Catholic League president Bill Donohue addresses the response by Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) to our April 25 news release:

 

Charged by the Catholic League at the beginning of the week with deceit, VOTF answers at the end of the week with more deceit.  

 

After being contacted last week by Philadelphia priests about a “survey” sent by VOTF, we wrote to over 900 priests in the Philadelphia Archdiocese letting them know of our support in fighting this dissident Catholic group. Earlier in the month, VOTF had the nerve to inform these priests that if they did not respond to its “survey” asking them to support its position calling for the abolition of the statute of limitations for sexual abuse, they would be listed as not supporting this revision in Pennsylvania law. In other words, if they don’t respond, they will be condemned for resisting reforms. 

 

In a news release issued yesterday, VOTF went on the defensive but never addressed our central concern, namely, the bogus nature of this so-called survey. How telling. Instead of directly challenging us, it deceitfully skirted the issue. Their “survey,” of course, is nothing but a sham.

 

VOTF members, as disclosed in a real survey a few years ago, is mostly comprised of elderly Irish men and women who, despite earning on average over $100,000 a year, do not support their own organization (only 25 percent donate money). Maybe that is why VOTF, which likes to lecture the Catholic Church on finances, is collapsing under financial duress (it is sorely in debt). That it is morally bankrupt as well is beyond dispute.

 

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on recent attacks on the rights of priests:

 

In an editorial that is pure boilerplate, the Seattle Times said yesterday that 37 priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese have been allowed to continue in ministry despite a finding of sexual misconduct by a grand jury. But the grand jury did not find anyone guilty—that’s not what they are empowered to do! Moreover, all of the accused were initially investigated and 24 have been suspended on a second look; most of the others have been found innocent or have left ministry. Most important, if mere accusations—not substantiated ones—are the new bar for contacting the authorities, then this should apply to all institutions. 

 

Archbishop Dolan, who leads the bishops’ conference, reaffirmed last week the “resolve to deal firmly” with offending clerics. For this he was condemned by a wildly unreliable blog, the National Survivor Advocates Coalition, for engaging in a “shellgame.” Another website, BishopAccountability.org, took aim at the Bridgeport archdiocese for not listing the names of “accused priests”—not “credibly accused priests”—as if that were somehow unusual. SNAP, the professional victims’ group, expressed anger at the Philly archdiocese for doing what it is entitled to do—pay the fees of an accused cleric. 

 

It is not just the secular media who are doing this. A Catholic dissident newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter, ripped into Archbishop Dolan for his remarks on “60 Minutes.” Dolan correctly said that the scandal is “over with”—most of the abuse took place between the mid-60s and the mid-80s (recent stories are about decades-old cases)—and for this he was treated with scorn by Jamie L. Manson. Unhappy with the Church’s teachings on sexual ethics, she spoke derisively and disrespectfully of the archbishop. Here’s the real problem: this newspaper wins annual awards from the Catholic Press Association, and the author was showered with an award from the same group last year.

 

*We regret that we confused the Catholic News Service with the Catholic Press Association in an earlier statement.

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Richard Cohen’s syndicated Washington Post column that appeared today:

Richard Cohen objects to the upcoming congressional hearings by Rep. Peter King on terrorism, arguing that if it is okay to probe Muslims for terrorism, it should be okay to probe priests for sexual abuse: “The organization BishopAccountability.org reports that ‘perhaps more than 100,000 children’ have been sexually abused since 1950 by Catholic clergymen of one sort or another.” The figure is wildly in error. Moreover, even his source mentions these are accusations.

The “organization” he cites is a website that specializes in publishing accusations against priests—no matter how flimsy—not findings of guilt. The figure of 100,000 they cite is taken from an article written by Andrew Greeley in 1993 that was based purely on conjecture.

Greeley said the data on the general population “suggests that during a ‘career’ of abuse some victimizers may have as many as 200 or even 300 victims.” [My italic.] He then picked a “conservative number of 50 victims” to work with, but this was pure posturing: there is nothing “conservative” about a number based on a guesstimate of the highest number of victims committed by a small minority of the offenders.

