Catholic League president Bill Donohue has asked President Trump to deal with the mass shooting of Catholic schoolchildren in Minneapolis by having the current Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty address its cultural roots, or by establishing a new commission to deal with it.
To read his letter, click here.
In 1928, sociologist W.I. Thomas maintained that “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” It is true that perceptions, no matter how false, have real life consequences. This is certainly true in the way the public perceives the marital status of women. For the most part, the media and the pop culture put a negative spin on how marriage impacts on the life of women. This perception, however, is not based on reality.
Four astute researchers have released an impressive study that contradicts the conventional wisdom. “In Pursuit: Marriage, Motherhood, and Women’s Well-Being” is the work of Janet Erickson, Jean Twenge, Brad Wilcox and Wendy Wang. Erickson is a Fellow at The Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University; Twenge is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University; Wilcox and Wang are sociologists affiliated with the Institute for Family Studies.
The study, published by the Institute for Family Studies and The Wheatley Institute, is based on a survey of 3,000 women aged 25 to 55 in the United States. It explored four important factors affecting women’s well-being: happiness, loneliness, physical affection and meaning and purpose.
The study was occasioned by a concern over declining fertility rates for women. In the late 2000s, 85 percent of 18-year-old women said they were likely to have children. In 2023, the figure dropped to 72 percent. This has serious ramifications for women and society. The report, however, brings good news to women who get married and start a family.
Married mothers are nearly twice as likely to report being “very happy” compared to single, childless women. Nearly half (47 percent) of married mothers and 43 percent of married childless women say they are enjoying life, compared to 40 percent of unmarried mothers and 34 percent of unmarried childless women.
Married women are about half as likely as unmarried women to experience frequent loneliness. Only 11 percent of married mothers and 9 percent of married women report being lonely most or all of the time, compared to 23 percent of unmarried mothers and 20 percent of unmarried childless women. Moreover, unmarried women without children are the most likely to have difficulty making new friends.
Physical affection, judged by frequency of touching, is something that married women are more likely to experience than unmarried women. Almost half, 47 percent, of married mothers and 49 percent of married childless women report high levels of regular physical touch, compared to only 23 percent of unmarried mothers and 13 percent of unmarried childless women. For example, when it comes to hugs, kisses, holding hands, snuggling and cuddling, married women far outpace unmarried mothers and unmarried childless women.
A third, 33 percent, of married mothers and 30 percent of unmarried mothers strongly contend that their lives are valuable and worthwhile, though only 24 percent of married childless women and 20 percent of unmarried childless women feel this way.
The authors of this study come to the conclusion that “Marriage appears to offer a stabilizing and supportive context that lifts the burdens of motherhood, while strengthening happiness, connection and meaning.”
It is for this reason that those who hold to traditional moral values need to trumpet this report. There are many reasons why a declining fertility rate is an ominous sign. It is imperative that we get the word out that the conventional wisdom on women and well-being is based on a distorted view of reality. For more on this subject, see the work of Don Feder at StopDemographicWinter.com.
Those educators, members of the clergy, political leaders and community activists who are pro-natalists, and are supportive of marriage and the family, properly understood, are in a position to set the record straight. When young women learn that marriage is in their best interest, they will be more inclined to take a fresh look at this subject, and hopefully go on to experience the joys of motherhood. It’s a win for them and a win for society.
Snoop Dogg took his grandson to see a 2022 Disney animated movie, Lightyear, and was blown away by what he saw. His grandson wanted to know how one woman can have a baby with another woman. That’s what was depicted. Snoop said, “It threw me for a loop.” Noting, “These are kids. We have to show that at this age?”
We don’t have to show that at this age, but Disney feels obliged to do so. Well, not quite: it doesn’t feel obliged to show this flick in many countries overseas—they have higher moral standards than western nations. Also, ever since the Catholic League released its documentary exposing the queering of Disney, “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom,” in January 2023—it has been seen by millions—the entertainment giant has pared back its offensive offerings.
Snoop has every right to complain. Every honest person knows that two people of the same sex have been denied by nature, and by nature’s God, from procreating, so why lie about it to children? Exploiting kids for commercial and/or ideological profit is a sick enterprise.
Predictably, LGBTQ activists are in an uproar. Let them howl—they are attracting fewer and fewer Americans to their side. Kudos to Snoop Dogg for speaking up about this kind of disordered fare.
Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, has died. He was a committed evangelical, a brilliant psychologist and an influential conservative activist. He also helped build good relations between Protestants and Catholics.
In 2005, I was honored when I shared a stage with many Protestant leaders at a “Justice Sunday” event in Louisville, Kentucky. Organized by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, noted speakers included James Dobson, Dr. Al Mohler and Chuck Colson.
