Catholic League president Bill Donohue shares his thoughts about our obsession with phones:

Mohammad Anwar, 66, was recently driving his Uber Eats car in Washington, D.C. when two young girls, 13 and 15, took out a stun gun and tased him. The carjackers took command and drove away, leaving the immigrant from Pakistan hanging on, wedged between the door and the driver’s seat. After he was flung from the car, the automobile rolled over and crashed into two other cars. CNN called it an “accident.” The cops called it murder. They copped a plea.

This story is bad enough without adding anything to it, but my reason for mentioning it has to do with something less important, though nonetheless disturbing. After the car crashed, one of the girls was upset, but not about what she and her friend just did. She was upset because she thought she lost her phone. There are pictures of her literally walking nonchalantly past the victim’s body looking for her phone.

We are a nation obsessed with our phones. This is especially true of young people. When I was a kid, phones served one purpose: they were vehicles of conversation. Now they are used for entertainment as well. This is a desire that can never be satisfied.

It’s a mania. What else can we call it?

There are news stories of people walking into trains because they are staring at their phone. They have fallen off of cliffs because of this plague. Many more have caused car accidents.

When exiting an elevator, it often happens that some phone maniac walks directly into me. This also happens when I walk across the street in New York City. I’m not a small guy—I’m 6’2″ with broad shoulders. Yet people keep walking into me. Most of the time they’re young women looking down at their phone. Many are also wearing earphones, compounding their distraction. They just have to be entertained.

I even saved some fool’s life a few years ago. He was walking across a busy intersection, looking down at his phone, when a car came right at him. Lucky for him, I have a loud voice and he heard me scream. He stopped on a dime. Think he thanked me? Not a chance. He just kept on walking (with phone in hand, of course).

When I go to Washington, D.C., I take the train. Our office is across the street from Penn Station so it makes sense to take Amtrak instead of flying out of La Guardia. I always get there early so I can get a seat in the “Quiet Car”; no phones or loud talking are allowed. Otherwise I would go mad.

The same is true of the Long Island Rail Road. I take it to and from work every day. However, there is only one “Quiet Car,” and unlike Amtrak, it is always the last car, making it a less attractive alternative. At least once a week, I have to get up and move to another car because of someone speaking loudly. On more than one occasion I have resorted to yelling at them. Others on the train are appreciative.

I like pubs and restaurants. Pubs are short for “public houses,” or places where people congregate to enjoy alcoholic beverages. Ideally, they are places where people go to laugh and partake in conversation. In short, they are forums where sociability excels. Back in the day, that is.

Now it is commonplace to see young men and women sit at the bar, or at a table, and never speak. They are on their phone. It never ceases to amaze me. They make a point of meeting their friends at a specific pub at a specific time, and as soon as they get there they start talking to someone on their phone who isn’t there. And when they meet with that person, he or she gets the same treatment. The game is ongoing.

Seeing family members sitting at a table in a restaurant and not speaking to each other is also commonplace. Father, mother and children are all on their phone, oblivious to one another. What was the point of going out for dinner? Just to eat? The only time they speak is when they need the salt and pepper.

As a sociologist, I find this to be troubling. We are so self-absorbed that we have lost what it means to be a social animal. Social animals interact, they engage, they dialogue—they don’t ignore their family and friends.

As noted, the self-absorption often takes the form of being entertained. Phones feed this desire—it functions as a need for many—making us more and more dependent on technology to fill our emptiness. In extreme cases, this qualifies as an addiction, leaving the individual socially retarded.

Social media and video games only make our insularity worse. The anonymity they afford is a national problem, one that can only be cured by insisting on something novel: We need to talk to each other. And we need to do it live and without dependence on contraptions of any kind.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on abortion-rights activists:

Pro-abortion activists are in a state of hysteria. The reasons why are not hard to understand.

In communities and states across the country there has been an explosion in pro-life legislation. In fact, more than 500 legal restrictions have been introduced in state legislatures over the past four months. Moreover, there are now 29 “sanctuary cities” for the unborn, locales that prohibit abortion procurement and services. On top of this, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Mississippi case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. No wonder the alarms are going off in pro-abortion quarters.

As usual, pro-abortion activists are speaking from the same playbook. Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood, calls current conditions “dire.” Speaking like the hard-core leftist that she is, she sees “intersectionality” at work, or a confluence of forces that work to undermine her agenda. That is why she blames “misogyny,” “white supremacy” and “patriarchy” for what ails her mission.

