Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on New York City’s ban of foie gras:

The New York City Council has banned the sale of foie gras, saying it involves animal cruelty; ducks are force-fed to ensure fattened livers. It joins California in making the sale illegal.

Carlina Rivera sponsored the legislation in New York. She says her legislation “tackles the most inhumane process”; she also called it “one of the most violent practices.”

In January, she celebrated a new law making New York City the first city to set aside funds strictly for abortion: the money pays for the transportation expenses of women coming to New York from other states to abort their children. She bragged how “This fund is just another signal, another example of how New York State and New York City has to be the leader on this issue.”

Rivera is right. In January, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill that allows abortion through term—right up to the moment of birth—while dropping all penalties against a doctor who intentionally allows a baby who survives a botched abortion to die. Cuomo was so happy with the legislation that he ordered the lights of the Freedom Tower to shine brightly over lower Manhattan.

California will not tolerate the sale of foie gras, but it represents more than 15 percent of all abortions in the nation. There is no waiting period, no parental consent, and no requirement that the abortionist be a trained physician.

Here’s a series of questions that deserve a serious response.

Why is it that the cities and states that are champions of animal rights are also the champions of abortion rights?

Why were many Nazi officials animal rights’ advocates? Himmler wanted to ban hunting, and Göring carried out Hitler’s decree to put Germans who violated animal welfare laws into concentration camps. Hitler, who was a vegetarian, planned to ban slaughterhouses following the end of World War II. Meanwhile, they put Jews in ovens.

When it comes to animal rights v. human rights, why do so many liberals in the 21st century have so much in common with Nazis in the 20th century?

No, it doesn’t mean that being an animal rights’ advocate today makes one a Nazi. But there is something eerie about persons like Carlina Rivera who find force-feeding ducks to be “inhumane” and “violent” while heralding a procedure that crushes the head of a baby who is 80 percent born. That kind of mentality is surely Nazi-like.

Contact Rivera: District2@council.nyc.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an Episcopalian priest who is interfering in Catholic Church matters:

Religious leaders abide by an unspoken rule not to stick their noses into the affairs of another religion. This has been violated by Episcopalian priest Rev. Nathan Empsall. He is lecturing Catholics on the Church’s teachings on Holy Communion.

Empsall is an embarrassment. He heads an entity, Faithful America, that has a record of attacking religious liberty and free speech. It also seeks to create discord in the Catholic Church.

When a South Carolina priest, Fr. Robert Morey, recently denied Joe Biden Holy Communion because of his rabid advocacy of abortion rights, some Catholics disagreed with the priest’s decision. John Carr, director of Georgetown’s Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, failed to support the priest. That is hardly surprising—he is a man of the left. But at least he has a place at the table.

Unlike Carr, Empsall is not Catholic and should therefore mind his own business. Empsall is now launching a petition drive asking the priest’s bishop to direct Morey to apologize to Biden.

Empsall’s campaign is laughable. We will not respond with a counter-petition drive—as we did earlier in response to Empsall’s attempt to silence Attorney General Bill Barr—because it is not our mission to instruct bishops on what to say. But we will let Empsall, a tool of the left, know that he has crossed the line.

Faithful America has been asleep for years. If its fat-cat donors think they can jump start it by bullying Catholics, they are sadly mistaken. We will checkmate them any day of the week. Bet on it.

Contact Empsall: nathan@faithfulamerica.org

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a campaign to silence Attorney General William Barr:

Faithful America, a radical secularist entity, has initiated an ethics complaint against Attorney General William Barr. It is asking the Justice Department’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate Barr for allegedly violating his duty to guarantee religious liberty. It has also launched a petition drive in support of its campaign.

Without the initial funding of atheist billionaire George Soros—he is very clever about funneling funds indirectly to radical entities—Faithful   America would not exist.

The Catholic League is striking back. We are contacting the same offices of the Justice Department asking that the Faithful America complaint be dismissed. We are also launching our own petition drive in support of Attorney General Barr.

In his address at Notre Dame Law School, Barr warned about the efforts of militant secularists to destroy our Judeo-Christian heritage. Faithful America is doing exactly what he said these fanatics do: their weapon this time is to silence his free speech and religious liberty rights.

