Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the prevalence of thought control in American society:

Jack Phillips made a name for himself when he stuck to his Christian convictions and refused to personalize a wedding cake for two homosexuals who planned to get “married.” He never denied service to someone because he was a homosexual; it’s just that in this instance he was asked to affirm a ceremony he could not in good conscience perform.

He was sued, and although he won in the Supreme Court, he did so on a technicality, leaving the larger issue—his religious rights v. their gay rights—unresolved.

Now there is another case before the Supreme Court that involves Phillips. Represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), he refused to make a cake for a person who sought to celebrate his transition to the opposite sex (this, of course, is a biological impossibility, but, no matter, he thinks he’s a woman).

This is more than just harassment. ADF says the attorney who is pursuing him “will continue to harass him no matter the outcome of this case, because the attorney wants to ‘[c]orrect the errors of Jack’s thinking.’”

This is thought control. It is evil.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the term “political correctness” was used by Marxists to profess allegiance to the Communist cause; no other thoughts were allowed. This was the first time a regime sought to institute thought control.

Solzhenitsyn was critical of the Czars, but they were angelic compared to what Stalin did. Under the Czars, people were at least free to think what they wanted. Not so under Stalin. As the Russian freedom fighter said, the first freedom is freedom of conscience, a right inextricably tied to freedom of religion. It was that which Stalin sought to crush.

Thought control was not perfected until the 1960s in China. As detailed by Yale psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, it was during the Cultural Revolution when Mao unleashed a huge brainwashing campaign, making sure that the only correct thought was that of his own. Those who resisted Maoism were punished, and many perished.

Jack Phillips is not being threatened with his life, but he is being threatened by the thought-control police. This time it’s the Gay Gestapo that is trying to “correct the errors of his thinking.” They are trying to poison his mind with their anthropological falsehoods. There is no more serious invasion of privacy, and threat to religious liberty, than this.

There is a huge difference between an authoritarian personality and a totalitarian personality. The former is bossy and acts like a little dictator; the latter wants to consume his subjects, dictating his every thought. That is what Phillips is being subjected to, and that it is being done in a democratic country makes his condition all the more perverse.

How did we get to this stage in American history? It is all traceable to intellectuals, many of whom take up residence in the professoriate. They are the sponsors of transgenderism, as well as the totalitarian thought-control tactics used to punish “deviants.” Indeed, they are the supreme tyrants of our age.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the anniversary of Vatican II:

It was sixty years ago today that the Second Vatican Council convened. Some changes were made affecting the liturgy, ecumenical relations—especially with Jews—canon law and religious life. The Church also issued important documents on religious liberty.

It is a matter of debate as to whether all of these changes were necessary, but most Catholics have accepted them, especially those that put the Church on a more positive footing with regard to interreligious dialogue and support for religious liberty.

The Church is now in the midst of considering additional changes. The synod on synodality is drawing critical feedback from a small portion of the laity worldwide, and while much of it appears to be responsible, there are voices of dissidence that threaten to poison the atmosphere.

The German Synodal Way is home to the most visible dissident voices in the world. Centered heavily on sexuality, especially the LGBT agenda, the process undertaken there is fast moving toward a split in the ranks of the Catholic Church. Those who support this agenda should heed the lesson of the mainline Protestant denominations.

On October 10, the Associated Press ran a story on the collapse of the Methodist church. It has lost roughly half its membership since the 1960s, and it is now at another turning point as many more are threatening to leave.

It is not alone. As the story notes, “the United Methodist Church is also the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations in America to begin fracturing, just as Episcopal, Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations lost significant minorities of churches and members this century amid debates over sexuality and theology.”

In other words, the more “relevant” a church is—meaning the more it changes its teachings to mirror the norms and values of the dominant culture—the more irrelevant it becomes to its congregants. Who wants to belong to a church whose teachings are indistinguishable from the editorial positions of the New York Times?

The Catholic League’s recent survey of Catholics, ably done by McLaughlin & Associates, found that six-in-ten said that those religions that tailored their teachings to what is popular went too far; this explains why they are losing members so quickly.

Also, a majority of Catholics think that sticking to principles and beliefs matters greatly. In fact, 66% of Catholics said that whether they agreed with most positions in the Catholic Church, or differed on some issues, the Church should not change its principles because of public opinion. Moreover, 70% said that if the Church did not change its positions as many have suggested, they would either be more committed, or as committed, to the Church.

Change is not a good thing or a bad thing. It only acquires meaning, in a moral way, when we know the object of change. No matter, when changes are made, history has shown that making glacial changes is a precarious situation, and that is doubly true for more traditionally oriented institutions.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on new developments in the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae:

This is a pivotal moment for Fr. Gordon MacRae. Those who have been following his case know that the Catholic League has long stood by him, holding that he was unjustly convicted in 1994 of sexual assaults that allegedly took place nearly twelve years earlier. To read my account of his travails, click here. Now there is a new development that could change things dramatically.

