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

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

Attempts to brand the Norwegian madman, Anders Behring Breivik, a Christian-inspired terrorist are wholly unpersuasive. Perhaps the most obnoxious piece on this subject was written by Stephen Prothero in his CNN blog: he actually thinks that “Christians have a responsibility to speak out forcefully against [Breivik], and to look hard at resources in the Christian tradition that can be used to such murderous ends.” It is telling that he does not direct us to repair to the teachings of Jesus, when, of course, we would have no problem directing him to Muhammad’s appeals to violence. If he expects a mea culpa from me, he should brace himself for disappointment.

Similarly inane is the religiondispatches.com column by Mark Juergensmeyer. “If bin Laden is a Muslim terrorist,” he writes, “Breivik and [Timothy] McVeigh are surely Christian ones.” Wrong. McVeigh was a self-described agnostic who boasted, “Science is my religion.” Breivik said he strongly rejects the teachings of Christianity and held that the religion of his upbringing, Protestantism, was “a joke.” His affiliation with Christianity was purely cultural: he opposed the ideology of multiculturalism that has overwhelmed Europe. So do the leaders of Britain, France and Germany. The famous Italian journalist, Oriana Fallaci, went to her deathbed fighting the incursions that militant Islam was making in Europe, and she was an atheist.

Susan Brooks Thislethwaite and Sally Quinn both engage in moral equivalency by associating radical Christianity with radical Islam. They fail to distinguish between the handful of Christians who murder—none of whom ever cite Jesus—and the legions of Muslims who murder, habitually invoking Muhammad. The ringleader of 9/11, Mohamed Atta, told his colleagues how to proceed: “Seconds before the target, your last words should be there is no God but Allah. Muhammad is his messenger.” There is no Christian analogue.

We now know that Breivik was “high on drugs” when he struck. No word yet on what those who want to blame Christianity for his actions were on.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the lawsuit brought by American Atheists protesting the decision to move the World Trade Center cross from St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in lower Manhattan to its new site at the 9/11 Memorial Museum (two steel beams in the shape of a cross were found when the Twin Towers were leveled):

David Silverman, who believes in nothing, is angry that there is nothing that represents nothing at the World Trade Center’s 9/11 Memorial. Not for nothing, but this sounds churlish. “No other religions or philosophies will be honored,” he notes. Very true. And this is just as it should be. After all, that’s just the way the towers crumbled—no symbol representing nothing was found. Therefore, he loses.

To top things off, Silverman blames Jesus for 9/11. He actually goes so far as to say that the Christian God “couldn’t be bothered to stop the Muslim terrorists or prevent 3,000 people from being killed in his name.” Thus does he advertise his brilliance. Now perhaps he hasn’t noticed, but when the killings took place, none of the terrorists proclaimed their fidelity to Jesus. No, Muhammad is their guy.

Maybe Silverman could request that something hollow be placed in the World Trade Center area to represent his views. A huge ping-pong ball might work.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on new survey data profiling Catholicism:

All we ever hear from the wild-eyed critics of the Catholic Church, including the dissidents within, is that the Church had better “get with it” and change its teachings on abortion, homosexuality and women’s ordination. Yet it is precisely those religious institutions that are the most liberal on these issues—the mainline Protestant denominations—that are collapsing. Not so the Catholic Church. Indeed, its numbers are going north while the mainline denominations are going south.

The latest findings by the “Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership” project, a collaborative effort with Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, are illuminating. In the last 40 years, the Catholic population has increased by 75 percent; it has grown by 50 percent since 1990. More important, Catholic attendance at Mass is up 15 percent since 2000. And in the last five years, contributions have increased by 14 percent. It is also important to note that there has been a 40 percent increase in Latinos in the Church over the past five years.

Shedding more light on the statistics is a study released a few months ago by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion. Its “Landscape Survey” found that of those Catholics who have left the Church, roughly half became unaffiliated while the other half became Protestant. Regarding the latter half, only 23 percent did so because of the Church’s teachings on abortion and homosexuality; only 16 percent left because of the way women are treated. Importantly, two-thirds of these Catholics elected to join a Protestant evangelical church.

In other words, disaffected Catholics who left for another religion opted to join a more conservative church. That they did not run down the block in search of a mainline denomination—one that entertains the liberal agenda on issues governing sexuality and women—is telling.

It’s time some people took a hard look at the data and made some hard choices. This is great news for the Catholic Church.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision to send his children to private schools:

Every honest person knows how truly inferior most urban public schools are. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel knows this as well as anyone, which is why he decided to send his kids to a private school this fall. Not just any private school—the most prestigious, expensive school he could find—the University of Chicago Lab Schools. His interest in exposing his children to a diverse environment is obviously quite limited.

