Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the reaction of the Catholic left to the clergy sexual abuse scandal:

It’s over. Not only is the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church over, those who helped drive it—the Catholic left—have lost. Their pitiful reaction to the 20th anniversary of the Boston Globe series on priestly sexual abuse in Boston is all the evidence we need to make this charge.

The National Catholic Reporter ran three articles on the 20th anniversary of the Boston Globe series, and not one of them had the intellectual honesty to say that the homosexual scandal has been effectively checked.

On January 4, the Reporter ran a piece by Barbara Thorp which concluded that we need a national database of accused clergy. On January 11, it republished an article by Catholic News Service that allowed the discredited shell of a group, SNAP, to claim that no progress has been made. On January 12, it featured an essay by its former editor, Tom Roberts, wherein he said the scandal “is not over.”

As I point out in my book, The Truth About Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes, the Reporter played a prominent role in fostering the scandal.

Its relentless attacks on the Church’s teachings on sexual ethics gave succor to already disordered men, effectively giving them the green light to act on their twisted id. I also point out that dissidents such as the Reporter have a vested ideological interest in pretending that the scandal is on-going. Now they have proved my point beyond dispute.

My news release of January 3 provides evidence that the scandal is long over. “The average number of substantiated accusations [against the clergy] made in the last ten years is 5.9.” In all three articles by the Reporter, there is not one statistic that can support their position. I have the data—they have none.

Case closed. The Catholic left has lost.

Contact Heidi Schlumpf, executive editor of the Reporter: hschlumpf@ncronline.org

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on attempts to normalize pedophilia:

USA Today is getting flak for publishing an article by journalist Alia Dastagir for saying that not all adults who are sexually attracted to children are molesters; they need to be understood, not chastised.

In her piece, she mentions that Allyn Walker recently had to resign from Old Dominion, following a student protest, after she gave an interview arguing that pedophiles should be called “minor-attracted people.” [Note: Walker was falsely identified as a man by Dastagir—she is a biological woman who thinks she is a man.]

Unfortunately, this problem is much bigger than what the critics of Dastagir and Walker think.

As I recount in my new book, The Truth About Clergy Sexual Abuse, in the mid-twentieth century professor Alfred Kinsey, the zoologist turned sexpert, found it perfectly acceptable to garner research data from adult men who sexually stimulated infants and children. He documented babies and young boys who had “experienced” orgasms, taking tabs on the number and length of the orgasms. One of his sexually abused subjects was two months old; twenty-eight were under the age of one.

Homosexual activists have long justified pedophilia. Harry Hay is regarded as the founder of the gay rights movement. He not only endorsed sexual relations between adults and minors, he said the kids would love it. Larry Kramer, founder of ACT-UP, also maintained that “very often” children like having sex with adults.

The term “minor-attracted persons” (“MAPs”) was not coined by Walker. She correctly identifies B4U-ACT as the originator of this sanitized term for pedophiles. Founded in 2003, this is an organization of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, many of whom teach at prestigious universities, dedicated to the proposition that MAPs (who are almost all men) are seriously misunderstood and suffer from being stigmatized by the rest of us.

B4U-ACT believes that pedophilia is not a sexual disorder; rather, it is sexual orientation, much like homosexuality. Its members take umbrage at the notion that MAPs are mentally disturbed, and some argue that it is nonsense to say that children are unable to consent to sex with adults. As one of their sages put it, “An adult’s desire to have sex with children is  ‘normative.'”

One of the co-founders of B4U-ACT was Michael Melsheimer, a former YMCA director who was sent to a federal prison for four years for sexually abusing kids. He committed suicide in 2010. When he died, B4U-ACT never mentioned in its obituary that he was a child rapist.

It is one thing for a Hollywood producer to lure kids to have sex with him. It is quite another when distinguished mental health professionals seek to normalize pedophilia. This is the state of sexual ethics in elite quarters in the United States today.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on how Pope Francis is being manipulated:

Over the past several years, I have written many pieces on how some in the media have been manipulating Pope Francis. But the scheming is not confined to the media.

The latest example comes by way of New Ways Ministry (NWM), a disloyal Catholic outfit that has been the subject of numerous sanctions from Church authorities, both in Rome and in the United States. It explicitly rejects Church teachings on marriage, the family and sexuality, especially homosexuality.

In October, the Vatican formally announced the beginning of a two-year program, the Synod on Synodality, that would allow Catholics to participate in a dialogue with Church officials on matters of importance to them. The Vatican’s Synod of Bishops posted a resource page that provides links to a webinar for participating parties.