Harvey Silverglate is a crackjack civil liberties attorney from Boston. His piece in the October 10 edition of the Wall Street Journal lays out how matters have changed. We have never trusted the account of Detective James McLaughlin, who was in charge of the MacRae case, and now we have more reason to doubt him.

McLaughlin has allegedly been engaged in falsifying records in at least one of the cases he handled. The question is whether he also falsified MacRae’s records. To read Silverglate’s article click here.

Please keep Fr. MacRae in your prayers. For more information, see his blog post, www.BeyondTheseStoneWalls.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the death of Bernie McGuirk:

The death of WABC radio host Bernie McGuirk comes as a shock, notwithstanding the fact his health condition was known to be perilous.  The show that he co-hosted with Sid Rosenberg—“Bernie and Sid in the Morning”—brought joy to the lives of their fans for many years. He died of prostate cancer at the age of 64 on October 5.

Of all the TV and radio shows I have done, none has been more fun than my time spent with Bernie and Sid. They are two of the greatest guys in the business. Smart, quick, courageous and humorous—it is no surprise their show was the number-one rated morning show in the New York area.

Bernie was a class act. May he rest in peace.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the NEA’s attack on Columbus:

The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the nation, representing more than three million teachers and administrators. It is also a decidedly left-wing organization, and as such often evinces a hyper-critical perspective of the United States, and Western civilization, in general. Its frontal assault on Columbus is one such example.

Go to the NEA’s website and type in “Columbus” in the search engine. Guess what pops up? “Resources for Teaching About Indigenous Peoples.” There you will find information about people who migrated to America—just like the rest of us. These “indigenous peoples” came from Asia. We know them as American Indians.

The NEA has lots of resources for teachers on Columbus and the Indians, the most prominent of which is the Zinn Education Project. It is named after historian Howard Zinn, a man who hated America with a passion, so much so that he became a member of the Communist Party. He wrote the best-selling volume, A People’s History of the United States, the most dishonest book on American history ever written.

“Abolishing Columbus Day.” That is the goal of the Zinn Education Project, as stated on its website. It is a quick tutorial, but it is no substitute for Zinn’s famous textbook.

Mary Grabar is the author of Debunking Howard Zinn. The subtitle says it all: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America.

One way Zinn created his false history is by selectively quoting from what Columbus said. His account is laced with ellipses, glaring omissions from the exact words written by Columbus. Grabar offers many examples of this sleight of hand, saying these “omissions are essential to Zinn’s dishonest retelling of the Columbus story. By leaving crucial words out of the quotation, Zinn makes Columbus say something very different from what he actually said.”

Just as bad, Zinn lifted much of what he said about Columbus from a book written by his radical friend, Hans Koning. The problem with that rendering is that “Koning was not a Columbus scholar any more than Zinn was. In fact, he was not even a historian, while Zinn was at least a college professor.”

Worse, “Koning’s slim volume does not cite any sources (my italic).”

As the author of many books, I can say without equivocation that no author of a non-fiction book should ever be taken seriously if he does not cite his sources. This is doubly true when the author seeks to counter the conventional wisdom on the subject. So when Christopher Hitchens wrote a 99-page book slamming Mother Teresa, offering not a single source to back up his libelous claims, I told him to his face that he was not a scholar and cannot be taken seriously.

Zinn would have the reader believe that the Indians were doing just fine before the white man came along. Never once does he attempt to explain  why many tribes engaged in savage warfare against each other (the Hurons and the Iroquois are one of many examples), nor does he discuss  cannibalism, human sacrifice, and other acts of cruelty that existed before the Europeans arrived.

Just as important, Zinn does not comment on all of those Indians that helped the Europeans win by defecting to their side. They had had enough with the butchery they experienced at the hands of some tribes. None of this is taught to students.

Grabar notes that the Zinn Education Project has a role-playing exercise for students as young as elementary school. One of the questions is whether European life, called the “System of Empire,” made violence inevitable. “In effect such a trial is a show trial,” says Grabar, “with a jury of naive children who are manipulated by their teachers.”

She closes with the following observation. “It is Zinn’s book that should be put on trial. If the historian lies, there is no defense.”

If Zinn was a liar, what does that make the NEA? It is actively peddling his malicious falsification of American history.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on President Biden’s remarks yesterday on the University of Idaho:

Ever since the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, the Biden administration has seized on the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to scare Americans about their access to abortion. They did so in a grand way on October 4 at the White House.

