, the same crazies blasted the Congress for inviting the leader of the “aggressively homophobic, patriarchal and undemocratic religion.”
• Violence was more than threatened when vandals wrote “Saint of Genocide” on a headstone at the Carmel Mission in California where Saint Junípero Serra is buried. They poured green paint on a statue of this champion of human rights (the Pope canonized Father Serra the previous week), splashing headstones with blood-red paint; only the headstones of people of European descent were targeted by the racists.
• Alex Jones is known for dabbling in conspiracies, so it came as no surprise that this radio talk-show genius would accuse the Pope of hiring mercenaries to shield him from immigrants.
• Meanwhile, the deep-thinkers at Charisma News were raising the question, “Why so Many People Think Pope Francis is the Antichrist” Similarly, some guy named Tom Horn showed up on the online “Jim Bakker Show” wondering whether the Pope was “demonically inspired.”
• George Will showcased his brilliance on all matters Catholic when he lambasted the Pope for allegedly standing “against modernity, rationality, science and, ultimately . . . open societies.”
• Judge Andrew Napolitano went off the rails when he accused the Pope of changing the church’s longstanding teaching that abortion is murder. He is factually wrong-nothing of the sort ever happened. Worse, he threw dirt at the Pope by branding him a “false prophet.”

  CATHOLIC LEAGUE SURVEY OF CATHOLICS

  Introduction

  Over the summer, the Catholic League commissioned a survey of Catholics, in anticipation of the media surveys we knew would precede the Holy Father’s visit to the United States. In addition to the usual questions, we probed issues that the media generally ignore. We also dug deeper, seeking a more comprehensive examination of Catholic attitudes and beliefs.

  Methodology

  In the first week of August 2015, The Polling Company, headed by Kellyanne Conway, conducted a nationwide scientific survey of 1,000 Catholics. They were randomly chosen from telephone sample lists, using both landline and cell phones.

  Sampling controls ensured proportional representation of Catholic adults, drawn from such demographic data as age, gender, race and ethnicity, and geographic region. Data were weighted slightly for age and race. The findings are accurate at the 95% confidence interval, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1%.

  Findings

  Role of Catholicism

  Respondents were asked about their religious formation. Childhood lessons were identified by 56%, while teachings from Catholic schools were cited by 45% of those questioned. Most striking, 70% of those who spent 11+ years in Catholic schools cited education as a primary source of Church teachings.

  Asked to choose from a list of characteristics about what constitutes a good Catholic life, the majority chose “living an honest and moral life” and “helping your neighbor.” African Americans, 59%, and widowers, 63%, were more likely to choose the latter.

  Roughly 68% of Catholics say their commitment towards their faith has not been altered in any significant way in the recent past. Those who are the most educated tended to feel the most excited about or committed to their Catholic faith; those who rarely attend Mass were the least excited.

  A staggering 95% of Catholics say their faith plays a significant role in their everyday lives. When it comes to the impact that their faith has on their political decisions, 69% reported that their Catholicism matters. Nearly half of Catholics, 48%, believe that if more people practiced the teachings of the Catholic Church, our society would be better off. Those who attend Mass more than once a week, 72%, are the most likely to agree with this proposition.

  Pope Francis, the Bishops, and the Media

  The findings show that 83% of Catholics approve of the overall job that Pope Francis has done. He gets his highest approval ratings from African Americans, 93%, and those who have a post-graduate education, 92%. Similarly, 79% say that he has changed the Church for the better, drawing more support from women than men.

  Catholics would prefer that the bishops stick mostly to internal Church matters; 64% feel this way and only 27% think they should address public policy. But the more a Catholic attends Mass, the more likely he is to say the bishops should speak out more about policy issues.

  When it comes to the pope, however, things are different. A plurality of 48% prefer that he speak to public policy matters; 45% say he should address mostly internal Church concerns.

  Respondents were asked about their reaction to media coverage of papal events. “During the previous Pope’s visit to the United States, Pew Research found that during the week of Pope Benedict’s visit, over half of the news coverage on the Pope focused on the clergy sex abuse scandal. Knowing this, do you think that the media coverage is mostly fair or mostly unfair toward the Catholic Church?”

  Nearly six in ten, 58%, said that the media coverage was mostly unfair; 34% said it was mostly fair.

  One of the issues that the Catholic League has been quite critical about over the years is the media habit of including non-Catholics in polls about Catholicism. We had pollsters ask respondents if they had ever heard of a survey that asked non-Jews and non-Muslims if they agree with the teachings of Judaism or Islam. Not surprisingly, 90% said they never heard of such a poll.

  By a margin of 52% to 39%, respondents agreed that “Gay couples receive more respectful/favorable treatment in popular culture like books, TV and movies than do Catholic figures like priests and nuns.”

  Catholic Church Teachings

  The media are obsessed with issues of sexuality when writing about the Catholic Church. Too often, in their surveys, they ask simple “yes or no” questions, thus eliciting information that is not particularly useful. We allowed for a more nuanced approach.

  Our survey found that roughly four-out-of-five Catholics at least partly accept the Church’s teachings on abortion.

  To be specific, respondents were asked if they agree with the Church that “all life is sacred from conception until natural death, and the taking of innocent human life, whether born or unborn, is morally wrong.”