One of the groups that sought participation was NWM; it succeeded in obtaining a link to the webinar. However, when loyal Catholics complained that it was a heretical group, the link was taken down on December 7. After disloyal Catholics complained, the link was restored on December 13.

On December 15, I wrote a letter to Cardinal Mario Grech, General Secretary of the Synod of Bishops; it was sent by fax that day and arrived via express mail on December 17. Confirmation that the fax was received was dated December 21. The letter is available here.

Cardinal Grech did not reply by January 10, which is why I am going public with my statement.

Letters by Pope Francis commending NWM have now surfaced. On December 10, the pope wrote a short note to Sister Jeannine Gramick thanking her for her 50 years of ministry; she co-founded NWM in 1977 with Fr. Robert Nugent. Last spring, two letters of correspondence were exchanged between the pope and Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of NWM.

On May 3, 2021 Pope Francis wrote to DeBernardo about his letter of April 21. “It helped me a lot to know the full story you tell me,” the pope said. “Sometimes we receive partial information about people and organizations, and this doesn’t help. Your letter, as it narrates with objectivity its history, gives me light to better understand certain situations.”

It is painfully obvious that the pope does not have “the full story.” Indeed, he has been manipulated once again.

In his letter to the pope, did DeBernardo tell him why Washington Archbishop James Hickey barred NWM officials in 1984 from continuing their “service” to the Church? He did so following numerous complaints that Gramick and Nugent had infiltrated the seminaries, openly defying Church teachings on homosexuality.

Did he tell the pope why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was pressed into starting an 11-year investigation of NWM? They did so because Gramick and Nugent refused to accept the Church’s teaching regarding “the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination.” That is why when the probe was finished in 1999, they were told to stop with their “ministry.”

Nothing has changed since. Indeed, on January 7, 2022, Gramick said that in 1999 the Vatican wanted her and Nugent “to say that homosexual activity is objectively immoral and that we personally believed that. And I could not say that.”

Did DeBernardo tell the pope that Gramick praised the biggest pervert priest in American history, Father Paul Shanley? He raped males of all ages and he did so for decades. He liked to blame children for his perversion, famously saying, “the kid is the seducer.”

In 2005, Gramick said she was horrified by Shanley’s behavior but that she “grieved for this man I had not seen in almost 20 years, but whose principles and whose advocacy for the downtrodden I had applauded for three decades.” Journalist Maureen Orth was horrified by what Gramick said, adding that she interviewed nine of Shanley’s victims. Gramick never spoke to one of them.

All of this is detailed in my new book, The Truth About Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes.

We know what Pope Francis has said about marriage—it should be confined to a man and a woman in the institution of marriage. We know that he has called gay marriage the work of “the father of lies,” meaning the devil. We know that he has advised men with “deep-rooted” homosexual tendencies not to enter the priesthood. We know that he has warned against the “gay lobby” in the Church. We know that he regards gender ideology—that men and women can switch their sex—to be “demonic.”

We also know that neither Gramick nor DeBernardo believe a lick of what the pope has said.

In 2015, when Pope Francis visited the U.S., many disloyal Catholic groups sought to meet with him, one of which was NWM. They were rightfully denied. Loyal Catholics did meet with him (I did so on September 23).

On October 9, 2021, Pope Francis gave an address about the opening of the Synod. Quoting Yves Congar O.P., he said, “There is no need to create another church, but to create a different church.” True enough. NWM wants another church, not a different one.

Loyal Catholics need clarity from Rome about this issue.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest cultural fashion:

It has been chic for some time to say things about white people that if said about blacks would be branded racist. Now it is in vogue like never before.

The irony is that the racist comments are being said by those who consider themselves to be anti-racist. They are not—they are every bit as racist as George Wallace was. To top things off, many round out their bigotry by making anti-Christian and sexist remarks. In short, they have a special hatred of white Christian men.

Here are a few examples.

“White Christian nationalists may not physically attack the Capitol again, as on January 6. But the movement is assaulting the rights of atheists, racial and religious minorities, LGBTQ people, and many others with their extremist legislation.” Nick Fish, president, American Atheists, January 4, 2022

“January 6th was very much a religious event—white Christian nationalism on display. We must remember that fact. Because evidence is mounting that white Christian nationalism could provide the theological cover for more events like it.” Samuel L. Perry, Ph.D. and Andrew Whitehead, Ph.D. Time, January 4, 2022

“They’re white so-called Christian conservatives who feel like this country was built by them for them, and so everyone but them needs to suck it up and let them have their way or else.” Joy Reid, MSNBC, January 3, 2022