The magnanimous Greeley then guesstimated that between 2,000 and 4,000 priests might be guilty of the sexual abuse of minors, settling on a figure of 2,500. Finally, he multiplied 2,500 by 50 to arrive at the celebrated figure of “well in excess of 100,000.”

Over a decade later, the real figures were made available by social scientists from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice: an estimated 4 percent of priests have had accusations made against them since 1950, and the majority, 56 percent, were alleged to have abused one victim. Doing a little math (see the “Executive Summary” of the 2004 report) we find that the total number of alleged victims at the hands of 4,392 priests is roughly between 10,000 and 12,000. That’s a very long way from 100,000. Cohen should offer a retraction.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the pro-abortion community:

 

The abortion industry is cracking up. Scared to death over the public backlash at Planned Parenthood, and a host of proposed bills at the state and federal level assuring civil rights for the unborn, the pro-abortion community is in a tizzy. Consider their incendiary language.

 

Pro-abort enthusiast Amanda Marcotte says pro-lifers want to force women back to the “sadistic punishments” of the pre-Roe days when they were somehow forced to mutilate their own babies. The Feminist Majority accuses pro-lifers of “domestic terrorism,” and a writer for religiondispatches.org says “state-endorsed terrorism” is at work. The National Organization for Women outdoes everyone by engaging in rank anti-Catholic invective: it says it would be a “dream-come-true” for the bishops if women were to lose access to pap smears and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

 

A pro-life billboard was recently taken down in New York City after pro-abortion government officials objected. The same censors in the New York City Council are now taking up a measure to punish crisis pregnancy centers for offering alternatives to abortion; deceptive advertising is the charge. I wrote to one of the censors, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, asking her to consider legislation that would “require Planned Parenthood to advertise that they are primarily an abortion provider, and not an adoption-referral organization,” pointing out that it performed 324,008 abortions in 2008 as opposed to only 2,405 adoption referrals. I have not heard back.

 

Meanwhile, the New York Times has an editorial today condemning the crisis pregnancy centers, arguing that women considering an abortion are entitled to make “well-informed decisions about reproductive health.” Then why does it use the term “burdensome” to call requirements that women considering an abortion first see a sonogram of their baby? Wouldn’t that help her make a “well-informed decision”? Looks like the crack-up is profound.

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an AP story from yesterday about the 2012 European Soccer Championship:

 

Some homosexual Polish soccer fans are demanding that a separate seating section be created at the 2012 European Soccer Championship in Poland; they claim that gays and lesbians might otherwise be subjected to harassment and violence. Their plea would be of no interest to the Catholic League save for a comment made by the AP reporter who wrote the story from Warsaw. 

 

The following is a direct quote from the news story: “Homophobia also remains deeply embedded in Poland because of the legacy of communism which treated homosexuality as a taboo and the teachings of the church in the predominantly Roman Catholic country.”

 

Let’s follow the logic. Every world religion is either opposed to homosexuality or takes no position on it; not one finds it acceptable. So if being opposed to homosexuality makes one phobic, then almost the entire world (throughout all of history) suffers the same malady. Not only that, we are to believe that the problem in this case is not delirious homosexuals taking up the cause of segregation, it’s the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexual ethics.

 

How about adultery and incest—is opposition to them also phobic? That such ideological nonsense can appear in a sports article in a prominent media outlet shows just how far standards have fallen in journalism. It also shows how gay-crazy and anti-Catholic many in the media have become. 

 

Contact the AP Sports Editor, Ms. Terry Taylor: trtaylor@ap.org

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Planned Parenthood’s response to charges that it is acting unethically:

 

Thanks to Lila Rose, the president of Live Action, the public is learning more and more about the deeply entrenched culture of corruption that permeates Planned Parenthood. The latest videotape of Planned Parenthood employees shows how cooperative they are in offering friendly advice to persons posing as pimps and prostitutes in the Bronx: the imposters were assured of confidentiality, thus enabling them to proceed with their sex-trafficking enterprise with under-age girls. 

