Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on how the phony critics of Halloween garb are:

The sensitivity police are still reeling over Megyn Kelly’s innocuous recalling of “blackface” Halloween pranks. Yet some have taken the time to inform us of other Halloween fare they find objectionable. But none object to any anti-Catholic costumes.

Yahoo.com ran a piece earlier this month titled, “7 Offensive Halloween Costumes You Definitely Shouldn’t Wear This Year.”

One of the costumes deemed offensive is an outfit that looks like bricks on a wall, with the inscription across the chest, “Mexico Will Pay.” Even though Amazon opined that this costume is “not meant to offend anyone,” Yahoo disagreed. The Internet giant branded it “another painful cultural reference being mocked with a costume.”

Goodhousekeeping.com weighed in on this issue warning everyone not to buy a “tranny granny” costume that features a Mrs. Doubtfire-inspired look.

The article, “15 Offensive Halloween Costumes You Should Never Wear,” said this transgender garb was worse than the Caitlyn Jenner one that was popular a few years ago. It called the “tranny granny” costume “especially offensive,” one that “mocks and satirizes transgender women.”

Advocate.com ran an article on October 26 titled, “Offensive Halloween Costumes to Avoid.” It actually included garb deemed anti-religious.

But by “anti-religious,” the Advocate does not mean anti-Catholic or anti-Christian. Even Jews don’t count. “Eastern Deities” do. “Dressing up as a god from an Eastern culture, especially if you lack knowledge about its significance, is demeaning to the people for whom these figures are sacred.”

Similarly, businessinsider.com informs us of “15 Offensive Halloween Costumes That You Shouldn’t Wear.”

One of the items that this U.K. media outlet doesn’t care for is a “Men’s Arab Sheik Costume.” It shows a man dressed in Arab garb holding a sword. “It’s harmful to reinforce negative and misconceived notions about a region, religion, or group of people, like this Kmart costume does.”

None of these critics carry any weight with us. They are all phonies.

“Keep Up the Faith Costume” is more widely available than any of the costumes the sensitivity police find objectionable, yet none are offended by it. It is a Catholic priest’s costume, one that shows him sporting an erection. Also widely available is a “Pregnant Nun Costume,” one that lives up to its name. Amazon, Halloween Costumes, Spirit, and Caulfield’s Novelty are just some of the places that sell these outfits.

There are some other priest costumes available for purchase that are so obscene that they would make Bill Maher blush.

Yahoo is worried about “painful cultural references being mocked”; Good Housekeeping objects to garb that “mocks and satirizes”; the Advocate is in a rage over costumes that are “demeaning to the people for whom religious figures are sacred”; and the Business Insider is fretting over “negative and misconceived notions about a region, religion, or group of people.”

But none complain about priests-with-an-erection costumes or pregnant nun garb (both are available every year). Are they really that clueless? Or do they think that Catholics deserve to be mocked? Either way, this entire Halloween-cleansing campaign, beginning with Megyn Kelly, is a joke.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on reaction to Kellyanne Conway’s remark today on the synagogue massacre:

Kellyanne Conway is being misrepresented by several media outlets, all of which have seized upon her comments regarding the massacre at the Pittsburgh synagogue. On the October 29 edition of “Fox and Friends,” she discussed what happened, noting that “late-night comedians” who are busy “making fun of people who express religion” contribute to the “anti-religiosity in this country.” She is right about that. Importantly, she never blamed these entertainers for the killings, though that is the way it is being spun.

Newsweek.com, msn.com, au.finance.yahoo, thewrap.com, and slate.com are just some of the media outlets saying Conway “blamed” the killings on late-night comedians. Most absurd of them all is the left-wing “Mother Jones.” It not only said Conway was wrong, it blamed “white supremacy” for the shootings.

More accurate was indiewire.com. Its headline reads, “Kellyanne Conway Says ‘Late-Night Comedians’ Are Partly to Blame for Synagogue Massacre.” CNN was the fairest of all, saying, “Kellyanne Conway Cites ‘anti-Religiosity’ in Pittsburgh Shooting.” (My italic.)

The Catholic League has a website full of examples detailing the many ways in which Hollywood has fostered an anti-religious animus—typically trashing Christians. And yes, “late-night comedians” have played a role in promoting this sick environment.

