Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds to the full-page ad placed by the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) in today’s New York Times:

Instead of looking at the positive reforms made by the U.S. bishops over the last decade, the professional victims’ lobby SNAP is rehashing its age-old claim that there is an ongoing abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. Never mind that in the last three years, an average of seven new credible accusations were made against over 40,000 priests in this country. Indeed, 99.98% of Catholic priests did not have a credible accusation made against them last year.

The John Jay College of Criminal Justice issued its Causes and Context study last year that found the abuse scandal ran from the mid-60s to the mid-80s, peaking in the 70s. After it was published, I issued a report analyzing the study [click here]. Since the end of the scandal, the Church has reformed its policies and curbed the problem, thus becoming a model of how to protect children.

Don’t let SNAP’s ad fool you. While they purport to be concerned with the safety of children, their real agenda is to sunder the Catholic Church. Last year its annual conference turned into a Church-bashing event. How do we know this? We had trusted sources attend and fill us in on the rhetoric [click here to see our report].

Earlier this year, SNAP’s director David Clohessy, was deposed regarding his role in priest abuse cases and what was disclosed was truly revealing [click here to see our report]. SNAP, the bastion of child protection, contributed $593 in 2007 to “survivor support,” yet spent $92,000 the following year on travel. Clohessy even admitted to giving false statements to the press—so why would anyone believe what he is bandying about in today’s Times?

Where today’s scandal truly lies—and one that SNAP is partly responsible for—is the false accusations made against many priests. SNAP’s attempt to resurrect itself by cashing in on old problems will fail. Indeed, they have disgraced themselves again.

Yesterday, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, amended the wording of its text on Pope Pius XII. It now acknowledges the pope’s Christmas radio address in 1942 where the Holy Father called attention to the “hundreds of thousands of persons, who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or ethnic origin” were killed by the Nazis.

Another change in the wording now informs that Pius XII “did not publicly protest” when Jews were deported from Rome; previously, the text said he “did not intervene.” Language regarding other matters was also softened to reveal a less harsh appraisal of the pope.

Bill Donohue comments on the news:

The changes are welcome if insufficient. For example, a new panel says, “The pope’s critics claim that his [the pope’s] decision to abstain from condemning the murder of the Jews by Nazi Germany constitutes a moral failure.” To be sure, there are such critics. But it is important to note that this accusation is historically inaccurate. Indeed, even the New York Times, in two back-to-back Christmas editorials in 1941 and 1942, singled out the pope for “not being silent.” Moreover, the reason 800,000 trees were planted in Israel after the war was to commemorate the 800,000 Jews who were saved by the pope.

In the Yad Vashem statement, it said the update was the result of new research. It is hoped that when more evidence is revealed that the text will be further amended. However, there is already plenty of evidence that during and after the war the Jewish community was effusive in its praise for Pope Pius XII. If the people closest to these historical events regarded the pope as their hero, it begs the question why Pius XII is not regarded as a “Righteous Gentile”; those who have made an in-depth study of the pope’s record (including prominent Jewish scholars) have already reached this conclusion.

We await the day when Yad Vashem also recognizes the pope as a “Righteous Gentile.”

Bill Donohue comments on an incident that was reported over the weekend:

Actor Alec Baldwin got into a spat that almost turned violent when he reacted with a vengeance against a photographer on a New York City street. Out of nowhere, Baldwin blurted, “I know you got raped by a priest or something.”

There was absolutely no context in which it would make any sense for Baldwin to react this way. What it suggests is that we are dealing with a man whose animus against Catholicism is so deep that virtually anything can set him off. That he got married in a Catholic church the day after his blow up makes this story even more bizarre.

This is obviously not the first time Baldwin has gone off the rails. But it is the first time we know of where he libeled priests. This guy’s resume just gets sicker and sicker.

Contact Baldwin’s publicist, Matthew Hiltzik: info@hstrategies.com