Bill Donohue raises questions about media interest in allegations that the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium was involved in sexual crimes:

There has been a rash of stories about U.S. State Department employees taking drugs and cavorting with prostitutes. In addition, the Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, was accused of soliciting prostitutes and minor children. While all of these alleged crimes are reprehensible, the Catholic League only has interest in the charge that Gutman “routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children.” (My italics.)

No media outlet was more outraged over minors being molested by priests than the Boston Globe, but it has shown no interest in this story; it has not run a single piece on it. The New York Times ran one story; the Washington Post ran one story, but unlike the Times, it never mentioned “minor children”; the Los Angeles Times, like the Globe, ignored the story altogether.

Most disturbing is CBS News. It deserves credit for breaking the story, but what it did on June 11 was indefensible. Here is what it said: “One specific example mentioned in the [Inspector General’s] memo refers to the 2011 investigations into an ambassador who ‘routinely ditched…his protective security detail,’ and inspectors suspect this was in order to ‘solicit sexual favors from prostitutes.’”

Now compare the last sentence in the paragraph above to the last sentence I quoted in the first paragraph. What is missing is any reference to “minor children.” This was not a mistake: by excising reference to “minor children,” it demanded that the reporter also excise the word “both.” He did.

In short, current allegations of child rape by government officials are far less interesting to the media than decades-old stories about priests. Let’s face it: the media, as well as pundits (and “comedians” like Bill Maher), are not interested in kids. Their interest is in the identity of the offender.

Bill Donohue comments on the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) not to investigate or prosecute Pope Benedict XVI:

On September 13, 2011, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) announced that it had asked the ICC to prosecute Pope Benedict XVI, and other high ranking Catholic leaders, for “crimes against humanity.” The next day I wrote a letter to Luis Moreno-Ocampo at The Hague detailing the fraudulent, dishonest, politicized, and anti-Catholic history of SNAP (to read it, click here). Our goal was to subvert their efforts. We won.

The ICC has officially tossed the bogus complaint filed by SNAP and the Center for Constitutional Rights; the latter is a far-left wing group that specializes in defending Muslim terrorists sitting in Guantanamo Bay. The ICC rejected the bid to even investigate the Holy See.

Barbara Blaine and David Clohessy, both of whom have been involved in covering up for sexual abusers, are now claiming they are “neither deterred nor discouraged by this news.” Nice spin, but it won’t work. They have, in fact, been stopped in their tracks, and are now wringing their hands over this colossal defeat. Justice has been served.

Bill Donohue comments on opposition by the Obama administration to a National Defense Authorization Act amendment that would protect the religious liberty of men and women in the Armed Forces:

If the religious liberty of the Armed Forces were secure, there would be no need for an amendment to safeguard it. Sadly, there is. Rep. John Fleming wants to make sure that the military accommodates religious expression, and for that he should be commended. Importantly, he is not an absolutist: he explicitly allows for exceptions based on “military necessity.”

In a statement released yesterday by the Office of Management and Budget, it said officers need discretion “to address potentially problematic speech and actions within their units.” It also said Fleming’s amendment “would have a significant adverse effect on good order, discipline, morale and mission accomplishment.”

All speech is “potentially problematic,” but that is hardly an argument for curbing it. It is also a red herring to say that by ensuring the First Amendment rights to free speech and religious liberty, it will cause a threat to “good order, discipline and mission accomplishment” in the military. Really? The Obama administration didn’t worry about “good order, discipline and mission accomplishment” when it was touting the virtues of gays serving openly in the military. As for morale, it is being undermined by the censorial environment that religious men and women in uniform have to tolerate.

When it comes to those who elect to mutilate their genitals in transgender surgery, we are told they can’t have too many rights. When it comes to suspected Muslim terrorists, we are told they cannot have too many rights. When it comes to pre-teen girls seeking to get birth control pills behind their parents’ back, we are told they cannot have too many rights. But when it comes to the religious rights of the Armed Forces, we are told they already have too many rights.

Bill Donohue comments on the sentencing today of Father Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero:

When we at the Catholic League first heard that a boy was allegedly raped by three different persons, two of whom were priests, we were immediately suspicious. After all, how many times in American history has anyone been raped three times by three different persons? The more we learned, the more we were convinced that “Billy Doe” was a congenital liar, school dropout, thief, and drug addict, a punk who sought to cash in on the prevailing animus against priests.

Fr. Engelhardt, whom no one has ever proved even met “Billy Doe,” was sentenced to 6 to 12 years in prison; Shero was hit with 8 to 16.

To read our account of this gross injustice, click here. My statement, which was submitted to the Philadelphia Inquirer as an ad, was turned down. It’s not every day a failing metropolitan newspaper rejects $58,000, even when the contents make the paper look bad for not doing its job.

Bill Donohue comments on news reports that the U.S. State Department is involved in a cover-up of pedophilia:

At a Senate Finance Committee today, it was reported that the State Department found in 2010 that the majority of domestic victims enslaved in the sex industry are runaway and homeless youth. It did not say whether the child that was allegedly raped by the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium was homeless. Perhaps that is because the investigation into what Howard Gutman did was spiked by Patrick Kennedy, the Undersecretary of State for Management.