NARAL Pro-Choice America also cites the harm that legal protections for the unborn bequeath. Such laws “disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and people of color; low-income; and rural communities, and are part of a coordinated effort by the Right to maintain white patriarchal control at all costs.”

As one who has been part of the pro-life community for decades, I believe I speak for most of us when I say that such characterizations are total nonsense. No one in our camp speaks the way these pro-abortion fanatics think we speak. What motivates us is quite simple: offering protections for the life of innocent unborn babies. We are not interested in punishing anyone or in servicing some racial or political cause.

Others blame the Catholic Church. Jamie Manson, the lesbian activist who runs the anti-Catholic pro-abortion letterhead called Catholics for Choice, tells us in a New York Times guest essay that “the pervasive theology [of the Catholic Church] shapes policies that cause women untold suffering.” She means by that the Church’s opposition to abortion. She does not explain why more Catholic women attend Mass than men do, and why Catholic women are in the forefront of the pro-life community.

Many pro-abortion activists are not convinced that President Biden has done enough to serve their agenda. This is strange given that he is the most rabid pro-abortion president in the history of our nation. He even wants to force taxpayers to pay for abortions. He also supports legislation that could make Catholic hospitals perform them. What more do they want?

They want him to “talk the talk.” McGill Johnson says, “He has work to do in talking through things, actually saying the word ‘abortion.'” Manson blames the bishops for intimidating him from being more blunt. “It’s no accident that Mr. Biden still has not uttered the word ‘abortion’ since his election and his administration often uses euphemisms like ‘women’s health care,’ ‘choice,’ ‘bodily autonomy’ and ‘reproductive rights.'”

Renee Bracey Sherman, who runs an abortion storytelling group, We Testify, has had it with White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “I am glad to see that [Psaki] took the time to share that President Biden does indeed believe that we should have the right to abortion, but it’s getting a little comical that she is utterly unable to say the word or what the administration plans to do about expanding access.”

These are not rational voices. Leaving aside the irrationality of rejecting the scientific evidence that life begins at conception, their condemnation of Biden and his administration for not “talking their talk”—even though they are winning on policy—shows how they have succumbed to delirium.

The pro-life community should be emboldened by this hysteria. It demonstrates that even though our “devout Catholic” president is not on our side, he cannot stop us from moving forward.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a new Gallup poll on transgender rights:

When the public is asked about the rights of Americans, from any demographic group, the issue is usually couched in terms of equality. But when it comes to the rights of transgender persons, there are two other variables that ineluctably come into play: equity and privacy.

Equality is not equity: it means sameness; equity means fairness. Giving all students the same grade is an example of equality and inequity. Privacy is self-evident.

A new Gallup poll on the rights of transgender persons taps measures of equality and equity, but neglects to tap the issue of privacy.

Asking respondents whether transgender persons should have a right to serve in the military is a measure of equality. Most Americans are predisposed to treating everyone equally, so it comes as no surprise that 7 in 10 adults say they favor allowing openly transgender persons to serve in the military.

Asking whether transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete against those of their same birth sex, or whether they should be allowed to compete against those who match their sex identity, is a measure of equity. Most Americans (62%) prefer the former choice, thus showing a preference for equity over equality. In other words, most do not think it fair that those who are born male should have the right to compete in sports against those born female.

Gallup did not ask about the privacy issue, namely, whether biological males who consider themselves to be female should have the right to use the same bathroom and shower facilities as females.

Previous Gallup polls on the restroom issue, taken in 2016 and 2017, showed that most Americans do not agree that those born of one sex should be allowed to use the same public restroom of those who belong to the opposite sex, though the margins were not great. In 2016, 50% said transgender individuals should use the public restrooms of their birth sex; 40% disagreed. In 2017, the respective numbers were 48% to 45%.

There are a few problems with these Gallup surveys.

For one, why didn’t Gallup pose the question differently in 2016 and 2017? For example, why didn’t it ask respondents whether they approve of those in grades K-12 using the same bathroom and shower facilities of those who belong to the opposite sex? Is there not a profound difference between adults using the same public restrooms as those of the other opposite sex, and boys and girls using the same school bathrooms and shower facilities?

Second, if most Americans today are not in favor of allowing biological males to compete against biological females in sports, isn’t it likely that an even higher percentage would oppose them showering together? Why didn’t Gallup ask this question?