  “I accept part of this teaching but not all” was the response of 39%, and 38% said, “I accept this teaching completely.” Conservatives and those with 11+ years of Catholic education were more likely to subscribe to the Church’s teaching.

  When asked to identify themselves as pro-life or pro-choice, 50% said they were pro-life and 38% said they were pro-choice. But it appears that even among those who say they are pro-choice, few are zealots.

  For example, 17% said abortion should be prohibited in all circumstances; 17% said it should be legal only to save the life of the mother; and 27% said abortion should only be legal in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. That’s 61% who are mostly pro-life.

  Among those who are pro-choice, only 5% said that abortion should be allowed for any reason and at any time; 4% said any reason was okay but there should be none after the first six months of pregnancy; and 17% said abortion should be legal for any reason, but not after the first three months of pregnancy. That’s 26% who are mostly pro-choice.

  Another way of looking at it is to consider how many are happy with current abortion law. In the U.S., abortion is allowed for any reason and at any time; we have the most liberal abortion laws in the world. The survey data yield an impressive finding: if only 5% agree with current law that means that 19 out of 20, or 95%, of Catholics disagree with the status quo.

  When it comes to marriage, 58% believe it should be between a man and a woman only; 38% do not agree. Those from the Northeast are the most liberal on this; frequent church-goers the most conservative

  On the subject of women priests, 58% say they agree that the Church should ordain women as priests; 36% disagree (African Americans and those widowed were the most likely to disagree). Even though a majority are okay with women priests, the data indicate that what is being measured is more of a preference than a demand: just 35% say they agree strongly that women should be priests. Which means that two-thirds either oppose women’s ordination or it doesn’t mean that much to them.

  This last interpretation of the data may be too generous. It is not at all uncommon for people to be conflicted: on the one hand, they want the Church to change certain teachings; on the other hand, they admire the constancy of Church teachings.

  In the black-and-white world of the media, there is no interest in probing the respondent’s conscience. This may make for good commentary, but it lacks a scientific basis.

  Here’s an analogy Bill Donohue often uses when speaking to the media. If asked if he would prefer “God Bless America” to the “Star Spangled Banner” as our national anthem, he would choose the former. That’s his preference. But is he going to get exercised about it if there is no change? Of course not. Similarly, when Catholics are asked whether they want the Church to change its teachings on certain subjects, they may say yes, but few are prepared to take to the streets over it.

  It is because of these concerns that Donohue crafted a question to get right to the heart of this issue.

  Respondents were asked if the Catholic Church should “remain true to its principles and not change its positions,” or should it “change beliefs and principles to conform to modern customs?” The majority, 52%, agreed that the Church should not change; 38% disagreed. It is likely that some of those who are okay with women priests also admire the steadiness of the Church’s teachings. This becomes even more apparent when the issue of the conflicted Catholic is teased even further.

  Here is the actual question, and the responses, that address this issue:

• 31% – I differ with the Catholic Church’s position on some issues but the Catholic Church shouldn’t change its beliefs or positions just because of public opinion
• 28% – I agree with most every position the Catholic Church takes and the Catholic Church should remain true to its principles and not change its position
• 26%  – I differ with the Catholic Church’s position on some issues and the Catholic Church should modernize its beliefs by changing its position to reflect current public opinion
• 9% – I disagree with most every position the Catholic Church takes and the Catholic Church should absolutely change its positions to reflect modern day beliefs
• 2% – None of the above
• 4% – Don’t know; cannot judge

This data indicate that 6-in-10 Catholics want the Church to stay true to its principles; only 35% want it to conform to modern culture. Again, this suggests that many of those who might differ with the Church on women priests, or some other issue, also prefer a Church that doesn’t change with the winds of the dominant culture.

This is nothing new. In a 1995 survey of Catholics, commissioned by the Catholic League, we asked an almost identical question. It yielded practically the same results.

Religious Liberty

By a healthy 2-1 margin, Catholics support laws that protect religious liberties. To be exact, 63% oppose compelling private businesses to provide services that violate their religious beliefs; 30% are not opposed. When asked specifically about forcing wedding-related businesses to provide services like taking photos or baking cakes for same-sex marriages if it violates their religious beliefs, 62% say it is mostly unfair; 29% say it is fair.

Similarly, 60% agree that “Religious freedom laws are only meant to protect religious freedom, and the threat of these laws is exaggerated by the media and allies.” Only 32% believe that religious freedom laws are worrisome.

Respondents were also questioned about the Health and Human Services mandate. They were asked if they agree or disagree with the federal government forcing Catholic organizations “to pay for health care coverage that covers contraceptive drugs, including those that can destroy a human embryo, even if it is against their religious beliefs?” Fully 68% disagreed; only 27% agreed.

Conclusion

It is entirely legitimate for survey researchers to question Catholics about their religion, probing their beliefs and attitudes. But when non-Catholics are asked to pass judgment on Church teachings and/or no attempt is made to distinguish between practicing Catholics and non-practicing Catholics, the results are ineluctably skewed towards a more critical outcome. This explains why the Catholic League survey was conducted: we sought a more accurate picture of the status of Catholicism today.

WHY FR. SERRA DESERVES TO BE CANONIZED
Bill Donohue

This article is adapted from Bill Donohue’s longer piece, “The Noble Legacy of Father Serra”; it is available online.

Who Was Father Serra?

