Bill Donohue

Why does the woman governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, want to destroy women’s sports?

Bruce Blakeman is the Nassau County executive. He recently signed an executive order mandating that any sports entity that wants to hold athletic events in county parks or facilities must “expressly designate” that its teams are male, female or coed, based on the biological sex of the athlete. In other words, males who falsely identify as female must compete against other males; the obverse holds as well.

It is to be expected that the ACLU would object—any organization that falsely believes that men can become pregnant is bound to get it wrong. But Hochul is a woman who says she champions women’s rights. Not when it comes to women’s sports.

Hochul went ballistic when Blakeman held his ground. She accused the women’s rights advocate of “bullying trans kids.”

This is a lie. He did nothing of the sort. Trans kids are not barred from competing in athletics nor has Blakeman bullied them.

“There is nothing lower than trying to score cheap political points by putting a target on the backs of some of our state’s most vulnerable children,” Hochul said.

“Putting a target” on the backs of young people? Accusing someone of violence is a serious matter, and if Blakeman were not a public figure, he could sue her for libel and win. Hochul is out of control.

Hochul is not only discriminating against women, she is endangering them. To cite a recent example, a few weeks ago three female basketball players in Massachusetts were injured by a male who falsely claimed to be a woman. The coach of the girl’s team forfeited the game after the remaining players on his team were afraid to compete.

Surveys show that 7-in-10 Americans are opposed to allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports. But Hochul still doesn’t get it.

Hochul can shout from the rooftop about being a supporter of women’s rights, but the fact is that it is Blakeman, not her, who is the real deal. She has laid anchor with misogynists, doing the dirty work of sabotaging women’s rights.

Contact Hochul’s chief of staff: stacy.lynch@exec.ny.gov

Bill Donohue

Homosexuals not only have a Gay Pride Parade in New York City at the end of June each year, there are gay events throughout the entire month. But that isn’t enough. Their relentless intolerance is stunning, which explains why gay activists—as opposed to ordinary gay people—are constantly thrusting their agenda onto others. Their goal of crashing St. Patrick’s Day parades is a classic example, the latest iteration being the one on Staten Island.

The traditional St. Patrick’s Day Parade will take place on Sunday, March 3rd (CBS, Fox 5, WABC New York, and the New York Times misreported the date). Marchers will step off from Hart Blvd. at 12:30 p.m. The day starts with a Mass at Blessed Sacrament, West Brighton, at 9:30 a.m. Larry Cummings is the courageous president of the parade committee.

This parade, like all celebratory parades, excludes those who refuse to honor the person or the event in whose name allies march. Also excluded are those who seek to draw attention to their own status or cause: to do so would divert attention from the person or the event being celebrated. That is why pro-life Catholics have always been banned from marching in St. Patrick’s Day parades—under their own banner. Ditto for gays.

The elites in Staten Island have been trying for some time to get gay groups to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, under their own banner. They have failed. Now they are showing their contempt for this Irish Catholic parade by sponsoring an alternative parade, one that features gay groups. They are holding their parade on March 17.

Who’s behind this attempt to compete with, and undercut, the traditional St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Staten Island? The elites who work in the media, business and government. They are the ones who couldn’t wait to invite The Pride Center of Staten Island to march in their parade.

The dominant media outlet, Advance/SILive.com, is the principal party behind this effort. If functions more as an advocacy group than a media outlet. It set its sights on subverting the St. Patrick’s Day Parade last year, and when they didn’t succeed, they lobbied for an alternative. Not surprisingly, when the Catholic League asked to place an ad in support of the traditional parade, they never got back to us.

The Advance/SILive.com still needed a sponsor. They found one in the Forest Avenue Business Improvement District (BID), an affiliate of the Chamber of Commerce. Their executive director, Nina Flores, said the purpose of their parade is to celebrate “inclusivity and diversity.”

Flores is wrong. The BID gambit is being done to punish diversity. St. Patrick’s Day parades pay tribute to the diversity that Irish Catholics represent. That is precisely why elites in the corporate world hate it. Thoroughly secularized, they are prepared to sell Irish Catholics out just to be accepted by elites in other walks of life, and this includes more than a few deracinated Irish Catholics.

The business elite still needed the blessings of elites in government. They found a reliable buddy in New York City Mayor Eric Adams. He authorized the alternative parade, invoking “inclusion.”

This is Black History Month. It excludes every racial, ethnic and religious group in the world. Imagine if, in the name of inclusion, it was turned into a month that honors the achievements of everyone from the South Pacific Islanders to Eskimos? Adams would be apoplectic.

