Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the upcoming Supreme Court case that will decide whether the Mississippi abortion law is constitutional:

On December 1, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the most important abortion case ever brought since Roe v. Wade; indeed, it could overturn Roe. The case involves a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. A decision is not expected until June 2022. One thing is for sure: there will be plenty of pro-life and pro-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court.

The way protesters on opposing sides typically conduct themselves is dramatic. In early October, at the beginning the Supreme Court’s new term, pro-life and pro-abortion activists protested outside the high court.

Pro-life protesters were shown praying, saying the rosary, holding huge sheets of paper with the names of Americans who signed a petition to end abortion, and carrying a wooden Cross with the inscription, “Jesus Saves.”

In keeping with this respectful approach, the pro-life side convened a prayerful event on November 28 in Jackson, Mississippi. The “Pray Together for Life” rally was orchestrated by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and was attended by other prominent pro-life leaders.

By contrast, in early October pro-abortion protesters were shown carrying anti-Catholic signs, “Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries,” and placards denouncing pro-life activists, “You Are Pro-Life Until the Baby Is Poor, Black, Transgender, Gay, Mexican, Disabled, Sick.”

Other pro-abortion signs included, “Consent to Sex Is Not Consent to Pregnancy,” “My Body Is Not A Political Playground,” “You Will Not Control Us,” and “When Will My Body Be My Own?” Those who were arrested included a woman who held her hands above her head with a hanger placed around her wrists.

The different styles of protests are reflective of the respective goals of the protesters. Pro-life demonstrators invoke God. Pro-abortion demonstrators invoke hate.

The pro-abortion camp also distorts the truth. Pro-life Americans, who tend to be religious, are far more generous in giving to the poor than their secular pro-abortion counterparts. Thus, the bit about them not caring about all babies is ludicrous. But it is at least refreshing for the pro-abortion side to acknowledge that a pregnant woman is carrying a baby. If they weren’t so clueless, they would understand that this seriously undercuts their position.

Similarly, pregnant women are carrying the body of another human being, thus negating the foolish contention that abortion affects only the body of the expectant mother. Moreover, it is irresponsible for men and women who consent to having sex to deny that they are at least potentially consenting to pregnancy. Indeed, such irresponsibility accounts for a large part of the problem.

The media will surely cover the protests outside the Supreme Court on December 1. But given that most reporters are on the pro-abortion side, don’t look for the coverage to be fair.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest attacks on Thanksgiving:

The Left hates America, so naturally it hates anything that has to do with our Judeo-Christian heritage, and that ineluctably means Thanksgiving.

The latest attack is courtesy of Yahoo.com, which is increasingly home to left-wing news stories and opinion pieces. In a recent column by Chelsea Ritschel, she rehashes the claims made in 2006 by Robert Jensen, a retired professor from the University of Texas at Austin. He suggests we scratch Thanksgiving altogether and atone for our sins.

“One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.” We need to do that because of the “massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children” at the hands of the English.

Actually, it is Jensen who needs to atone. More on that later.

Historian Thomas E. Woods Jr. dispelled Jensen’s myth, which is widely accepted in badly educated left-wing circles, in his bestselling book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

The Pequots were never a large tribe, and they were never wiped out by the Puritans. Their descendants are recognized today by the federal government and are one of the recognized tribes in Connecticut. The Puritans had political rights to Indian lands, but never property rights. In fact, as Woods makes clear, “The colonial governments actually punished individuals who made unauthorized acquisitions of Indian lands.”

Moreover, each colony worked cooperatively with the Indians to secure land, offering metal knives and hoes as well as clothing and jewelry. “The Puritans recognized Indian hunting and fishing rights on lands that the Indians had sold to them,” writes Woods (his italics).

Then there are the Catholic roots to Thanksgiving that Jensen and his ilk do not want to discuss. Eric Metaxas has done the best work on this subject, recalling the travails and triumphs of Squanto, a brave Patuxent Indian boy.