Are the entertainers responsible for the massacre? No, the killer is. Conway never exculpated Robert Bowers, the anti-Semitic madman behind the killings. But the cultural soil which helps to cultivate people like him can be traced to those who nourish it.

There are secondary and tertiary causes involved in all mass killings. That is what Conway was getting at, and in this instance, it’s not the Klan which shares part of the blame—it’s those who routinely mock people of faith.

What happened in Pittsburgh must be condemned by everyone, and those who are practicing in their faith have a special obligation to stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters in this time of distress.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on NBC’s termination of “Megyn Kelly Today”:

Megyn Kelly was obviously not dropped by NBC because all the executives and hosts who work there are opposed to bigotry. In fact, many of them like it. Indeed, they have been promoting it for decades.

But the tolerant ones are not equal opportunity bigots. They are careful not to offend African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, illegal aliens, Indians, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, et al. But when it comes to priests, NBC loves to make sweeping condemnations against them, feeding every negative stereotype there is.

No other demographic group is relentlessly treated with derision, mocked in ways that range from below the belt to the positively obscene. Here is a small sample.a

Let’s start with Al Roker. He called Kelly’s “blackface” remarks “ignorant and racist.”

In 2000, Roker had a book published about parenting, Don’t Make Me Stop This Car. He made the rounds on TV shows saying that his wife used a fertility drug, perganol, one he claimed was made by a company that was a subsidiary of the Vatican.

Before getting to his “joke,” it should be known that the weatherman had his facts wrong: Serono, the fertility-drug maker, was never a subsidiary of the Vatican. At one time, the Vatican owned shares in the company, but it sold them in 1970, thirty years before Roker’s book was published.

More to the point, on June 16, 2000, Roker told Larry King that perganol is extracted from a hormone, FHS, which he contended was obtained from the urine of “menopausal nuns” who live in the Vatican [note: it was actually collected from 110,000 postmenopausal women volunteers in Europe and Latin America]. He told King that the drug was “expensive stuff,” adding that “it was cheaper to adopt a nun, you know, and just have her pee in a cup.” Roker made similar cracks on other shows.

Kelly never made a cheap joke about blacks. But Roker did about nuns. Yet she is the “ignorant” bigot, not him.

Jay Leno made a career out of bashing priests. His “jokes” are too numerous to recount here, but here are a few examples.

A news story about a priest who stole church money for male escorts led Leno to quip, “Why buy the escort when the altar boys are free?” [July 7, 2010]

When told that a priest was calling for a boycott, Leno said, “Well, maybe he was just calling for a boy on a cot.” [May 14, 2010]

In his monologue, Leno commented, “And according to a New York Times poll, 54% of people feel that the Vatican is out of touch with Catholics. The other 46% are young Catholics who feel they’re way too much in touch. Way too much in touch.” [May 10, 2010]

Here’s another monologue remark. “According to a new report on teenage sex by researchers, 4% of teenagers lost their virginity in a car, and 56% lost it in their homes. When they heard this, child development experts said it might help if teenagers talked to someone like their teacher or a priest, which is how the other 40% lost it.” [February 26, 2008]

Here’s a really sick one. “In fact this Harry Potter book is so popular a lot of L.A. priests are now using it as bait.” [July 23, 2007]

This is another gem. Leno discusses a priest who accidentally drove his car into a restaurant. “Thank God it was not Chuck E. Cheese.” [June 21, 2007]

This one is hard to beat. Leno comments on a news story about the bishops holding a meeting at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas. “They wanted to hold it at the Ramada Inn because at Ramadas, the kids stay free.” [June 17, 2002]

Many more of Leno’s “jokes” could be listed, but this suffices to make the point: NBC adored his bigotry, cheering him on as he portrayed all priests as pedophiles. [Fact: Less than 5% of molesting priests were pedophiles—most were homosexuals—but NBC executives do not want to go there. They are very protective of homosexuals.]