“It’s not the messaging, folks. This country simply loves white supremacy.” Jemele Hill, former ESPN anchor, November 3, 2021

“Glenn Youngkin’s victory proves White ignorance is a powerful weapon,” arguing that the “campaign discovered that this contingent of angry, willfully ignorant White people was the key ingredient needed to elect a GOP governor in Virginia for the first time since 2009.” Ja’han Jones, MSNBC, November 3 2021

“We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them. There is no travel ban on them. There is no ban — you know, they had the Muslim ban. There is no white-guy ban.” Don Lemon, CNN, October 25, 2021

“White Christianity is a Christianity that is based on the following: Jesus is white. Jesus privileges white culture and white supremacy, and the political aspirations of whiteness over and against everything else.” Anthea Butler, Ph.D. Salon, October 19, 2021

“Practically, we must reject what have, for too long, been three articles of our faith: that the Bible is a blueprint for a white Christian America; that Jesus, the son of God, is a white savior; and that the church is a sanctuary of white innocence. Most fundamentally, we must confess that whatever the personal sins of white people, in the past and present, they pale in comparison to the systemic ways we have built and blessed a society that reflects a conviction that, to us and to God, our lives matter more.” Robert P. Jones, Ph.D. Time, September 2021

The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban was “a true cautionary tale for the US, which has our own far religious right dreaming of a theocracy that would impose a particular brand of Christianity, drive women from the workforce and solely into childbirth, and control all politics.” Joy Reid, MSNBC, August 14, 2021

“All White people are at some level, at the unconscious level, connected to racism, its unavoidable. I think all men are sexist at some level. I think that’s absolutely the case.” Marc Lamont Hill, Ph.D., Black News Tonight, July 11, 2021

“This is the cost of talking to white people at all — the cost of your own life, as they suck you dry. There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil….I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step, like I did the world a favor.” Dr. Aruna Khilanani, guest lecturer at Yale, June 4, 2021

“I will be exclusively providing one-on-one interviews with journalists of color….I have been struck…by the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of Chicago media outlets, editorial boards, the political press corps, and yes, the City Hall press corps specifically.” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, May 19, 2021

Why do these people get away with making racist remarks? Because there is no penalty for doing so. In fact, what they are saying is music to the ears of the ruling class, which has become complicit in their racism.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a Jesuit priest who justifies abortion:

At the turn of the century, I got into a big fight with Republicans over the effort of some evangelical congressmen who were trying to stop the nomination of Fr. Daniel Coughlin as the next House Chaplain. They did not hide their animus against a Catholic priest landing the job for the first time in American history. Many notable Catholics also took the side against Coughlin, saying he was too liberal. I had to fight them as well.

The issue for the Catholic League was plain: regardless of Coughlin’s views, he was clearly a victim of anti-Catholicism, and that is all that mattered to us. Eventually, I won and he became the first Catholic House Chaplain in 2000. Succeeding him was Fr. Pat Conroy, a Jesuit. He left that post in 2019.

Conroy is back in the news, this time for giving the green light to Catholics to be pro-abortion. Much of what he said in a Washington Post interview on January 5 is uninformed, and some of his comments are simply wrong.

“I want to know the American who thinks government should take away their choice in any area of their life—any area of their life (newspaper’s italic).”

That’s not hard to do. Simply read the surveys that reveal the support for Covid lockdowns—millions support allowing the government to take away the choices of citizens. Alternatively, go to Princeton or Yale and interview the administrators who are creating a police state environment in the name of combatting the flu.

Princeton issued an edict on December 27. “Beginning January 8 through mid-February, all undergraduate students who have returned to campus will not be permitted to travel outside of Mercer County or Plainsboro Township for personal reasons, except in extraordinary circumstances.” Yale announced a campus-wide quarantine until February 7, saying students “may not visit New Haven businesses or eat at local restaurants (even outdoors) except for curbside pickup.”

Conroy says, “A good Catholic in our system could be saying: Given women in our system have this constitutional right, our task as fellow Christians, or as Catholics, is to make possible for her to optimize her ability to make the choice.”

Let me pose an analogy, using slavery as the object of choice. “A good Catholic in our system could be saying: Given citizens in our system have this constitutional right [to slavery], our task as fellow Christians, or as Catholics, is to make it possible for them to optimize their ability to make the choice.”

Conroy insists that “a pro-choice Democrat isn’t a pro-abortion person.” Tell that to the pro-abortion protesters who were in the news a few weeks ago holding signs that said, “I Love Someone Who Had An Abortion.”