Junípero Serra was born on the Island of Majorca, off the coast of Spain in 1713, and died in Monterey, California in 1784. Partly of Jewish ancestry, this young and sickly boy applied to enter the Order of St. Francis of Assisi; he became a Franciscan in 1731.

He is known as the greatest missionary in U.S. history, traveling 24,000 miles, baptizing and confirming thousands of persons, mostly Indians (in 1777 the Vatican authorized Serra to administer the sacrament of confirmation, usually the reserve of a bishop). He had but one goal: to facilitate eternal salvation for the Indians of North America.

Were the Indians Perceived as Being Inferior?

Culturally, the Indians appeared inferior, but they were not seen as racially inferior. Take, for example, the Chumash Indians of Southern California, the first California Indians to be contacted by Spanish explorers. When the Franciscans first met them, they were struck by how different they looked and behaved. The women were partially naked and the men were totally naked. Serra, in fact, felt as though he was in Eden.

Moreover, the Indians had no written language, and practiced no agriculture. They lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering. They ate things that the missionaries and the soldiers found bizarre, including roots, seeds, birds, horses, cats, dogs, owls, rats, snakes, and bats. These primitive habits, along with other practices, convinced them that changes had to be made.

How Did Father Serra Get Along with the Indians?

For the most part, they got along well. This had something to do with the fact that the Catholic Church led the protests against inhumane treatment of the Indians; the Spanish crown ultimately agreed with this position. It cannot be said too strongly that the primary mission of the Franciscans was not to conquer the Indians, but to make them good Christians. The missions were supposed to be temporary, not some permanent take over.

The Indians drew a distinction between the way the Spanish soldiers treated them and the way the Franciscans did. So when some Indians would act badly, the soldiers blamed them and sought harsh punishments. The priests, on the other hand, saw murderous acts as the work of the Devil. Also, the soldiers were always anxious to take land from the Indians, but they were met with resistance from the priests.

Both the colonial authorities and the missionaries vied for control over the Indians, but their practices could not have been more different. With the exception of serious criminal acts, Serra insisted that all punishments were to be meted out by the priests. While he did not always succeed in challenging the civil authorities, he often did, the result being that the Indians were spared the worst excesses.

The Franciscans also sought to protect Indian women from the Spaniards. The missionaries carved out a very organized lifestyle for the Indians, keeping a close eye on attempts by Spanish men to abuse Indian women. The Friars segregated the population on the basis of sex and age, hoping to protect the females from unwanted advances. When sexual abuse occurred, it was quickly condemned by Serra and his fellow priests.

Was it Violence that Decimated the Indians?

No. What killed most of the Indians were diseases contracted from the Spaniards. According to author James A. Sandos, “Indians died in the missions in numbers that appalled Franciscans.” He describes how this happened. “When Spaniards in various stages of exploration and expansion entered into territory unacquainted with disease,” he writes, “they unwittingly unleashed disease microbodes into what demographers call ‘virgin soil.’ The resulting wildfire-like contagion, called ‘virgin soil epidemics,’ decimated unprotected American Indians populations.” Professor Gregory Orfalea is no doubt correct to maintain that it is doubtful if Serra ever understood the ramifications of this biological catastrophe.

Isn’t It True that the Clergy Flogged the Indians?

By 21st century standards, flogging is considered an unjust means of punishment, but it was not seen that way in the 18th century. Fornication, gambling, and the like were considered taboo, justifying flogging.

Serra, who never flogged anyone (save himself as an expression of redemptive suffering), admitted there were some excesses, but he also stressed something that is hard for 21st century Americans to understand: unlike flogging done by the authorities, when priests indulged the practice, it was done out of love, not hatred. “We, every one of us,” Serra said, “came here for the single purpose of doing them [the Indians] good and for their eternal salvation; and I feel sure that everyone knows that we love them.”

There is also something hypocritical about using 21st century moral standards to evaluate 18th century practices. Abortion-on-demand is a reality today and that is barbaric.

Some Contend that the Indians Were Treated the Way Hitler Treated Jews?

This is perhaps the most pernicious lie promoted by those who have an animus against the Church. Hitler committed genocide against Jews; there was no genocide committed by Serra and the Franciscans against the California Indians. Hitler put Jews in ovens; the missionaries put the Indians to work, paying them for their labor. Hitler wanted to wipe out the Jews, so that Western civilization could be saved; the priests wanted to service the Indians, so that they could be saved.

Sandos pointedly refutes this vile comparison: “Hitler and the Nazis intended to destroy the Jews of Europe and created secret places to achieve that end, ultimately destroying millions of people in a systematic program of labor exploitation and death camps. Spanish authorities and Franciscan missionaries, however, sought to bring Indians into a new Spanish society they intended to build on the California frontier and were distressed to see the very objects of their religious and political desire die in droves. From the standpoint of intention alone, there can be no valid comparison between Franciscans and Nazis.”

Moreover, as Sandos writes, even from the standpoint of results, the comparison fails. “Hitler intended to implement a ‘final solution’ to the so-called Jewish problem and was close to accomplishing his goals when the Allies stopped him. In contrast, neither Spanish soldiers nor missionaries knew anything about the germ theory of disease, which was not widely accepted until late in the nineteenth century.”

Those who make these malicious charges know very well that Jews never acted kindly toward the Nazis. They also know, or should know, that acts of love by the Indians toward the missionaries are legion. No one loves those who are subjecting them to genocide.