To sign our petition please click here.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the reaction to a priest who denied Joe Biden Holy Communion:

Joe Biden, a self-proclaimed Catholic, was denied Holy Communion by a South Carolina priest because of his pro-abortion convictions. “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade criticized the priest for doing so.

Kilmeade, who is Catholic, decried the decision by the priest, calling it “an extremely negative thing.” He also took issue with co-host Ainsley Earhardt, who is not Catholic, for suggesting that Biden was free to join some other church. “I think that’s very judgmental,” he said. He then ridiculed the idea that everyone who goes to Communion should have to get off the Communion line because he is guilty of some infraction of Church teachings. “Don’t try to get Communion because you missed church on Sunday.”

Kilmeade is right to say that denying Biden the Eucharist was “an extremely negative thing.” It can also be said that Biden’s persistent denial of Church teaching on abortion is “an extremely negative thing.” Kilmeade is also right to say that Earhardt’s suggestion that Biden is free to leave the Church was “very judgmental.” Indeed it was. It was just as judgmental as his criticism of the priest.

Kilmeade’s thesis—Catholics are going to get bounced off the Communion line—may play well in some circles, but he will not find one priest in the entire country who would ever equate skipping church with the intentional killing of innocents.

The key issue is whether the priest did the right thing.

Canon 915 of the Catholic Church says that those “who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” Archbishop William J. Levada, writing for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2004, cited Canon 915 in a statement he made on this issue. That certainly gives weight to the priest’s decision.

However, Levada also cited Canon 912, which says, “Any baptized person who is not prohibited by law can and must be admitted to Holy Communion.” His interpretation of this Canon is worth repeating. “The practice of the Church is to accept the conscientious self-appraisal of each person.”

So here’s the question. Did the priest who refused Biden Holy Communion have reason to believe that the former vice president has obstinately persisted in manifest grave sin by adopting the pro-abortion agenda?

It is incontrovertible that Biden is more pro-abortion today than he was in 2008. That was when vice president candidate Biden was told by the bishop of Scranton, Biden’s home town, that he would be refused Holy Communion because of his enthusiasm for abortion rights. Since running for president, Biden has become more enthusiastic, saying he is now in favor of federal funding of abortion; he has also pledged to enshrine into federal law the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.

Levada’s document for the bishops says that “the prudent practice for ministers of Holy Communion” would be to refer to the bishop of the diocese what to do about pro-abortion politicians. But he also offers support for what the South Carolina priest did. “Ministers of Holy Communion may find themselves in the situation where they must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone in rare cases, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, interdict, or an ‘obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.'”

In other words, Mr. Kilmeade, it’s a judgment call. Much could be resolved if the Fox host were to accept the Church’s teaching that abortion is not just another sin. That’s why it’s called “intrinsically evil.”

Contact “Fox & Friends” executive producer, Gavin Hadden: gavin.hadden@foxnews.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in the Washington Post:

The October 26 editorial in the Washington Post did not give the Catholic Church the credit it deserves on how it has handled clergy sexual abuse.

We do not take issue with its criticism of the way the Vatican has dealt with former cardinal Theodore McCarrick—a full accounting has not been made public—but on matters closer to home the editorial is flatly wrong.

The editorial begins by saying offending clergy members are “often revealed by journalists, government authorities or victims and their advocates, but rarely by the church itself.” It cites by way of example the case of McCarrick. It was a bad choice.

It was Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, who is responsible for outing McCarrick. It was he who established the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, an initiative that was not foisted upon him by any outside agency or institution. When a person came forward alleging that McCarrick was an abuser, the case was taken seriously and the former cardinal was exposed—by one of his own.

If there is another institution, religious or secular, that has established a mechanism like the one started by Dolan, we do not know of it. It certainly does not exist in Hollywood or at CBS and NBC, nor, for that matter, in the public schools.

The editorial says “fresh allegations surface of rape, assault, molestation and other outrages.” It makes the reader think that the homosexual scandal is still ongoing. In fact, over the last decade the number of credible accusations made in any one-year period against approximately 50,000 members of the clergy has consistently been in the single digits.

For the Washington Post not to know how much progress has been made by the Catholic Church in combating the sexual abuse of minors is revealing. Is it so biased that it just assumes nothing has changed? It needs to hire competent researchers, preferably practicing Catholics.

