Bill Donohue comments on office Christmas parties:

Many label us conservative, but we’re not the uptight ones when it comes to the annual office Christmas party. We know how to party.

Helen Sorrentino of The Alternative Press advises employers to limit office parties to “a few hours.” I manifestly disagree—ours is open-ended and could go on all night. She says to “end the service of alcohol 30 minutes prior to the end the party.” No way—this is not a baseball game where you can’t get a beer after the seventh inning. Indeed, most of us grab a roadie before leaving.

Charles Purdy at the Orange County Register seconds the advice of some party pooper who says employees “should prepare a list of people it would be beneficial to talk to.” I recommend preparing a list of people you want to ignore—that way you can have a good time. “If you’re female,” he says, “dress conservative and make sure you’re not revealing bare arms or any cleavage.” As long as I am president of the Catholic League, I pledge never to author such a draconian policy.

Attorney Stephanie R. Leach says that Christmas parties should be called “Holiday parties.” That doesn’t work. What should I say if asked what holiday we are celebrating? And what if some cad complains that “holiday” means “holy day”? Either way, I’m screwed. Stephanie also advises that we serve “plenty of non-alcoholic beverages.” We don’t have that problem—being a boozer is a condition of employment. Just ask Suzon.

Jo-Lynn Brown from the Tampa Bay Business Journal writes that Christmas parties should be scheduled “on a week night, when employees will be less tempted to overindulge.” Bad idea. We’re having our party tomorrow night, precisely because everyone can sleep in on Saturday. She also advises that we should not allow “employees to tend the bar.” I agree on that one, but not for the same reason: If our VP, Bernadette, gets behind the tap, she’ll empty the keg herself. Similarly, if Don or Mary Ellen tend bar, there won’t be a lick of liquor left for the rest of us. And if Alex is serving….

Bill Donohue comments on Pope Francis being named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year”:

No one deserves this honor more than Pope Francis. It is worth repeating what we said about him just a month after he was chosen as the new pope. The following is the lead paragraph in our April 15 New York Times op-ed page ad, titled, “LEAD US, HOLY FATHER”:

“As soon as you were introduced as Pope Francis, you impressed us, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, with your humility and ability to connect with common people. Your long-standing outreach to the least among us, beginning with the unborn, is especially welcome. So is your commitment to the poor, and your equally strong rejection of a politicized theology.”

Congratulations, Pope Francis.

Bill Donohue comments on four stories that show media bias:

The ABC News headline reads, “Gay Catholic School Teacher Fired for Wedding Plans.” Well, not really: he was fired for breaking a contract he voluntarily signed. Michael Griffin, who taught at a Pennsylvania Catholic school, said his principal didn’t care that he was gay, but when he publicly announced his “wedding” plans, he made a conscious decision to flout his contract. So he was canned. Does ABC allow its staff to violate their contracts with impunity?

The USA Today headline reads, “Catholic Women Ordained Priest and Deacons in Kentucky.” Well, not really: the old gals were simply playing the game of pretend—dressing up like priests and pretending they were ordained in the Catholic Church. Some in the asylum think they are the pope. Will USA Today do a story on them as well?

The Dayton Daily News headline reads, “Ex-Dayton Priest Faces Prosecution.” Well, not really: turns out that the “priest,” Annamalai Annamalai, is a “self-described Hindu high priest.” Readers were intentionally invited to believe he was a Catholic priest. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was more accurate: it called him a guru.

The CNN headline reads, “Catholic College Police Officer Kills Student After Off-Campus Traffic Stop.” Has anyone ever seen a headline that reads, “Jewish College Police Officer Kills Student After Off-Campus Traffic Stop”? Yet CNN used the same words, “Catholic College Police Officer,” in its headline both yesterday and today. But would CNN ever run a story titled, “Catholic College Police Officer Saves Student Lives”?

The hostility exhibited by the media to Catholicism has no rival. Every day there is something new. And they wonder why their credibility with the public is at historic lows.

Bill Donohue comments on a New York Times editorial in today’s paper:

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) because the bishops are pro-life. Its pretext is a case involving a pregnant woman who visited the only hospital in her area, and claims she was not given information about the option of aborting her baby. The New York Times, which always sides with the pro-abortion industry against the Catholic Church, thinks the ACLU is doing yeoman work. But the first sentence in today’s 520-word editorial, along with the last two, prove why my first sentence is accurate.

The first sentence says that beyond state efforts to restrict abortion, there is “another, if quieter, threat [that] is posed by mergers between secular hospitals and Catholic hospitals operating under religious directives from the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops.” What scares the Times is diversity: it is resolutely opposed to the pro-life position of Catholic hospitals, and wants every hospital to perform abortions. Whenever there is a merger between secular and Catholic entities, the Times maintains that Catholic First Amendment rights should yield to the non-constitutional rights of secular institutions.