Seth Meyers went beyond Leno by trashing the Eucharist. In one egregious instance, he stuffed his mouth with what he pretended was the Communion wafer, mocking Catholics at the same time. [October 29, 2014]

Meyers said that a Spanish hotel, inspired by Fifty Shades of Grey, was delaying its opening because it was too close to a Catholic church. “We don’t want to be next to all those creepy perverts,” he said. [August 6, 2014]

Just this month, Meyers “joked” with one of his writers, Jenny Hagel, saying, “The Vatican recently refused to host an international women’s day conference because one of the speakers was a lesbian.” Hagel responded, “…and because they’re too busy hosting a 2000-year-long pedophile convention.” [October 4, 2018]

NBC’s new show, “You, Me and the Apocalypse,” wasted no time attacking priests this year. The character, Father Jude, played devil’s advocate for priests being considered for sainthood. He said, “My job is to prove they felt up kids.” [February 1, 2018]

To this could be added obscene portrayals of Catholic priests on shows such as “Law and Order,” “The Blacklist,” and “Committed” (it defiled the Eucharist). Then there are the sick remarks made on MSNBC by the likes of Keith Olbermann and Lawrence O’Donnell.

NBC executives should be honest and admit that they were looking for a way to get rid of Kelly and seized upon her “blackface” Halloween story to do so. They should also admit that they lie when they say they are opposed to bigotry in all of its manifestations. They clearly are not.

Contact Amanda Collins, Corporate Communications, NBCUniversal: Amanda.Collins@nbcuni.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the sentencing of Wayland Yoder Brown:

In the 1970s, Father Wayland Yoder Brown, who spent most of his time in Georgia parishes, sexually abused two boys in Maryland and later abused two more boys in South Carolina.

In 2002, he pleaded guilty to the Maryland crimes and was sent to prison; two years later he was dismissed from the priesthood by Pope John Paul II. Now the 76-year old ex-priest has been sentenced to 20 more years in prison for what he did in South Carolina.

All the boys were postpubescent, meaning that Brown was—like almost all molesting priests—a homosexual. He was not a pedophile, though the media cover-up of offending homosexual priests continues.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on who should pay for digging the Tuam, Ireland “mass grave”:

Catherine Corless is the typist responsible for floating the “mass grave” hoax in Tuam, Ireland. She is back in the news, this time for blasting the Bon Secours sisters for not forking up enough cash to pay for an exhumation of an alleged “mass grave” of children’s remains she says exists on the grounds of the sisters’ Mother and Baby Home. Ireland’s Minister of Children, Katherine Zappone, is behind the effort to see what is buried in the grounds.

The nuns have offered to pay almost $3 million toward the digging, an amount that Corless predictably says is too “meager.” She says the sisters have “private hospitals all over the place” and should pay much more.

In other words, the typist wants to drain money from the sick and dying today to pay for her wild goose chase about an incident that allegedly took place a hundred years ago.

The nuns should pay nothing. Let the activists like Corless in Ireland, and the Church-bashing activists in the United States like Irish Central, pony up first, then rip the Irish taxpayers for the remainder.

For two reasons, this will never happen: the nuns are too humble, and those who hate the Church—they hate its teachings on sexuality—simply want to soak it. These people are not motivated by justice for children—they are motivated by revenge. That is a sin, though in their eyes it is a virtue.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on remarks made yesterday at a press conference:

Responding to the presence of suspicious packages sent to some liberal-left politicians and activists, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned these expressions of hatred.

Cuomo said that “political differences” were “actually good for our democracy,” and went on to slam “overheated rhetoric.” De Blasio said the same thing, arguing “you can disagree, but you have to show respect” for everyone.

Both men are rank hypocrites. In 2014, Cuomo said that “right-to-life” conservatives “have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.” De Blasio, who frequently feuds with Cuomo, said he agreed with the governor “100 percent.”

Cuomo and de Blasio are masters of “overheated rhetoric,” and are not content to “disagree” and “show respect” for all New Yorkers. No, they, and they alone, will decide who is a bona fide New Yorker, telling those they disagree with to get out. They wear their phoniness on their sleeves.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on recent attacks on the Catholic Church in Buffalo:

Kirk Laubenstein is a left-wing activist in Buffalo who doesn’t like diversity, at least not the kind the Catholic Church offers. Before he had his epiphany several years ago, he confessed that “For 15 years, I was like, I’m not into church.”

Then, like, he got into church. Now he is, like, a minister in the United Church of Christ, though it is not clear who his congregants are. He is also director of the Coalition for Economic Justice, an organization that has worked with Acorn, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and other radical socialists and anarchists.