In 1608 when Squanto was 12 years old he was kidnapped by English colonists and was taken to Spain as a slave. Fortunately for him, some monks bought him. They cared for him, taught him their language, and introduced him to Christianity. The monks knew the young Indian Catholic boy wanted to go back to America so they sent him to live with a London merchant, John Slanie, and his family. He learned English well, and after spending five years with the family, he boarded a ship to America.

Squanto arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, which is where he grew up. He was stunned by what he found: everyone he knew was dead. Contrary to what left-wing liars say, they were not bludgeoned to death—they died of smallpox. According to Metaxas, the Pilgrims “basically adopted him.” Lucky for them he spoke English and was able to help them.

Indeed, Squanto “showed them everything there was to know. He showed them how to catch fish, where the lobsters were, how to tread the eels out of the mud in the stream beds. He basically single-handedly showed them how to survive.” Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth colony wrote in his journal that Squanto was a special person sent by God.

As a tribute to the bond they had established, Squanto and the Pilgrims celebrated a Thanksgiving dinner. The custom originated in 1621 when Bradford recognized a day of public praise and prayer after the first harvest. The first national observance did not occur until President Washington, at the request of Congress, named Thursday November 26, 1789, as a “day of public thanksgiving and prayer.”

The Left does not want us to acknowledge the truth about Thanksgiving. They want us to atone.

We should never atone for the sins of others. Indeed, it is a cheap ploy, a political weapon used by left-wing haters who want to brand innocent Americans today for the alleged (often contrived) offenses of people they never knew.

But if there is to be a National Day of Atonement, it should be either May 1, International Workers’ Day, or Labor Day in September. Left-wing professors and activists should atone for their defense of Marxism and its bloody history. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and other Communist genocidal maniacs are responsible for murdering approximately 150 million people in the twentieth century, all in the name of workers’ rights.

Meanwhile, let’s all partake in “self-indulgent family feasting” on Thanksgiving and thank the Lord for our Catholic-rooted national holiday.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a Biden administration report on gender equity:

This fall the Biden administration released a remarkable document, “National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality.” Like most government reports it was read by very few, though its effects will be far-reaching. Touted as a groundbreaking report on the subject, its real groundbreaking status is the opposite of what its authors intended: it is the most sexist statement ever written by a presidential administration.

The hubris of the report is made plain on the first page. The authors actually have the audacity to compare their work to that of the Emancipation Proclamation. Their swollen heads are made even more risible when we consider the substance of their remarks.

Boys and men don’t count. That is the inescapable conclusion that fair-minded persons will come to after reading this report. In fact, it is not a stretch to say that boys and men are depicted as the enemy, at least indirectly, and it is the job of the federal government to liberate girls and women from them.

In the real world, boys and men are the most likely to be victims of violence, typically victimized by other boys and men. This report, however, has nothing to say about this issue, though it does have much to say about violence. It’s just that the only victims that count are girls and women.

The authors speak passionately about the victim status of women, especially Native American women. They say that they “experience gender-based violence at higher rates.”

But wouldn’t that mean that Native American men are the problem, and wouldn’t that kind of charge have a tinge of racism to it, at least according to those on the Left? The authors get around this by saying that the violence against Native American women is “often perpetrated by individuals who are not Native American.” Often? Are we to believe that white boys are taking Ubers to Indian reservations so they can beat up on their women?

Similarly, we learn that over half of incarcerated women are black and that they represent a “disproportionate share of police arrests and police violence.” This is taken as an example of racism. It never occurs to the authors that these conditions are mostly driven by black women, not the cops, and that their high rate of interactions with the police are a function of the breakdown of the black family.

The sexually challenged—those who falsely claim to be a member of the opposite sex—are assigned a supreme victim status. The report makes mention of “nonbinary people,” when in reality they don’t exist. People are free to imagine anything they want—self-delusion is commonplace—but sentient adults who are honest are not obliged to ratify their beliefs.

As this volume makes clear, the number of sexually challenged persons continues to grow. Hence the acronym LGBTQI+.