Contact Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor: Fred.Hiatt@washpost.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Halloween costumes that are a no-no:

It’s hard to keep up with the ethics of political correctness, and that’s because there are no principles involved, just ideological preferences. For example, consider the reaction to Halloween costumes.

Halloween has become more politically correct each year, but this year it has reached new heights. We now have traditional media outlets giving advice on whom not to offend.

When choosing an outfit this Halloween, do not choose any that might offend Asians, blacks, Indians, Jews, Mexicans, or Transgender persons. According to whom? Good Housekeeping (GH) and Reader’s Digest (RD).

Moana costumes are not cool, so says GH and RD. In fact, female students at the University of Notre Dame warn against wearing almost any Disney-character garb, not just those that promote cultural stereotypes of Hawaiians, or Asians in general.

“Anything Involving Blackface” is considered taboo by GH. RD objects to “Disco Diva” outfits and costumes featuring dreadlocks and afro wigs.

RD cites the “costume advisory” boards at Wesleyan and Yale—yes, they have such enterprises—on the inappropriateness of wearing “feathered headdresses” that allegedly offend Indians.

GH says it is offensive to dress as a Holocaust victim. RD objects to Anne Frank costumes.

Sombreros are out; they might tick off Mexicans. RD cites St. Thomas University in Minnesota as the authoritative source.

Transgender clothes are verboten, at least according to GH. “Tranny Granny” was pulled from Walmart, so good luck trying to find that one.

Okay, so you’re wondering, what does any of this have to do with the Catholic League?

Not considered offensive, intolerant, insensitive, or bigoted are costumes depicting nuns as tramps or priests sporting an erection. Neither GH nor RD mentioned them, and neither did the universities. Perhaps most revealing, unlike most of the other politically incorrect outfits, these ones are easily available online.

It is not clear whether a slutty nun wearing an afro wig, or an aroused trans priest, would make the cut. We would have to check with the “costume advisory” boards on campus, or with the sages at GH and RD.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that they are okay with those outfits. We would then have to ask if they would tolerate a blackface slutty nun with an afro, or a horny trans priest wearing a sombrero.

This can get complicated. If there were principles involved in making such determinations, we wouldn’t have to ask.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an op-ed article in today’s New York Times:

There are some in the medical profession who deliver babies to pregnant women in the morning, and terminate the babies of other pregnant women in the afternoon. Lisa H. Harris is one of them. She wrote about her experience as an obstetrician-gynecologist-abortionist in an op-ed column in the October 24 edition of the New York Times. [Note: She identifies herself as an obstetrician-gynecologist.]

Do those who perform abortions know they are taking the life of an innocent human being? Of course they do. The remains of the body are not that of a turkey. So how do they justify their job? They convince themselves that they are non-judgmental facilitators, doctors whose job it is to render whatever service the woman wants. That’s what Harris believes she is doing.

Does she really admit that she is aborting a human being? Here are some of her comments:

• “I know that for every woman whose abortion I perform, I stop a developing human being from being born.”
• “I know that for each of them [all of her patients], there was a second entity there—a baby, a person, a potential life, a life, depending on your beliefs.”
• “Abortion feels morally complicated because it stops a developing human being from being born, which of course it does.”

To say that all of her patients recognize the life of their baby is quite an admission. At least they don’t believe the fiction that what they are aborting is nothing but a clump of cells or tissue.

Twice Harris speaks about the preborn baby as “a developing human being.” This is true. It is also true that newborns are still developing: Brain development does not peak until the third year.

Princeton professor Peter Singer, who is the “father” of animal rights, believes it should be legal to kill newborns. He concedes that those opposed to abortion are right to say that there is no moral difference between killing an unborn baby and killing an infant—it’s just that for him both should be legal.

It is not clear where Harris stands on the morality of infanticide. But it is clear that her concessions make it easier to justify.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the reaction by atheist organizations to a prayer given by Ben Carson:

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson opened a recent Cabinet meeting with a prayer, noting that separation of church and state “doesn’t mean that they cannot work together to promote godly principles.” No one but a maniacal religion hater would find fault with such a conventional observation. But two atheist groups did.

Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), an extreme atheist organization that I recently branded as “haters,” blasted Carson for saying something he manifestly did not say.