Laubenstein disagrees with the Catholic Church’s teaching on foster parents; it believes that foster children are entitled to be raised by a father and a mother. For him, two moms will do just fine, and he is open-minded enough to welcome two dads. It is not known whether he would be okay with three dads, but we are sure that day is fast approaching and we have no doubt what he will say. He seems to be very tolerant.

Well, in actual fact, Laubenstein is not all that tolerant. He is now busy walking the streets of Buffalo telling everyone how horrible the Catholic Church is for not accepting homosexual and lesbian couples as foster parents. More than that, he wants to shut down Catholic Charities. He says it is not fit to receive public funding.

As with many members of the clergy these days (in many religions), Laubenstein is preoccupied with materialism: nothing excites him more than the prospect of robbing Peter to pay Paul. But as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once alluded to, one day socialists will realize there are no more Peters to rob from. Then everyone is sunk.

That much is Laubenstein’s business. What is not his business—it is mine—is his campaign to strip Catholic Charities of public funding. He needs to rethink what tolerance and diversity really mean. He can begin by, like, getting into the Catholic Church.

Contact: kirk@cejbuffalo.org

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Ireland’s famous “mass grave” hoax:

The “mass grave” hoax is back. The Irish government is planning to exhume the remains of babies allegedly buried in a mass grave in Tuam, Ireland. According to the New York Times, Ireland’s Minister for Children, Katherine Zappone, is leading this campaign. The so-called mass grave is on the grounds of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in the County Galway town of Tuam.

The Times reports that this story began in 2014 when “a local amateur historian, Catherine Corless, said she had found death certificates for 796 children who died in the home from 1925 to 1961—but whose burial places were not officially recorded.”

There are several factual errors in this news story by Ed O’Loughlin. He has a history of distorting the record.

Earlier this year O’Loughlin referred to Corless as a “dogged local historian” who made headline news when “she published evidence” that nearly 800 children had died in the Tuam home, and that the remains of “some” were found in the septic tank. (My emphasis.)

As I have noted several times before, the “mass grave” story is a cruel myth promoted by those whose agenda it is to smear the Catholic Church.

The myth began when Corless published a 2012 article titled, “The Home,” in the Journal of the Old Tuam Society. In it, Corless made no mention of any “mass grave.” If anything, she offered evidence that contradicts what she later claimed.

Here is what Corless said: “A few local boys [in 1975] came upon a sort of crypt in the ground, and on peering in they saw several small skulls.” She mentioned there was a “little graveyard.” That is not the makings of a mass grave.

The primary source for her “mass grave” thesis is Barry Sweeney. When he was 10, he and a friend stumbled on a hole with skeletons in it. In 2014, he was asked by the Irish Times to comment on Corless’ claim that there are “800 skeletons down that hole.” He said, “Nothing like that.” How many? “About 20,” he said. He later told the New York Times there were “maybe 15 to 20 small skeletons.” Is O’Loughlin aware of this? It was printed in the newspaper that employs him.

Corless herself admitted in 2014 that she learned from local residents that the Tuam graveyard outside the Home was dotted with “tiny markers there.” There were “bits of stones left to indicate graves.” Those “tiny markers” suggest this was a cillin graveyard, or a graveyard for children. A “mass grave” is not dotted with “tiny markers” or “bits of stones.” Yet Corless has been able to get away with these contradictory explanations.

In a 2014 news story by Douglas Dalby of the New York Times, he says of Corless’ account that she “surmised that the children’s bodies were interred in a septic tank behind the home.” (My italic.) His verb is accurate. To surmise is to guess—it is proof of nothing.

As for Corless, she is neither an “amateur historian” nor a “local historian.” She is not a historian—local, regional, or national. She doesn’t even have an undergraduate degree. She is a typist.

Furthermore, last year, when Zappone released her second Interim Report on this subject, she never used the term “mass grave,” or implied anything like it. So why is she so dogged about this issue?

She now says it is important to “demonstrate our compassion and commitment to work towards justice, truth and healing for what happened in our past and, most especially, for those who were previously abandoned.” She should instead worry about the wellbeing of children in Ireland today, beginning with child abuse in the womb.