President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona sounded the alarm over a new policy issued by the University of Idaho. According to Biden, officials at the University of Idaho “told the university staff that they could get in trouble just for talking or telling students about where they can get birth control.”

This is utter nonsense. No such policy exists.

What Biden was referring to is a September 23 memo by the General Counsel of the University of Idaho to university employees titled, “Guidance on Abortion Laws.” The memo was issued to comply with a new restrictive abortion law passed by Idaho lawmakers that banned the use of state resources to promote abortion.

The memo focuses almost exclusively on abortion. It lists six “prohibited activities” under the law: “Counsel in favor of abortion; Promote abortion; Provide institutional facilities or institutional funding for providing an abortion or abortion training; Provide referrals for abortion; Contract with abortion providers; Dispense emergency contraception as classified by the FDA.”

Regarding emergency contraception, the New York Times said in 2012 that RU-486, a popular emergency contraception medication, “is prescribed for terminating pregnancies” by “destroy[ing] implanted embryos.” It is therefore an abortifacient, not a contraceptive.

Biden’s characterization of the free speech issue is not supported by what the memo says.

“University employees may, with certain limitations: Direct students to sources of information outside university; Have classroom discussions on topics related to abortion or contraception limited to discussions and topics relevant to the class subject and instructor neutrality; Provide condoms for the purpose of helping prevent the spread of STDs and not for purposes of birth control.”

The General Counsel is correct to note that the law that his memo addresses “is not a model of clarity.” Indeed, it needs to be refined. For example, classroom discussions, on any topic, should be robust and not subject to irrational limitations.

Having said that, Biden’s comment that university employees can “get in trouble just for talking or telling students about where they can get birth control” is absurd. In fact, the memo says, “Counselling on birth control, as well as providing the means of birth control, can be done through licensed physicians and their health care workers at Student Health locations run by Moscow Family Medicine, our Student Health provider.”

Why, then, did Biden say they had a gag rule on campus? It’s because he and his administration are furious with the Dobbs decision and are engaged in fear-mongering before the mid-term elections.

Notice, too, that he mentions a gag rule on contraception, not abortion, even though the memo says very little about contraception. This is not a coincidence.

Under ObamaCare, there was a Health and Human Services “contraception mandate” forcing Catholic non-profits like the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraception in their healthcare plans.

This was a misnomer. As the Catholic League pointed out on many occasions, the mandate covered abortifacients. Therefore, it should have been called the “abortion-inducing drug” mandate. Obama and Biden knew that contraception was much less controversial than abortion, and that is why their policy was dubbed the “contraception mandate.”

The same reasoning is behind Biden’s characterization of the University of Idaho’s policy—he cites contraception, not abortion, as the key issue, knowing it is more likely to set off the alarms.

What Biden is doing is playing on people’s fears. It’s just that simple, and just that diabolical.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue addresses a story by the Associated Press (AP) on mandatory reporting laws:

An AP story last week on mandatory reporting laws didn’t get much traction. That’s because it broke no new ground.

Written by Jason Dearen and Michael Rezendes, they found that 33 states exempt the clergy from mandatory reporting laws governing the sexual abuse of minors. “This loophole has resulted in an unknown number of predators being allowed to continue abusing children for years despite having confessed behavior to religious officials.”

The reason why no one knows how many predators have continued to abuse children for years “despite having confessed behavior to religious officials” is because no one has been able to identify a singular instance when this has happened. The real story here has less do with legal loopholes than it does with crashing the confessional.

The AP story mentions legislation on this issue that was sponsored in recent years by Democrats. Utah Rep. Angela Romero, and California state Sen. Jerry Hill, both sought to close the loophole, but ran into fierce resistance. They both lost. The Catholic League played a major role in both victories.

I wrote to Romero in January 2020. “You are treading on dangerous territory. When the government seeks to police the sacraments of the Catholic Church—or encroach on the tenets and practices of any world religion—it is gearing up for a court fight. The First Amendment secures religious liberty, and that entails separation of church and state.”

In my letter to Romero, I said there was “no evidence” showing that breaking the seal of the Confession would result in prosecuting molesters. Just as I expected, she provided none.

The year before I wrote to Hill. His bill said that “the clergy-penitent privilege has been abused on a large scale, resulting in the unreported and systemic abuse of thousands of children across multiple denominations and faiths.” I asked him for the evidence that supports this outrageous claim. He offered none.

There’s a political game going on here. For years, Family Planning Advocates, the lobbying arm of Planned Parenthood, fought legislation in New York State that would require its counselors to report instances of statutory rape to the authorities. It was supported by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Yet there was no AP story or public outcry about their effort.

Moreover, in 2015 the Alliance Defending Freedom issued a report documenting “multiple instances” where Planned Parenthood failed to report statutory rapes to the authorities. Why didn’t the AP do a story on this?

