Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the politics of abortion:

The birth control pill became commercially available in 1960, and in 1973 abortion was legalized. Those on the left who have been pushing for a libertine culture have won the PR battle on contraception (most Americans are okay with it), but they have lost the PR battle on abortion (most Americans want limits on when and why it should be performed).

The public has been trending pro-life in recent years. Technology is one reason why: baby pictures in the womb are convincing. This has upset the abortion industry, forcing them to develop new strategies. One preferred tactic is to include abortion-inducing drugs in public policies that allow for contraception.

The Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate promoted by the Obama administration was designed to force all employers, including Catholic ones, to provide contraceptives in their insurance plans. They did not include abortion. However, they did include abortifacients, or abortion-inducing drugs. Why?

The Obama officials knew that abortion is viewed very differently than contraceptives, so that is why they left it out of the HHS mandate. They could have stopped right there—forcing employers to pay for contraceptives but not abortion. But they did not. They were bent on including abortifacients in their policy. In doing so, they showed their true colors: As I have been saying for years, the HHS mandate was never about contraceptives—it was always about abortion.

The long-term goal of pro-abortion activists is to have nationwide tax-funded abortions without any restrictions whatsoever. But they can’t get that now, which explains why they have settled for public funding of abortifacients.

Regrettably, some on the pro-life side have failed to see what the pro-abortion game plan is. That includes the University of Notre Dame.

In February 2018, Notre Dame president Father John Jenkins announced that the university would start providing coverage for what he called “simple contraceptives.” He said the plan would not cover abortifacients. If he thought this policy would prove to be non-controversial, he was wrong. Not only did some Notre Dame students, faculty, and alumni not agree with funding contraceptives, those on the pro-abortion side were livid. They sued because abortion-inducing drugs were not covered.

They didn’t wait long: their suit was filed in June, just four months later. Their incremental approach—push for abortifacients but not abortion—was exactly what the HHS mandate provided. Recently, on January 16, Notre Dame lost in district court in its bid to have the case dismissed. Jenkins should have known that the Left will never be appeased—they always want more.

Leading the charge for abortifacients in the school’s healthcare policy are Irish 4 Reproductive Health (a far-left student association), Americans United for Separation of Church and State (an anti-Catholic organization), the National Women’s Law Center (a radical feminist entity), and the Center for Reproductive Rights (an extremist pro-abortion institution). The students receive funding from the taxpayer-funded giant, Planned Parenthood, and Catholics for Choice (a Catholic-bashing group).

What unites the four groups suing the University of Notre Dame is their contention that abortifacients are a form of birth control and should therefore not be excluded in a policy that allows for contraceptive coverage.

Irish 4 Reproductive Health calls for a “comprehensive” policy that addresses “reproductive healthcare.” Americans United says Notre Dame is denying “certain forms of birth control.” The National Women’s Law Center says the policy does not fund “birth control guaranteed to them by the Affordable Care Act.” The Center for Reproductive Rights uses the identical language.

Are abortifacients really analogous to the pill as a form of birth control? Or are they really abortion-inducing medications?

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says, “There is no scientific evidence that FDA-approved emergency contraceptives affect an existing pregnancy; no EC is classified as an abortifacient.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops disagrees, saying there is much confusion over what constitutes an abortion. “HHS uses it to describe only the disruption of an already implanted pregnancy. However, because a human life begins when sperm and egg meet to form a new living organism, the moral problem of abortion arises whenever a drug or device destroys the new embryonic human being, for example by preventing his or her implantation in the uterine wall needed to survive.”

Who does the pro-abortion industry agree with? For them, the question is irrelevant. They maintain that abortion, abortifacients, and contraceptives are all the same: they are a form of birth control.

Planned Parenthood says, “The Paragard [copper] IUD is the most effective type of emergency contraception. It works up to 5 days after unprotected sex, and keeps on preventing pregnancy for up to 12 years.” That puts them in partial agreement with the bishops—it is an abortifacient. But, of course, unlike the bishops, they are okay with that.