Annie Laurie Gaylor of FFRF accused Carson of saying that religious believers have a “monopoly” on positive values. Nonsense. What he said was that secular government agencies and religious church bodies can work together for “godly purposes.” Atheists would not be expected to know what “godly purposes” means, but it is a term that has been commonly used by civil rights leaders to refer to “civil duties.”

Rachel Laser is the head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an organization founded as an anti-Catholic institution after World War II. She alleges that Carson, and the Trump administration, want to “privilege a narrow set of religious views above all others.”

There is nothing “narrow” about the religious views the Trump administration is promoting: our Judeo-Christian tradition is rich and broadly based. But should religion be privileged? Of course. It has been from the beginning of the Republic.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in a religious accommodation case in 2015, noted that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act “does not demand mere neutrality with regard to religious practices…it gives them favored treatment.” He added, “Title VII requires otherwise-neutral policies to give way to the need for an accommodation.”

That settles the matter.

To show how wildly out-of-touch the atheist organizations are, consider the following statement. “Freedom of religion is essential—and so is access to health care.” So how should the law address these sometimes competing ends? “Current law tries to accommodate both.”

Who said that? The words are taken from a New York Times editorial published last year. That puts Americans United and FFRF way out in left field, falling off the bleachers. Thus have they discredited themselves yet again.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Elizabeth Warren’s new education policy:

When it comes to education, there is no better way to punish the poor than to deny them the same opportunities the affluent have. Here’s the drill: Keep the poor away from charter schools and away from private schools, especially Catholic schools in the inner city. Make sure to defend the unions to the hilt, knowing full well they will always put the best interests of teachers and administrators ahead of the best interests of students. And, best of all, reward failing schools with more money.

This is what Elizabeth Warren is doing—in the name of helping the poor she is declaring war on them. Forget about her intentions, the effect of her plan is to consign black and brown kids to schools that no sane white person would ever choose for his own kids.

Warren wants to spend another $800 billion in federal dollars on elementary and secondary education, more than half of which would go to students from poor families. She offers no data that show how effective it is to spend more money on education, and that is because it doesn’t exist.

A researcher at the Cato Institute, Andrew J. Coulson, studied the results of national assessment tests and correlated academic performance with state funding. He found “there is essentially no link between state education spending (which has exploded) and the performance of students at the end of high school (which has generally stagnated or declined).”

If money mattered, then students in the District of Columbia would be at the top of the academic charts—more money is spent per capita on these students than is spent on students in any of the 50 states—yet they are always in last place. If the money=better academic achievement equation were true, states like New Hampshire and the Dakotas would be at the bottom, yet they are always near the top, notwithstanding meager funding per capita. Similarly, Alaska has one of the most well-funded school systems, yet ranks near the bottom in academic achievement.

Warren hates the one public school initiative that works, namely charter schools. She is now boasting that she will end more federal money for charter schools, and stop for-profit charters altogether. When confronted with evidence that charter schools in her home state of Massachusetts work well, she did not deny it. But data mean nothing to ideologues.

She also wants to make it easier for teachers to unionize, thus ensuring the poor will stay where they are (what is going on in Chicago is a textbook example). The public school establishment is opposed to every school choice program, yet the lack of competition—which works well in every other segment of the economy—effectively stops the poor from becoming upwardly mobile.

Someone needs to ask Warren why she wants to deny school choice to parents who live in D.C. when it is clear that this initiative works. For instance, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which helps students from poor families to attend private schools, experienced a 21 percentage point increase in graduation rates.

I taught in a Catholic school in Spanish Harlem and saw firsthand how well poor Puerto Rican and African American students could do when presented with structure and a curricula focused on basic educational skills. There was no money for frills, no room for experimental programs, and no excessive administrative costs. But there was plenty of homework and plenty of discipline in the classroom. These students did well not because of money, but because tried and true academic methods were the rule.

“With fully funded vouchers, parents of all income levels could send their children—and the accompanying financial support—to the schools of their choice.”

So true. This is what Elizabeth Warren said in 2003.