“The bishops are free to worship as they choose and advocate their beliefs. But those beliefs should not shield the bishops from legal accountability when church-affiliated hospitals following their rules cause patients harm.” These sentences are a gem: in effect, the Times says it is okay for the bishops to say the rosary. They can even advocate their beliefs! What they can’t do is act on them. This is what the New York Times believes are sufficient constitutional rights for Catholics in 2013.

Freedom to worship, promoted by the Obama administration, is a neutered rendition of the more robust, and constitutionally protected, right to religious freedom; it has a public dimension. As Pope Francis recently instructed, Catholics should never settle for less.

Contact Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page director, NYT: andyr@nytimes.com

From midnight to 1:00 a.m., December 7, Comedy Central aired a one-hour special, “Chris D’Elia: White Male: Black Comic”; it was part of a two-hour performance recorded last month (the show is being released on CD and DVD tomorrow by Comedy Central Records).

Bill Donohue comments as follows:

The D’Elia special featured a 13-minute segment that treated viewers to one of the most offensive anti-Christian attacks ever to be shown on TV; it made a deliberate effort to offend Catholics. Here’s a sample:

Speaking of Jesus, D’Elia said, “No way—he died for us so that we could all live? Awesome. He hung himself on the cross for that many days….”

Speaking of Catholic churches, D’Elia said, “There’s people on the stain glass windows with thorns around their head, they’re bleeding from the thorns, crying out of their eyeballs, their clothes are all ripped….”

Speaking of the Eucharist, D’Elia said, “They make you eat a guy’s body and you don’t even think about it. You’re just lining up—’I got to eat a guy’s body, yeah I got to eat a guy’s body man’….If this isn’t creepy enough, there’s a guy down there, you can drink his blood….”

The corporate hubris of Viacom, the parent company of Comedy Central, is astonishing. It brags on its website how they “develop original, authentic content for distinct audiences including the Millennial Generation, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, LGBT viewers, the American heartland and more.” If they had any guts, they would tell their shareholders that America’s heartland doesn’t include the nearly 80 percent of Americans who are Christian. But cowardice stops them from acting on their bigotry.

Contact Carl Folta, Executive VP, Corporate Communications, Viacom: Carl.Folta@viacom.com

Now that Pope Francis has set up a commission to study priestly sexual abuse, Bill Donohue urges reporters to get their facts straight:

Myth: Children have been the main victims of priestly sexual abuse.

Fact: Since more than 95 percent of all the victims of priestly sexual abuse, as reported by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, are not prepubescent, that means that adolescents have been the primary victims.

Myth: Pedophile priests have been the problem.

Fact: Homosexual priests have been the problem. Proof: 81 percent of the victims have been male, and more than 95 percent have been postpubescent. When males have sex with postpubescent males, it is called homosexuality.

Myth: The problem is on-going.

Fact: The homosexual scandal took place mostly between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s. In the last ten years, the average number of credible accusations made against 40,000 priests is in the single digits.

Myth: The Church’s repressive teachings on sexuality are the problem.

Fact: It was liberals outside the Church who pushed for the sexual revolution, and it was liberals in the Church who abetted the revolution in the seminaries. Moreover, it was liberals who promoted therapy as the way to deal with molesters, instead of using punitive measures.

Myth: The Church has done nothing about the problem.

Fact: Pope Benedict XVI made it more difficult for active homosexual priests to enter the priesthood, thus getting directly to the source of the problem. Also, steps have been taken in every diocese to ensure that anyone who works for the Church must participate in a training program aimed at curtailing the abuse of minors.

Bill Donohue comments on a play set to open in Oklahoma City:

“The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told” opens tomorrow at the Oklahoma City Civic Center; it lasts until Dec. 22. When it opened in the East Village in New York in 1998, I said, “it sounds like a routine homosexual play: full-frontal male nudity, filthy language, discussions of body parts, butch lesbians, effeminate gay men, ranting about nature, damning God for AIDS, etc.” The play was a flop, never making it to Broadway. Now the taxpayers, both nationally and in Oklahoma, are paying for it.

The play is a gay rendition of the Bible, focusing mostly on the Old Testament. It opens with two men in jockstraps (of course) in the Garden of Eden, one of whom identifies himself as a Jew. They run into a self-described bull dyke and her lesbian lover. This masterpiece is the work of Paul Rudnick, a homosexual “Jew from New Jersey.” His goal, he said, is to mock religion: he is angry at God for allowing AIDS. Naturally.