NARAL Pro-Choice, the other abortion behemoth, says, “Emergency contraception (EC), sometimes called ‘the morning-after pill,’ is birth control that significantly reduces the chances of becoming pregnant if taken soon after sex.” So it agrees with the bishops that EC works as an abortifacient, but it also celebrates its usage as a form of birth control.

The National Women’s Liberation says, “We want free and full access to all forms of birth control, including contraception and abortion.” The linkage is similarly acknowledged.

Interestingly, the idea that abortion is a form of birth control was rejected in 2016 by pro-abortion politician Nancy Pelosi. This earned her the wrath of her fans at NARAL. What gives?

Pelosi, who calls herself a Catholic, is constantly under criticism for her pro-abortion stance, so it behooved her not to be seen as a proponent of the position that “abortion is a form of birth control.” NARAL was free to say what it believes.

Casting abortion as a form of birth control is nothing new. In 1968, five years before Roe v. Wade, the Task Force on Family Law and Policy issued a report to the Citizens’ Advisory Council on the Status of Women (a group established by President John F. Kennedy). It argued in favor of repealing state abortion laws, calling abortion “an alternative to other contraceptive methods” (my italic).

Two years after Roe, in a journal published by an institution affiliated with the Department of Health and Human Services, a study was done on the “effectiveness of abortion as a form of birth control.”

In 1992, Dr. Susan Allen, a physician with the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, and a practicing abortionist, flatly admitted that “Abortion is a form of birth control.”

The pro-abortion students at the University of Notre Dame, and their pro-abortion allies, are ultimately determined to sell the notion that abortion is a form of birth control. But because there are some nervous Nellies out there (e.g., Pelosi), they are now settling for equating abortifacients with contraceptives. It’s time to unmask these activists. It is not the pill that fires them—it’s abortion.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

As we noted on Monday, Holocaust Remembrance Day at the United Nations featured an event, “Remembering the Holocaust: the Documented Efforts of the Catholic Church to Save Lives.” A summary of the proceedings has been written by University of Mississippi Professor of Law Ronald Rychlak. He was one of the speakers; he is also a member of the Catholic League’s advisory board.

Rychlak’s account makes for an important read. To access it, click here.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on last night’s monologue by David Spade on Comedy Central:

Even David Spade’s fans branded him as low-class when he refused to show at Chris Farley’s funeral; the two actors had done movies together. But being low class is who Spade is. He proved that last October when he lashed out at homosexual priests—depicting all priests as molesters—and he did so again last night.

“A priest got 60 days in jail—he was bubble wrapping a boy and then locking him in a closet. When asked for a comment the priest said, ‘So we get in trouble when you don’t molest them now?'”

[Note: Molesting boys is what they do in Hollywood. Molesting adolescents is what homosexual priests did.]

Comedy Central specializes in attacking Catholicism. One person who surely knows why is Jake Urbanski, vice president for communications at the station.

Contact: jake.urbanski@comedycentral.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on who is attacking Christians:
Attacks on Christianity, throughout the world, emanate from two principal sources: radical Muslims and leftists. The role played by radical Muslims is detailed in the 2020 World Watch List published by Open Doors; the Gatestone Institute cites radical Muslims as well, but it also mentions the role played by radical left-wing groups.

By using the data provided by Open Doors, of the 50 most oppressive nations for Christians to live in, 38 are run by Muslims and 4 are Communist controlled; the other 8 are neither Muslim nor Communist states.

For all the talk about an Islamic Reformation, it appears that nothing has changed. The violence against Christians is epidemic, yet there is little in the way of Christian persecution of Muslims.

If Muslims run three out of four of the most violent places in the world for Christians to live, radical left-wing groups are responsible for the lion’s share of anti-Christian attacks in the secular nations of Western Europe. The Gatestone Institute’s research shows that approximately 3,000 Christian churches, schools, cemeteries and monuments were defaced or destroyed there in 2019.

France and Germany are the most anti-Christian nations in Europe; Spain is also notorious for its assaults on Christianity. That these nations are beacons of secularism cannot be denied. Theirs may be a softer persecution than is true in Islamic nations—the left-wing activists favor arson, defecation, looting, mockery, profanation, Satanism, theft, urination, and vandalism to armed attacks on individuals—but it is no less menacing.