The State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems to have been infinitely more concerned about punishing whistleblowers than pedophiles. Aurelia Fedenisn, a former senior inspector general investigator at the State Department, said Gutman “routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children.” Evidently, lots of people knew about it and did nothing. Gutman raised a half-million dollars for Obama in 2008 and helped finance his inaugural.

Worse, the Inspector General’s (IG) office compromised its independence by lying about the events: Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, Eric Boswell, ordered reference to the pedophilia deleted, and the IG acceded to the request. As for Fedensin, she was threatened with criminal charges, but nothing was done about the child rapist.

Yesterday, a State Department official said that investigations sometimes result in disciplinary actions that aren’t made public. If the State Department wants to punish its johns internally, that is of no interest to the Catholic League. But when priests are being removed from ministry for “boundary violations,” and bishops are being pressured to step down because they didn’t sufficiently supervise a former groping priest, it is unconscionable—if these stories are true—that State Department higher-ups not be punished for refusing to contact the authorities about a suspected child rapist, and then engaging in a cover-up.

Bill Donohue comments on the Obama administration’s decision not to contest a federal judge’s ruling that eliminates age restrictions on the “morning-after” pill known as Plan B:

On December 7, 2011, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explained why the Obama administration opposed the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation that Plan B be made available without prescription to girls of all ages. “It is common knowledge that there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age,” she said. President Barack Obama agreed, saying, “As the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine.”

So what happened to the “common knowledge” and “common sense” arguments? Why did the administration not appeal District Judge Edward Korman’s ruling? The issues are the same, both morally and medicinally. What’s changed, of course, is the timing: the outcome of the presidential election is no longer in doubt.

It’s perverse. The same people who promote a highly eroticized popular culture are the ones who promote Plan B as a panacea to adolescent sex. And yet nothing works to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases better than restraint. But the elites have divined that restraint ought to apply to smoking (save for marijuana), not sexuality.

Bill Donohue has written an open letter to members of the California Assembly on the issue of sexual abuse in the schools. Hard as it is to believe, a bill passed the Senate last week that seeks to lift the statute of limitations for one year so that Catholic schools (and other private institutions) can be sued for sexual abuse that allegedly occurred decades ago, but it does not apply to the public schools.

To be specific, no one who was abused in a public school before 2009 can sue the teacher, the school, or the school district, but if someone was abused in a Catholic school when JFK was president, he can sue the teacher (if he is alive), the school, and the diocese. Similar state laws are being entertained elsewhere (e.g., New York), but conditions in the California public schools are so outrageous today that they cry out for special consideration.

Donohue ends his letter by saying, “If someone authorized the National Guard to police a low-crime neighborhood, leaving all other communities alone, we would wonder what in the world is really going on. Similarly, Catholics in California are wondering what in the world is really going on when lawmakers are giving public schools a pass at a time when those same schools are the source of most of the problems.”

To read Donohue’s letter, click here.

Bill Donohue comments on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s abortion bill:

Andrew Cuomo’s lust for abortion rights has effectively killed his chances of ever becoming president of the United States. Tomorrow, he will unveil his proposal to allow abortions in New York through term. This is an act of political suicide.

Not since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973 have more Americans identified themselves as pro-life. And what is Cuomo doing? He’s going the other way.

Last year, a Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans (52%) want abortion legal under certain circumstances; 25% want it legal in all cases; and 20% want it illegal in all cases. Cuomo is laying anchor with the 25%.

All the survey data in the last decade show that Americans want abortion to be legal but limited: they want it limited to exceptional cases (e.g., they oppose abortions for the sake of convenience), and they want it limited to the early stages of pregnancy. There is absolutely no demand for late abortions—the evidence is just the opposite—yet this is exactly what Cuomo champions.

Cuomo may not pay a big price in New York for his extremism, but once he ventures outside the Empire State he will find out—the way his father Mario did—just how out of touch he is with public sentiment on this life and death issue.

Bill Donohue comments on Bill Maher’s HBO Friday night show:

Maher’s obsession with Catholicism was on display again Friday night. His joking around about the pope being an atheist crossed no lines, nor did his swipe at Jesus being a hippie. But he just can’t get through a conversation about the Catholic Church without getting dirty.

Guest Paul Rudnick, a homosexual playwright known for his filthy and anti-Catholic productions, quoted a Vatican official who said, “People who truly know the Catholic Church cannot be saved if they refuse to enter or remain in her.” Maher replied, “Remain in her?” To which Rudnick said, “Yeah, presumably without using a condom.”

Over the weekend, Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert apologized profusely for saying “no homo” (and an obscenity) in a news conference. The NBA did not consider his remorse sufficient: he was fined $75,000.

Maher is a recidivist: his vulgar characterizations of priests, dating back decades, make him the most anti-Catholic bigot in the entertainment industry. But he pays no price for his bigotry. Time Warner (the parent company of HBO) knows all about his record—we recently sent its officials a detailed list of his Catholic-bashing remarks—and still does nothing.

Fining Maher for his speech would be absurd, but there are other things that could be done to get him to treat Catholics as if they were, say, gays. One thing is for sure: the NBA takes bigotry and obscenity seriously, which is more than we can say for HBO/Time Warner.

Contact HBO chief Richard Plepler:: richard.plepler@hbo.com