Similarly, Conroy says about the woman planning to abort her child, “she is the one to make her choice; we should not make it for her.” But choice  is a verb that has no moral meaning. It only takes on meaning when we know the object of choice. A doctor who chooses to bring life into the world is a good man. A doctor who chooses to kill it is not.

Conroy opines that “Thomas Aquinas says if your conscience says to do something the church says is a sin, you are bound to follow your conscience. That’s Thomas Aquinas!”

That is a highly selective reading of Aquinas.

To be sure, Aquinas prized conscience rights, but he did so with the understanding that it must be a well formed conscience. If it were not, then all choices, no matter how murderous, could be countenanced. Which explains why he said, “If…we consider one action in the moral order, it is impossible for it to be morally both good and evil.”

It is wrong to suggest that Aquinas said that conscience rights override Church teachings. “The universal Church,” he said, “cannot err, since she is governed by the Holy Ghost, Who is the Spirit of truth.” He also said, “Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.”

Regarding abortion, Aquinas said that abortions are a “grave sin” and were not only “among evil deeds,” they were “against nature.” In the 12th century, science had not yet learned that life begins at conception, which is why Aquinas accepted the prevailing view that life begins at some time after fertilization. But that didn’t stop him from condemning abortion.

If liberal Catholics regarded abortion to be as morally offensive as racial discrimination—it is actually much worse—they would not strain to justify it. That they continue to do so while feigning an interest in social justice is positively nauseating.

Contact Fr. Conroy: conroy@gonzaga.edu

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the growing trend of racism against white people:

A long-standing liberal tenet—that we should condemn all forms of prejudice and discrimination equally—came under attack in the 1960s when President Lyndon Johnson decided that equal opportunity was outdated: he said the new goal should be equal outcomes.

Ironically, this new thinking, which has since become a staple of liberal thought, was announced at the very moment when equal opportunity was finally emerging, thanks to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Affirmative action, and the quotas which it entailed, was the start of legally discriminating against white people. Today the idea of justifying racism against whites is expressed in many government policies, most of which have nothing to do with affirmative action.

On December 27, the New York State Department of Health issued a new policy on the distribution of anti-Covid treatments. To be a recipient, the patient must “have a medical condition or other factors that increase their risk for serious illness.” One of the risk factors is being a “non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity,” meaning that white people have been shoved to the back of the line.

A doctor who justified the racism said that blacks and Hispanics were harder hit with Covid, which is true. It is also true that being overweight makes it more likely that one will acquire Covid, and both minority groups are more likely to be overweight than whites. Is that a function of racism, or is it a volitional outcome?

At the federal level, the Biden administration had been in office for just a month before it hit the ground running, going after white people. The Covid-19 relief bill offered debt forgiveness to farmers, provided they were not white. Recipients had to be “Black/African American, American Indian or Alaskan native, Hispanic or Latino, or Asian American or Pacific Islanders.”

Biden also punished white business owners. He explicitly said that his “priority will be black, Latino, Asian and Native-American-owned businesses” and “women-owned businesses.” Most white men also got the shaft when Biden said that restaurant owners would get priority in receiving federal funds if they were women, veterans and members of “socially and economically disadvantaged” groups.

These policies are a back-door way of granting reparations. Biden knows that the subject of reparations is divisive, so he is enlisting the support of the administrative state to accomplish this end.

It is not just in government where racism prevails against white people. Woke corporations have gotten into the act as well.

At American Express, complaints by white employees surfaced after it was announced that “marginalized” workers would be given priority over “privileged” employees determining promotions. Critical race theory training sessions have convinced white workers that they are likely to be passed over for a promotion—no matter how competent they are—to satisfy this new policy. Some have quit as a result.

Making white people today pay for the sins of white people yesterday can run into problems with the courts. In October, a former senior officer at a North Carolina-health based care organization won $10 million when a jury found that his sex and race illegally led to his termination: he was canned so that a “more diverse” workforce could be achieved. Imagine trying that in the NBA—firing black basketball players so that more Pacific Islanders can play.

In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that white firefighters were discriminated against when a test was discarded after blacks didn’t do too well on it: eliminating the test prevented the white guys from being eligible for promotion. The decision, Ricci v. DeStefano, came about when Frank Ricci sought to get a promotion but was denied even though he scored sixth highest on the exam out of 118-test takers. He was so determined to succeed that he quit his second job so he could enlist in preparatory courses to pass the test. A dyslexic, he paid $1,000 to have someone read textbooks onto audiotapes.

In 2017, a poll found that 55% of white people believed there was discrimination against white people in America. Similarly, last year researchers at Tufts University revealed that many whites believe “reverse racism” is a real problem. Yet there is precious little being said about this issue by the media, never mind activist organizations.