Emanuel is in good company. When the Obamas lived in Chicago, they too sent their children to the elitist University of Chicago Lab Schools; now they send their kids to the same rich-man’s school that the Clintons chose for Chelsea. The previous mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, also refused to expose his children to the public schools. Nor were they good enough for another liberal Chicagoan’s kids: Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Who can blame them? Fully 40 percent of Chicago’s public school teachers think so little of the schools they work in that they elect to send their own children to private schools.

None of this would matter a whole lot if these same rich people who think the public schools are inferior to private ones would support school vouchers for the poor. But they don’t. Instead, they grab all the loot they can from the public school unions, and then bypass the public schools when it comes to their own children.

Emanuel told the CBS affiliate that if he sent his kids to a public school, his “unbelievably smart” kids would figure it out. “They know if they become instruments or second priorities,” he said. I have news for him: even kids not as “unbelievably smart” as his know when they are not a top priority, and none know it better than those forced to go to schools shunned by the rich.

This begs the question: if urban public schools aren’t good enough for rich kids, most of whom are white, precisely whose kids are they fit for?

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on left-wing reaction to Rep. Michele Bachmann’s previous religious ties:

When I was asked by The Atlantic’s Joshua Green about Rep. Michele Bachmann’s previous membership in a church that believes the pope is the anti-Christ, I criticized the church for being anti-Catholic, but made it clear that there is no evidence that she is a bigot. Now I am being criticized by the left for not condemning Bachmann.

Perhaps the most spectacularly dishonest attack is the one delivered by Ben Adler of The Nation magazine. He is not only angry with me for not slamming Bachmann, he is upset that I compared her membership in a church affiliated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) to Barack Obama’s membership in a church run by Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I told Green that while Wright is a hater, there is no evidence that Obama is a bigot. Similarly, Bachmann’s previous membership in a WELS-affiliated church has not tainted her. Most reasonable people got the point.

Adler, however, is not reasonable, which is why he accuses me of partisanship. Was I also partisan when I criticized Sen. John McCain for his cozy relationship with a minister who had previously made anti-Catholic comments? [Note: Pastor John Hagee subsequently made a 180-degree turn.]

Interestingly, Adler’s article appeared in The Nation, perhaps the oldest anti-Catholic magazine in the U.S. In the 20th century, it was home to Paul Blanshard, the most notorious anti-Catholic bigot of his day. Today, it is known for bashing the Catholic Church on all matters sexual. These people haven’t suddenly discovered anti-Catholicism—they are angry that attempts to smear Bachmann have failed. There is nothing principled about them.

Contact Ben Adler: adler@thenation.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

The right of homosexuals to marry in New York begins on Sunday, and already the religious rights of those who conscientiously object are being threatened. The threats come from two New York public officials, both of whom identify themselves as Catholic: Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice.

When Cuomo was recently asked about the right of clerks, invoking their religious rights, not to issue marriage licenses to gays, he said, “The law is the law. You enforce the law as is; you don’t get to pick and choose those laws.” (Ironically, this could be read as an indictment of President Obama: he is under oath to enforce federal legislation, yet he manifestly refuses to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act.)

Rice is even bolder. She has put clerks on notice: either grant homosexuals marriage licenses or else. In a letter she wrote to municipal clerks, she warned that not complying “may constitute official misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor.”

Cuomo and Rice are so committed to gay rights that they have little interest in religious liberty, even as defined by New York State law. Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer enthusiastically signed a law extending religious rights in the workplace, one that went beyond the “reasonable accommodation” provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Indeed, under New York State law, the onus is on the employer to show that it would cause “undue hardship” if an employee were to exercise his “sincerely held” religious beliefs.

Now it is fatuous to say that it would cause an “undue hardship” in the workplace if clerks, and deputy clerks, who do not have an issue with giving marriage licenses to homosexuals handled these matters for those who do. It cannot be said too strongly: Bullying those who have religious objections is despicable.

There is an obvious hole in New York’s gay marriage law: religious exemptions need to be extended to lay people, not just the clerg

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds to the news that Pope Benedict XVI has named Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput to be the new Archbishop of Philadelphia:

This is great news. Anyone who knows Archbishop Chaput knows him as a man of integrity, brilliance and courage. Outspoken but never abrasive, he is quite capable of using the bully pulpit to rally the faithful.

The Catholic League worked with Archbishop Chaput in 2006 to successfully defeat those who sought to single out the Catholic Church for retribution in the courts: when a bill to extend the statute of limitations on cases involving the sexual abuse of minors was finally amended to include public institutions, the public school establishment quickly got on board to kill this anti-civil libertarian measure. Thus was the mask pulled off those who claimed to be only interested in protecting adolescent males.

The grand juries in Philadelphia that have cherry-picked their way through the legal system—never once investigating wrongdoing in other institutions, religious or public—are a disgrace. In particular, former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, who reneged on her pledge to investigate organizations other than the Catholic Church, has left the impression that Philadelphia is rife with miscreant priests. This is a lie. We await a fresh start and look forward to the day when the whole story is finally told.

Congratulations to Archbishop Chaput. He has our unqualified support.