The AP stance is untenable. Consider the 2014 study published by the University of Michigan Law School. Two professors, one from Michigan Law School and one from New York University School of Medicine, authored, “Effects of Clergy Reporting Laws on Child Maltreatment Report Rates.” They found that states that mandated religious leaders to report cases of child maltreatment had 10 percent fewer confirmed reports of child maltreatment.

Father Roger Landry, a well-respected priest and writer, says it is preposterous to think that a child abuser is going to confess his sin in the confessional. “No abuser, not to mention others guilty of serious crimes, would come to confession if he knew that the confessor was basically a state informant who would betray his confidence.”

On September 29, I asked our communications director, Mike McDonald, to email AP reporter Rezendes (he was part of the Boston Globe  “Spotlight” team that reported on clergy abuse in the Boston archdiocese). I wanted to know his response to two questions.

“Do you know how many cases have been reported by the clergy, especially priests, to the authorities of cases involving the sexual abuse of minors in the 17 states that do not afford such an exemption? Has anyone ever been prosecuted after the clergy reported the abuse?”

I knew he had no evidence and that explains why he never answered. This is a scam. The AP’s record of reporting on the Catholic Church has long evinced a bias.

Contact: mrezendes@ap.org

The following article was written by the Catholic League communications director Michael P. McDonald:

No lie told by Senator Elizabeth Warren will ever top her effort to pass herself off as a Native American; however, her claim that she is pro-choice is a close second. While she may present herself as a champion of women’s rights, Warren does not believe they have a “right to choose.” In her rhetoric, voting record, and zeal for targeting pregnancy resource centers, she reveals a deep conviction that abortion is the only option.

Ever since the leak of the Dobbs v. Jackson draft opinion on May 2, 2022, Warren has taken to the warpath. Without missing a beat, Warren immediately took to Twitter declaring, “It’s time for the millions who support the Constitution and abortion rights to stand up and make their voices heard.”

Notice that she does not call on people who support a “right to choose.” Her entire Twitter profile is littered with her bombastic defense of abortion, but a keen observer would discover that she almost never mentions a woman’s “right to choose.” Any time she talks about this issue, she often talks about abortion but gives scant mention of “choice.”

That is because, in her mind, there is no choice. The decision has been preordained. She does not believe there could ever be an alternative to abortion.

Warren’s enthusiasm for abortion is not just limited to her bellicose rhetoric. Her voting record exposes an unadulterated lust for abortion.

In 2016, Warren earned a 100 percent voting record from NARAL Pro-Choice America. Again in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, NARAL’s most recent scorecard, Warren earned 100 percent each time.

It is not just NARAL that gives Warren top marks. Planned Parenthood Action Fund has also recognized her commitment to the pro-abortion cause. She earned a lifetime score of 100 percent.

While Warren is a consistent pro-abortion vote, her opposition to the pro-life side is equally unfaltering. Warren has earned an “F” from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, never once voting in favor of their recommendations. Similarly, Warren has received equally poor scores from the National Right to Life Committee. In the 114th, 115th, 116th, and 117th Congresses, Warren earned a zero percent score.

While Warren’s rhetoric and voting record clearly show a zeal for abortion, her monomaniacal obsession with targeting pregnancy resource centers demonstrates how little she actually cares about giving women a choice.

On September 19, Warren, along with six of her Senate colleagues, sent a letter to Heartbeat International suggesting the pregnancy resource center might use patient information to turn expecting mothers over to the authorities. While Heartbeat International only provides world class care to pregnant women, Warren accused the organization of “luring pregnant people…to affiliate [crisis pregnancy center] facilities by using a variety of false and misleading tactics.”

Repeatedly, Warren has railed against pregnancy resource centers. On August 5, she gave a speech from the Senate Floor to call for a “crackdown on deceptive and misleading practices used by many crisis pregnancy centers.” Prior to this, on June 23, Warren introduced legislation that would direct the Federal Trade Commission to issue rules to prohibit “deceptive or misleading advertising” and collect penalties from pregnancy resource centers.

While Warren was speaking and acting with naked hostility to pregnancy resource centers, pro-abortion fanatics attacked approximately 70 of them. It might be a stretch to say that Warren directly inspired these attacks; nevertheless, she helped set a tone that encouraged radicals to vandalize and firebomb these centers.

Ultimately, Warren’s animosity for pregnancy resource centers, along with her voting record and rhetoric, stem from her belief that women should not have a choice. She does not see abortion as one option, but rather it is a predetermined decision.

She is, without a doubt, the most anti-choice member of the United States Senate.

Contact her chief of staff: jon_donenberg@warren.senate.gov