Jim was a kind man who had the courage to go against the secular wave. A culture warrior, he never tired in his defense of traditional moral values, driving his critics mad. His books, articles, speeches and televised appearances showed how devoted he was to fighting the good fight.
God bless James Dobson.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue has written a lengthy article unmasking New York City mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani. To read it click here.
Many years ago I recall Daniel Patrick Moynihan saying that in the mid-1960s we had finally gotten to the point where equal opportunity was a reality for virtually all Americans. However, he said, we no sooner achieved this goal when we abandoned it in favor of equal results.
The Harvard professor, presidential advisor and New York Senator was right about that. If he were alive today he would be happy to learn of a resurged interest in equal opportunity.
A little history is in order.
When Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal” he did not mean that they were created with equal abilities and aptitudes. He meant that everyone was equal before the law.
Yes, slavery existed at that time, but the Declaration and the U.S. Constitution explicitly made provisions for its demise. To be specific, the abolitionist movement could not have gotten off the ground had it not been for the conviction that we are all created equal and our God-given rights are inalienable.
Slavery ended in the mid-1860s, but it was not until the mid-1960s that the Civil Rights Act was passed. Though it was principally aimed at securing equal opportunity for blacks, it covered other Americans as well.
This was the juncture that Moynihan was alluding to when he commented that we no sooner achieved equal opportunity when we opted for equal results. This change was proposed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in his commencement address at Howard University in 1965.
LBJ knew about the equal opportunity requirements in the Civil Rights Act, but it was too late, he believed, to rest on them alone. “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then says, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”
He then laid down the principle that is embedded in affirmative action.
“We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact, and equality as a result.”
This was the official rebuke of equal opportunity that Moynihan referenced. Affirmative action, complete with quotas, followed. The rationale for it, judges said, was the Civil Rights Act. But the language of this legislation never sanctioned this outcome.
Indeed, one of those who championed this historic legislation, Senator Hubert Humphrey, said that critics of the law who said it would lead to preferential treatment were wrong. He even went so far as to say that he would start “eating the pages [of the bill] one after another” if any language could be found that permitted “preferential treatment for Negroes or any other persons or groups” or “any quota system to maintain racial balance in employment.”
Humphrey was right about the wording of the bill, but it had no effect on administrative agencies and the courts. They interpreted the Civil Rights Act as ensuring equal results, not equal opportunity.
Affirmative action led to millions of African Americans occupying seats in education and the workplace that had previously been denied to them. But it also led to discrimination against those who were not black.
In more recent times, Critical Race Theory laid the intellectual groundwork upon which Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs have been implemented in many organizations. These ideas are predicated on the notion that the answer to yesterday’s discrimination is today’s discrimination, with different victimizers and victims.
The backlash against these efforts has been palpable. Two years ago, the Supreme Court weighed in against so-called reverse discrimination at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, effectively ending affirmative action in higher education. DEI initiatives have since been cut back or eliminated.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unfair to deny a promotion to a heterosexual woman because of her status. Her employer wanted to give the spot to a gay woman, even though she lacked the experience and credentials of the complainant. Things got worse when the straight woman was removed from her existing job and offered a demotion, with less pay. She was replaced by a gay man with less seniority.
Why did her employer discriminate against her? Because she was a member of a majority group. Critical Race Theory and DEI schemes gave birth to this pernicious idea.
It was Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who wrote the majority opinion. She said the 1964 Civil Rights Act “draws no distinction between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs.” In fact, she said, “by establishing the same protections for every ‘individual’—without regard to that individual’s membership in a majority or minority group—Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone.” Humphrey must be cheering.
Brown’s comment about every “individual” is striking. She is making the very American case that individuals have rights, not groups.
In short, we are revisiting equal opportunity for all Americans. Moynihan must be cheering.
Brooklyn Bishop Emeritus Nicholas DiMarzio has been sold out by the Archdiocese of Newark. The archdiocese has agreed to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to two men who accused the bishop of abuse, even though a two-year Vatican investigation cleared him of all wrongdoing; he also passed a lie detector test.
The Newark archdiocese, led by Cardinal Joseph Tobin, said they agreed to a settlement to “avoid the costs of litigation and help bring resolution to painful matters for everyone involved.” They failed—by selling out DiMarzio they added to his painful situation. “I did not authorize these settlements because I did not abuse anyone,” the bishop said.
It was in November 2019 that attorney Mitchell Garabedian, whose hatred of the Catholic Church is well known—he calls the Church “evil”—made a big public splash when he said he was going to file suit against DiMarzio for abusing Mark Matzek. The following year, another alleged victim of the bishop, also represented by Garabedian, Samier Tadros, went public with his allegation. Yet no lawsuits were filed until 2021.
If this sounds fishy, it is because it is.
