Bill Donohue released the following comments today:

“Have a holly, jolly, bloody good Christmas with these tampon crafts.” That’s the opening line on the homepage of tamponcrafts.com: the website offers instructions on how to construct nativity scenes out of tampons, including Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Three Wise Men. Indeed, it advises the reader to “Gather ‘round the manger for the Christmas Miracle. These three kings come bearing gold, frankincense, and…fresh-scented feminine hygiene products.” To show how inclusive the web designer is, there are also guidelines on how to make a menorah out of tampons.

The tampon nativity scene, which has been around for several years, is the source of much humor this year. NPR likes it so much that one of its correspondents asked Martha Stewart about it. Some bloggers love it so much they can hardly contain themselves. It is so popular with social media addicts that over 21,000 Facebook users are already on board. Indeed, as a measure of how popular tamponcrafts.com is this Christmas season, it is currently posting a 92 percent Social Media Impact score.

In any event, American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion Foundation have not said whether they would sue a municipal government that displayed a tampon nativity scene on public property. My guess is they would fund it.

Bill Donohue comments on the HBO produced film, “Mea Maxima Culpa,” which completes its New York City run tomorrow:

Director Alex Gibney wants us to believe he has proven a “direct connection of the Vatican” to the homosexual scandal, though his effort fails miserably (the horror-film music is laughable).

As one review of the movie said, “All the reports of sex abuse in the church since the 1960s went directly to the current pope, Benedict XVI, to the time when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.” Wrong. There was no central command center until 2001 when Ratzinger took over. And that’s when things really began to change—just the opposite of what Gibney would have us believe.

Much of the movie focuses on Father Lawrence Murphy, a serial abuser from Wisconsin. Here are some facts that undercut Gibney’s propaganda: the crimes against Murphy extend to the 1950s; the civil authorities were not asked to investigate until the mid-1970s; following the probe, the case was dropped; the Vatican wasn’t notified until 1996 (it could have ignored the case because the statute of limitations had expired); a trial was ordered; the priest who presided over the case between 1996-1998 has said that in all the meetings he had in the U.S. and in Rome, “at no time…was Cardinal Ratzinger’s name ever mentioned.”

Gibney touts Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland for trying “as no other cleric did—to push for the canonical trial” of Murphy in 1996. But we have proof that Gibney’s hero—who had to resign after his male lover revealed that the archbishop paid him $450,000 to settle a sexual assault lawsuit—knew about Murphy’s crimes at least as early as 1980. So why did it take Weakland 16 years to contact the Vatican?

At the New York showing today, Assemblywoman Margaret Markey will push her sex abuse reform law. She’s a perfect fit with all the other frauds—her bill doesn’t apply to the public schools.

Bill Donohue released the following remarks today:

Michael D’Antuono is a left-wing artist known for exploiting racial tensions (e.g, depicting George Zimmerman as a Klansman and Trayvon Martin as a generous child). But now he has succumbed to a new low.

D’Antuono’s painting of President Barack Obama with outstretched arms wearing a crown of thorns, against the backdrop of the Seal of the President of the United States, is called “Truth.” [Click here.] It is being hosted by the Bunker Hill Community College Arts Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts.

What makes this display so interesting is the flat denial of truth by so many artists and academicians, as well as their irrepressible hostility to Christianity. Yet when it comes to their savior, President Obama, they not only pivot, they proselytize.

“Truth” was supposed to make its debut on April 29, 2009 in New York’s Union Square; it was to commemorate the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency. But D’Antuono withdrew his masterpiece after being hit with angry e-mails. Now he is back, apparently thinking that after Obama won reelection, the time is ripe to witness his crucifixion. Imagine if his God had lost what our Christmas gift would look like.

It is one thing for the Italian nativity scene builder Ferrigno to include Obama as a figurine in this year’s crèche (it has regularly featured public persons such as Princess Diana), quite another for an angry artist to rip off Christian iconography for the purpose of making a cheap political statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court today ordered the Fourth Circuit of Appeals to hear the constitutional issues involved in two provisions of ObamaCare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act. Previously, the circuit court ruled that a challenge by Liberty University to ObamaCare was premature, but now the high court has vacated that decision.