The Catholic League encourages everyone to march in the traditional St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Staten Island on March 3rd. The Grand Marshal is Timothy O’Sullivan, from County Cork. He has been a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians since 1963, two years before he became a U.S. citizen.

Congratulations to all those brave Irish Catholics who refuse to give into the bigoted agenda of the ever-fawning elites.

Contact the Forest Avenue BID sponsors: forestavebid@gmail.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue has asked Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown to end the investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. It has yielded not a single indictment and the alleged offenders are either dead or missing.

To read his letter, click here.

Bill Donohue

The Catholic League has long criticized Catholic dissidents for their unrelenting condemnations of Catholic Church teachings. When they are selected to serve as advisors to the Vatican, that is even more problematic.

Three of the new consultors to the Synod, which will conclude its four-year term in October, are open about their dissident status. They clearly differ with the pope, as well as with the Catholic Catechism.

The Shepherd: Struggles, Reasons, and Thoughts on His Papacy was published last year. It features the pope’s responses to questions posed by Argentine journalist Sergio Rubin. When asked about ordaining women, the Holy Father made it clear that “holy orders is reserved for men.”

Breaking from this Church teaching is Sister Birgit Weiler, professor of theology at the Pontifical Catholic University. “I believe it must be possible for women who feel called to do so to be admitted to the priesthood.”

Tricia Bruce is president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion and a professor at the University of Notre Dame. She favors women deacons, which is one step away from priesthood. More telling is her endorsement of the now defunct dissident group, Voice of the Faithful. She wrote a glowing book about it, crediting them with being “an advocate for internal change.” The changes they sought were a wholesale revision of the Church’s teachings on marriage, the family, and sexuality.

Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer is professor of theology at the Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro. She has accused the Church of discriminating against women, saying it is “still molded by the patriarchal identity so prevalent in the Judeo-Christian tradition.” She is convinced that patriarchy means “women are oppressed because of their own bodies.”

We understand it when an organization—any organization—seeks advice on how to improve its performance. But when the core strictures that define an organization are up for grabs, it makes one wonder why those who reject them are asked for advice. This is especially true when the organization professes to reflect the word of God.

If the hierarchy of a vegan society were to invite anti-vegan devotees to advise them on how to progress, its members might wonder what is going on. When Church dissidents are invited to advise the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, its members can be forgiven if they are more than skeptical. If this is pandering, that is disturbing. Hopefully it is not more than that.

Bill Donohue

What started as switching the genitals of minors behind the backs of parents has now evolved to the stage where children are being abducted from their parents if they object. This is the kind of nightmare that few would believe could happen in the United States as recently as 9/11. It is also the kind of condition we would normally associate with totalitarian regimes.

In 2015, Oregon became the first state in the nation to allow 15-year-olds to get sex-reassignment surgery without parental consent. Now the state of Indiana is taking children away from their parents if they object.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to hear the Indiana case. When a Catholic couple learned that their son identified as a girl, they provided mental health services for him, but they did not agree to affirm his new status. Government officials learned of this and moved with dispatch to remove the teenage boy from his parents and place him in a home. There was no evidence of parental abuse of any kind, just a disagreement about the kind of treatment the boy should have.

This is child abuse and the abuser is the government. The sincerely held religious convictions of a responsible Catholic couple have been eviscerated by ideological zealots who work for the state. Even if the couple were atheists, the government has no right to do this. Instead of putting the confused child in a home, the government officials who abducted him should be sent to prison.

This madness never ends. There is a bill in Illinois that would allow the government to charge the parents of a minor with child abuse if they do not accede to their child’s desire to transition to the other sex, or have an abortion.

All over Europe, nations which once heralded sex transition surgeries for minors are pulling back, and this includes the Netherlands, home to studies from 2011 which concluded they are beneficial. They later found the data were weak and reversed themselves.

Britain, Finland, Norway and Sweden were once strong advocates, but no more. They now regret doing so. The evidence is clear: so-called gender-affirming care for minors is dangerous to their mental and physical health. Regrettably, the U.S. has yet to figure this out. It is still harming innocent children, and this crusade is being led by the Biden administration.

Minors are not allowed to get a tattoo and teachers are not allowed to give them an aspirin. Yet these same children are allowed to have their hormones altered and their genitals mutilated while keeping their parents in the dark. But it is okay for school officials to know. Indeed, they are often the officiators.

Parents are the only ones who can stop this insanity—the medical profession, educators and government agents have become the enemy. The monetary and ideological profit being made by legally exploiting children is what fires them. There can’t be enough lawsuits.

Bill Donohue

The Iowa Senate has passed a bill protecting religious liberty. Every Republican voted for it and every Democrat voted against it. The vote was 31-16.

