Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on those who reject the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexuality:

John Gehring runs a front group for his senior left-wing patron, atheist billionaire George Soros. Faith In Public Life, it needs to be acknowledged, represents no rank-and-file constituency.

Gehring found a home for his latest assault on Catholicism in a piece distributed by the Religion News Service.

Gehring is upset that two bishops have recently defended the teachings of the Church against those seeking to impose the LGBT agenda on them. He is also mad that a new Vatican document on gender ideology affirmed the Church’s position on this subject. In a pitiful ploy, he tries to rescue his argument by citing the pope.

The Catholic League was proud to defend Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin for admonishing Catholics not to buy into the LGBT agenda by supporting “Pride Month” celebrations. We were also happy to defend Indianapolis Archbishop Charles Thompson for reminding a Jesuit high school that if it is to be identified as a Catholic entity it had better respect the Church’s teachings on marriage. And we were delighted with the Vatican document that showed gender ideology to be intellectually bankrupt.

Gehring is livid at both bishops. His anger is misplaced: He is at war with the Catholic Church, not the hierarchy. Moreover, his attempt to draw the pope to his side is a total bust. Pope Francis has never recognized the fiction of a gay marriage, and he labels gender ideology “demonic.”

George Soros wants to silence the moral voice of the Catholic Church, and he bankrolls Gehring to be his rabbit. Indeed, in the first sentence of Gehring’s article he says “Church leaders should take a year of abstinence from preaching about sex and gender.” What a joke. It will never swap its teachings for the prevailing insanity of the LGBT agenda.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue wrote the following letter to Assemblyman Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer today. He is chairman of the committee that is in charge of the bill. The bill would penalize priests who fail to disclose the sexual abuse of a minor told in the confessional by either a co-worker or another priest.

June 25, 2019

Hon. Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer
Chairman, Public Safety Committee
P.O.Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0059

Dear Assemblyman Jones-Sawyer:

The California confessional bill has national implications, which is why Catholics across the country are deeply concerned about this legislation. We all agree that those who violate a youngster—in any profession—should have the book thrown at him. But to violate a sacrament of the Catholic Church in the course of doing so is unjust. Please reconsider this bill. It is not only the wrong remedy, it is unenforceable as well. Moreover, it will spur needless lawsuits. Surely there is a more prudent way to address this matter.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

William Donohue, Ph.D.
President

Contact: assemblymember.jones-sawyer@assembly.ca.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an article by John Irving on abortion:

John Irving can’t stop writing fiction, even when he ventures into the world of non-fiction. His op-ed on the history of abortion in today’s New York Times is a classic example.

“The Anti-Abortion Crusade’s Cruel History” is the title of this rambling, inaccurate portrait of the pro-life movement. Irving says abortion was not illegal in the United States until the 1840s. Wrong. He’s off by two decades—it was in the 1820s that states such as Connecticut and New York passed restrictive legislation on abortion.

Irving says that self-interested male doctors were responsible for the anti-abortion campaign. Wrong. Feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were strongly opposed to abortion, calling it “child murder.”

“I respect your personal reasons not to have an abortion—no one is forcing you to have one,” Irving says. Wrong. He needs to read today’s New York Times. It has a story titled, “Mentally Disabled Woman Must Have an Abortion, a British Court Rules.”

Irving writes that “no one is pro-abortion” (his italics). Wrong. He needs to read the book Abortion Is A Blessing by atheist Anne Nicol Gaylor (it was endorsed by Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem). In 2009, an Episcopalian priest, Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, also proclaimed that “abortion is a blessing.” In 2018, Michelle Wolf dressed up in red, white, and blue and marched across a stage in honor of her “Salute to Abortion!”

Irving dates the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion to Pope Pius XII. In 1951, he used the term “right to life.” So? Less than a hundred years after the birth of Jesus, the Christian document called the Didache exclaimed, “do not murder a child by abortion or kill a new-born infant.”