Not too long ago, Chelsea Mitchell was rated the fastest female sprinter in Connecticut. But in 2017, the high school student suddenly started losing. That’s because biological males who identify as female were allowed to compete against her. Not only did Chelsea start losing one title after another, after she went public with her story, she was savaged by critics on social media.

Reality check: On average, men are faster and stronger than women. That’s why we have sex-segregated Olympics. Allowing males to compete against females in sports, and to access the same locker rooms after competing, does violence to all three variables relevant to this discussion: equality, equity, and privacy.

Males and females are not equal in their biologically determined athletic attributes; allowing males to compete against females is patently unfair; and mixing the sexes in bathrooms and showers is a violation of privacy rights.

No one should be afraid to call this for what it is—madness.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on how Rev. Martin Luther King’s work is being undermined:

The legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King is being dishonored on a daily basis. Those who are trashing his noble record are not white supremacists; rather, they are professionals who claim to be fighting racism. These people work primarily in education, law, and the media. Regrettably, they are as heavily populated in the for-profit sector of the economy as they are the non-profit sector.

It was in King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech where he articulated his vision of America. While he made several references to problems that blacks were faced with, ranging from discrimination in public accommodations to police brutality, he did so against the backdrop of respect for the American commitment to liberty, equality and justice for all. Indeed, his “dream” was based on his conviction that these goals would eventually be reached.

Unlike today, where street anarchists and professional agitators are tearing down statues of American icons, King was celebrating these heroic figures. He opened his speech by referencing the Emancipation Proclamation, calling its author (Lincoln) “a great American.” He also credited the Founders, whom he called “the architects of our republic,” for writing “the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

King knew that the goals of these documents were a work in progress, but he was wise enough to know that the Founders gave us “this promissory note,” without which appeals to liberty, equality and justice were impotent. “America has given the Negro people a bad check,” he noted, but “we refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt.” He never gave up hope, insisting that “Now is the time to make justice for all of God’s children.” That was a very Christian response.

Now contrast what King said with what our new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations recently said. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters in New York City that “the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles.” Wrong. It was our inalienable rights that were weaved into our founding documents and principles.

King would have been appalled. He had nothing but praise and admiration for our founding documents and principles. His problem was with our failure to make good on what they embodied, namely the contents of the American creed.

Indeed, it was precisely the documents and principles that galvanized him to act—they were the “promissory note.” If anything, the existential reality of white supremacy at the time of the founding was the complete opposite of what our creed entailed, and it was this inconsistency that he used, to great effect, to leverage the civil rights movement.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

This classic statement by King is now seen as contemptible by those who promote critical race theory. The proponents expressly judge people by the color of their skin, treating the content of their character as meaningless. Their demonization of white people—asking them to repent for their alleged positions of privilege—is patently racist. To them, the individual does not count; only his collective ascribed status does. Ironically, that’s what the slavemasters believed about blacks.

Martin Luther King would be very happy with legislation recently passed in Idaho. This law prohibits public schools from teaching that “any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.” Who objects? Critical race theory advocates. This explains  why the entire Oklahoma City School Board of Education slammed a law that is based on the Idaho legislation. One critic said the non-discrimination law was done to “protect white fragility.”

The governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, sounded very much like King when he said, “I firmly believe that not one cent of taxpayer money should be used to define and divide Oklahomans by their race or sex.” He added that “We can, and should, teach this history without labeling a young child as a ‘oppressor’ or requiring he or she feel guilt or shame based on their race or sex.”

Rev. Martin Luther King sought to bring the races together. Today’s brand of “anti-racism and discrimination” activists seek to drive the races apart. In doing so they are at odds with the principles upon which our nation was founded. Indeed, they are fomenting racism, thus dishonoring King’s legacy.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Jews being attacked at diners:

There is nothing new under the sun about protesters on opposite sides clashing in the streets. There is something different, however, when innocent people who are minding their own business get attacked simply because they are of the same racial, ethnic or religious stock of one of the parties to the protest.

This happened in Los Angeles on May 18 and in New York City on May 20. In both cases the victims were Jews and the attackers were Palestinians.

In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Beverly Grove, Palestinian protesters asked diners “who’s Jewish,” and then started screaming “death to the Jews.” The mob turned over tables, beat up the diners—one was knifed—and hurled glasses at others.