Biden, we know, is okay with boys and girls of the opposite sex showering together in the schools, and that is why this report is so strong on insisting that boys who identify as girls—despite obvious genitalia differences—should be permitted to do so. Boys professing to be girls should also be allowed to compete in girls’ sports.

Biden is more radical in his support for abortion rights now than ever before, and this document proves it. He and his team are prepared to pull out all the legal stops to ensure that the “termination of a pregnancy” is as important a right as freedom of speech. He also wants the public to pay for it.

Girls and women are not only victimized by men: they are victimized by the weather. “Climate change presents unique threats to women, girls, and other underserved populations.” The report cites as an example “extreme heat, air pollution, and infectious disease exposure.” What allows the guys to escape these things is never explained.

If all of this isn’t enough to call into question the cognitive abilities of Biden and his administration, consider that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is boys and men who are the most underserved part of the population. A recent Pew survey found that “Young women are more likely to be enrolled in college today than young men, and among those ages 25 and older, women are more likely than men to have a four-year college degree.”

Pew researchers do not exaggerate when they say that “The implications of the growing gap in educational attainment for men are significant, as research has shown the strong correlation between college completion and lifetime earnings and wealth accumulation.”

Senator Josh Hawley was subjected to howls of protest recently when he called attention to the sorry state of men in society. But he is right. “American men are working less, getting married in fewer numbers; they’re fathering fewer children. They are suffering more anxiety and depression. They are engaging in more substance abuse.”

Biden has thrown men to the curb. Indeed, boys and men don’t count. A more sexist report would be impossible to find.

Contact White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki: jennifer.r.psaki@who.eop.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest attacks on religious liberty:

Never has religious liberty been more seriously threatened than it is today. That the man responsible for this all-out assault professes to be a Catholic is all the more offensive. It is his Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that are leading the charge.

News of Biden’s latest war on religious liberty was selectively leaked to the media this week. A draft memo by OCR to HHS indicates the Biden administration is planning to revoke the Trump administration’s policies governing religious liberty, including conscience rights.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, who has long record of trampling on religious liberty, is working in tandem with OCR to eviscerate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In his capacity as California Attorney General, he sued the Little Sisters of the Poor for resisting the HHS mandate of the Obama administration; it tried to force the nuns to provide for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans.

OCR is contending that the Trump administration “took an expansive view of the use of RFRA that resulted in negative impacts for underserved communities.” Translated this means that attempts of radical homosexual and transgender activists to impose their secular agenda on religious institutions and agencies were blocked from doing so by the previous administration. The Biden team wants to undo all of that.

We are delighted that Sen. James Lankford has called out the Biden administration on this issue. Unfortunately, another news story has just broken, detailing how matters have only worsened.

Becerra is actively seeking to gut a wide range of religious liberty exemptions that lawmakers and the courts have granted. He is doing an end run around legislators, appealing to the courts to satisfy his agenda. In court filings obtained by the Catholic Benefits Association, there is a symbiotic relationship between HHS and left-wing activist organizations, the most prominent of which is the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The evidence shows that transgender rights and abortion rights are being pursued full throttle. Their success depends on the destruction of religious liberty exemptions put in place by the courts, lawmakers and administrative agencies. More than any other entity, it is Catholic institutions that are under the most severe attack.

If Biden gets his way, Catholic doctors and hospitals will lose their autonomy. They will either have to shut down or bend to the anti-Catholic norms of his administration. It’s just that serious.

Currently, no Catholic doctor can be forced to perform gender-transition surgery, and Catholic hospitals can refuse a request by a transgender woman—meaning a man who claims to be a woman—from doing a hysterectomy. Biden wants to change that. He also wants to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Not to be outdone, Biden wants to deny Catholic hospitals the right not to hire abortionists, doctors who perform abortions.

Biden has also invented a new right: the right of “socially infertile” single persons and homosexual couples to receive fertility treatments. His administration actually believes that these people cannot “reproduce via sexual intercourse due to social factors (my italic).” And what might these social factors be? A “lack of a partner or because of a person’s sexual orientation.”