Bill Donohue addresses one of the provisions that will now be given a full hearing by the circuit court:

The key aspect of ObamaCare for the Catholic community has always been the religious liberty issue, not the question of universal health care coverage; the Catholic Church endorsed universal health care more than 80 years ago. The contentious part of ObamaCare, as stated by the bishops, is the Health and Human Services mandate forcing Catholic non-profits to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization.

There is reason to believe that despite the reluctance that some Supreme Court judges may have in revisiting this subject, the high court will eventually rule on the religious liberty issue; it was not addressed last June when ObamaCare was decided. It now signals to the Fourth Circuit that it cannot dodge this matter.

In her own opinion on ObamaCare, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg held that although the congressional legislation was constitutional, its implementation may still cross the line. “A mandate to purchase a particular product would be unconstitutional if, for example,” she said, “the edict impermissibly abridged the freedom of speech, interfered with the free exercise of religion, or infringed on a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause.” (My italics.)

Ginsburg did not pen those words without reason. Which is why we remain cautiously optimistic about the fate of the religious liberty issue.

Bill Donohue released the following remarks today:

Thanks to Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters, we learned today of the comments that aired last night on BET by Jamie Foxx at the previously recorded Soul Train Awards. Foxx greeted the crowd by saying, “First of all, give an honor to God and our Lord and Savior Barack Obama, Barack Obama.”

A YouTube video posted on December 21, 2011 shows Foxx being asked, “What does God mean to you?” His response, “What does God mean to me? I don’t know.”

Foxx’s epiphany is startling. It just goes to show that even though Obama did not succeed in stopping the oceans from rising (as he promised to do in 2008), he did succeed in convincing Jamie Foxx, and no doubt legions of others, that God exists. Whether God can survive an ACLU lawsuit accusing him of violating church and state grounds remains to be seen.

Bill Donohue released the following comments today:

One of the most famous atheists in American history, Paul Kurtz, died last month at age 86. While not religion-friendly, he was by no means a hater. Indeed, he hated what he called “angry atheists,” the kind we see with increasing frequency these days. It is hardly a stretch to say that today’s breed of atheists more closely resemble fascists than they do intellectuals like Kurtz. Consider some of their latest attacks.

Students at an elementary school in Little Rock, Arkansas were recently invited to see the play, “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” at a local church. Seeking to avoid controversy, no students were required to attend, and bus service was scheduled for those who wished to go. A ruckus ensued when one atheist complained, enlisting the help of a local atheist group.

For several decades, the Illinois village of Alsip has erected a cross on its water tower, but this year it will not be displayed: the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) threatened to sue, forcing the village’s authorities to cancel the display. This atheist organization is one of the most aggressive “angry atheists” groups in the nation. It was co-founded by Annie Nicol Gaylor, whose values were clearly enshrined in her 1975 book, Abortion Is a Blessing. Fortunately for her daughter, Annie Laurie Gaylor (she runs FFRF today), Annie Nicol did not exercise her blessing.

Today’s atheists have no identity save for what they are against. What else but malice would drive atheists to display their hate-filled message alongside religious symbols in Santa Monica last year? This year local officials practiced their neutrality by censoring all displays equally. To top things off, yesterday a federal judge offered an opinion that deserves entry in the Guinness Book of World Records: she ruled that displays of any kind would destroy the turf and obstruct the ocean views in Palisades Park (apparently this never happened for the 60 years that a crèche was erected there).

So we not only have to deal with “angry atheists,” we have to deal with their sympathetic dunces on the bench, as well.

Bill Donohue released the following statement today:

For most of American history, manger scenes adorned public property at Christmastime without controversy. It was also normal to ban public nudity. But times have changed: now the authorities in Santa Monica and San Francisco are set to rule on these issues.

Today in Santa Monica a federal judge will decide whether the city can  ban churches from erecting crèches in Palisades Park. On Tuesday, lawmakers in San Francisco will decide whether the city can ban public nudity. Activists in the atheist and homosexual communities are responsible for upending these traditions.

Last year an atheist in Santa Monica succeeded in getting his anti-Christmas message shown alongside a nativity scene in Palisades Park, and this year the city ruled against all of these displays. Not surprisingly, an anti-Christian group from Madison, Wisconsin, Freedom From Religion Foundation, is heralding the bigot.