Were the Indians Treated as Slaves?

No. The historical record offers no support for this outrageous claim. Slaves in the U.S. had no rights and were not considered human. The missionaries granted the Indians rights and respected their human dignity.

It is also unfair to compare the lifestyle of the Indians to slave conditions in the U.S. “The purpose of a mission was to organize a religious community in isolation that could nourish itself physically and spiritually. Surplus production was to feed other missions and local towns and presidios. Profit was never a consideration, unlike plantations, where profit was the purpose and reason for their creation.”

Did the Missionaries Eradicate Indian Culture?

No. While missionary outreach clearly altered many elements of Indian culture, as Orfalea notes, “the fact is, the California Indian did not disappear. From the low point at the turn of the [20th] century (25,000 remained), the Indian population has grown to well over 600,000 today, twice what it was at pre-contact.” Indeed, today there are over one hundred federally recognized California tribes with tribal lands, with many others seeking recognition.

Not only did the missionaries not wipe out the native language of the Indians, they learned it and employed Indians as teachers. Some cultural modification was inevitable, given that the missionaries taught the Indians how to be masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, and painters. The Indians were also taught how to sell and buy animals, and were allowed to keep their bounty. Women were taught spinning, knitting, and sewing.

“Although many historians once thought that Indian culture had been eradicated in the missions,” Sandos says, “anthropologists and other observers have provided evidence to the contrary.”

Should Serra Be Made a Saint?

The evidence which has been culled for over 200 years, from multiple sources, is impressive, and it argues strongly for including Father Serra in the pantheon of saints.

A total of 21 missions were established by the missionaries, nine of them under the tenure of Serra; he personally founded six missions. He baptized more than 6,000 Indians, and confirmed over 5,000; some 100,000 were baptized overall during the mission period. Impressive as these numbers are, it was his personal characteristics that made him so special.

“To the Indian,” Orfalea writes, “he [Serra] was loving, enthusiastic, and spiritually and physically devoted.” His devotion was motivated by his embrace of Christianity and his strong sense of justice. To put it another way, his love for the Indians was no mere platitude. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” was routinely put into practice; he knew no other way. But it was his humility, coupled with his merciful behavior, that distinguished him from all the other missionaries.

Serra was so merciful that he said, “in case the Indians, whether pagans or Christians, would kill me, they should be pardoned.” This was not made in jest. He insisted that his request be honored as quickly as possible, and even declared, “I want to see a formal decree” on this matter.

Father Serra deserves to be made a saint. He gave his life in service to the Lord, battled injustice, and inspired everyone who worked with him to be a better Christian. That Saint Junípero Serra will now inspire people all over the world is a certainty, and a great testimony to his noble legacy.

Pope Francis canonized Blessed Junípero Serra on September 23 outside the National Shrine in Washington, DC.

SCORE ONE FOR OUR SIDE ON FR. SERRA

In early July, the California state legislature announced that it would postpone a vote on the proposal to remove the statue of Fr. Junípero Serra from the U.S. Capitol. A few weeks later, California Gov. Jerry Brown, while attending an event in the Vatican, flatly said, “We’re going to keep his statue in Congress. It’s done as far as I’m concerned.” We are happy to report that we had a hand in this outcome.

At the beginning of the summer this issue was anything but settled. California State Senator Ricardo Lara was responsible for authoring the proposal to remove the statue, but after a massive campaign protesting his decision, he requested that the vote be postponed. He cited Pope Francis’ upcoming visit as the reason for the postponement.

California Assemblyman William P. Brough and Sen. Pat Bates welcomed the good news. According to a joint statement released by Brough and Bates, “Debating such a bill just before the pope’s visit would have conveyed a terrible message to him and millions of Catholics around the world, contradicting California’s reputation as a tolerant and welcoming place for all people.”

“Now that the California legislature has agreed to a delay,” Bill Donohue said at the time, “perhaps they can take this opportunity to reconsider the proposal and drop the matter entirely. The Catholic League has contended that the opposition to Fr. Serra’s statue rises out of misunderstandings of his work and legacy. It was to correct such misunderstandings that I published the booklet, The Noble Legacy of Fr. Serra; it was distributed to interested parties in California and beyond.”

In the run-up to the vote, we blanketed California with copies of Donohue’s booklet. John Liston, executive director of Serra International, wrote to him expressing his gratitude. “I think it went a long way in assisting the California legislature to suspend the vote to remove the statue of Fr. Serra from Statuary Hall,” he said.

We are grateful to Gov. Brown for laying anchor on this matter. As we have continually argued, Fr. Serra deserves to be honored, not vilified. He was the most prominent person to champion human rights for American Indians. That is why he was canonized by Pope Francis on September 23.

NEW YORK TIMES MALIGNS SAINT; NO EVIDENCE PROVIDED

On September 30, when Bill Donohue read a New York Times front-page story on Saint Junípero Serra, he could hardly believe his eyes. The 17th century priest, who championed the rights of Indians, had just been canonized by Pope Francis the week before. So it came as a shock to read that he was accused of torturing Indians.

As Catholic League members know, in anticipation of the expected controversy over Father Serra, Donohue authored a booklet on him a few months ago. He read widely on the Franciscan priest, and published his findings in The Noble Legacy of Father Serra; he used a Q&A format to make his research easily accessible to readers. In all his readings, Donohue never found a single scholar who ever accused Father Serra of torturing Indians.