The play is being performed at a city-owned venue, and is being presented by the Oklahoma City Theatre Company. The latter receives funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Oklahoma Arts Council; the Arts Council refused to fund this play, but contributed $18,000 to other productions during the 2013-2014 season.

It is against federal and state laws to fund religion, making absurd the notion that the public must pay for attacks on it. Civic Center officials say the play does not contain full-frontal male nudity. However, it does include simulated sex acts, and the Arts Council is explicitly prohibited by state law from funding such fare (money being fungible, it is).

Rachel Irick, the director of the Theatre Company, says “We need to build our diverse audience and offer a different Christmas story.” Well, Rachel, anti-Semitic bigots have some great ideas on how to write a play that trashes Jews. Any interest in a “different Hanukkah story”?

Contact: Rachel@okctc.org

Last night’s edition of “Chelsea Lately” on E! was particularly vicious.

The pretext to the vulgar comments made by Chelsea Handler, and guests Dan Levy and Josh Wolf, was the news that Pope Francis was once a bouncer, and rumors that he sneaks out at night to feed the poor.

Handler: “It’s a very popey thing to do, to help the homeless; I mean that’s kinda what he should be sneaking out and doing. It’s not like he can go to a glory hole [a hole in the stall in the men’s room in public places used by homosexuals for anonymous oral sex], I mean he could. I’m not making fun of Catholics. I’m thinking that he’s so liberal – he’s right around the corner from taking confession through a glory hole. That’s how advanced he is.”

Levy: “Catholics can’t win, because the only thing more embarrassing than being a child molester is being a bouncer at a [the familiar homosexual voice inflection is used] club.”

Wolf: “I was a doorman for a while which means—and all doormen are the same—which means at some point in time before he was pope this dude got a BJ [oral sex] in a bathroom from a girl wearing a tiara.”

Bill Donohue comments as follows:

It’s interesting that Handler felt compelled to say that her obscene remarks about the pope were not done to make “fun of Catholics.” Does she think Pope Francis is Jewish? Levy is also wrong to suggest that priestly sexual misconduct was done by pedophiles—almost all the guilty were homosexuals. But if the name of the game is to trash the pope, who cares about facts?

Contact PR man John Rizzotti at E!: John.Rizzotti@nbcuni.com

Bill Donohue comments on the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB):

In 2010, a pregnant woman went to a Catholic hospital after her water broke. She later claimed that she was never appraised of possible dangers to her health, and the option of choosing an abortion. The ACLU is suing the USCCB because it says the bishops’ conference is responsible for the Michigan hospital’s decision not to discuss the abortion option. The baby died shortly after birth.

It makes perfect sense for the ACLU to sue the USCCB over abortion: it has been pro-abortion and anti-Catholic for decades. It became officially pro-abortion in 1967, six years before Roe v. Wade.

Subsequently, when Rep. Henry Hyde introduced legislation to restrict federal funding of abortion, the ACLU dispatched an agent to spy on him in a Catholic Church; he was reported going to Communion amidst “pregnant women and children” who bore “gifts for life.” A judge threw the case out—the ACLU was trying to show the nefarious effect of Hyde’s Catholicism on his bill. When asked about this tactic, the Illinois congressman said, “I suppose the Nazis did that—observed Jews going to synagogue in Hitler’s Germany.”

The ACLU is so radical in its defense of abortion that it has held auctions to pay for them. It is so radical in its hatred of Catholicism that it championed the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that would have required Catholic hospitals to perform abortions or lose federal funding; it never made it to President Obama’s desk, though he pledged to sign it.

There is one more reason why the ACLU is now suing the bishops: its friend in the White House sponsors pro-abortion causes and anti-Catholic policies. The dots are not hard to connect.

Bill Donohue responds to a CNN story on Rush Limbaugh and Pope Francis:

After radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh criticized Pope Francis for statements the pope made in his apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel,” Christopher Hale of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good attacked Limbaugh. CNN prominently carried the story. But the real story is that Catholics in Alliance is a bogus entity.

Catholics in Alliance is such a fraud that it has been stripped of its tax-exempt status by the IRS: for three consecutive years, it failed to file its 990. Prior to a few years ago, the group was funded by the likes of George Soros’ Open Society Institute, and the Tides Foundation (another Soros-funded institution). But once the IRS dropped the hammer on Catholics in Alliance, both of these foundations stopped funding it.

We called Catholics in Alliance today to find out what is going on, but there is no one there; callers must leave a message on an answering machine. That’s not the way real organizations work.

It is astounding to read on the website of Catholics in Alliance a plea for donations, saying, “Contributions are tax deductible.” Really? On what basis? The IRS doesn’t recognize them as a legitimate non-profit. Neither should the media.