The bill is based on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that was signed into law in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. It prioritizes religious liberty, meaning that if the government is going to encroach on First Amendment rights, it had better have a “compelling” reason for doing so.

The law defines religious liberty as an exercise that is “substantially motivated by one’s sincerely held religious belief, whether or not the exercise is compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief.” This means that if someone believes his religious rights are being “substantially burdened,” he can take his case to the courts.

The Democrats believe that religious liberty should be a subordinate right to LGBT rights. They claim that religious rights should not be privileged and that the state RFRA law will be used to discriminate against LGBT people. They are historically wrong, and their current fears are based more on conjecture than reality.

As law professor Patrick Garry observes, “Textually, the Constitution provides greater protection for religious practices than for any secular-belief-related activities.” Similarly, there is nothing in our legal history that would afford greater protection for LGBT rights than religious liberty. This does not mean that religious rights are absolute—no right is. But it does mean that religious liberty must be awarded “favored treatment” when it conflicts with other rights. That was the conclusion reached by the Supreme Court in a religious liberty 2015 case.

We’ve had a federal RFRA for over 30 years, and many state RFRA laws since then. Where are the horror stories that the Democrats are talking about? Where are LGBT people being persecuted? Who’s doing it?

Not only is this nonsense, it is those with sincerely held religious beliefs who are the ones having their fundamental rights being eviscerated these days. Perversely, it is LGBT activists who are largely responsible for this condition.

When it comes to laws protecting the rights of minorities, racial or sexual, none of their advocates say we have enough laws on the books—they can’t get enough. But when it comes to the rights of the faithful, these same people say there are plenty of protections already on the books. This is a game, and a dishonest one to boot.

Bill Donohue

We did a survey of the electronic and print media coverage of the recent defilement of St. Patrick’s Cathedral by trans activists (to read our initial reaction, click here). We found that most of it was fair. To be specific, roughly equal weight was given to what the Archdiocese of New York said and what members of the family of Ceclia Gentili and his allies had to say; Gentili was a man who falsely claimed to be a woman.

However, there were some notable exceptions.

Over the past few decades, it has been evident that the New York Daily News (which is now available for $3 for one year) evinces an anti-Catholic animus. Thus it was hardly surprising to read that it lied about the Catholic Church when it reported that it “has long condemned queer and transgender people.” Wrong. The Church does not condemn any demographic group. It condemns sinful behavior.

Time.com falsely argued that the Church “has isolated many queer folks from its doors.” The Church doesn’t isolate anyone. If some queers choose to do so—because the Church condemns homosexual behavior (so do most world religions)—that is their choice. So be it.

No media outlet showed its anti-Catholic streak more clearly than the Washington Post. Not only did it give short shrift to what the Archdiocese of New York had to say, most of the reporting by Maham Javaid amounted to nothing more than a PR piece for the bigots.

The principal organizer of this demonic event, Ceyenne Doroshow, congratulated the disrupters for making “bold choices.” Another organizer, Katia Perea, lied when he or she said (there is no “they” pronoun for singular individuals), “There was no incident when anyone said anything disrespectful about the church of God or Jesus.”

So we are to consider it acceptable for trans activists, many of whom dressed as hookers, to mock “Ave Maria”? Is it also acceptable to shout “St. Cecilia, Mother Of All Whores”? Or to improvise prayers and lobby for the LGBT agenda from the pulpit? Who do they think they’re kidding, aside from the Washington Post?

It was to be expected that the family of the man would rally to his cause and condemn the Catholic Church. It was also expected that the Washington Post would give much space to their vile remarks (there are too many to recite).

People who falsely claim to be of the other sex are still welcome in the Catholic Church. But those who come to profane the Church, whether they are delusional about their sexual identity or not, deserve to be shown the door and stigmatized. If that sounds harsh, let these activists try to pull the same stunt in a mosque.

Contact Sally Buzbee, executive editor, Washington Post: sally.buzbee@washpost.com

Bill Donohue

The shooter who was killed after crashing Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston on February 11 has been identified as Genesse Ivonne Moreno. She was a biological woman, but was she also a transman? It matters, because the media have been quick to cover-up such stories.

We have prepared a timeline of media reports that unfolded.

Notice the fourth entry, the one that says “Moreno had used multiple aliases, including Jeffrey Escalante….” Jeffrey?

The next entry says that according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, Moreno primarily identified as “Jeffrey Escalantemoreno.” Why would a person who was not trans do that? It makes no sense. Do people called Jeffrey go around calling themselves Janice?

As a side note, we found that in mug shots taken years ago, as compared to recent ones, Moreno appears to look more feminine than she was at the time of her death.

The next entry cites the Houston NBC affiliate describing her as “transgender.” Two entries later the Houston NBC affiliate once again describes Moreno as “transgender.”