In New York, Jews who were dining out in the Jewish business district were called “F***ing Zionists,” spat upon and assaulted. This did not just happen in the Times Square Diamond District; it happened at several restaurants in New York City.

The big media ignored what happened. While ABC and CNN covered the clash between protesters in Times Square (the CBS and NBC New York affiliates did as well), only Fox News covered the assault on Jewish diners. There has been nothing from the Associated Press, the New York Times or the Washington Post.

Dov Hikind, a well-respected leader in New York’s Jewish community, blasted New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo for their silence. Subsequently, de Blasio issued a tweet saying “anti-semitism has NO place in our city.” Cuomo said he “unequivocally condemn[s] these brutal attacks.” Neither man said a word about Jewish diners being assaulted.

If we don’t distinguish between protesters who clash in the street, and a mob that descends upon diners in a restaurant, we will only abet more of this savagery. The onus is on leaders in the Palestinian community to condemn these barbaric acts against innocent Jews.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the results of a new survey on religion:

The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University recently released the results of three surveys on religion. It was learned that most Americans do not hold to a biblical worldview; rather, they embrace a mixture of competing interpretations, many of which are grounded in one version of secularism or another. There are other findings, of a more specific nature, that also merit our attention.

The decline of a Judeo-Christian culture extends back decades, but it took until recently to see the full fruits of this development on an entire generation. More than four-in-ten millennials (those born between 1985 and 2002), for example, say they either don’t know, don’t care or don’t believe God exists. Three quarters of teens and young adults agree that what is “morally right and wrong changes over time”; 31% strongly agree and 43% somewhat agree.

These two findings are strongly related. Indeed, the former explains the latter. If, as taught from K-graduate school, that God is a chimera, it follows that there is no such thing as objective truth. Of course, if that were true, then those who believe this would have no moral grounds to protest calls to enslave them. Think about it. Who are they to protest someone’s else’s truth?

Those of us who believe in natural law and natural rights are not stuck in this jam. We believe that God is the source of truth, and that his teachings are encoded in the Ten Commandments. In other words, there are some things that are inherently wrong, and do not vary over time. Lincoln understood this, as did Rev. Martin Luther King; their deeds were driven by, and based on, these eternal truths.

Not surprisingly, the researchers found that millennials are the most likely age group to define success as “happiness, personal freedom, or productivity without oppression.” As such, they believe that it is perfectly fine to have an abortion if it is performed “to reduce personal economic or emotional discomfort.” Their political leanings, the surveys found, are decidedly liberal.

These results are the logical fallout of what happens when God and truth are jettisoned. Having rejected any external basis for truth, the nucleus of one’s moral compass reverts to oneself. That being the case, happiness and comfort become paramount, and anything that stands in the way of their fulfillment is verboten.

Given this strain of radical individualism, how can society be expected to care for those in need? Having rejected the Mother Teresa model—it is the job of every individual to tend to the needy—there are only two choices left: do nothing or have the state provide for them.

The answer, for millennials, is the latter. The surveys disclose that they are the most likely to champion liberal “fiscal and social policies.” So while services for the needy will be provided, they will come from the state, leaving us completely unburdened, save for taxes. That way we can pursue happiness and comfort, the twin measures of our wellbeing.

Dostoevsky was right. “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” Anyone who thinks such an idea has benign consequences knows nothing about history.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Sinead O’Connor’s latest news flash:

Sinead O’Connor is back in the news, this time hawking her memoir, “Rememberings.” It turns out that the chain-smoking perennially troubled entertainer says she has difficulty remembering what happened to her life after she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 1992.

O’Connor was roundly criticized for what she did on SNL, drawing condemnations from the likes of Frank Sinatra and Madonna. She says staged her stunt because she wanted to protest priestly sexual abuse. There is no reason to believe her.

In 2012, O’Connor told the press that she got the idea of ripping up the picture of the pope after singer Bob Geldof went on the British show, “Tops of the Pops,” and tore up a photo of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John; one of his songs hit the top of the charts, moving ahead of a tune by the famous movie couple.

One of the stars of “Tops of the Pops” was BBC icon Jimmy Savile, the predator who molested hundreds of kids, including one as young as eight. He did this for 54-years, much of it occurring on BBC property. In other words, he was raping boys and girls before and after O’Connor’s so-called protest.

Did O’Connor know about Savile’s conduct? Not at the time. But she admitted in 2014 that she learned of his serial rapes before news stories surfaced in 2012.

