Bill Donohue has written an article for Newsmax on Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel.” In it, Donohue explores why the pope is neither liberal nor conservative, but simply Catholic. To read the article, click here.
Bill Donohue comments on the desire of the Obama administration to move the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See to the American Embassy in Italy:
There are principled reasons why some might say that the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See should be moved, such as safety concerns and economic issues. But when these reasons are being promoted by an administration that stood by and did nothing about the fatalities at the American facility in Benghazi—and to this day refuses to provide a full account—it strains credulity to believe that safety is their real interest. Moreover, no administration in American history has been more fiscally reckless than the Obama administration, making it risible to suggest that all of a sudden they have discovered austerity.
Former U.S. Ambassadors to the Holy See, James Nicholson, Mary Ann Glendon, Thomas Melady, Francis Rooney and Raymond Flynn are right to sound the alarms; the net effect of this move is to diminish the prestige of the Holy See. Flynn is also right to see in this gambit an animus against the Catholic Church. Which only goes to show how thoroughly consistent this administration is in its dealings with all matters Catholic.
Bill Donohue comments on the November 22 edition of the HBO show, “Real Time with Bill Maher” (Time Warner is the parent company of HBO):
The board of directors at Time Warner cannot distance themselves from Bill Maher any longer. On Friday night, Maher teed up Dan Savage, another anti-Catholic bigot. What happened was particularly vicious.
Maher commented on gay couples who adopt children, alleging that a Hawaiian bishop said these kids had a greater chance of committing suicide. Here is how Savage responded: “That’s total bulls***. He’s confusing children of gay parents with children who are raped by Catholic priests. Sorry, I am just done being lectured about children and their safety by Catholic-f***ing bishops, priests, cardinals.” Shortly thereafter, Savage again remarked about “kiddie-f***ing Catholic priests.”
We are sending to every member of Time Warner’s board of directors a copy of 54 anti-Catholic statements made by Bill Maher on TV [click here to read the report]. Friday’s show concluded the season. The time has come to close this show once and for all.
The new season of “Real Time with Bill Maher” is scheduled to begin January 17. I am writing to every bishop in the nation requesting that they write to Jeff Bewkes, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO, Time Warner, Inc. [click here]. The show deserves to be cancelled.
Everyone else is urged to e-mail Keith Cocozza, VP, Corporate Communications: keith.cocozza@timewarner.com
Bill Donohue compares the reaction to Martin Bashir’s comments about Sarah Palin to Bill Maher’s comments about the pope and priests:
MSNBC host Martin Bashir recently made an obscene comment about Sarah Palin that he has apologized for. The silence coming from MSNBC, however, is disturbing.
At least Bashir apologized and is not likely to offend Palin again. Much more offensive than Bashir is Bill Maher: he has relentlessly, and intentionally, insulted the current pope, his predecessors, the nation’s bishops, 40,000 priests, and 70 million Catholics. Over and over again, he brands them as child rapists, and no one at HBO/Time Warner does anything about it. To read some of Maher’s comments, click here.
It is time we had a national discussion about the moral right of political satirists to engage in vicious assaults against individuals and demographic groups. There are those on the right, and those on the left, who have gotten away with deliberately insulting people for years. That they smile while doing so, hiding behind their comedic mask, is not exculpatory.
So as not to be misunderstood, I am not calling for a new round of political correctness where pundits, comedians, et al. are forced to walk through a linguistic minefield: hard-hitting commentary is integral to robust free speech, and attempts to curtail it must be resisted. But there is a difference between a strident exchange and an obscene attack. There is also a difference between scripted commentary and spontaneous outbursts. Finally, there is a difference between those who rarely offend and those who are recidivists.
It’s time HBO/Time Warner acted responsibly and sat Maher down.
Contact HBO chief, Richard Plepler: richard.plepler@hbo.com
On November 19, NewsBusters ran a story on the MSNBC segment with Thomas Roberts on abortion. This occasioned Bill Donohue to write the following letter to MSNBC 
today:
Ms. Kathy Kelly-Brown
Senior Vice President, Communications
NBCUniversal News Group
MSNBC
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, New York 10112
Dear Ms. Kelly-Brown:
If MSNBC wants to invite someone from Catholics for Choice to discuss abortion, that’s fine. But truth in advertising standards demand that the spokesperson not be identified as representing the position of the Catholic Church. That is exactly what happened on November 19 when Thomas Roberts introduced Sara Hutchinson, a spokesperson for Catholics for Choice. After MSNBC contributor and abortion-rights advocate Irin Carmon expressed her position on the Albuquerque, New Mexico proposed law banning abortions after 20 weeks, Roberts said, “Okay, so let’s talk to the Church side.”
There is nothing “Catholic” about Catholics for Choice, and everyone knows it. Would MSNBC allow someone from Jews for Jesus to speak for Jews? If you want to present two pro-abortion sides as part of your discussion, that is your business. But please refrain from lying to your viewers about “the Church side.”
Contact: kathy.kelly-brown@nbcuni.com
Bill Donohue comments on “Philomena,” a movie that opens today:
A half-century ago, an Irish woman gave birth to a son out-of-wedlock, and gave him up for adoption; he was born in an abbey, a venue that allowed the mother to avoid being stigmatized.