In other words, it is not biology that stops single people and homosexual couples from having babies—it is society. This is the kind of insanity that happens when nature, and nature’s God, are dismissed and disdained. Regrettably, not only is this nonsense accepted by left-wing organizations, it is embraced by the ruling class, including elites in the healthcare industry. None of them have the guts to call this out for what it is—madness. They are complicit in this contrived universe.

Similarly, denying a woman an abortion, or what Biden prefers to call “termination of pregnancy,” is a matter of sex discrimination. He, and those who work for him, contend that men can also become pregnant. Yet none of them can provide a scintilla of evidence—taken from any country in the history of the world—to verify this baseless claim.

There are several pieces of legislation written by Democrats, such as the Equality Act, that are designed to crush Catholic institutions, but they have been stalled in committee due to their lack of public support. That is why OCR and HHS have elected to bypass Congress and seek court approval for their extremist policies.

The Leadership Conference, which is feeding the Biden team, is comprised of many familiar left-wing organizations. The ACLU, American Atheists, the Anti-Defamation League, the Human Rights Campaign, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood, and the Center for American Progress are all on board. Their hostility to religious liberty in general, and Catholic rights in particular, are well known. What is not widely known is that AARP is a member of this organization. Catholics take note.

We are contacting every senator, in both parties, about our concerns. We ask that you contact your own senators. It is also important to let OCR know of your objections to its radical agenda.

Contact: OCRmedia@hhs.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the raging free speech controversies:

On November 9th, the New York Times ran two news stories on the same subject, free speech, that had very different perspectives. The articles did not appear in tandem: one appeared in Section A on p. 16; the other was a front-page story in The Arts/Cultural Desk section. The two organizations that were the subject of analysis had nothing in common, save for their alleged fidelity to free speech. One was believable; the other was not.

The credible organization is a newly founded institution of higher education, the University of Austin. It was launched by scholars and activists who are in rebellion against the censorial climate that prevails in colleges and universities today. They actually believe in free speech, and are convinced that the best way to pursue this goal is to found a new university.

One of the faculty members is a former Portland State University professor, Peter Boghossian. He is impressed with the positive reception the new university has received, noting that one professor told him, “I’m caught in an insane asylum, everybody’s gone crazy, I will work for half.” Boghossian added, “They’re desperate to get out. They can’t stand the illiberalism.”

In the 1980s, I was an initial member of the National Association of Scholars, and later ran the Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania chapters; I then became a member of the board of directors of the national organization, a post I held for 20 years. I am well acquainted with the left-wing crackdown on free speech, a condition that has only worsened in recent years. So I am delighted to learn about the founding of the University of Austin.

The new university has attracted top-notch scholars such as Harvard professor Steven Pinker (his belief in human nature makes him a freak on campus), as well as independent thinkers such as Jonathan Haidt and Glenn Loury. All of them are committed to what the academy was founded for, the pursuit of truth. Unfortunately, most institutions of higher education are interested in the pursuit of politics, and brook no dissent whatsoever.

The other organization, PEN America, has been around since 1922. Writers such as Robert Frost, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, John Steinbeck and Philip Roth were members, and it continues to attract blue-chip poets, essayists and novelists.

“We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world.” It says its job is to “protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.”

PEN is not believable. It would be more accurate to say it has a very selective interest in free speech. Indeed, even that is too generous—there are times when it leads the fight to squash free speech. I know.

In 1998, I led a demonstration of 2,000 people on a rainy night in New York City outside the Manhattan Theatre Club to protest the Terrence McNally play, “Corpus Christi.” The performance depicted Jesus having sex with the apostles and was riddled with obscenities directed at Catholic teachings. As the New York Times reported, there were 300 counterdemonstrators, including PEN.

I never called for the play to be censored, so freedom of speech was never an issue, at least for the Catholic League. But it was for PEN—its members came to protest our First Amendment right.