Bishop DiMarzio categorically denies both accusations and his lawyer, Joseph Hayden, said in 2020, “We have uncovered conclusive evidence of Bishop DiMarzio’s innocence.” As I said at the time, “No lawyer, aside from those like Garabedian, would put his name on the line with such an unequivocal statement unless he knew his case was a slam dunk.” In 2021, the Vatican concluded, after an exhaustive probe, that the charges against him did not have “the semblance of proof.”
Here’s where it gets really fishy.
Why would anyone wait a half century to bring a lawsuit? That’s right—the two males alleged they were abused in the 1970s and early 1980s when DiMarzio was a priest in Jersey City. How is it possible that the parents of these boys never knew about it—Tadros says the abuse started when he was 6 years old and happened “repeatedly”—especially given its alleged serial nature?
The Associated Press broke the Tadros story. What makes this interesting is that Garabedian chose Michael Rezendes of AP to go public. The two men are from Boston, and know each other well. Rezendes was a reporter who worked on the “Spotlight” team of the Boston Globe that found wrongdoing in the Boston archdiocese, and Garabedian’s role in it was featured in the movie by the same name; he was played by Stanley Tucci.
Rezendes showed his true colors by citing, as authoritative, the National Catholic Reporter. He called it “an independent Catholic newspaper.” In fact, the only thing independent about it is its independence from the teachings of the Catholic Church. Worse, its attack on the Church’s teachings on sexuality helped to foment the sexual abuse crisis that Rezendes covered.
Rezendes then offers a quote from BishopAccountability, a website known for leaving the names of accused priests found innocent on its list of accused priests. It has also smeared Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and has never accepted my challenge to provide evidence that he was hiding dozens of molesting priests.
Bishop DiMarzio was singled out because he fought unjust legislation that was targeted at the Catholic Church, bills that allowed the public schools to get off scot-free. New York State Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, who represented a district in the Brooklyn diocese, was the one who pushed for a suspension of the statute of limitations for sexual abuse crimes, permitting a free ride to the public sector.
In 2016, this former office holder accused DiMarzio of offering her a $5,000 bribe. But it was all a lie. She admitted she was wrong about the date of their meeting—by three years—and wrong about the venue. She was also wrong about her accusation, which was undercut by witnesses at the meeting.
Bishop DiMarzio is a good man who has given his life to the Catholic Church. He is innocent of these scurrilous charges, and now he is being sold out by the Archdiocese of Newark.
There was a time, not long ago, when Republicans and Democrats had more in common with each other than they had with third-parties, either on the right or the left. No more. This chart shows how far Democrats have moved left, making them almost indistinguishable from hard-core left-wing parties.
This is a shortened version of an article that appears in the July/August edition of Catalyst, our journal that is available to members.
Every now and then along comes a book on the Catholic Church that causes quite a stir. This is certainly true of Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church. Written by former New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, it has been hailed by most left-wing critics of the Church as must-read.
The book is strewn with inaccuracies, some of which are minor (he gets Vatican departments confused), others of which are very serious (e.g., his rendering of historical events).
“The Vatican had always portrayed the so-called doctrine of priestly celibacy as eternal and irreversible, but it was neither. It is not demanded in the Gospels, nor was it as a way of life followed by the twelve apostles.” The second sentence is accurate but the first is not.
Leaving aside the snide reference to “the so-called” doctrine, priestly celibacy is not a doctrine of the Catholic Church. It is a discipline, one that was not invoked in the early Church and can be reversed today. Not to know the difference between a doctrine and a discipline would be astounding for a college student studying theology, never mind an author who professes to be an expert.
Shenon’s grasp of Church history is appalling. He speaks about “the imprisonment of Galileo in the seventeenth century because he rejected the church’s view that the sun rotated around the earth.” The fact is Galileo was never imprisoned. He spent his time under “house arrest” in an apartment in a Vatican palace, with a servant. More important, his work was initially praised by the Catholic Church: Pope Urban VIII bestowed on him many gifts and medals.
Galileo did not get into trouble because of his ideas; after all, his ideas were taken from Copernicus, a priest who was never punished (on the contrary, Copernicus’s theory found a receptive audience with Pope Clement VII). What got him into trouble was presenting his unverified claims as fact—that was the heresy.
Shenon writes that during the Inquisition, “people accused of heresy were regularly burned at the stake” on Vatican orders. Wrong again. It was the secular authorities—not the Church’s authorities—that burned heretics. In fact, the Church saw heretics as lost sheep who needed to be brought back into the fold.
The Church’s response to the Holocaust is also badly misrepresented by Shenon. The old canard about Pope Pius XII being “silent”—it has been thoroughly debunked—surfaces again. Not only did the New York Times commend Pius in two editorials for not being silent at that time, the Vatican archives underscore his heroics.