There is nothing particularly startling about this, other than the fact that film reviewers are now all aghast about the “horrors” these fallen women experienced; many are making reference to the Magdalene Laundries. As I detailed earlier this year, it’s bunk [click here]. Those who are neither scholars nor principled observers have swallowed this propaganda, so debased is their appetite for anti-Catholic fare.
There is one reviewer who is exceptionally fair, Kyle Smith of the New York Post. He is worth quoting at length:
“The film doesn’t mention that in 1952 Ireland, both mother and child’s life would have been utterly ruined by an out-of-wedlock birth and that the nuns are actually giving both a chance at a fresh start and that both, indeed, in real life, enjoyed. No, this is a diabolical-Catholic film, straight up.”
Smith’s closing remark says it all:
“A film that is half as harsh on Judaism or Islam, of course, wouldn’t be made in the first place, and would be universally reviled if it were. ‘Philomena’ is a sucker punch, or maybe a sugary slice of arsenic cake.”
Bill Donohue comments on New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s transition committee:
Yesterday, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announced the appointment of 60 New York leaders to his transition committee. He instructed them to “identify women and men from every part of our city and walk of life” that wants a better New York. He lied. Also lying was Transition Co-Chair Jennifer Jones Austin, who said that committee members “come from every slice of civic life—business and labor, science and the arts, clergy….” (My italic.)
In fact, there are two ministers, two rabbis and one imam on the transition committee. There are no Catholic priests. Catholics make up 52.5 percent of New York, yet they have no clergy representation. This is not an oversight: every attempt was made to include persons from virtually every sector of New York. This was clearly done by design. Looks like de Blasio’s politics of inclusion has its limits.
To make matters worse, de Blasio showed his contempt for Catholics by naming to his transition committee the man who insulted them in 1999 with the “Sensation” exhibit, Arnold L. Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. That exhibit featured a portrait of Our Blessed Mother with elephant dung and pornographic cut outs on it. I led a demonstration against it.
If de Blasio ever gets around to appointing a Catholic priest to his transition team, we hope he doesn’t take the advice of Darren Walker, a member of the committee. Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, the most generous donor to the most anti-Catholic and pro-abortion organization in the nation, Catholics for Choice.
We are contacting every Catholic parish in all five boroughs about de Blasio’s decision to shut out priests. De Blasio hasn’t even begun, yet he has managed to insult a majority of New Yorkers.
Contact de Blasio’s Press Secretary, Wiley Norvell: wnorvell@pubadvocate.nyc.gov
Bill Donohue comments on the November 20 edition of the “Dennis & Callahan Morning Show” radio program, simulcast on the New England Sports Network:
The pope’s compassion for a man severely disfigured by disease was lost on Boston sports talk show hosts John Dennis, Gerry Callahan, and Kirk Minihane. After Minihane remarked that the pope was “making out” with the man, the trio continued to assail the Holy Father and even brought his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, into their attacks.
Insulting the pope’s mercy was not enough for them. They said that he belongs in the mall with Santa, and implied that he molests children.
This isn’t the first time this crew has hit below the belt. In 2003 they were suspended for two weeks after comparing African Americans to gorillas, in 2005 they offended gays, and in 2007 they accused a federal judge of fixing a child endangerment case. They have apologized before, and now it’s time for them to apologize again.
Perhaps they should just stick to sports.
Contact: dennisandcallahan@weei.com
Bill Donohue comments on a homily given yesterday by Pope Francis:
It happened to the Jews, and it is happening to us, Pope Francis said. He was talking about what happens when a people become deracinated, when they lose their religious moorings. Citing the Book of Maccabees, the pope mentioned how the Jews tried to regain their cultural and religious identity after Antiochus IV Epiphanes sought to deny them their heritage. It is happening to Christians today, he said, many of whom have traded allegiance to God for worldly ends.
The root cause of this Christian disloyalty, he said, “is a fruit of the devil who makes his way forward with the spirit of secular worldliness.” We cannot negotiate our identity, he said, simply because of social pressure to do so. He admonished us not to succumb to “globalized uniformity,” the tendency to “be like everyone else,” and what he called an “adolescent progressivism.”
These remarks by Pope Francis come at a time when some Catholics are more interested in adopting the secular values of the dominant culture than they are in defending Catholic teachings and values. So desperate are they to be liked by the secular elites, they are more willing to have the Church accommodate itself to the prevailing normative order than they are in resisting it. Thus do they promote the “adolescent progressivism” that the Holy Father denounces.
The pope’s comments show his courage, as well as his commitment to recharging Catholic values. We hope those who have been willfully misreading some of his statements take note.
Bill Donohue comments on the November 15 episode of Bill Maher’s HBO show:
Maher can’t perform without attacking Catholics. In his latest rant, he took after the pope, Sarah Palin, and Palin’s daughter, Bristol.
The skit was a series of mock tweets featuring the pope and Palin.
Hollywood, and the entertainment world in general, hates Catholicism; and it also hates Sarah Palin. No matter how vicious Maher gets with the pope, he’ll never pay a price in the circles he runs in. It would be interesting to know something about his writers: their religion, their ethnicity, their politics, their upbringing, their home, their habits, etc. It could make for quite a documentary.
Contact HBO executive producer, Nancy Geller: nancy.geller@hbo.com