 

Joan Malin, the president of Planned Parenthood in New York City, is quoted in the New York Times today defending her employees. “Under New York State law, we are not required to report criminal activity.” She’s right about that, but she disingenuously failed to say why.

 

The reason why there is no mandatory reporting law in New York State (only some professions are covered) is because liberals—not the Catholic Church—have worked hard to defeat one: Family Planning Advocates, the lobbying arm of Planned Parenthood, has teamed up with the New York Civil Liberties Union and other liberal groups to kill these bills.

 

Why does Planned Parenthood oppose a mandatory reporting law for cases involving the sexual abuse of a minor? Because it threatens their livelihood. Their counselors learn of statutory rape cases all the time, and if they were forced to call the cops, it would hurt their business. So they just go along, in effect working as an accomplice with rapists. 

 

And they call themselves champions of women’s rights. But what rights? The right to be raped? The right of an abortion worker to kill their child? The first feminists, those who pioneered women’s rights in the nineteenth century, knew that abortion allowed men to exploit women. They got it. Sadly, Planned Parenthood does not. 

 

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on recommendations made yesterday by a Smithsonian panel:

 

“Culturally sensitive exhibitions should be previewed from a diverse set of perspectives,” said the Regents Advisory Panel. What exactly does this mean? If a swastika is painted on a synagogue, should those who find it endearing be consulted? If KKK is plastered across a portrait of Rev. Martin Luther King, must those who can’t decide if this is offensive be summoned for advice? Now imagine if there is a video of large ants running all over a depiction of Muhammad, is it incumbent on Smithsonian officials to find someone who likes such fare? Would it change things if we substituted the crucified Jesus for Muhammad?

 

Speaking of the artist who made the ants-on-the-crucifix video, the Smithsonian’s John W. McCarter Jr. said, “I believe, in his mind, that [the video] was not sacrilegious.” Did he stumble upon the diary of David Wojnarowicz? Has he been channeling him? McCarter also asks us to consider the possibility that the video “might have been very deeply religious?” 

 

McCarter’s subjectivism is unwarranted. We know some things about the artist, and what we know is that he branded the Catholic Church a “house of walking swastikas.” So why is it so hard to connect the dots? Isn’t it obvious the artist was a raging anti-Catholic bigot? Let’s face it: if an artist offended Jews, African Americans or Muslims—as in the examples cited above—the artwork alone would be cause for censorship, never mind investigating any harbored prejudices he may have had.

 

What they did yesterday was a smokescreen. If a man like Wojnarowicz can insult Christians the way he did, knowing full well his sentiments on Catholicism, and he is still given the benefit of the doubt—even to the point of entertaining the fiction that his video is “very deeply religious”—then it is obvious what is going on. 

 

 

New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has acquired the video showing ants crawling all over Jesus on the Cross that was withdrawn from the Smithsonian Institution on November 30 after a protest by the Catholic League, and complaints from congressmen. MoMA also has the original 13-minute version; the video is being shown, starting today.

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

 

In Tucson, President Barack Obama correctly noted that “our discourse has become so sharply polarized” that it has disfigured our society. He made note of the “lack of civility” which marks our culture, beckoning us to “sharpen our instincts for empathy.” And just one day later, MoMA announced that he was wrong. It wants a sharply polarized society; it delights in incivility; and it abhors empathy. That is why it has decided to assault Christian sensibilities by hosting the vile video.

 

“We really do live in a time when anything can be hailed as a work of art. This has naturally led to a proliferation of pretentious and often pathological nonsense in the art world.” Those words were penned ten years ago by noted art critic Roger Kimball. As evidenced by the reaction to this “artwork” by the artistic community, nothing has changed.

 

Unlike the Smithsonian, which is federally funded, MoMA is largely supported by fat cats like Glenn D. Lowry, the museum’s director, thus alleviating some of our objections. Lowry makes over $2 million a year and lives for free in a $6 million condo atop the museum. Unlike the rest of us, he pays no income tax on his housing. 

 

Looks like the artistic community got fleeced twice: once by embracing the “pathological nonsense” of this masterpiece, and once by the corporate welfare queen who runs—and lives in—the joint.