Muslim nations that persecute Christians have their origins in the most extreme interpretations of Islam. But what accounts for the anti-Christian assaults by radical secularists?

The Gatestone researchers sought to understand the motives of the anti-Christian acts in Western Europe. Vandalism and theft were two of the four listed in the report; there was nothing extraordinary about these findings. The other two motives were more revealing: they were grounded in politics and religion.

“Some attacks” they said, “especially those against Roman Catholicism, which some radical feminists and radical secularists perceive to be a symbol of patriarchal power and authority, are political in nature. Such attacks include defacing churches and religious symbols with political graffiti, much of it anarchist or feminist in nature.”

“Many attacks that appear to be religious or spiritual in nature reflect a deep-seated hostility toward Christianity. Such attacks include smearing feces on representations of Jesus Christ or statues of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Other attacks involve the defilement of or theft of Communion wafers…[which] may be the work of Satanists, who use the consecrated host in a ritual called the Black Mass.”

Radical feminists, radical secularists, anarchists, and Satanists. What do they have in common? They are all aligned with the politics of the left.

No one doubts that radical feminists and radical secularists are among the most influential left-wing activists in the western world. More contentious is the proposition that anarchists and Satanists are also associated with left-wing politics.

Historically, some extremists on the right have been anarchists, but today anarchists more typically resemble Antifa in the United States. “Anarchists and antifascists, often called the antifa, are factions of the far left who feel they are not represented by the mainstream Democratic Party.” That description, offered by a reporter for the Washington Post, is accurate.

The Church of Satan says it has no “official” political position. Yet a look at the positions staked out by The Satanic Temple are squarely on the left: for instance, their support for abortion-on-demand is so extreme that it is impossible to go beyond it.

Many who have followed the litany of anti-Christian offenses in Western Europe have noted how left-wing the perpetrators are.

Ellen Fantini, director of The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, says her organization has documented that “churches and other symbols of Christianity in Europe are targets for many groups—from Islamists to radical feminists, LGBT activists to anarchists and self-proclaimed Satanists.” Four of the five groups mentioned (the last four) are clearly in the camp of leftists.

The bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, Dominique Rey, agrees, but goes one step further. “We are witnessing the convergence of laicism—conceived as secularism, which relegates the faithful only to the private sphere and where every religious denomination is banal or stigmatized—with the overwhelming emergence of Islam, which attacks the infidels and those who reject the Koran.”

It is striking to note that radical Muslims and radical left-wing activists prefer to attack Christianity, but not each other. Yet in terms of their respective worldviews, they could not be more different, particularly on matters governing marriage, the family, and sexuality. Moreover, as Bishop Rey observes, Christianity is being privatized while Islam is expanding in Western Europe. How can this be?

There is no cabal at work. What conjoins the two radical wings, one religious and the other secular, is hatred of Christianity. But the source of their animosity is not the same. Radical Muslims want to conquer the West but cannot do so without attacking the Christian roots of Western civilization. Radical secularists want a full-blown libertine society—a sexual Shangri-La—but cannot do so without also attacking the Christian roots of Western civilization.

Christians are fighting for their lives against radical Muslims, and are fighting for their heritage against radical left-wing activists. They are the only sane players in this very sick development. More important, Christianity is the only tonic that can save us from their ravages.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Harvey Weinstein’s bigotry:

As the Catholic League has pointed out before, Harvey Weinstein has a long history of making anti-Catholic movies, but only recently have we learned that his bigotry is not reserved to his artistic endeavors.

“Sopranos” star Annabella Sciorra has accused Weinstein of raping her. Some weeks after it allegedly occurred, she ran into him at a restaurant. She says she tried to talk to him about what happened. She told the jury last week what his reply was: “That’s what all the nice Catholic girls say.”

This shows how deeply ingrained is his bigotry. It also shows how this story, which was widely reported, was received by the media. Not one media outlet characterized his remark for what it is—a vile anti-Catholic slur.

If an Irish Catholic producer made one anti-Semitic movie after another, and was then charged with saying, “That’s what all the nice Jewish girls say”—in reply to fending off an accusation of rape—the media would be all over it.