Now PEN is back at it again. The New York Times relates how it is opposing the right of parents to protest radical race curricula in elementary and secondary schools. Thus does PEN fail to distinguish between censoring heterodox views on college campuses and the right of tax-paying parents to object to hate-filled indoctrination programs in their schools. In fact, it is working to undermine parental authority, all in the name of a liberty it is known to trash.

It is not conservatives who have brought about the cancel culture—it is those on the left. That they are also the masters of thought control should surprise no one.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the attacks on Archbishop Gomez:

Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez is under attack by left-wing Catholics and outside activists for his stellar speech given in Spain on November 4th. They are particularly angered over his comments on contemporary social justice movements, which he properly labeled as “pseudo-religions.”

John McWhorter is a Columbia University professor and he understands what Gomez is talking about. An African American, he has written a new book, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.

Both men call attention to identity politics and radical race theories—which judge people on the basis of their race, not their individual characteristics. These ideological currents are not only profoundly racist in themselves, they satisfy the religious yearnings of those drawn to them.

Anyone is free to disagree with Gomez’s address, but there is something unseemly about left-wing organizations launching a petition drive against him. Gomez, who is president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, should he commended, not condemned, for his courage to speak the truth.

Those who started the petition, Faith in Public Life and Faithful America, have both received funding from George Soros, the atheist billionaire who has long been at war with the Catholic Church. The former is a front group for left-wing zealots seeking to create havoc in the Church; the latter is run by a rogue Episcopalian priest who sticks his nose into the Church’s affairs.

Show your support for Archbishop Gomez.

Contact: Office.Archbishop@la-archdiocese.org

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Sen. Dick Durbin’s beef with his diocese:

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who identifies as a Catholic, has yet to find an abortion he couldn’t justify. That is why his bishop, Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, recently said he will be denied Holy Communion in his diocese.

This is nothing new. In 2018, Bishop Paprocki issued an order that barred Durbin from receiving Communion following the senator’s vote against the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”

So why is Durbin now whining again? Worse, he is misstating Church teachings on this subject, even to the point of claiming victim status.

Durbin complained that “Other Catholics may share my point of view [on abortion]—statistics suggest they probably do—but they show up to Communion every week without any questions asked.” He added that  “with very few exceptions, Communion is offered to anybody if the person believes that they [sic] are worthy of it.”

Durbin is right about the latter comment. Very few Catholics are denied Communion, but what he failed to say is that he is one of them. He has not only been told not to go to Communion by his bishop, in 2004 he was denied Communion by Monsignor (now a bishop) Kevin Vann of Blessed Sacrament Church in Springfield.

So yes, Durbin is unique. Where he is wrong is in his assertion that he is just like those Catholics who voted for him and go to Communion without this being an issue.

Here is what the U.S. bishops have said about this matter. “A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who favors a policy promoting an intrinsically evil act, such as abortion…if the voter’s intent is to support that position.”

In other words, Catholics who vote for a pro-abortion politician because they like his pro-union record, or his position on other issues, are not “guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil.”

Durbin is wrong to conflate his status as a senator—someone who votes on pro-abortion bills—with those Catholics who vote for him for reasons other than his support for abortion rights. In fact, the Catholic Church is very specific about the difference.

On November 24, 2002, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political Life.” Part II, Sec. 4, reads, “John Paul II…has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking  bodies have a grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life (italics in the original).”

Congress is a lawmaking body and Durbin is a member of it. He is not analogous to a blue-collar guy who votes for him despite his lust for abortion. Therefore, he merits disparate treatment.

Contact Jasmine Hunt, Legislative Director to Sen. Durbin: jasmine_hunt@durbin.senate.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest report on clergy sexual abuse:

The 2020 Annual Report on clergy sexual abuse has just been released.  It is published by the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth Protection of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The data were collected by StoneBridge Business Partners.

During the period July 1, 2019 – June 30, 2020, there were 22 current allegations involving minors. Given that there are approximately 50,000 members of the clergy (49,926), and the number of substantiated charges are 6, this means that 99.9% of the clergy did not have a substantiated accusation made against him in the last year we have data.