In 2014, O’Connor told The Guardian that her interest in the sexual abuse of minors led her to learn of Savile’s behavior. “Because I was involved in the church struggle, I had to study it like a barrister. I read every report and document and biography of every person talking about it. When you do that, it’s like surfing, you end up at all the other stories and realise how it branches out.”

If she knew of Savile’s conduct before the media did, why didn’t she say something at the time? What explains her current reticence? She has no problem blasting the Catholic Church, yet she chooses to give the BBC a pass, even though it covered up Savile’s crimes. The woman is a phony. Her protest was never about sexual abuse; it was always a Church-bashing exercise.

It’s time the media stopped making Sinead O’Connor a hero. She is anything but.

Contact Rob Prinz, O’Connor’s agent: rprinz@icmpartners.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on remarks made last night by Chris Cuomo on the subject of abortion:

On his CNN show of May 17, Chris Cuomo made several remarks about abortion that deserve a rebuttal. The occasion of his comments was the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a Mississippi case that bans abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.

Cuomo is upset that we haven’t impaneled experts to decide what science says about fetal viability. Here is how he phrases it. “When does what is inside a woman become a person with rights under the law?”

Pro-abortion enthusiasts such as Cuomo find that discussing this subject can be a linguistic minefield. They have to proceed in tippy-toe fashion, always being careful not to mention the obvious, namely that the pregnant woman is carrying her baby. They have to resort to talking about “what is inside a [pregnant] woman,” as if it were a mystery.

Contrary to what Cuomo’s secular faith believes, science is not ambiguous about “what is inside a [pregnant woman].” If uninterrupted, what is conceived at conception will develop into a fully formed human being. All the properties that make us a unique individual—the contents of our DNA—do not suddenly manifest themselves at birth. No, they are there from the get-go, which is to say fertilization. In other words, “what is inside a [pregnant] woman” is another human being.

Cuomo needs to follow the science. If he does, he will quickly learn that science validates what the Catholic Church teaches. It is not the Church that is out-of-step with science—it is Cuomo.

Moreover, his injection of ideology into this debate belittles his position: it is not about race or religion. When he uses boogey-man terms like “far-right white fright,” and speaks derisively about pro-life Americans—they are people who “get up in their religion”—he comes across as a philistine.

Cuomo says that “Most Americans want the court to uphold Roe v. Wade.” Not exactly. As reported by CBS last year, a Marist poll found that “65% of Americans are likely to vote for a candidate who believes an abortion should be outlawed after the first three months of a pregnancy; allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother; or not permitted under any circumstance.”

In other words, most Americans expressly reject what Roe v. Wade permits, which is the unfettered right to an abortion for any reason and at any time of gestation.

Cuomo does not want to see Roe v Wade overturned, arguing that we need to respect “stare decisis,” or legal precedent. People like him have no problem telling us how we need to unsettle “settled law” when it comes to reinterpreting the meaning of marriage, or what it means to be a man or a woman.

It all comes down to “what is inside a [pregnant] woman.” If this cannot be answered, then abortion is not a moral issue. If it can—and of course it can—then it is. Indeed, attempts to justify it are patently immoral.

Contact: chris.cuomo@turner.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the problems with President Biden’s faith-based program:

On May 14, Melissa Rogers, the executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, met with leaders of six secular organizations: Freedom From Religion Foundation, the American Humanist Association, American Atheists, Center for Inquiry, Ex-Muslims of North America and the Secular Coalition for America.

None of them are religion-friendly and some are positively militant in their agenda. They expressed their displeasure with the pro-religious liberty policies of the Trump administration, accusing it of fomenting “Christian nationalism.” The creation of this fiction is central to the anti-religion politics that drives these groups.

It would be one thing if White House staffers in domestic policy or civil rights invited representatives of these six organizations to discuss their concerns; it is quite another when those who purport to work with people of faith do so. The problem is traceable to February 14, the day Biden issued his executive order establishing his faith-based program.

It was President George W. Bush who founded a White House office of faith-based initiatives. He realized how effective these programs were in the delivery of services to the needy. He also knew that government programs, which are typically distant from those whom they serve, would be enhanced by partnering with these religious agencies. That is why he sought to put an end to government policies that shunned these entities.

President Obama pursued a more secular approach, effectively gutting the faith element in faith-based programs. Trump restored and strengthened the Bush model. Now Biden is picking up where the Obama-Biden administration left off.