What Shenon says about Mother Teresa is despicable. He says that “Her private correspondence, made public after her death in 1997, showed she was tormented by uncertainty about the existence of heaven—and even of God. She felt no presence of God whatsoever in her life.”
To be sure, Mother Teresa confessed to having “dark nights,” times when she no longer felt the presence of Jesus in her life. When this story broke in 2007, I wrote to Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, her advocate for sainthood, about this issue.
He agreed with my comment, made on TV to Mother Teresa critic Christopher Hitchens, that “there is a profound difference between ‘feeling’ and ‘believing.’” He added, “Though Mother Teresa did not feel Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist, her firm belief in the Real Presence cannot be questioned….” He offered many examples, taken from her letters and behavior, to buttress this point.
On the issue of sexuality, Shenon is just as delinquent. He accuses Pope Paul VI and Pope Benedict XVI of being opposed to “sexual freedom.” What Paul was railing against was the sexual exploitation of women by men—that would make him a feminist in some circles. Even more remarkable is Shenon’s bewilderment with Benedict for opposing sex-reassignment surgery. If this has to be explained, the man is clueless.
Shenon refuses to blame homosexual priests for most of the molestation, falsely claiming they were pedophiles. He even labels Father Marcial Maciel Degollado a pedophile. This is astonishing. There is no wiggle room for him on this. Maciel was a drug-addicted predator who fathered several children, raped at least sixty postpubescent boys, and had sex with at least twenty seminarians.
In the beginning of his book, Shenon correctly notes that the enemies of Pope Benedict XVI called him, “God’s Rottweiler.” In 2012, the New York Times called me “The Rottweiler’s Rottweiler.” I wear that nickname as a badge of honor. I will always defend him from those who seek to malign him.
The Catholic Church has a long history of accomplishments. It also has its dirty laundry. When assessing any institution, it is important to get the facts straight. What Philip Shenon has done is a disgrace. He seeks to discredit the Church, but his sloppy—even horrendous—scholarship renders him an unserious critic.
Calvin Klein ads that sexually exploit minors, and promote “kiddie porn,” do not bother the Left, but American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney ad does. This tells us volumes about the way radicals think.
In 1980, Brooke Shields was featured in a Calvin Klein jean ad, saying, “You want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” While some media outlets refused to air the spots, those who fancy themselves as open-minded were unmoved. It did not matter that Shields was only 15—the deep thinkers are champions of libertinism.
In 1995, Calvin Klein was back exploiting adolescents, featuring young boys and girls in sexually suggestive poses and various stages of undress. There was a picture of a boy in jockey-type underwear (with black fingernail polish) and a girl on a ladder with her underwear exposed. One of the girls was wearing a cross. After the Catholic League, along with Jewish leaders, raised a stink, the ads were withdrawn within ten days. Again, the Left was nonplussed.
Now we have a young good-looking star, Sydney Sweeney, pushing American Eagle jeans. She is an adult, and she is not photographed in a sexually provocative manner. Nor is she playing fast and loose with a religious symbol. But she still managed to set off a firestorm of criticism.
A video of the ad says, “Sydney Sweeney has great genes.” She is shown crossing out “genes,” inserting “jeans.” She opines, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.”
She hit the Left’s hot button. Their idea of freedom allows for “kiddie porn,” but not any hint of what nature ordains. The very word “genes” was enough to ignite charges of eugenics. Moreover, her critics took note that she is a blue-eyed blond white woman, as if that is a bad thing. A female woke professor from London, Dr. Sarah Cefai, commented that the ad “obviously winks at the obsession with eugenics that’s so prevalent among the modern right.” She names no one.
It is the Left, not the right, that has long had an obsession with eugenics. During the Progressive Era, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Richard T. Ely was one of its most prominent leaders. “Negroes,” the left-leaning progressive said, “are for the most part grownup children, and should be treated as such.”
Not long after, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, operationalized his ideas. She believed that the best way to get rid of poverty was to get rid of the poor, especially blacks. This was the motivation behind her birth control agenda. Her friends in Marxist circles defended the white supremacist.
The Left likes to blame eugenics on conservatives, citing Hitler as their right-wing leader. But his party, known as the Nazis, was called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (not exactly a right-wing name), and it had nothing to do with conservative thinking. Conservatives believe in minimal government; those on the Left, socialists and communists, believe in maximum government control.
The Left hates the word “genes” because it reminds us of the role nature plays in directing human behavior. That bothers them. Their quest for social engineering is predicated on the idea that by manipulating the environment, we can determine behavioral outcomes. Nature gets in the way of their grand totalitarian design.
American Eagle’s sales and stock are soaring, thanks to the humorless woke mob. Congratulations to Sydney Sweeney for braving the storm, and to American Eagle for doubling down.
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