This is nothing new. From 2010 to 2020, the average number of substantiated charges made against the Catholic clergy stands at 5.9. In short, this problem has almost been wiped out in the Catholic Church.

There is no other institution in society where adults regularly interact with minors that can match this record. But don’t expect state attorneys general to launch a probe of the sexual abuse of minors in any of them, especially the public schools, where it is sorely needed.

What has changed is a reduction in the percent of abuse committed by homosexuals. Typically, 8 in 10 cases of abuse involve male-on-male sex, the victims being postpubescent boys. The latest data show that this figure has dropped to 6 in 10. The decrease makes sense: the seminaries have done a much better job screening for candidates who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies.

We continue to deplore the failure of the media to cite data which contradict the false narrative that the scandal is ongoing. That is a lie.

As I demonstrate in my new book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes, the sexual abuse scandal effectively ended decades ago. The book also addresses the two major parties to the scandal: enabling bishops and homosexual priests, and why they did what they did.

The book is available from Amazon and Ignatius.com

ABOUT THE BOOK

This work unpacks the history and root causes of the clergy sex abuse scandals in the United States. Building on decades of data and research, author Bill Donohue, who holds a doctorate in sociology, tells the story from a fresh angle and calls us to rethink our assumptions about the Church’s handling of these horrific abuses.

The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse challenges many myths about the scandals, demonstrating that the abuse of minors is a problem that haunts virtually every institution—religious and secular—where adults interact with young people. The work also provides compelling evidence of the great progress that the Church has made in preventing abuse, contrary to public perceptions. Indeed, the media, Hollywood, and activist lawyers have poisoned the public mind with tales of old cases, giving the impression that nothing has changed.

Donohue investigates at length the central role that homosexuality played in the scandal. While homosexuality does not cause sexual abuse, the prevalence of emotional and sexual immaturity among homosexual clergy explains why they committed most of the molestation. Indeed, all of the educational institutions of the Catholic Church, including the seminaries, have been affected by the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s, and this book explores the pernicious effects of dissent from Catholic sexual morality.

WHERE YOU CAN GET IT…

The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes
now available on Amazon and Ignatius.com

What they’re saying…

 “Using his sharp skills as a sociologist, Bill Donohue offers the public a startling autopsy of the clerical sex abuse crisis. Within, he challenges long-standing narratives about the progress made and the root causes of these crimes. This is an important work that will surely stir debate and hopefully lead to a substantive conversation about protecting children across society.”
—Raymond Arroyo, EWTN Host, The World Over

“Rejecting the politically correct attempts to dismiss the truth of aberrant same-sex behavior by priests with adolescent boys, Donohue draws upon national data to indict several Church leaders for their duplicity and destroys the media narrative that the Catholic Church is unique among other social institutions in its sexual scandal.”
—Anne Hendershott, Professor of Sociology, Franciscan University of Steubenville

“Bill Donohue speaks the truth and is fearless in speaking it. He provides a compact, comprehensive, and painfully candid account of the scandal of clergy sex abuse and cover-up, as well as its exploitation by a cast of characters bent on serving their own interests at the expense of the Church. Indispensable reading for anyone who wants to know the facts about far and away the worst disaster in the history of American Catholicism.”
—Russell Shaw, Author, The Life of Jesus Christ

“Donohue writes with a combination of penetrating intellect and relentless pugnacity. A great strength of the book is that it advances its arguments with competent social science analysis. Facts and claims are extensively cited and judiciously evaluated, attaining high standards for scholarship and sourcing.”
—Fr. Paul Sullins, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Catholic University of America

“Donohue demonstrates that the monumental scandal of the sexual abuse of minors by priests and bishops was the result of the collapse of the Church’s defense of her own moral teachings. The tolerance, and in some cases the promotion, by Church authorities of a homosexual subculture in the priesthood opened the floodgates. Donohue’s book helps make sense of how we arrived at this point, and what must be done to promote the truth and restore order in the Church.”
—Fr. Gerald Murray, Canon Lawyer; Pastor, Holy Family Church, NY, NY

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a Nebraska report on clergy sexual abuse:

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson recently released a “Report on Clergy Sexual Abuse” that bears scrutiny. There are many aspects to it that are seriously tainted.