The reporter who wrote this story, Laura M. Holson, offered this remarkable sentence: “Historians agree that he [Serra] forced Native Americans to abandon their tribal culture and convert to Christianity, and that he had them whipped and imprisoned and sometimes worked or tortured to death.”

Donohue readily concedes that the Indians were not treated justly. But it was the Spanish conquerors, not the Franciscans, who were responsible for the worst excesses. Indeed, Father Serra’s heroism, which led to his canonization, is largely a function of his opposition to Indian maltreatment. It was he who insisted that the Indians should be treated with the dignity afforded all human beings.

On the day the story appeared, Donohue emailed the reporter asking her to provide evidence that “Historians agree” that Father Serra had Indians “tortured to death.” [His letter and all the subsequent exchanges he had with Times officers is laid out below in chronological order.]

As you can see, none of the parties at the newspaper were able to answer his one question: Who are these historians? Yet they refused to run a correction.

No one disputes that radical activists, racists, and anti-Catholics have made wild and unsubstantiated accusations against the Franciscans. But there is a difference between these agenda-ridden ideologues and scholars. The latter would be expected to provide evidence, and that is why the charge that “historians agree” that Father Serra was a barbarian is complete nonsense. If this were true, the Times would be able to name them.

Finally, it must be said that Vatican scholars pored over thousands of documents related to Father Serra and released a 1,200 page position paper on him. They would never recommend for sainthood anyone who ever authorized the torturing of innocent persons.

NY TIMES PIECE ON FR. SERRA NEEDS CORRECTION
October 1

The following news releases explain the exchange between Bill Donohue and the New York Times.

The top story (below) was Donohue’s first response—it was sent the day of the news story on September 30. After a day went by and he heard nothing, he went public with his complaint on October 1. After a week went by and he heard nothing from either the “Corrections” editors or the public editor, he issued his second news release (the bottom one) on October 7. On the next page is the final exchange that occurred on October 8; it was published as a press release on October 9.

Donohue emailed the following letter to New York Times reporter Laura M. Holson about her article, “Sainthood of Serra Reopens Wounds of Colonialism in California”:

You said that “Historians agree” that Fr. Serra had Indians “tortured to death.” I have done research on Serra and written about him, yet I know of no historian who makes such a claim. Please name them. I can name many who never made such a claim.

[Donohue listed the following ten books as evidence that Fr. Serra never tortured Indians: Junípero Serra: California’s Founding Father by Steven Hackel; Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions by James Sandos; Life and Times of Fray Junípero Serra, Volumes 1-2 by Maynard Geiger; Junípero Serra: California, Indians, and the Transformation of a Missionary by Rose Marie Beebe and Robert Senkewicz; Journey to the Sun: Junípero Serra’s Dream and the Founding of California by Gregory Orfalea; Saint Junipero Serra: Making Sense of History and Legacy by Christian Clifford; Junípero Serra: A Short Biography by Kerry Walters; A Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California’s Indians by the Spanish Missions by Elias Castillo; Life of Ven. Padre Junípero Serra by Francis Palou; Francisco Palou’s Life and Apostolic Labors of The Venerable Father Junípero Serra, Founder of The Franciscans by Francisco Palou and C. Scott Williams.]

Holson never responded. As a result, Donohue asked for an entry in the “Corrections” section of the newspaper, and he also contacted the public editor. This is a serious issue: when a reporter blithely says that “Historians agree,” readers take it that there is at least a consensus among historians about the subject. But such is not the case on this issue. The only persons given to such an accusation are radical activists, not professional scholars.

Not one of them accuse this saintly priest of torturing Indians. Holson quoted Steven Hackel in her article, and though he has been somewhat critical of Fr. Serra, he never made such a claim. The one person who said torture took place, Elias Castillo, never indicted Fr. Serra. None of the other books come even close to accusing Fr. Serra of torture. Quite simply, it is a lie.

NEW YORK TIMES SMEAR OF FR. SERRA STANDS
October 7

After the New York Times ran a front-page story that smeared St. Junípero Serra, repeated attempts to have the paper correct the record failed.

On the day that Laura M. Holson’s news story appeared, “Sainthood of Serra Reopens Wounds of Colonialism in California,” Bill Donohue sent her the following email:

You said that “Historians agree” that Fr. Serra had Indians “tortured to death.” I have done research on Serra and written about him, yet I know of no historian who makes such a claim. Please name them. I can name many who never made such a claim.

The following day Donohue contacted the “Corrections” section of the paper, as well as the public editor, sending them the above email. He also said, “Ms. Holson has not responded. Assuming she cannot name historians who have made such a claim, I am requesting that this merit inclusion in the ‘Corrections’ section of the Times.”

One week went by after Donohue’s email to these two parties, and still no response. Moreover, he wrote them again, sending the previous emails: “Please let me know if I can expect a correction to Ms. Holson’s story. If her account is accurate, she should be able to name the historians who say that Fr. Serra tortured Indians. This story is particularly important because Pope Francis just canonized Fr. Serra when he was in DC. Thank you.”

Another day passed, and still no reply. This is yellow journalism at its worst. When Donohue submits paid ads to the Times, he is often asked to identify his sources. Yet it accepts hit jobs like Holson’s. The fact is there is no list of historians who claim Fr. Serra tortured Indians, and the Times knows it. The Catholic League sent this news release to a wide audience.