If Weinstein is a bigot, what does that make the media?

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an important event at the United Nations today:

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day at the U.N., an annual event that mobilizes public awareness of the Nazi-led genocide of the Jewish people. This year the Permanent Observer Mission of the U.N., along with the Pave the Way Foundation, are sponsoring an event titled, “Remembering the Holocaust: The Documented Efforts of the Catholic Church to Save Lives.”

Gary Krupp leads Pave the Way Foundation. He is the only Jewish man to be knighted; the honor was bestowed by Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI raised him in rank to the Order of St. Gregory. His work detailing the extraordinary lengths that Pope Pius XII went to in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust is outstanding. He will be speaking today at the event.

Also speaking at the U.N. event will be Professor Ronald J. Rychlak, a noted expert on the Holocaust and a member of the Catholic League’s Board of Advisors. He will speak on “Soviet Disinformation and the Campaign against Pope Pius XII.”

He will address the role the KGB played in smearing the Catholic Church: The Soviet authorities were integrally behind efforts to blame the Church for the Holocaust. Indeed, the KGB was responsible for producing “The Deputy,” the German play that did more to poison the public mind against the Church than any other event. Rychlak has also written voluminously on how Pope Pius XII worked to help Jews by opposing Hitler.

Among the other scholars who will be speaking today is Mark Riebling, author of Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler. He wrote about the role of Pope Pius XII in planning an assassination of Hitler.

You can watch this event live at http://webtv.un.org. It runs from 3 to 6 p.m.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on President Trump’s decision to address the March for Life crowd:

Other presidents have offered their support to the pro-life cause, but only President Donald Trump has decided to participate in the March for Life. His pro-life record, coupled with his record in defense of religious liberty, makes him the most important Christian voice in the United States. No president, including President Ronald Reagan, can match his stellar achievements on these twin issues.

By contrast, we have the likes of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, both of whom have endorsed infanticide: there are no penalties for doctors who intentionally allow an innocent baby to die if he or she survives a botched abortion. However, First Prize goes to California Governor Gavin Newsom: he out-Hitlerized both men.

Earlier this month, Newsom said he wants to stop euthanizing animals. “We want to be a no-kill state.” Yet last year he issued a California Proclamation on Reproductive Freedom, one part of which was designed to welcome “women to California to fully exercise their reproductive rights.” In other words, his enthusiasm for killing the least among us is so passionate that he extended an open invitation to pregnant women across the United States to have their babies killed in his home state.

It will surprise no one to learn that Newsom is also a proponent of assisted suicide. Indeed, he likes it so much that he boasts of his role in assisting a person to commit suicide in 2002. That person was his mother. [At that time assisted suicide was a felony in California—he put her down in San Francisco.]

It’s too bad Mr. “No-Kill State” Newsom didn’t think of his mother the way he thinks of hamsters.

These are sick times. Kudos to President Trump for standing up for the most defenseless human beings. He looks positively angelic next to these monsters.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on celebrity lawyers and the cogent points they make:

One does not have to like Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein (I fought with the latter for decades) to like what their lawyers are saying in their defense. There are some lines of defense that are not only persuasive, they have direct application to accused priests.

As everyone knows, the #MeToo movement has had its sights set on Cosby and Weinstein from the beginning. Given that both men are high profile celebrities who have been accused of serial sexual offenses, this is understandable. But that doesn’t mean that everything done in the name of this cause is justified.

Cosby’s lawyers recently appealed his conviction for sexual assault to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In their filing, his lawyers made a veiled reference to the #MeToo movement. “Cases exist in which the outcomes were deeply influenced by public panic fueled by the nature of the allegations pledged, the media, and other special interest groups. The criminal justice system teeters on a dangerous precipice in such cases.”

Andrew Wyatt, Cosby’s spokesman, was more specific. He raised concerns about “the impact of #MeToo hysteria on the bedrock principles of our criminal justice system.”

The “public panic” cited by the lawyers is what sociologists call a “moral panic.” It refers to an irrational reaction to alleged offenses, one that yields a poisoned environment in which to adjudicate them. There is little doubt that the #MeToo movement has set off alarms that threaten to allow emotion to override reason in dealing with alleged sexual offenses, the result of which compromises the due process rights of the accused.

