Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed the remarks of the pope’s biggest critics over the Bishop Williamson flap:

“No one has been worse than the Germans. Reeking with guilt over the Holocaust, we now have the spectacle of German Chancellor Angela Merkel telling the pope he needs to clarify his views on the Holocaust. Talk about hubris. This is a man who was forcibly conscripted at a young age into a Nazi group and saw his family suffer economically because he refused to attend the Hitler Youth meetings. This is a man who as Cardinal Ratzinger unequivocally condemned the Holocaust at a Jerusalem conference in 1994 and wrote about a book about it, Many Religions, One Covenant: Israel, the Church and the World. And he needs to ‘clarify’ his views to Merkel?

“Williamson’s denial of the Holocaust is obscene, but this doesn’t excuse the grand-standing of the Regensburg D.A. who is investigating whether the bishop broke their illiberal laws when he made his comments in Sweden. Then there is the German press which has exploited this issue beyond belief: one major story says the pope has previously offended ‘Muslims, women, native Indians, Poles, gays and scientists.’ Translated this means that the pope speaks the truth and some don’t like it. Perhaps most embarrassing is the left-wing Catholic theologian Hermann Haering who implored the pope to quit. What a disgrace this man is to Catholics everywhere.

“Today, the Vatican announced that Williamson must ‘unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah’ if he is to be reinstated (he is still not in full communion with the Church, and may never be). The pope, the Vatican statement said, was unaware of this bishop’s views when he lifted his excommunication.

“There will be those who won’t believe the pope didn’t know about Williamson. Yet these same people no doubt believe that President Obama didn’t know about the thieves he’s been appointing. Moreover, there are approximately 3,500 bishops spread throughout the world. The pope is smart, but he’s not a seer.”

The Obama administration said today that its newly designed Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will decide on a case by case basis whether a funding request violates the Constitution. Joshua DuBois, who will head this initiative, said today that “People on both sides are going to be a little uncomfortable with that.” At issue are the hiring rights of religious social service organizations that receive federal funding.

Responding is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

“Those who walk in the middle of the street risk getting run over by cars on both sides. We know what President Obama wants—he said during the campaign that religious organizations that receive federal monies should not have the right to determine who works for them. But now he’s preoccupied with issues of a more urgent matter. Thus, the balk.

“Sending requests on a case by case basis to lawyers to examine the constitutional questions is a ruse: We already know what the law says. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, in Section 702 (a), specifically allows an exemption for religious organizations in hiring. The legislators who passed this historic act knew that for the government to deny religious organizations that receive public monies the right to determine who should service its constituents would effectively neuter them. That position is as true today as it was then.

“It was also announced today that this office will expand its domain by working with the National Security Council ‘to foster interfaith dialogue with leaders and scholars around the world.’ Bunk. What in the world does servicing the poor and promoting responsible fatherhood—two of the four priorities outlined by DuBois—have to do with having the National Security Council sit down with Ahmadinejad for a chat? This is just another way to gut faith-based initiatives.

“We need a test case that will force the Obama administration to walk on one side of the street.”

On February 3, Link TV featured a three and a half minute video that mocks Catholicism. The media outlet is available as a basic service in more than 31 million homes that receive direct broadcast satellite TV.

The video, “Divine Food,” opens with a priest waking up to a rumbling noise that shakes the religious symbols and statues in his room. He proceeds to a Catholic church where he discovers several wafers near a cup (the implication is that they are consecrated Hosts). In a disrespectful manner, he chews them vigorously and then admonishes the statues that are “looking at him.” He falls asleep in the church and when awakened he is asked to say Mass, which he refuses to do. The priest then makes large wafers out of dough and gives the pancake-like substance (which he calls the “Body of Christ”) to confused parishioners at Communion. The video ends when he drops the remaining “Hosts” into a dirty aquarium.

Here is what Catholic League president Bill Donohue said about it:

“This video first aired last summer, right after a professor from the University of Minnesota intentionally desecrated the Eucharist. Now it’s being shown again. At first we thought this was just another loony attack, but then we found out that Link TV is funded by foundations that support anti-Catholicism. To wit: the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and George Soros’ Open Society Institute all fund Link TV, and all are generous contributors to Catholics for Choice, a notoriously anti-Catholic front group. Worse, of the three co-producers of the video, one of them—ITVS—is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a public entity.

“So here we have the urbane bigots in the foundation world, and a taxpayer-funded organization, underwriting anti-Catholicism. We will ask Link TV to pull the video. We hope we don’t have to do more.”

Contact Link TV media head, Julia Pacetti: jpacetti@linktv.org. We’ll contact the others involved. 

The results of a Gallup poll asking the American people how they view some of President Barack Obama’s early decisions are revealing: his lowest support is on the issue of funding abortion. Three of four Americans agree with him on four of the issues asked about, and two-thirds support him on another; there were only two issues where he failed to receive majority approval (the closing of Gitmo and abortion funding).

Only 35 percent of Americans polled said they agreed with Obama on the following issue: “Allowing U.S. funding for overseas family planning organizations that provide abortions.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue is making sure the Congress knows the voice of the people:

“We are contacting all members of the 111th Congress today notifying them that the American people do not want their money spent on paying for someone’s abortion. This has drastic consequences given the fact that the very day after President Obama approved funding for overseas abortions, he promised to restore U.S. funding of the U.N. Population Fund, a pro-abortion agency. And he has promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, the most sweeping and radical abortion-rights legislation ever written.

“The people have spoken. They generally like what Obama is doing so far, but they draw the line on funding abortion. It would behoove him to pay more attention to the American people on this subject and less time listening to the extremists at Planned Parenthood and NARAL.”

Contact your Congressman and Senators.

On January 29, nearly 50 Catholic Democratic congressmen sent a letter to Pope Benedict XVI stating their concerns over Bishop Richard Williamson’s comments questioning the historical record on the Holocaust. The bishop belongs to the St. Pius X Society; he is one of four bishops who recently had his excommunication lifted by the pope. The congressmen implored the pope to denounce the bishop’s views.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue spoke to this issue today:

“The congressmen’s letter to the pope smacks of posturing and hypocrisy, and is factually wrong. They begin by saying ‘we are writing to express our deep concerns with your decision to reinstate Bishop Richard Williamson to communion with the Catholic Church….’ The fact is that the pope did not reinstate the bishop to communion with the Church—he merely lifted the excommunication of the four bishops in this group. In order for the bishops to be fully reinstated, they would have to express their fidelity to the teachings of the Church, as well as the norms of Vatican II. In other words, the letter is based on a false predicate.

“Facts aside, this kind of posturing is a disgrace: for American congressmen to lecture the pope about an event in which he was personally victimized, and about which he has long condemned, is nothing short of arrogant.

“The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. They beg the pope to ‘publicly state your unequivocal position on this matter so that it is clear where the Church stands….’ How ironic that most of these very same Catholics fail to speak with clarity about what the Church teaches on abortion. Of the 47 signatories, the majority have a 100 percent NARAL score (meaning they vote with the radical pro-abortion group on every issue). The leader of this group, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, never agrees with the Catholic Church on abortion—her NARAL score is 100 percent.

“One more thing: they addressed the pope not as a head of state but as a ‘spiritual leader.’ Didn’t they ever hear of respecting separation of church and state?”