NEW YORK TIMES REMAINS DEFIANT ON SERRA

The following exchange occurred on October 8:

Dear Mr. Donohue:

You might have been busy with your news release of October 1 and did not have a chance to keep up with Laura Holson’s coverage of the shooting in Oregon. She began filing from Oregon last Friday.   So while our editors discussed your complaint when it was received, we waited to go over it with Ms. Holson until she had reached the point where she was not inundated with her coverage of that horrific event.

Certainly you have very strong views on this issue and have written extensively on it. But after many discussions, a review of past Times coverage and other resources, I agree with Ms. Holson’s editors that “historians” is accurate, and therefore no correction is required.

At one point you sent us a list of books you considered to be “the authoritative books on Fr. Serra.” Ms. Holson had already reviewed the writings of some of the historians you cited in that list.

If I thought having an extended conversation on this would help, I would be happy to. But after re-reading your correspondence, I cannot think of anything we could do or say that would convince you that our coverage was fair and complete — or that the reference to “historians” is accurate.

We respect your opinion and I hope you will respect our decision — even if you do not agree with it. If nothing else, rest assured that your points have been thoroughly reviewed and a great deal of time has been put into making this decision.

Sincerely,
Greg Brock
Gregory E. Brock
Senior Editor for Standards
The New York Times

Dear Mr. Brock,

Thank you for taking my complaint seriously. I have just one question: Who are the “historians” who claim that Fr. Serra tortured Indians?

Sincerely,
Bill Donohue

We at the Catholic League take great pride in providing readers with factual material; we are always ready to back up our work with evidence. It is one thing to offer an opinion, quite another to make unequivocal statements of a condemnatory nature in a news story. That is exactly what the New York Times did. Worse, it is considered the newspaper of record.

 The Times only made matters worse when its Senior Editor for Standards took the side of the reporter without identifying the historians who claim that Fr. Serra tortured Indians to death.

We are disappointed that this incredible fabrication was not challenged by others. Surely there are scholars and members of the Catholic Church who are in a position to know that what the Times said cannot be substantiated. That said, we are happy that we didn’t miss the opportunity to challenge them.

 Bill Donohue

The following report written by Bill Donohue was published on the Catholic League’s website on November 2. It was sent to those in the media and entertainment industries as well as Catholic dioceses throughout the nation.

The movie “Spotlight” is bound to spark more conversation about the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, much of what the American public knows about this issue is derived from the popular culture, something this film will only abet. Therefore, the time is ripe to revisit what the actual data on this subject reveal.

When the Boston Globe sent the nation reeling in 2002 with revelations of priestly sexual abuse, and the attendant cover-up, Catholics were outraged by the level of betrayal. This certainly included the Catholic League. The scandal cannot be denied. What is being denied, however, is the existence of another scandal—the relentless effort to keep the abuse crisis alive, and the deliberate refusal to come to grips with its origins. Both scandals deserve our attention.

Myth: The Scandal Never Ended

When interviewed about the scandal in 2002 by the New York Times, I said, “I am not the church’s water boy. I am not here to defend the indefensible.” In the Catholic League’s 2002 Annual Report, I even defended the media. “The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the New York Times covered the story with professionalism,” I wrote.

A decade later things had changed. In the Catholic League’s 2011 Annual Report, I offered a critical assessment of the media. “In a nutshell,” I said, “what changed was this: in 2011, unlike what happened in 2002, virtually all the stories were about accusations against priests dating back decades, sometimes as long as a half-century ago. Keep in mind that not only were most of the priests old and infirm, many were dead; thus, only one side of the story could be told. Adding to our anger was the fact that no other institution, religious or secular, was being targeted for old allegations.”

It became clear that by 2011 we were dealing with two scandals, not one. Scandal I was internal—the church-driven scandal. This was the result of indefensible decisions by the clergy: predatory priests and their enabling bishops. Scandal II was external, the result of indefensible cherry-picking of old cases by rapacious lawyers and vindictive victims’ groups. They were aided and abetted by activists, the media, and Hollywood.

Regarding Scandal II, more than cultural elites were involved. “In 2011,” I wrote, “it seemed as if ‘repressed memories’ surfaced with alacrity, but only among those who claimed they were abused by a priest. That there was no similar explosion of ‘repressed memories’ on the part of those who were molested by ministers, rabbis, teachers, psychologists, athletic coaches, and others, made us wonder what was going on.”

The steeple-chasing lawyers and professional victims’ organizations had a vested economic interest in keeping the scandal alive; the former made hundreds of millions and they, in turn, lavishly greased the latter. But it wasn’t money that motivated the media and Hollywood elites to keep the story alive—it was ideology.

To be specific, the Catholic Church has long been the bastion of traditional morality in American society, and if there is anything that the big media outlets and the Hollywood studios loathe, it is being told that they need to put a brake on their libido. So when the scandal came to light, the urge to pounce proved irresistible. The goal was, and still is, to attenuate the moral authority of the Catholic Church. It certainly wasn’t outrage over the sexual abuse of minors that stirred their interest: if that were the case, then many other institutions would have been put under the microscope. But none were.

