Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron’s rebuff of this weekend’s meeting of the American Catholic Council at Detroit’s Cobo Hall:

 

It is with good reason that Archbishop Vigneron has warned local priests and deacons not to participate in the American Catholic Council event: many of those who will attend the event, and those who are on record supporting it, reject core teachings of the Catholic Church. Indeed, this loose confederation of Catholic senior citizens has long been in open rebellion with the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.  

 

Scheduled for consideration at the June 11-12 event is a “Catholic Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.” It begins by saying, “To be human is to have rights. These include life and freedom, together with rights necessary to sustain them: shelter and nourishment, health and work, education and leisure. None of these rights is absolute.”

 

This is incorrect: the right to life is absolute. The Founders knew this, which is why Jefferson wrote that it was inalienable. Moreover, there is no such thing as a right to leisure, though it is revealing that the octogenarians are inclined to think so. Most important, since when have these folks become pro-life?

 

It is similarly incorrect to say that “Distinctions between clergy and laity are functional and arbitrary.” They are indeed profound and substantive. But this does raise an interesting question: If there are no real differences between the clergy and the laity, then why do these dissidents lobby so hard to open the ranks of the clergy to married priests and women?

 

Perhaps most telling, the rebels speak of the right to “participate in a Eucharistic community,” as well as the “fullness of the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church.” Ironically, it is precisely because these activists are not in full communion with the Catholic Church that Archbishop Vigneron is not rolling out a welcome mat.

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the death of Dr. Jack Kevorkian:

 

Unlike his lucky “patients,” Jack-“Dr. Death”-Kevorkian died of natural causes, wholly unassisted by physicians. He had much in common with the doctors of Weimar, Germany, who perfected the sick idea of “Healing by Killing.” Kevorkian, whose favorite motto was, “Ready or not, here I come,” shared with those German doctors the same philosophical mindset that paved the way for Hitler. 

 

Kevorkian’s hatred of the Catholic Church, and his irrational attacks on the pope, was actually a backhanded compliment to the Church’s embrace of the dignity that inheres in every human being.

 

We are happy he did not suffer in his final hours. But we note with great irony that the nurses at the hospital played recordings by Bach as he died. What we have not learned is whether they treated him to Bach’s “Mass in B minor.” 

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the critical reaction to the John Jay study of priestly sexual abuse:

The left-wing attack on the John Jay study proves once again that art critic Harold Rosenberg was exactly right to say that liberals represent a “herd of independent minds.” Ever since the New York Times criticized the study as the “blame Woodstock” report, the herd has swung into high gear.

 

• Tony Auth labels his cartoon “It Was The Sixties, Man”

• A Boston Globe writer titles her piece, “Blame it on the ’60s, Man”

• Jon Carroll brands his article, “The ’60s Made Them Do It”

• A Canadian writer says, “Church Study Blames Swinging Sixties”

• ReligionDispatches indicts the Church for “Blame the Sixties” rationale

• Church-basher Marci Hamilton says the Church is guilty of “blaming the Sixties”

• Rabbi Shmuley Boteach says the Church blames “the 1960s”

• Mark Silk says the Church invokes the “Woodstock” excuse

• Sally Quinn’s brother, Wilson, slams the Church for “Blame the Hippies” excuse

• Kevin Osborne of Citybeat.com says the Church blames “dirty hippies”

• New Haven writer Doug Daniels says the Church blames “hippies”

• A Minnesota writer says the Church blames Jefferson Airplane

• A Florida writer argues the Church blames Janis Joplin

 

Top honors go to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for falsely claiming, “In page after page, the report also accuses the news media of misrepresenting the crisis.” This is utter nonsense. Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star shows her brilliance by criticizing the study for not finding a “single cause.” She needs to take Sociology 101.

 

None of these critics is a social scientist, and few, if any, give evidence of actually having read the report. But that’s what we would expect from a “herd of independent minds.”

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

 

It is not at all uncommon these days to read about unnamed accusers fingering priests, dead or alive. But now we have a new case that tops them all. 

 

A man who claims he was abused in 1984 has sued the Fort Worth Diocese and the entire Pallottine religious order. The accuser, who has been in prison for over a decade, says he cannot remember the priest’s name. If this isn’t bizarre enough, the accuser is in the slammer for sexual abuse.

 

Between 2009 and 2010, there was a 42 percent increase in false claims made against priests. The Fort Worth case proves beyond a reasonable doubt the precarious state that all priests find themselves in during these vindictive times. 

 

What is at work is a sick admixture of hate, greed and bald-faced lies.