Our friends at the Thomas More Law Center, a national Christian public interest law firm, are already gearing up to defend against the War on Christmas that inevitably takes place every year.

The Law Center is going on the offensive, and they need your help. You can help the Law Center achieve its goal by asking your city to allow the display of a Nativity scene on public property during the Christmas season.

If you are interested in erecting a Nativity display on public property, Law Center attorneys stand ready to give you advice on how this can be legally done. If a city denies your request to erect a display, Law Center attorneys will investigate the matter, determine whether your constitutional rights have been violated, and when appropriate, initiate a lawsuit. All their legal services are without charge.

If you or someone you know wants to help with this Christmas campaign, please contact the Thomas More Law Center at 734-827-2001 or by e-mail at Christmas@thomasmore.org.

Recently, two victims’ watchdog groups, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and BishopAccountability.org, responded to reports on sexual abuse. Once again they proved that they are not to be trusted.

The day before the Vatican issued its guidelines on how to address sex abuse, SNAP condemned them. The day prior to the  release of the John Jay report on the “Causes and Context” of abuse, BishopAccountability condemned the study.

Their credibility was shot long ago—both are relentless critics of the Church and neither is open to reason. Regrettably, not everyone has figured them out, and this includes many in the media. Either that, or the enemies of the Church are just given a pass.

Their actions should have been a wake-up call to fair-minded journalists. If any critics are to be deemed credible, they must first pass the test of rationality. But to these two groups, evidence doesn’t matter. They’ve made up their minds, and nothing the Church does can change it.

Those in the media who continue to give voice to these irrational sources cast doubt on their own integrity.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue notes recent lies about priests:

It has been said that Fr. Mychal Judge, the first of the First Responders to die on 9/11, was gay. Not everyone agrees. No matter, even those who allege that Judge was gay say he kept his sexual orientation private, disclosing it to only a few friends. Fr. Brian Jordan, for instance, said of his fellow Franciscan in 2002 that “I knew him for 25 years and I didn’t know that he was gay until after he died.”

It really shouldn’t matter whether Judge was gay or straight, but unfortunately some in gay circles, as well as in liberal quarters generally, are turning this issue into a national spectacle. Worse, some are lying. In the August 19 edition of a dissident Catholic newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter, it says, “Judge was a Catholic priest who publicly acknowledged that he was a celibate gay man.” After reading this, I asked Jeff Field, our communications director, to e-mail Tom Fox, editor of the newspaper asking him for the evidence that Judge publicly declared that he was gay. That was yesterday, and Fox has not replied. It is a lie.

SNAP Wisconsin, the Wisconsin branch of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, posted an article on September 7 about a Philadelphia priest who has never been convicted of anything, but will go on trial next year for allegedly covering up a crime. The title of the article reads, “The Crimes of Monsignor William J. Lynn.” Field contacted the SNAP chapter yesterday asking them to correct the record. “You know very well that Monsignor Lynn has only been accused and hasn’t been convicted of any crimes,” Field said. There has been no response.

Lying is bad enough, but when it is done for political purposes, it is obscene. That priests are the primary victims these days is indisputable.

Contact Tom Fox: tfox@ncronline.org

Contact the SNAP author, John Pilmaier: pilmaier@milwpc.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a December 3 statement by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) on the video that was pulled from the Smithsonian last week:

AAMD calls it “extremely regrettable” that the Smithsonian pulled the vile video. Nowhere does it even imply that Christians might rightly be offended by the sight of large ants crawling all over Jesus on the Cross. As such, AAMD has made the case for withdrawing all public support for the arts. If this is what they call art—never mind the pornographic images of gay men—and if this is how they treat Christians, then let them find private sources for their work.

AAMD is also guilty of rank hypocrisy. In 2006, it released a report on sacred objects, maintaining that “art museums should strive to accord equal treatment and respect to all religions in the interpretation of religious works of art.” Does AAMD not regard a crucifix as a “sacred object”? Christians would love to know. Or is their interest in “sacred objects” limited to those found in “indigenous societies,” as their policy seems to indicate?

In a large survey of museum-going households released in April, it was found that they are significantly better educated and affluent than the U.S. population; they are also overwhelmingly white. The time has come, then, to stop funding the leisure of rich white people: all public monies for the arts should cease. Quite frankly, to make the working class pay for the leisure of the rich amounts to class discrimination. In the spirit of social justice, a better case could be made to fund professional wrestling—it’s what the working class enjoy.

Contact Janet Landay at the AAMD: jlanday@aamd.org

Catholic League president Bill Donohue sent the following letter today to Dr. Mary Jane Doherty, a Regis College professor who heads the Boston Review Board; a copy was also sent to Cardinal Sean O’Malley:

I read the letter you received from BishopAccountability urging you, in your capacity as Chairperson of the Boston Review Board, to disclose the names of accused priests in the Boston Archdiocese, all of whom are reportedly dead. I am urging you not to do so. This issue has nothing to do with “healing”; rather, it has to do with politics.

In recent years, the due process rights of Roman Catholic priests have been trashed with regularity, but this demand represents a new low. BishopAccountability is so thoroughly biased against the constitutional rights of priests that it has the audacity to point fingers at the Boston Review Board because it objects to the Board’s finding that 45 percent of the cases that were initially reviewed were found wanting. Had you found 100 percent of the cases meritorious, you would have been congratulated. This proves, beyond a doubt, that BishopAccountability has an agenda that reaches far beyond simply maintaining archives.

No other organization, secular or religious, posts the names of accused employees, much less ones that are dead. To state the obvious, they are not available for cross examination. Moreover, to have one standard for priests, and another for everyone else, is not only discriminatory, it is despicable.

Carry on your fine work, and rest assured that most Catholics believe in a uniform standard of justice.

Contact: staff@BishopAccountability.org