Now look at the entry in between, the one from the Daily Wire. According to arrest records, “Moreno identified as a man named ‘Jeffrey’ in recent years.” This is telling.

Back to the Houston NBC affiliate. We found that it stopped describing Moreno as transgender on February 12 in its evening report (see the last entry on p. 2). But it did mention that the Houston Police Commander said there were some “discrepancies,” including the alias Jeffrey Escalante. [We noted this in our report as well—see the third entry on p. 2.]

It matters greatly if Moreno identified as a man named Jeffrey. Unfortunately, as we have detailed, trans persons have a violent history.

Last year, we provided evidence of this on March 31, October 11 and October 12. [We will release more evidence this spring.] Moreover, on March 30 last year we called attention to the games the media were playing trying to downplay the violent streak in trans persons. Note that NBC News was the most egregious offender.

When the media were covering the clergy sexual abuse scandal, they made sure every miniscule piece of information was made public. But when it comes to trans violence, they do just the opposite.

It has been well established that trans persons have serious mental issues. They need help, not compassionate cover-ups. The sooner they are treated for their psychological disorders, the better they will be and the safer the public will be.

I have asked Houston Mayor John Whitmire to make public all records that pertain to this issue, sending a copy to Troy Finner, Chief of Police.

Contact Whitmire: mayor@houstontx.gov

Bill Donohue

At a funeral service on February 15 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, men dressed as women and women dressed as men turned out to honor Cecilia Gentili. Gentili is a man who falsely claimed to be a woman. He was an illegal alien, a drug addict, prostitute, trans activist and atheist.

At the service, many of those in attendance dressed as hookers, danced in the aisles, sang “Ave Cecilia” when “Ave Maria” was sung, and shouted, “St. Cecilia, Mother Of All Whores.”

The presiding priest, Fr. Edward Dougherty, falsely declared Gentili to be a woman, referring to him as “our sister.” Fr. James Martin, an LGBT advocate, was delighted with the event, saying the trans activists are “as much a part of the church as anyone else.”

Many are wondering how this profane service could have happened. It happened because it was held under false pretenses. The person who made the arrangements, who goes by the name Ceyeye Doroshow, said, “I kept it under wraps.”

The Pastor of St. Patrick’s, the Very Reverend Enrique Salvo, said, “The Cathedral only knew that family and friends were requesting a funeral Mass for a Catholic, and had no idea our welcome and prayer would be degraded in such a sacrilegious and deceptive way.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, has authorized a Mass of Reparation in the wake of this vile event.

Radio and TV coverage in New York has been scant on what actually happened, focusing more on comments from the family of the man. They accuse the Catholic Church of hypocrisy. It would be more accurate to say that those who support defiling St. Patrick’s Cathedral are rank anti-Catholic bigots who look, talk, and act like deranged men and women.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray today about his apparent refusal to settle the agency’s investigation of mainline Catholics.

February 15, 2024

The Honorable Christopher A. Wray
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20535-0001

Dear Director Wray:

On January 31, 2024, the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, Charles Grassley, and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, Lindsey Graham, and several other senators, wrote to you regarding the FBI’s probe of Catholics as outlined in the Richmond memo. You were to answer their questions by February 14, but apparently that has not been done.

This issue has been festering for a year. It was in February 2023 that the public learned of a startling memo produced by the Richmond Field Office: it revealed an investigation of traditional Catholics. On February 9, 2023, I made public the concerns of the Catholic League. “What’s next? Will it be a war on Catholics who are orthodox?”

My hunch was proven right. The FBI subsequently said that “mainline Catholic parishes” and “local diocesan leadership” were selected for investigation.

On April 11, 2023, I wrote to you asking to make public those documents related to this issue. On July 24, July 26, August 10, September 21 and December 6, I wrote to the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, asking to get to the bottom of this issue.

It is vitally important that you answer the questions posed by the senators in their letter of January 31. They asked many serious questions that are of interest to Catholics nationwide.

For instance, they wanted to know why “the FBI permanently deleted critical records related to the memo.” They asked why the FBI relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center for information in its probe of Catholics; I asked Rep. Jordan to address the same question.

This is not a subject we will ever abandon. Catholics have every right to know what is going on at the FBI and why they have been spied on, without just cause. Not only are First Amendment religious liberty issues at stake, so is the legitimacy of the FBI.

I implore you to cooperate with those government officials who have contacted you about this issue. Hopefully we can settle this matter once and for all.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President

cc: Sen. Charles Grassley
Sen. Lindsey Graham
Rep. Jim Jordan

Contact the FBI: public.affairs@fbi.gov