Irving is upset that Catholics are leading the pro-life cause, and he cites the First Amendment provision on the establishment of religion as support for his argument that we are acting unconstitutionally. He should read the First Amendment again—it says something about freedom of speech.

Irving ends by chiding the pro-life community for not caring about children once they are born. This tired refrain carries no weight whatsoever. All the data on charitable giving and voluntarism show that the most generous Americans are people of faith; the least generous are secularists (their idea of generosity is raising taxes and redistributing income—they are the least likely to give of themselves).

John Irving’s foray into non-fiction is an utter failure. But he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a master fiction writer.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a decision by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis that is being criticized in some quarters:

Indianapolis Archbishop Charles Thompson has revoked the Catholic status of Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School. He did so because the school rejected his request not to renew the contract of a teacher who said he was married to his boyfriend. The archbishop has now come under fire for doing so.

Archbishop Thompson did not act impulsively. Two years ago, the teacher’s gay marriage became known on social media. It was therefore no longer a private matter. It is important to note that the archbishop did not demand that the teacher be fired, though he could have: the teacher flagrantly violated the terms of his contract. Thompson simply asked that his contract not be renewed.

To understand this issue better, consider the following analogy.

In the business community, a franchise is allowed certain leeway in making decisions, but it is also expected to abide by the core strictures of the parent company. If it violates them, it cannot reasonably expect to be treated as if it were in good standing. It would have to go its own way.

The same is true of religious orders in their relationship to the local diocese: they are allowed a degree of autonomy but they are expected to follow the house rules, and when they don’t, they effectively break the trust and forfeit a right to claim association with the diocese.

Fr. Brian Paulson, S.J., the head of the Jesuits’ Midwest Province, defended the teacher, saying he “respects the primacy of an informed conscience of members of its community when making moral decisions.”

I don’t believe him. What would he do to a teacher who said he felt morally obliged to join a white supremacy organization—on his own time—and insisted that he would not let it interfere with his job. He would fire him, wouldn’t he?

Those who defend the insubordination of the Jesuit school argue that lots of teachers in Catholic schools violate Church teachings in one way or another, yet they are not treated the way those who are in same-sex marriages are. That’s a lame defense.

The difference is that in most cases Church officials would have to monitor the private lives of every teacher, often violating their privacy rights, or subject them to an inquisition. In the instance of the teacher in the gay marriage—and this is typical of such cases—the contractual violation was made public, thus inviting a showdown. That’s not a small difference.

Archbishop Thompson followed canon law, faithfully executed the terms of a contract that was voluntarily signed, and acted prudentially in enforcing it. He acted wisely and with great restraint.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a Supreme Court decision on religious liberty handed down today:

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, rendered an important First Amendment victory by upholding the right of patriots to erect a Christian symbol on public lands. Militant secularists, led by the American Humanist Association, wanted it demolished.

One hundred years ago, family members of those who died in World War I drew up plans for a memorial. Six years later, in 1925, the American Legion erected a 40-foot cross in Bladensburg, Maryland on state property. It was meant to give recognition to all those who perished, not just Christians.

Here is what the plaque says: “The Memorial Cross Dedicated to the Heroes Of Prince George’s County who gave their lives in the great war for the liberty of the world.”

Writing for the majority, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito admitted that the cross is “undoubtedly a Christian symbol, but that fact should not blind us to everything else that the Bladensburg Cross has come to represent.” He cogently observed that “destroying or defacing the cross that has stood undisturbed for nearly a century would not be neutral and would not further the ideals of respect and tolerance embodied in the First Amendment.”

Alito was being kind. It could also be said that destroying the cross would be an expression of intolerance: It would be an assault on the free speech rights of those who erected it and those who support it today.

It must also be said that the same anti-religious activists who object to a huge cross on public property would defend the right of gay-pride extremists to erect a huge phallic symbol on public property. That would be their idea of freedom.

Score one for our side today in the ongoing culture war.

Bill Donohue

The first congressional hearing on reparations for slavery in more than a decade is now being taken up by the House. Before we go any further, I want to know how much I owe Oprah.