In the Executive Summary of the report, it says that in August 2018 Peterson’s Department of Justice announced that it was seeking information from “individuals who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a member of the clergy or an adult in a position of authority.”

Why were the clergy singled out for an investigation and not anyone else? The report offers no explanation. It cannot be that there has been a rash of news stories on current cases of clergy abuse—there has not been.

“Although the news release was not intended to elicit calls about clergy of any specific denomination,” the report says, “all the calls received, with one exception, related to individuals associated with the Catholic Church.”

As I detail in my new book on this subject, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes, sexual abuse of minors is rampant throughout a wide range of institutions. Moreover, given the undeniable progress that the Catholic Church has made, it makes it even more indefensible to focus exclusively on it.

Going after the Catholic Church was no coincidence. According to one media source, the report was launched in 2018 “after several accusers came forward with allegations against the conservative Lincoln Diocese, which for years was the only U.S. diocese that refused to participate in annual reviews of sexual misconduct.” In other words, a few alleged victims asked the government for a probe, and Peterson dutifully obliged.

Peterson wasted no time zeroing in on the Catholic Church. He waited only two weeks after his August 16 announcement to send letters to the bishops, thus underscoring that it was his plan all along to pursue the Catholic Church, to the exclusion of every other organization in the state.

Virtually every file on priests was the subject of a subpoena, and over 120 calls to a Hotline and Tip Line were examined. In all, nearly 300 pages of documents were retrieved.

Here is what they found. In a span of over 70 years, 51 priests (57 Catholic officials overall) had a credible accusation made against him; there were 258 alleged victims.

Peterson reportedly said he was frustrated that prosecutors could not file charges. He is not believable.

He knew from the get-go that these were mostly old cases of alleged abuse (as always, the 1970s was the worst decade) and it was therefore beyond the statute of limitations. He didn’t launch the probe to prosecute, but to score a public relations victory: he wanted to appear tough before his constituents. That they wound up paying the bill for his fishing expedition is the ultimate irony.

Then there is the proverbial cover-up. Boys are mentioned 203 times in the 174-page report; girls are cited 16 times. That’s because, as always, boys were the most likely to be victimized.

When the report says that “Many of the victims of clergy sexual abuse were teenage boys,” it is being deceitful. When 91.5% of the victims were teenage boys, that’s not “many.” That’s almost all.

Why does this matter? Because 92.2 percent were postpubescent. And that means that homosexual priests were responsible for over 90% of the alleged cases of sexual misconduct. Yet never once in the report is the word “homosexuality” mentioned (there are four references to “homosexual” acts).

To be sure, the cover-up of the homosexual scandal in the Catholic Church is not unique to Nebraska—it’s ubiquitous. Now imagine what Peterson would have said, and the media as well, if over 90 percent of the alleged victims were teenage girls. It would have been trumpeted far and wide.

I am calling on Attorney General Peterson to launch a probe of the sexual abuse of minors in Nebraska’s public schools.

In 2016, USA Today published a major study of this problem in all 50 states. What it had to say about Nebraska was troubling. Overall, Nebraska received a “C.”

Its most notorious shortcomings were the poor background checks and the failure to disseminate teachers’ misconduct with other states. The study named Nebraska as one of three states that said their teaching-licensing agencies did not check all applicants against the national clearinghouse that keeps data on such matters.

There are other problems as well. Nebraska has no program in place to teach children about how to recognize sexual abuse, making it one of only 13 states not to do so. A bill on this issue has been stalled in the state legislature for months.

The cherry picking of the Catholic Church, the cover-up of the dominant role played by homosexual priests, and the dismissal of sexual abuse occurring in the public schools—with failing safeguards—does not speak well of those in Nebraska’s government or the education establishment. However, it is not too late to change course.a

Contact doug.peterson@ago.nebraska.gov