She needs to explain what changed. What data made her the enemy of school choice? Absent empirical evidence, we are left with the impression that she is prepared to keep the poor in their place, just so she can win the support of the teachers’ unions.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on ads run by an atheist organization:

Being an atheist does not necessarily mean being anti-Christian, but being an atheist organization, especially these days, means exactly that. It’s how they survive—by bashing Christians. Their favorite target, of course, is the Catholic Church.

Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is one of the most Christian-hating atheist organizations in the nation. It advertises its hate speech on billboards, the internet, radio, television, and in newspapers. With rare exception, it chooses liberal-left venues. That is quite revealing. Of course, not all of those who are left-of-center are haters, but when it comes to those who harbor an animus against religion, they are found almost exclusively on the left.

In the October 15 presidential primary debate of Democratic contenders, FFRF ran two ads featuring “unabashed atheist” Ron Reagan. Choosing an audience of mostly Democrats was a smart move. A Pew poll that was recently released found that college-educated young Democrats were joining the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated faster than any other segment of the population; they would be the most likely to be attracted to an FFRF ad.

Ron Reagan said he was “alarmed by the intrusion of religion into our secular government.” He provided no examples (examples of the opposite—government encroaching on religion—are easily found on the Catholic League’s website). He also bragged how he is “not afraid of burning in hell.” Good luck with that.

The station that carried the ad, CNN, is no longer considered a moderate cable network, having moved decisively to the left. By contrast, CBS, ABC, and NBC, are more moderate: they will not run FFRF attack ads.

Rachel Maddow is the most popular left-wing talk-show anchor on television. It figures that FFRF would choose her MSNBC-TV show to advertise on more than any other. The atheist organization also likes to strut its hate speech on Comedy Central, especially Trevor Noah’s show. There is no network that attacks Catholics more than Comedy Central, and Noah has contributed mightily to it.

Stephen Colbert is host to late-night TV’s Trump-hating audience, a segment of the population that is not exactly known to be religion-friendly. Predictably, FFRF likes to advertise on his show. “Morning Joe” is another show that appeals to those on the left, and it is also home to FFRF ads.

The New York Times is known as the gold standard of liberal-left commentary, and is therefore a perfect spot for FFRF. We counted over a dozen full-page ads placed in the Times by FFRF. Other newspapers that it uses are the Washington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer, both of which attract a liberal-left readership.

The content of the ads is the best index of FFRF’s mind-set.

Religious liberty is something FFRF disdains. In 2014, when the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, affirming religious liberty, FFRF not only set off the alarms, it reverted back to its anti-Catholic bigotry by condemning the “all-Roman Catholic majority” on the high court. Its ads ran in several liberal newspapers, reserving its big bucks for a color ad in the New York Times.

Donald Trump is one of the most religion-friendly presidents in American history. To prove that he is, FFRF wasted no time attacking him. It did so over a month before he took office. “Washington, D.C. is about to be overrun by zealots. The Religious Wrong will soon control all three branches of government.” Why a theocracy has not taken root by now remains unexplained.

Whenever a pope visits the U.S., it’s a sure bet that FFRF will go bonkers. The visit by Pope Francis in 2015 was no exception. FFRF placed its demagogic ads in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Its “Global Warning” ad accused the pope of imposing Catholic doctrine on the nation. How did he manage to do this? By addressing a joint session of the Congress.

FFRF loves abortion. This is not an exaggeration. How else to characterize an organization whose co-founder, Anne Nicol Gaylor, wrote a book titled, Abortion Is A Blessing?

It was hardly surprising, then, to read a New York Times ad this past June that warned how “Emboldened Christian Nationalists are ramping up their relentless, religiously motivated war on reproductive rights.” Who are these people? The ad identifies them as “fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic zealots.” They are “ruthlessly trying to inflict their punitive religious views upon the rest of us.”

While FFRF despises evangelical Protestants, it saves it biggest guns for Catholics. “Value Children over Dogma: It’s Time to Leave the Catholic Church.” This ad is part of its “Quit the Catholic Church” campaign. Another ad reads, “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church,” beckoning “Liberal” and “Nominal” Catholics to seize “your moment of truth.” It sure knows its audience. In Times Square it also ran a billboard saying, “Quit the Church. Put Women’s Rights Over Bishops Wrongs.”

Loving abortion and hating Catholicism certainly go hand in hand, so we can’t argue with FFRF about that. It should know—it is Exhibit A.