The idea of reparations for African Americans is seriously flawed. Some argue that if the Japanese received reparations, why shouldn’t blacks? It is true that in 1988 Japanese Americans received reparations, but that was entirely different: The 82,000 people who were given $20,000 each were interned during World War II; no money was given to their relatives.

There is no denying the history of wrongdoing that African Americans have endured. But the slavemasters are dead, as are their slaves. Unlike the Japanese, those in the black community who would benefit from reparations have not themselves endured what their ancestors did. Moreover, if patterns of unjust discrimination against African Americans continued after slavery, and this qualifies for reparations, what do we say to other racial, ethnic, and religious groups who suffered as well?

Let’s begin with blacks. Blacks were sold to Europeans by their African slavemasters—they were not kidnapped as portrayed by Alex Haley in Roots. Think of it. Imagine boatloads of white boys showing up in Africa announcing their interest in slavery. Weren’t they slightly outnumbered? Why didn’t the Africans say yes, there is going to be slavery, but you white boys have the identity of the masters and the slaves backwards: we will be the masters and you will be our slaves. Why didn’t that happen?

If blacks who are descendants of slaves are to be given reparations, should not those blacks whose ancestors were slavemasters have to pony up as well? After all, many free blacks in this country owned slaves, though that is never taught in the schools.

The Irish not only were enslaved by the British, more of them died proportionately on board the slave ships than did Africans. That is because there was no provision for slavery in the New World for white people. So when it came time to do the dangerous work on the ships, the English ordered the Irish to do it, saving blacks for the slave auction. Subsequent generations of the Irish in America also faced discrimination in the schools and at work. Should we give today’s Irish a check as well?

The Germans who came here in the 18th century were indentured servants, and many faced discrimination during both world wars. Should they get a check? Southern and Eastern Europeans, particular those of Polish extraction, were discriminated against in the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924? Where do they go to get their check? Jews worked the sweatshops in the 19th century and were victimized during World War I. Can they collect as well?

Italians from northern Italy discriminated against Italians from southern Italy, so much so that southern Italians were the first migration of Europeans to return to their native land in large numbers. Should they tap their fellow Italians from the north for reparations? The Chinese were excluded from coming to America between 1882 and 1943. Where do they go to collect?

What about the Indians? The Sioux, the Comanches and the Apaches were so warlike that other Indian tribes fought alongside whites to defeat them. Before we give any more money to the Indians, should those tribes who were brutalized by these three tribes be given a check?

Not only is the idea of reparations unworkable, it is unjust. It is an axiom of Anglo-Saxon law that the guilty should pay, not the innocent. Asking white people today to pay for the sins of whites whom they never knew, and for things they never did—just because they are white—is morally offensive.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that reparations are a good idea and the money should be distributed without delay. Let’s even say, for the sake of argument, that the criteria don’t matter (let’s give Tiger Woods a half share because his father was black and his mother is Thai). Some of the recipients are bound to do what many people would do—they would have a field day. Which raises the question: After a fast weekend in Vegas, and the money is gone, will they go quietly?

Juan Williams is an African American Fox News contributor who opposes reparations. Why? He thinks it is too easy. He argues that it is too easy for Americans to turn away from their obligations to blacks by offering money, and then declaring they are done with it. He believes there are more constructive things that can be done, and that they should be on-going.

He has a point. Check writing resolves nothing. If I had it my way, we would provide school vouchers to low-income Americans, many of whom are black. That would do more to bring about upward social mobility than any reparations scheme. Unfortunately, those who want reparations oppose school choice.

But if we are to go down this road, I need to know if Oprah, who is worth over $3 billion, will allow me to pay in installments, preferably without interest.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue is asking for government action on New York state homes:

There was a recent front-page story in the New York Times on conditions in state-run homes for the developmentally disabled that was very disturbing. Not only are many of the residents subjected to physical and sexual abuse, state laws protect miscreant state workers, allowing them to strike again, with impunity.