On February 14, the White House announced that the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships “will not prefer one faith over another or favor religious over secular organizations (my italics).” But the whole point of creating an office of faith-based programs was to prioritize religious social service agencies. Thus did Biden set in motion what happened on May 14.

If the Biden administration is going to manipulate the founding purpose of faith-based initiatives by welcoming the advice of militant secularists, it would do us all a favor and simply trash this office. It is obviously a bust.

Contact: Melissa.Rogers@who.eop.gov 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on racism and what elites are saying about it:

The Catholic Church regards racism to be “intrinsically evil” and supports policies to check it. It must be noted, however, that today there is no shortage of educators, reporters, activists, and lawmakers who claim to oppose racism while harboring an agenda that sometimes promotes it.

They do so mostly for ideological reasons, though those in the diversity and grievance industry also profit from it monetarily. Critical race theory, which is an inherently racist prescription—it judges people on the basis of their skin color, not their individual traits—is a textbook example of promoting racism in the name of fighting it.

In my lifetime, never have non-whites been treated more fairly than they are today, yet there is an avalanche of news stories that say just the opposite. While objective conditions have definitely improved, the perception that we are a racist nation is widespread. How can this be?

When Senator Tim Scott, an African American, recently said that “America is not a racist country,” he was ridiculed, maligned, and insulted. Why the anger? Because he challenged, to great effect, the raging narrative in elite quarters that America is irredeemably racist.

Vice President Kamala Harris was asked to comment on what Scott said. “No, I don’t think America is a racist country,” she said, but we need to “speak truth about the history of racism.” Previously, she went further than that when she declared, “America has a long history of systemic racism.”

President Biden is concerned about racism as well, claiming that “white supremacists” constitute the “most lethal terrorist threat.” He took his cues from the FBI which is preoccupied with white supremacists.

Ask most Americans who qualifies as a white supremacist and the likely answer is someone who belongs to the Ku Klux Klan. But the Klan has actually been in decline. So who are these people who pose the “most lethal terrorist threat”?

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is the go-to site that journalists use to access information about white supremacy and hate crimes. It is a left-wing activist organization that claims to monitor such offenses.

Last month it sounded very much like President Biden when its president and CEO, Margaret Huang, said, “We’re facing a crisis of far-right extremism and deep threats to our democracy.” From whom? She identified the mob storming the Capitol in January as being “led by white supremacists and other far-right extremists.”

Huang provided no evidence to support her remarks; she simply asserted that white supremacists were the principal culprits. It apparently never occurred to her that these men and women were mostly angry pro-Trump supporters who felt disabused by electoral politics and political correctness, concerns that have nothing to do with feelings of racial superiority. Veterans and former police officers appear to have been overrepresented. If they are white supremacists, we need to see the empirical evidence.

In fact, the SPLC does a lousy job defining who these white supremacists are. Its lengthy report, “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2020,” says an awful lot about white supremacists but is noticeably short on identifying exactly who they are.

For example, it says they track “extremist flyers,” reporting that they found 4,900 “flyering incidents.” The worst offenders, it said, were those who promoted the “white nationalist ideology,” a train of thought it left undefined. It did not say who these white nationalists were or whether they were responsible for any violence. It did say that the Klan is no longer “a significant generator of white supremacist terror,” largely because it “saw its count dwindle to 25 groups in 2020.” So who are the new Klansmen?

SPLC has racism on the brain. In its report, it expresses dismay over the fact that “only 38 percent of respondents” in a survey believed that “systemic racism” accounts for a disparity in health outcomes between whites and non-whites, “even as COVID-19 ravages communities of color.”

It did not say whether white supremacists were to blame for this condition, but it did say that it was unnerved to learn that the majority of Americans thought that Black Lives Matter (BLM) violence in 2020 was a bigger problem than police violence against blacks. With good reason: BLM killed 25 people, assaulted the police, burned down entire neighborhoods, and engaged in widespread looting. In 2019, police shot and killed 999 people: 452 were white and 252 were black; 26 of the whites and 12 of the blacks were unarmed.

For the record, SPLC regards as “far right” extremists anyone who thinks that boys who “transition” to girls should not be allowed to compete against girls in sports and shower with them. Perhaps they are the new Klansmen.

Real racism and extremism, as the Catholic Church understands it, must be opposed and defeated. It does not help this noble cause when prominent Americans and non-profit organizations are bent on finding racism under every rock.