Donna Rotunno is Weinstein’s defense lawyer. She was asked about the #MeToo movement.

“If we have 500 positives that come from a movement, but the one negative is that it strips you of your right to due process and a fair trial, and the presumption of innocence, then to me, not one of those things can outweigh the one bad,” she said. “We can have movements that strip us of our fundamental rights.” Similarly, she said that this movement “allows the court of public opinion to take over the narrative” and “puts you in a position where you’re stripped of your rights.”

What about the women accusers? “Yes, he’s a powerful guy. But I think that because he’s a powerful guy, they would use him and use him and use him for anything they could.” When asked if all women accusers should be believed, Rotunno answered, “I believe women who I believe the facts and evidence support their cases, but I think it’s very dangerous to believe all women without looking at the back story—the rest of the evidence.”

Everything that these lawyers have said about their clients is true of accused priests these days. Even more so.

A moral panic has indeed arisen in cases of clergy sexual abuse. It is fed by a hostile media, late-night talk-show hosts on TV, cable outlets like HBO, and others. Old cases of abuse are presented as if they are new, leaving the false impression that the scandal is ongoing. Pernicious generalizations about priests—and sick jokes—are made with abandon. Movies spread lies about the Catholic hierarchy. And so on.

This has less to do with the #MeToo movement than it does with vintage anti-Catholicism. It is no secret that the cultural elites harbor an animus against Catholicism. These kinds of atmospherics make it difficult for accused priests to get a fair trial. Add to this the cherry picking of accused priests by state attorney generals, and the table is set for conviction.

What Weinstein’s lawyer says about women accusers is certainly applicable to priest accusers. Some are telling the truth but others are lying through their teeth, seeking revenge against an institution they despise. And just as Weinstein is a “powerful guy” who is easily exploited because of who he is, the Catholic Church is a “powerful” institution that is also easily exploited.

It would do the Catholic Church wonders if more aggressive attorneys such as those employed by Cosby and Weinstein were hired. No priest should be a sitting duck for rapacious victims’ lawyers. I might add that Rotunno is a Chicago lawyer who went to a Catholic college.

Federal rulemaking directives afford the public an opportunity to weigh in on proposed changes to public policy; submissions must be forwarded 30 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register.

On January 16, 2020, the Trump administration’s Department of Education announced several proposed rule changes affecting religious liberty in government programs.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue submitted his statement on this issue today. To read it, click here.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on public policy reforms issued by the Trump administration on January 16:

The public policy reforms governing religious liberty issued by the Trump administration are compelling and much needed. President Trump has proven once again that he is the most religion-friendly president in the modern era.

The Trump administration has provided a much-needed corrective to the draconian directives promulgated by the previous administration: the role of religious liberty under President Obama was diminished to such an extent that it all but neutered the free exercise of religion in public policy programs. Trump has reversed this condition, awarding religious liberty the kind of breathing room it deserves, both morally and legally.

There are three areas of public policy affecting religious liberty that have been targeted for reform by the Trump administration: faith-based programs; higher education; and religious institutions.

While the directives that have been issued are tailored to each of these three sectors, there are two elements that are common to all of them: religious institutions will not be afforded a second-class status any longer and their autonomy will be protected.

The Trump administration wants to end the invidious practices of discriminating against religious institutions and associations that were instituted by the Obama administration. Any institution that does not treat religious institutions as the equal of secular institutions will be faced with the prospect of having federal funds terminated.

Religious autonomy is another feature of these reforms. For instance, the state cannot force religious associations to jettison their religious character as a condition of federal aid. Regrettably, this has been done, the effect of which has been to secularize these entities. What is the sense of having a religious institution if it cannot freely exercise its religious prerogatives?

In effect, the Trump administration is going to continue its efforts to put an end to the animus against religious institutions that characterized the Obama administration.

As is customary, the public is being given 30 days to comment on these proposals. I will submit a detailed account of the Catholic League’s problems with the Obama administration in its handling of faith-based programs, and the need for the kinds of reforms as outlined in the new directives. We will make public our input.