This is not a hypothetical: In 2011, the New York Times detailed the extent of the abuse in these same facilities, explaining how the Civil Service Employee Association blocks disciplinary action against the abusers. Little has been done to ensure progress, despite promises by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

I am calling on Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal and State Sen. Brad Hoylman to craft new legislation to remedy this situation. These two lawmakers were the sponsors of the recently passed Child Victims Act, a law designed to grant new rights to the victims of clergy sexual abuse, as well as others. Given that they are state officials, they have a special obligation to bring justice to the residents of these facilities.

To read my letter to the lawmakers, click here.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a new Pew survey:

The Pew Research Center released the findings of a new survey this week on Catholic clergy sexual abuse. Most were predictable, but some were not.

The survey found that 8 in 10 Americans say that Catholic clergy sexual abuse is an “ongoing problem,” while only 12% say that these problems “happened in the past and mostly don’t happen anymore”; a quarter of Catholics, 24%, hold to the latter interpretation. It was also found that 61% of Catholics say that sexual misconduct is just as common among the clergy of other religions; 51% of non-Catholics think the problem is disproportionately Catholic.

It would be astonishing if the data were otherwise. The steady drumbeat of bad news, mostly traceable to the Pennsylvania grand jury report last summer, and the ouster of Theodore McCarrick (formerly a cardinal), account for the outcome. The latter news coverage was entirely justified; the former was badly skewed and much of it was dishonest. To weigh the veracity of this point, consider another subject.

If the media do not report on sexual misconduct, obviously no one will think badly of the guilty. Take the case of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. FBI data that were recently made public show him to be a hard-drinking, bed-hopping adulterer who cheated on his wife with 40-45 other women. He also watched a pastor friend of his rape a woman and laughed about it while he did so. But thanks to the near total media blackout on this story, King’s glowing reputation remains intact.

Circling back to the survey, what percent of the public knows that not one of the accused priests named in the Pennsylvania grand jury report had a chance to rebut the charges made against him? How many know that most of them are either dead or out of ministry?

The fact is that Catholics are better educated about this subject than non-Catholics: more of them know that the lion’s share of the abuse took place in the past (mostly in the last century) and that it is not “ongoing.” But even there, most Catholics, three-quarters of them, are as ignorant as non-Catholics on this score. Fortunately, the survey shows that Catholics who attend Mass weekly are the most knowledgeable.

This is encouraging. It shows that our relentless effort to tell the truth about this issue is getting through to practicing Catholics. We have constantly cited the fact that the clergy sexual abuse scandal occurred mostly between 1965 and 1985.

Who else but the Catholic League undercut the media narrative on clergy sexual abuse by calculating, and making public, data taken from the latest survey of clergy sexual abuse? On June 10, we showed that .006% (3 priests) of the over 50,000 members of the clergy had a substantiated accusation made against them between June 1, 2017 and July 31, 2018. No religious or secular body can beat those numbers.

The survey says that one-quarter of Catholics say they are going to Mass less often or are contributing less as a result of recent reports on clergy abuse. But, as the data reveal, this is much more true of non-practicing Catholics than it is of those who attend Mass weekly. This is exactly what we would expect: those who do not attend Mass regularly are more likely to digest bad news as a justification for their lassitude.

There was one aspect of the survey that jumped out at me but has curiously garnered no attention.

The survey found that “About one-in-ten (9%) [of the public] say they have attended a place of worship where the clergy or other religious leaders have been accused of sexual misconduct in the past five years in one or more of the following ways: an extramarital affair (6%), sexual abuse of a child (4%), verbal sexual harassment (4%) or sexual abuse of an adult (3%).”

There was one question posed only to Catholics: “At the church you attend most regularly, has a priest been accused of engaging in sexual activity with other priests? Overall, 4% of Catholics say a priest was accused of this at their church, while the vast majority do not (90%).”

In other words, the faithful in religions outside Catholicism have their fair share of clergy sexual misconduct issues, yet non-Catholics seem to believe that the Catholic Church basically owns this problem. Why isn’t this misperception headline news?

