In yesterday’s New York Times, there was an ad by the women’s apparel company, Kenar, that pushed the envelope too far. It showed a handsome priest leering at a sensuous-looking woman while dining together. The full-page ad was more than provocative, it was abusive.

William Donohue offered these comments today about the ad:

“The phones at the Catholic League lit up yesterday in response to the Kenar ad. And rightfully so: Kenar’s ad represents the crass exploitation of Catholic priests for the purpose of making a buck. Unethical on the face of it, the ad is consistent with the politics of Kenar.

“Kenar is the same company that manages to give money to breast cancer research while at the same time defending one of the prominent causes of the disease, namely abortion. The company also contributes to AIDS research while simultaneously bragging that one of its new models ‘bare[s] it all to the public on behalf of Kenar as she poses with only a banana leaf covering her….’ Now if someone said they were funding the battle against lung cancer while throwing a smoking party, everyone would know how absurd this was. Why it isn’t evident to Kenar, and to everyone else, just how self-defeating their well-intended contributions are is incredible.

“Kenar has every right to contribute to the resolution of diseases, the causes of which it helps to promote, but it has no right to do so while exploiting Catholic priests at the same time. If the decision-makers at Kenar have no common sense, perhaps they can hire someone to show them what common decency means.”

Five Orthodox Jewish students who attend Yale University are being penalized for objecting, on religious grounds, to mandated residence requirements on campus. The students, Lisa Friedman, Jeremy Hershman, Elisha Hack, Batsheva Greer and Rachel Wohlgelernter, do not want to live in dorms where the sexes are integrated and where bathrooms are shared by men and women; they also object to such sexual messages as condom machines and “safe sex” literature in the dorms. Yale officials have instructed the students that the only way they can bypass living on campus is to buy their way out: the students have been told that if they pay the room and board fee (nearly $7,000), they can live at home.

Catholic League president William Donohue outlined his concerns today:

“The Catholic League has been asked to review the situation confronting five Orthodox Jewish students at Yale University. It is our conviction that these students cannot be expected to maintain their religious commitments while being subjected to an environment that is so demonstrably antithetical to their beliefs. The degree of accommodation that they are requesting is reasonable and without burden to others.

“To force students to violate their deeply-held beliefs for the sake of satisfying Yale’s sexually-correct living arrangements is unconscionable. It is also difficult to see how the much-vaunted goal of diversity can be accomplished when pluralism is so summarily abridged.

“The Catholic League is asking Yale administrators to reconsider their decision. In the event they do not, the league is prepared to join with others in taking whatever steps are necessary to secure justice.”

The Catholic League’s call for a boycott of the sponsors of “Nothing Sacred” has secured a multidenominational response. Here is a list of those organizations that are calling for the boycott: Alliance Defense Fund; American Catholic Lawyers Association; American Family Association; American Life League; Americans United for the Pope; Ancient Order of Hibernians (New York County); Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation; Cardinal Newman Society; Catholic Answers, Inc.; Catholic Coalition of Westchester; Catholic Defense League of Minnesota; Catholics United for the Faith; Chinese Catholic Information Center; Concerned Women for America; Family Defense Council; Focus on the Family; League of Catholic Voters; Legatus; Jewish Action Alliance; Jews for Morality; Morality in Media; Muslim Coalition/Peace Press Association; National Cops for Life; Pro-Life Action League; Sons of Italy, Commission for Social Justice; Women for Faith and Family.

Here is a list of the sponsors whom we will boycott: Glaxo Wellcome (Zantac 75), Helene-Curtis (Suave Shampoo), Isuzu, Unilever U.S. (Wisk and Surf), Red Lobster, Sears, Dupont (Corian), AT&T (Telecom USA), Proctor and Gamble (Downy), Bayer (Aleve), Burlington Coat Factory, Scott’s (Liquid Gold), Visa, Benckiser (Electrosol Tabs), Weight Watchers, K-Mart, DreamWorks (“The Peacemaker”), Cadillac (Catera), Chesebrough Pond’s (Mentadent), 20th Century Fox (“The Edge”), Reynolds Wrap, Alberto Culver (FDS Feminine Deodorant).

William Donohue offered these remarks today:

“Twenty seven organizations, representing millions of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims, have pledged to boycott the sponsors of ‘Nothing Sacred.’ The Catholic League will contact all the sponsors and ask them to withdraw support for this show so that we can terminate the boycott. While all of the sponsors bear responsibility for the show, special mention must be made of Glaxo Wellcome, Sears and Unilever: they have recently been rated by the American Family Association as among the top five sponsors of sex, violence and profanity on TV and that is why their association with ‘Nothing Sacred’ makes them our prime targets in this boycott.”

A tactic that the Catholic League has used to protest the ABC show, “Nothing Sacred,” is to conduct a petition drive against Disney, the owner of ABC. It has proven to be a major success. Today, the Catholic League will mail to Michael Eisner, chairman of Disney, the names of approximately 500,000 persons who have signed the petition to date requesting that he spike the program; more will be sent periodically.

Catholic League president William Donohue offered the following comment on this issue today:

“Two days from now Michael Eisner will be presented with the signatures of a half-million persons who are fed up with Disney for promoting ‘Nothing Sacred.’ Parishes signed the petition, as did groups of priests, nuns and religious. Without solicitation, Protestant churches made the petition available, and Jews and Muslims also supported the drive. Everyone knows that more is at stake than just a show that pushes the envelope against Catholics.