What is driving this condition? Elites believe that the best way to achieve racial equality is by mandating equal outcomes. They are thrice wrong:  such attempts create a white backlash; they will never substantially yield black progress; and they deflect attention away from the root causes of racial inequality.

The latter have less to do with discrimination today than they do a host of serious familial and behavioral problems in the black community. Every honest person who has studied this issue knows this to be true, but most are afraid to say so. The failure of the ruling class to admit to this, and to act on it, is the number-one reason we have this problem today.

In the end, whitey really is the problem, but not for the reasons attributed to him.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the 20th anniversary of the Boston Globe series on priestly sexual abuse:

On January 6, 2002, the Boston Globe began a series of stories on its investigation into clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston. It would prove to be the most damaging report on the Catholic Church in U.S. history, shocking Catholic and non-Catholic alike. It also inspired reporters across the nation to take a close look at this subject, resulting in more bad news. The good news is that 20 years later, much has changed for the better.

Regrettably, most of the major media outlets are not exactly religion-friendly, and many are downright hostile, especially to Roman Catholicism. As I detail in my new book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes, this explains why they have no interest in reporting on the progress that has been made.

In the 1970s, which was when priestly sexual abuse was at its height, there was an average of 6,155 accusations made against current clergy members. The average number of substantiated accusations made in the last ten years is 5.9. In other words, this problem is largely behind us. For the media not to report on this is scandalous.

When the Boston Globe broke this story, I wrote the following at the end of 2002: “It was a rare event in 2002 to read a newspaper account of the scandal that was patently unfair, much less anti-Catholic. The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the New York Times covered the story carefully and with professionalism.”

Four years later I was just as impressed with the Boston Globe. I credited reporter Brian McGrory for slamming church-suing lawyer Mitchell Garabedian after the attorney twice sued a priest who was exonerated of all charges against him. The priest died in 2011, a broken man. McGrory said what Garabedian did was “a disgrace.” I called Garabedian and asked him if he had any regrets about going after the priest. He responded like a maniac and blew up at me.

Over time, the Globe changed. Its once objective stance gave way to writing pieces about the Catholic Church that were more of an editorial than a news story. The animus it sported was palpable. Worse, under McGrory, who was promoted to editor of the newspaper in 2012, the Globe became duplicitous.

On November 14, 2018, there was a front-page story in the Globe alleging more than 130 bishops, or about a third of those still living, had been accused of “failing to adequately respond to sexual misconduct in their dioceses.” It received wide media coverage, and it was released just prior to a bishops’ conference in Baltimore.

As a sociologist, I had some serious problems with the methodology of the study, and so I emailed the Globe about them. I wanted to see the data, but they said no. I asked several more times, limiting my scope each time. It made no difference.

This was the same newspaper that had won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the Boston archdiocese—accusing the Church of not being transparent—now deciding that transparency does not apply to itself.

The hypocrisy extends beyond the newspaper: Boston’s liberal elites, in and outside the Catholic Church, are just as phony.

One of the most famous perverts in the Boston archdiocese was Father Paul Shanley. The “hippie priest,” who raped children and adults—provided they were male—was the darling of the Boston literati and political class. They loved his public defiance of the Church’s sexual ethics, and his rebellious character.

In the 1970s, when Shanley was on the prowl, Boston was home to some of the most pro-homosexual activist organizations in the nation, including the pedophile group, NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association). Shanley attended its first conference in 1978.

Boston is a college town, and like most of them, it is proud of its liberal politicians, including those known for their predatory behavior. The Kennedys are a prime example. John, Bobby, and Teddy made the rounds with celebrities and many others and never paid a price for it at the ballot box; they learned their ways from their father, Joe, who was another philanderer.

The voters were just as kind to homosexuals who bounced around with their lovers. Rep. Gerry Studds was censured by the House in 1983 for his sexual romp with a teenage boy, but he continued to be reelected. Rep. Barney Frank hooked up with a male prostitute in 1989, but that didn’t bother his constituents, most of whom voted for him time and again with wide margins.

The Boston electorate also likes pro-homosexual legislation. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize gay “marriage.” It did so with the help of four priests who testified the year before against a bill that would define marriage as an institution between a man and a woman.

These same people—who voted for straight and gay promiscuous men, and who loved Shanley—went ballistic when the Globe published stories about sexually active priests. Apparently, there is nothing wrong with being sexually reckless, unless one is a priest.

The Catholic Church has cleaned up its act. Too bad its critics have yet to catch up.