Such data also prove my point. The media are shaping public opinion on the issue of clergy sexual abuse in a way that does not comport with reality.

If what the public believes were true—that this problem is “ongoing” in the Catholic Church but not in their church—then the figure for Catholics who have learned of clergy sexual misconduct in their church should be much higher than the comparative figure for non-Catholics. Yet the opposite is true!

This proves what I have been saying all along. Catholics, as well as non-Catholics, are being played. The truth about clergy sexual abuse is not being accurately reported. Furthermore, selective government probes and legislation are only adding to public misperceptions. These two factors constitute Scandal II. Scandal I is the original Catholic scandal. We only hear about the latter.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the TV show “Pose”:

Gay Pride month festivities have hit the air waves. On the June 11 episode of the FX show, “Pose,” they made quite a hullaballoo about homosexuals objecting to anti-condom ads sponsored by the Catholic Church. The show featured a lesbian activist who screamed her hatred of all things Catholic to a crowd of supporters.

“The Catholic Church has spent millions of dollars putting the false message into the world that condoms don’t work and that abstinence is the only way to fight HIV. That is a lie. And that is morally wrong. So, we’re staging a die-in in the middle of that congregation as a peaceful protest against the annihilation of our community.” She put the blame on the New York Archbishop, Cardinal John O’Connor.

There are five errors in this statement.

1. It was not the Catholic Church that featured ads stating that condoms don’t work—it was the Catholic League. I should know because I wrote them. I posted the most prominent one in the New York City subways in 1994. To read it, click here.
2. The ad, which garnered international attention and was picked up by a museum, did not cost millions. I believe it cost $10,000.
3. It is never morally wrong to tell the truth—it is morally wrong to lie: HIV is not a problem for those who abstain from sex before marriage, nor is it a problem for those who confine sexual relations in marriage to their spouse. [Coda: not all sexual acts are equal—beware of anal sex.]
4. The die-in took place in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in December 1989. It was not peaceful. Protesters disrupted a Mass, chained themselves to pews, blocked Catholics from going to Communion, yelled obscenities, and spat the Eucharist on the floor. It was Nazi-like.
5. The Catholic Church is not responsible for AIDS. HIV was picked up by irresponsible drug-driven promiscuous homosexual men who practiced lethal sex acts, often in their bathhouses. Even after AIDS was discovered in 1981, gay leaders—not Bill Donohue or Cardinal O’Connor—demanded that the bathhouses remain open. That’s how the annihilation of the gay community happened. Even gay activists such as Larry Kramer have said so.

Finally, Catholic bashing, just like gay bashing, can never be defended. Nor can lying about history to make a political point.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains why Viacom’s top executives are being contacted:

There are two hosts on TV today who would be fired if they said about other demographic groups and institutions what they say about Catholics and the Catholic Church: Bill Maher and Trevor Noah. It is Noah who is in our crosshairs today.

On June 11, Noah went on an obscene rant about Catholics and the Catholic Church that was so bad that we cannot reproduce everything he said. He took aim at the Vatican document on gender ideology that was released this week, lying about its contents and then using it as a platform to attack.

He went on and on—the man is fixated on filth—so I won’t even attempt to cite most of what he said. “I mean we all know the Church thinks if you’re a girl,” he said, “you’re a girl forever, and if you’re a boy, they’re going to f*** you.” He then offered several “pedophile jokes” targeting homosexual priests. The crowd loved it.

Noah’s show appears on Comedy Central and the network is owned by Viacom. There are 22 top executives at Viacom, and we are hand- delivering each of them (Viacom’s headquarters is 10 blocks from our New York City office) a copy of Noah’s remarks about Catholicism from March 26, April 22, May 29, and June 11. Surely there are some executives who will agree that what Noah is saying cannot be justified. They need to sit him down or fire him.

One of Noah’s advertisers is Honey Bunches of Oats, owned by Post Holdings. Post Foods has a good reputation and we are counting on them to pull their sponsorship. Please ask them to do so. We will take care of the Viacom top brass.

Contact: lisa.hanly@postholdings.com