“Eisner, of course, is prepared to let the show run its course. We are just as prepared to do everything we can to short-circuit the season. To think that so many Americans signed this petition in the matter of just a few short weeks is encouraging. What this signals is that the league’s next step, a boycott of the show’s sponsors, will be a success.”

Media coverage of the funeral Mass for Mother Teresa was generally quite fair. The lone exception came from ABC. During the consecration of the Host, ABC anchor Peter Jennings allowed author Christopher Hitchens to rant and rave against Mother Teresa; the Vanity Fair writer lambasted the late champion of the poor for her alleged “false humility” and “rabid fundamentalism.”

Catholic League president William Donohue delivered the following remarks about this incident today:

“ABC stands in stark contrast to CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX, all of whom treated Mother Teresa with the respect she deserves. Inviting the embittered Christopher Hitchens to comment on Mother Teresa would be like inviting an educated David Duke to comment on Martin Luther King. Hitchens is a notorious critic of Catholicism and ABC was certainly well aware of this fact when they invited him. He is also the author of a slim book on Mother Teresa, The Missionary Position, a volume that is most noted for its absence of any citations and its hate-filled commentary.

“There was an Anglican priest who slammed Mother Teresa on CBS ‘This Morning’ on September 8, but the reporter was obviously shocked by Rev. Donald Reeves’ statement and did everything she could to calm things down. On September 7, NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ invited Hitchens to comment on the royals, but Hitchens was not allowed to stay for the next segment on Mother Teresa; Tim Russert handled the situation with professionalism.

“Against this backdrop we have ABC’s irresponsible and calculated decision to allow Christopher Hitchens to bash Mother Teresa; the decision by Peter Jennings to let Hitchens continue his diatribe during Holy Communion was particularly offensive. Princess Diana had many detractors, yet none surfaced on TV. Mother Teresa had one person who hated her and the Disney-owned network found room for him to vent.

“The league will convey its outrage directly to Preston Padden, President, ABC Television Network.”

ABC and Disney refuse to disclose the names of the sponsors for the fall show, “Nothing Sacred”; it debuts September 18. Consequently, the Catholic League ran the following ad in the September 8th edition of Advertising Age:

THINKING ABOUT ADVERTISING ON ABC’s

“NOTHING SACRED”?

THINK AGAIN!

September 18 is the premiere of the ABC show “Nothing Sacred.” The folks at Disney and ABC won’t reveal who the advertisers are, but that’s okay, we’ll know soon enough. And when we do we’ll mobilize our 350,000 members to conduct a campaign against the sponsors that they won’t forget. In addition, we will contact our friends in the Protestant, Jewish and Muslim communities to join the protest.

Quite frankly, we’ve had it with Disney. First Michael Eisner treats us to the Disney/Miramax movie “Priest” and now he lays “Nothing Sacred” on us. In March 1995 the Catholic League became the first organization in the nation to call for a boycott of Disney. When we did so, few took us seriously. But now—given the large number of organizations that have also called for a boycott of Disney—few don’t take us seriously.

A word to the wise: take this campaign seriously and move your ad money to some other show.

The testimony in Washington yesterday by three Buddhist nuns not only raises serious questions about the sect’s campaign finance practices, it raises serious questions about the refusal of political pundits to treat this issue as a classic violation of church-state relations.

It is known that since 1993 more than $150,000 was laundered to Democratic politicians by the Hsi Lai Temple in Los Angeles and that money was sent to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). It is also known that the temple often reimbursed its members for contributions made to friendly politicians. Indeed, in the visit by Vice President Al Gore to the temple in 1996, temple monastics were told in planning sessions to ask those who wished to attend for a $5,000 contribution to the DNC; the result was that $100,000 was raised, of which $65,000 was laundered through nuns and monks at the temple.

It is also known that the videotape of Mr. Gore’s speech has vanished and that a list detailing the contributions made by temple devotees before the event was destroyed. In addition, the forms submitted by the devotees requesting reimbursement from the temple for their donations were destroyed and canceled reimbursement checks were altered to make it appear that they were loans or had come from the devotees’ personal accounts rather than from the temple’s general operating account.

William Donohue addressed the league’s principal concern today:

“To show the duplicity that is at work here, just insert the term Catholic church each time the word temple is used. For example, on Wednesday, Senator John Glenn said ‘I don’t know whether there’s anything illegal about having a fund-raiser at a temple.’ What is most astonishing about remarks like this is the incredible hypocrisy: if a Catholic priest dares to even address a public policy issue from the pulpit, pundits are quick to denounce him for violating church and state lines. Yet the Vice President can attend a fund-raiser for his party and Buddhist nuns can launder money, alter and destroy financial documents, and everyone treats it clinically. The double standard could not be more evident.”

Catholic League president William Donohue released the following comment today regarding the death of Mother Teresa:

In an age when superlatives are used with abandon to describe the contributions of public figures, it is testimony to Mother Teresa’s greatness that no sane person would deny her the status as the world’s most giving human being. She was a model for men and women, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. There was no human life, born or unborn, that she was not willing to sacrifice for and there was no human condition so debasedthat she did not seek to remedy. But perhaps most of all she will be remembered as someone who never sought the honor she so sincerely earned.