Zappone’s alleged interest in protecting the welfare of children would be more persuasive were it not for her rabid pro-abortion record. She is an activist, not a health minister. “Married” to her girlfriend, an ex-nun, she is part of the effort to besmirch the historical record of Irish nuns. Yet were it not for the care these nuns gave to abandoned children, they would have died in the street. No one else wanted them in the early part of the last century.

Just as in the United States, pro-abortion and pro-gay activists seek to discredit the Catholic Church, thus making it easier for them to succeed. To accomplish their agenda, they are prepared to lie about the Church’s past so as to marginalize its voice today.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a sick event being held this evening in a Portland, Oregon library:

On October 23, between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., a public library in Portland, Oregon will host an event for children 2-6 years old that features perverts and Catholic bashers. The venue is the Multnomah County Library.

“Drag Queen Storytime with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” is the name of the event that will take place in the Hillsdale Meeting Room. The “Sisters” have a long tradition of mocking nuns and bashing Catholicism; they are popular in San Francisco. Now they have set their sights on little kids.

The gathering is not highlighted on the library’s website as one of its feature attractions in October, but anyone can find it by typing the name of the event in the search engine of the venue. Here is what it says.

“The library is proud to present an hour of kid-friendly drag! Join us for this special storytime featuring the fabulous Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Sister Donna and Sister Olive, reading stories about inclusion and diversity, followed by a craft or dance party. For kids 2-6 years old with a favorite adult.”

This is one more example of some very disturbed people using sexuality as a means of getting to kids. That they are using taxpayer dollars to advance their sickness is even less defensible. One wonders why parents haven’t been mobilized, though the fact that this event has not been given a high profile—they didn’t flag it—accounts for at least part of the reason why it has drawn no backlash.

By using the much-abused, and highly politicized, term “inclusion and diversity,” the drag queens are trying to legitimize their behavior. But nothing can justify trying to sexualize children—even in a manner that is not perverse. The goal, of course, is to normalize sexual abnormalities, as well as anti-Catholic bigotry, two phenomena that deserve to be checked, not celebrated.

Contact: cityinfo@portlandoregon.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on statements made by Sarah Silverman on Howard Stern’s radio show yesterday:

Sarah Silverman’s interview with Howard Stern on his SiriusXM radio show was revealing, but not in ways she thinks. She spoke honestly about her friend, Louis C.K., and why she is not bothered by his perverted behavior. Silverman admitted that Louis C.K. masturbated in front of her—he has a nasty habit of doing this to women over and over again—but she was not put off by it. In fact, she liked it.

Silverman complimented Louis C.K. for being polite: he asked her for permission to masturbate in front of her. She said, “F*** yea, I want to see that.” And so her gentleman friend dutifully obliged.

But Silverman is not prepared to give the green light to just anyone who wants to masturbate in front of her. She has standards. When her boss in a Mexican restaurant called her into his office and started masturbating in front of her, she didn’t like it. That’s because he was not the gentleman that Louis C.K. was—he didn’t ask her for permission. Silverman did not say whether she would have granted it, had he asked.

Consent is all that matters. There is no objective moral wrong in men masturbating in public; morality turns on consent, and nothing more. So if a masochist were to ask a sadist to burn his genitals at noon on Main Street, Silverman would not object. As long as there is a permission slip, everything goes.

One person who is not too happy with Silverman is Rebecca Corry, a comedian who had a sick encounter with Louis C.K. in 2005; she was a   performer and a producer at the time. Louis C.K., being the gentleman he is, asked her if he could masturbate in front of her. She said no, reminding him that he had a daughter and a pregnant wife. After Corry blasted Silverman for her remarks on Stern’s show, Silverman apologized.

In response to Silverman’s “understanding” of Louis C.K., Corry said of him, “He’s a predator who victimized women for decades and lied about it.” But Silverman doesn’t get it, which is why I said her remarks are revealing in ways she doesn’t understand: She has no clue why women like Corry are upset.

Silverman is an enabler. Without people like her giving a pass to sickos like Louis C.K., guys like him would be less likely to act out their perversions. Indeed, her empathy for her friend (both of whom have a history of making obscene anti-Catholic “jokes”) is devastating to women.

Silverman has aided and abetted men who sexually harass women. How? By feeding an environment where behavior is emptied of moral content, viewing consent, and consent alone, as the basis for moral judgments. Corry gets it, but Silverman never will.