The U.S. Air Force has suspended a class at Vandenberg Air Force Base after complaints that it violates church and state. Bill Donohue responded with this letter to Gen. Edward A. Rice, Jr., the Commander of Air Education and Training:

I have a three-fold interest in writing to you about the decision to suspend the “Christian Just War Theory” class at Vandenberg AFB: (a) I am the president of the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization (b) I am a former college professor (c) I am a veteran of the U.S. Air Force.

The decision to suspend the course is not only wrongheaded, it represents capitulation to political pressure emanating from the foes of religious liberty. For several years, I have stood by the United States Air Force Academy leadership in their attempt to stave off assaults by Mikey Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and others. The goal of these pressure groups is to censor the public expression of religion on the campuses of military academies, and at military installations, in general. They are doing so under the guise of constitutional concerns.

As one who has written several books on this subject, I can testify that there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution of the United States that disqualifies a presentation of St. Augustine’s “just war theory,” and related biblical references. In fact, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, as well as religious liberty. “Just war theory” is taught at state institutions all across the nation—explicitly citing Augustine’s contribution—and never has it been an issue. Moreover, biblical passages are often cited when referencing the work of Rev. Martin Luther King. Should we similarly censor them?

I have read the materials used in the class, and can assure you that no one—save an anti-religious zealot—would find fault with them. I therefore urge you to stand fast against these bullies and do what is academically right and constitutionally protected: reinstate the class.

Contact Gen. Rice: edward.rice@us.af.mil

Catholic League president Bill Donohue addresses the dilemma that the Obama administration has created for religious employers:

Yesterday, the Obama administration mandated that all health insurance plans cover contraceptives and sterilization for women, though it made an exception for religious employers. But did it? Not really. To wit: a religious employer is defined, in part, as one that primarily employs, and serves, persons who share its religious tenets.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo said this means that “our institutions would be free to act in accord with Catholic teaching on life and procreation only if they were to stop hiring and serving non-Catholics.” He’s right: Catholic schools, hospitals and social service agencies have a long and distinguished record of serving everyone, regardless of religious affiliation; most even employ non-Catholics. However, there are matters, like foster care programs, where same-religion requisites make sense.

The situation is even more pernicious than it looks. Consider that three years ago, then presidential candidate Barack Obama said he opposes allowing faith-based programs to hire only their own people. Since becoming president, he has authorized his administration to consider this issue on a case-by-case basis, and just recently many of his allies lobbied him to gut the religious liberty provision in hiring altogether.

In other words, the Obama administration is playing Catch-22 with religious employers. If they are too religious, Catholic social service agencies risk losing federal funds, but if Catholic hospitals are not sufficiently religious, they cannot be exempt from carrying health insurance policies that transgress their religious tenets.

The Obama administration knows exactly what it is doing, and what it is doing is burning religious institutions at both ends. This is a pretty sick game. But it is one where there is plenty of time left on the clock.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a news article in yesterday’s New York Times on the Catholic Church:

A priest, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, decides to break with the Catholic Church’s teachings on ordination and “ordains” a woman in an illicit ceremony. He is given three years to recant, but he refuses, and is now threatened with excommunication. He is a hero to Church critics, especially the New York Times. Had he been a Times reporter who decided to break with the newspaper’s editorial position on abortion—putting a positive spin on pro-life leaders, while casting aspersions on abortion-rights advocates—he would not have lasted three weeks. So much for the glory of dissent.

Other than the New York Times, not a single newspaper in the U.S. carried a story on Fr. Bourgeois yesterday. Indeed, in the last three months, there were only two other stories on the renegade priest, and one of them was a front-page story in the Times just a week earlier. It’s the way the paper is spinning the story—fanning dissent—that counts most.

Yesterday’s story refers to Call to Action as “an organization for reform-minded Catholics.” It would be more accurate to say it is an organization of senior citizens, many of whom are ex-priests and nuns, who are so out of communion with the Catholic Church that some bishops have excommunicated its members. In 1990, it took out an ad in the Timescalling for all the familiar reforms, pledging to garner 100,000 signatures. After 18 months, it wound up with 21,000.

By contrast, in yesterday’s paper, Opus Dei was branded an “ultra-orthodox group.” Looks like the reporter, Dirk Johnson, has been reading too much of Dan Brown lately.

One of Call to Action’s leaders, Bob Heineman, wants to know whether the Church is the hierarchy, or the people. Either way he loses: the rank-and-file support the hierarchy, not Call to Action.

Contact Dirk Johnson: sycamoredirk@aol.com