There is no conspiracy here. What unfolded is the logical outcome of the ideological leanings of our cultural elites. Unfortunately, “Spotlight” will only add to Scandal II. How so? Just read what those connected with the film are saying.

Tom McCarthy, who co-wrote the script with Josh Singer, said, “I would love for Pope Francis and the cardinals and bishops and priests to see this [film].” Would it make any difference? “I remain pessimistic,” he says. “To be honest,” he declares, “I expect no reaction at all.”

Mark Ruffalo plays a reporter, and, like McCarthy, he says, “I hope the Vatican will use this movie to begin to right those wrongs.” (my italics.) He is not sanguine about the prospects. Indeed, he has given up on the Church.

The view that the Catholic Church has not even begun to “right those wrongs” is widely shared. Indeed, the impression given to the American people, by both the media and Hollywood—it is repeated nightly by TV talk-show hosts—is that the sexual abuse scandal in the Church never ended. Impressions count: In December 2012, a CBS News survey found that 55 percent of Catholics, and 73 percent of Americans overall, believe that priestly sexual abuse of minors remains a problem. Only 14 percent of Americans believe it is not a problem today.

Commentary by those associated with “Spotlight,” as well as movie reviewers and pundits, are feeding this impression. But the data show that the conventional wisdom is wrong. The fact of the matter is that the sexual abuse of minors by priests has long ceased to be an institutional problem. All of these parties—Catholics, the American public, the media, and Hollywood—entertain a view that is not supported by the evidence. “Spotlight” will only add to the propaganda.

In 2002, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned research-ers from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to conduct a major study of priestly sexual abuse; it covered the years 1950 to 2002. It found that accusations of the sexual molestation of minors were made against 4,392 priests.

This figure represents 4 percent of all Catholic priests. What was not widely touted is that 43 percent of these allegations (1881) were unsubstantiated. To qualify as “unsubstantiated” the bar was set high: the allegation had to be “proven to be untruthful and fabricated” as a result of a criminal investigation.

In other words, roughly 2 percent of priests were likely guilty of molesting minors. Accusations proven to be false should carry no weight in assessing wrongdoing, yet the fabrications are treated by the media as if they were true. It must also be said that this rate of false accusations is much higher than found in studies of this problem in the general population.

More than half of the accused priests had only one allegation brought against them. Moreover, 3.5 percent accounted for 26 percent of all the victims. As computed by professor Philip Jenkins, an expert on this subject, the John Jay data reveal that “Out of 100,000 priests active in the U.S. in this half-century, a cadre of just 149 individuals—one priest out of every 750—accounted for a quarter of all allegations of clergy abuse.”

These data give the lie to the accusation that during this period the sexual molestation of minors by priests was rampant. It manifestly was not. Even more absurd is the accusation that the problem is still ongoing.

In the last ten years, from 2005 to 2014, an average 8.4 credible accusations were made against priests for molestation that occurred in any one of those years. The data are available online at the USCCB website (see the reports issued for these years). Considering that roughly 40,000 priests could have had a credible accusation made against them, this means that almost 100 percent of priests had no such accusation made against them!

Sadly, I cannot name a single media outlet, including Catholic ones, that even mentioned this, much less emphasized it. The Catholic News Service, paid for by the bishops, should have touted this, but it didn’t. This delinquency is what helps to feed the misperception that the Church has not even begun to deal with this problem.

In 2011, researchers from John Jay issued another report, “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010.” While the document was often critical, it commended the Church for its forthrightness in dealing with this problem. “No other institution has undertaken a public study of sexual abuse,” the report said, “and as a result, there are no comparable data to those collected by the Catholic Church.” Looking at the most recent data, the report found that the “incidence of child sexual abuse has declined in both the Catholic Church and in society in general, though the rate of decline is greater in the Catholic Church in the same time period.”

So much for the myth that the Church has not yet “begun” to address this issue. Every study by the John Jay researchers shows that most of the abuse took place between 1965-1985. This is not hard to figure out: the sexual revolution began in the 1960s and fizzled out by the mid-1980s. Libertinism drove the sexual revolution, and it hit the seminaries as well, especially in the 1970s. Matters slowed once AIDS was uncovered in 1981. It took fear—the fear of death—to bring about a much needed reality check.

Myth: Celibacy is the Root Cause

On October 28, 2015, a columnist for the Boston Globe wrote an article about “Spotlight” titled, “Based on a True Story.” Similarly, script writer Tom McCarthy said, “We made a commitment to let the facts play.”

No one disputes the fact that predatory priests were allowed to run wild in the Boston Archdiocese; the problem was not confined to Boston, but it was the epicenter. That molesting priests were moved around like chess pieces to unsuspecting parishes is also true. Ditto for the cover-up orchestrated by some bishops. This is the very stuff of Scandal I. Where the factual claims dissolve, however, is when the script claims to know what triggered the scandal.

“Spotlight” made its premiere on September 3 at the Venice Film Festival. A review published by the international French news agency, AFP, noted that “in Spotlight’s nuanced script, few in the Catholic hierarchy have shown any inclination to address whether the enforced celibacy of priests might be one of the root causes of the problem.”

The celibacy myth was debunked by the John Jay 2011 report. “Celibacy has been constant in the Catholic Church since the eleventh century and could not account for the rise and subsequent decline in abuse cases from the 1960s through the 1980s.” But if celibacy did not drive the scandal, what did? The John Jay researchers cite the prevalence of sexually immature men who were allowed to enter the seminaries, as well as the effects of the sexual revolution.