Homosexuals have been walking around naked in San Francisco with increasing regularity, and tomorrow lawmakers will rule on whether to adopt an ordinance that would make public nudity illegal. There is a caveat: because gay pride is inseparable from genital liberation, the law being considered would still allow these men to go naked at the annual gay pride parade, and at the Folsom Street Fair; the latter event is marked by naked homosexuals who whip each other in the street. Jolly for them, they will still be allowed to torture themselves in public even if the law is passed.

Such is the state of American culture in 2012, California-style.

Bill Donohue comments as follows:

Mark Thompson, the former BBC chief and current president of the New York Times Company, has said all along that he knew nothing about a spiked BBC exposé on BBC child rapist Jimmy Savile. Most astounding of all, on October 13, he said, “During my time as director general of the BBC, I never heard any allegations” about Jimmy Savile. As I wrote on October 26, “If this is true, it makes him a rare find for the Times: everyone else had at least heard about Savile.”

Thompson has subsequently admitted that he was told at a Christmas party last year of the killed story. He didn’t have much choice: BBC reporter Caroline Hawley bared the truth. In addition, Thompson was given many daily news clips about Savile, but we are to believe his account that he never read any of them. What was revealed this week strains credulity beyond limits.

Ten days before Thompson left the BBC in September, his lawyers wrote a letter to The Sunday Times in London threatening to sue if they decided to go forth with a detailed article about the Savile issue. Unavoidably, the letter summarized the accusations against the BBC icon, thus undercutting Thompson’s claim that he never even heard about Savile’s serial sex crimes while he was running the BBC.

Now we are to believe that although Thompson asked his lawyers to write the letter, he never read it! Ed Williams, Thompson’s spokesman in London, says, “He [Thompson] verbally agreed to the tactic of sending a legal letter to the paper, but was not involved in its drafting.” According to today’s New York Times, Thompson did more than agree to the letter: it says he “orally authorized the sending of the letter.” Did he know what he was authorizing? Thompson won’t speak—not even to the Times—but his anonymous aide expects us to believe that his boss “had not known the details of its contents.” If this isn’t bad enough, Thompson’s personal advisor says of the letter, “It’s not clear if he was shown it, but he doesn’t remember reading it.” Thompson is lying, and everyone knows it.

Bill Donohue comments as follows:

Last week, Catholic left-wingers felt emboldened. This week they are in despair. At the meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, the bishops once again committed themselves to the civil rights of the unborn, the defense of marriage, and the cause of religious liberty. Thus those Catholics who reject the Church’s teachings on abortion and marriage, and who support the anti-Catholic mandate being imposed by Health and Human Services, lost big time. Moreover, a vaguely worded document on the poor, which was not distributed to the bishops until they arrived at the meeting, was shot down.

It is important for the practicing-Catholic community—the only subset that really counts—to understand that there are any number of front groups out there who deceitfully use the Catholic label to advance their agenda. Three such entities that are condemning the bishops are Catholics for Choice, Catholics United, and Faithful America.

Catholics for Choice is the oldest of the anti-Catholic front groups—it is a creature of the Ford Foundation and has no members—and it told the bishops that they need to “realize the error of their ways.” There are two groups lecturing the bishops to “refocus their attention on caring for the poor and vulnerable” (by which they mean pushing for more welfare): Catholics United and Faithful America; the former was founded with seed money from atheist billionaire George Soros, and the latter is an online hybrid of another Soros-funded front group, Faith in Public Life.

Remember all those Catholic left-wingers who for years were singing the refrain about the need to achieve common ground? Some of us never believed them, and now at least one of them has admitted that this was a ploy all along. “It is said after every election that the victors should put politics aside and work for the good of the country,” wrote E.J. Dionne this week. Then he unloaded: “If President Obama believed this pious nonsense, he would put his second term in jeopardy.” Nice to know he does not want the president to “work for the good of the country.”

Bill Donohue comments as follows:

The Italians are famous for creating novel nativity scenes, but this year they outdid themselves by including President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle. Look for the ACLU to import the Obama crèche and have it erected on the White House lawn, making the case that this is a free speech issue, not a church and state matter. And because some of the figurines hold a sign that says, “God Bless America,” look for Obama’s fans to thank him for his blessing.

Shame on the Italians for overlooking Joe—there are any number of animals he could have represented.