There is much truth to this observation, but it is incomplete. Who were these sexually immature men? The popular view, one that is promoted by the movie as well, suggests they were pedophiles. The data, however, prove this to be wrong.

When the word got out that “Spotlight” was going to hit the big screen, Mike Fleming, Jr. got an Exclusive for Deadline Hollywood; his piece appeared on August 8, 2014. The headline boasted that it was a “Boston Priest Pedophile Pic.” In his first sentence, he described the film as “a drama that Tom McCarthy will direct about the Boston Globe investigation into pedophile priests.” This narrative is well entrenched in the media, and in the culture at large. Whenever this issue is discussed, it is pitched as a “pedophile” scandal. We can now add “Spotlight’s” contribution to this myth.

One of the most prominent journalists on the Boston Globe “Spotlight” team was Kevin Cullen. On February 28, 2004, he wrote a story assessing a report issued by the National Review Board, appointed by the USCCB, on what exactly happened. He quoted the head of the Board’s research committee, well-respected attorney Robert S. Bennett, as saying it was not pedophilia that drove the scandal. “There are no doubt many outstanding priests of a homosexual orientation who live chaste, celibate lives,” he said, “but any evaluation of the causes and context of the current crisis must be cognizant of the fact that more than 80 percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual nature.”

Bennett was correct, and Cullen knew it to be true as well. “Of the 10,667 reported victims [in the time period between 1950 and 2002],” Cullen wrote, “81 percent were male, the report said, and more than three-quarters [the exact figure is 78 percent] were postpubescent, meaning the abuse did not meet the clinical definition of pedophilia.” One of Bennett’s colleagues, Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins University, was more explicit. “This behavior was homosexual predation on American Catholic youth,” he said, “yet it is not being discussed.” It never is.

So it is indisputable that the Boston Globe “Spotlight” team knew that it was homosexuality, not pedophilia, that drove the scandal. Yet that is not what is being reported today. Indeed, as recently as November 1, 2015, a staff reporter for the Boston Globe said the movie was about “the pedophile priest crisis.” This flies in the face of the evidence. In fact, the John Jay 2011 report found that less than 5 percent of the abusive priests fit the diagnosis of pedophilia, thus concluding that “it is inaccurate to refer to abusers as ‘pedophile priests.'”

The evidence, however, doesn’t count. Politics counts. The mere suggestion that homosexual priests accounted for the lion’s share of the problem was met with cries of homophobia. This is at the heart of Scandal II. Even the John Jay researchers went on the defensive. Most outrageous was the voice of dissident, so-called progressive, Catholics: It was they who pushed for a relaxation of sexual mores in the seminaries, thus helping to create Scandal I. Then they helped to create Scandal II by refusing to take ownership of the problem they foisted; they blamed “sexual repression” for causing the crisis.

So how did the deniers get around the obvious? Cullen said that “most [of the molested] fell victim to ephebophiles, men who are sexually attracted to adolescent or postpubescent children.” But clinically speaking, ephebophilia is a waste-basket term of no scientific value.

Philip Jenkins once bought into this idea but eventually realized that the word “communicates nothing to most well-informed readers. These days I tend rather to speak of these acts as ‘homosexuality.'” Jenkins attributes his change of mind to Mary Eberstadt, one of the most courageous students of this issue. “When was the last time you heard the phrase ‘ephebophile’ applied to a heterosexual man?” In truth, ephebophilia is shorthand for homosexuals who prey on adolescents.

Even those who know better, such as the hierarchy of the Church, are reluctant to mention the devastating role that homosexual priests have played in molesting minors. In April 2002, the cardinals of the United States, along with the leadership of the USCCB and the heads of several offices of the Holy See, issued a Communiqué from the Vatican on this issue. “Attention was drawn to the fact that almost all the cases involved adolescents and therefore were not cases of true pedophilia” they said. So what were they? They were careful not to drop the dreaded “H” word.

Further proof that the problem is confined mostly to gay priests is provided by Father Michael Peterson, co-founder of St. Luke’s Institute, the premier treatment center in the nation for troubled priests. He frankly admits, “We don’t see heterosexual pedophiles at all.” This suggests that virtually all the priests who abused prepubescent children had a homosexual orientation.

The spin game is intellectually dishonest. When adult men have sex with postpubescent females, the predatory behavior is seen as heterosexual in nature. But when adult men have sex with postpubsecent males, the predatory behavior is not seen as homosexual in nature. This isn’t science at work—it’s politics, pure and simple.

I have said it many times before, and I will say it again: most gay priests are not molesters but most molesting priests have been gay. It gets tiresome, however, to trot this verity out every time I address this issue. That’s because it means nothing to elites in the dominant culture. Just whispering about the role gay priests have played in the sexual abuse scandal triggers howls of protest.

There is plenty of evidence that Hollywood has long been a haven for sexual predators, both straight and gay. The same is true of many religious and secular institutions throughout society. But there is little interest in the media and in Tinseltown to profile them. They have identified the enemy and are quite content to keep pounding away.

There is no doubt that the Boston Globe “Spotlight” team deserved a Pulitzer Prize for exposing Scandal I. Regrettably, there will be no Pulitzer for exposing Scandal II.