Bill Donohue

At the confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, who was chosen by President-elect Donald Trump to be Secretary of Defense, he was badgered by some Democrats for his Christian chest tattoo. In doing so, they followed the lead of the far-left Daily Beast which started this faux controversy in November.

At issue is the Jerusalem Cross. From the perspective of the uninformed, as well as bigots, the Jerusalem Cross is an extremist symbol. Some of them no doubt are offended by the sight of crèches at Christmastime (we just got finished dealing with that at the Catholic League).

Hegseth correctly said that “It is a Christian symbol.” He aptly noted that on the front page of the program commemorating the death of President Jimmy Carter was the same Jerusalem Cross. Would that make Carter and the Democrats “extremist”? Someone should ask Senator Elizabeth Warren—she is the one who is leading this unseemly charge.

Republican Senator Kevin Cramer cleverly picked up on this smear tactic, sarcastically asking Hegseth, “What is this very offensive, racist tattoo?”

This is a bad omen. Trump hasn’t even started and some Democrats are stooping so low as to play the anti-Christian card. They are shameless.

Bill Donohue

As Donald Trump is about to take command, the hard-core Left is warning America that his Christian supporters are about to take over the country, destroying our basic freedoms.

CNN reporter John Blake wants us to believe that we are one step away from a theocracy. To make his case he has enlisted the support of Kristin Kobes Du Mez; she specializes in demonizing patriotic Christians. As a sociologist who has debunked the myth of Christian nationalism several times, I find this iteration to be among the most hysterical of them all.

Blake begins his attack on Christians by trotting out the familiar January 6 scene where some Trump supporters staged a riot at the Capitol in 2021. He takes note of a photo of a white man whose “head [was] pressed in prayer against a massive wooden cross, facing the doomed US Capitol building.” To top it off, there was an American flag nearby.

This scares the daylights out of Blake and Du Mez. Which raises the question: Why? When Antifa and Black Lives Matter routinely assaulted cops, setting police stations on fire, vandalizing churches, destroying property—while burning the American flag—it’s a sure bet they took it in stride.

Blake is worried that “a conservative supermajority, which has already blurred the line between separation of church and state in a series of decisions favoring Christian interests, controls the US Supreme Court.”

Now it is true that the American people were so fed up with the gross incompetence of the Biden-Harris administration that they gave Trump a supermajority. There is a word for that in the English language—democracy.

High court decisions affirming religious liberty, which was viciously attacked by Biden-Harris, were a necessary corrective to militant secular assaults on the First Amendment. As for “Christian interests,” it’s too bad Blake didn’t elaborate what they are. If he means support for traditional moral values, he would be correct.

As I have previously indicated, Christian nationalism is a fiction. It exists only in the heads of those who want to demonize patriotic Christians. Blake and Du Mez may say that not all patriotic Christians are Christian nationalists, but all one has to do is read what they say about so-called Christian nationalists to know this is a ruse.

Du Mez is more explicit. She says that plans to eliminate the Department of Education are a Christian nationalist proposal. As someone who has taught every grade from the second to newly minted PhDs from around the world, this proposal strikes me as simply good policy, having nothing to do with Christian anything, including Christian nationalism. But when looked through the lens of a radical ideologue, if Christian nationalists like baked potatoes, we need to be keep our guard up. Fries are a safer option.

“The anti-CRT (critical race theory) and anti-woke agenda that we have seen played out on a smaller scale in certain states—that is what we should expect to see on a national scale.” Let’s hope she’s right. CRT is an inherently racist concept—it teaches that all white people are hopelessly racist—and woke political ideas, such as the insane notion that sex is not binary, are anti-science and anti-common sense.

Du Mez warns that “There will be no meaningful religious liberty” under Trump. Wrong. We examined religious liberty under Trump and compared it to the Biden-Harris record and the results weren’t even close—Trump was by far the most religion-friendly. To be fair, what she  sees as religious liberty is what most Americans would see as a diminution of it, so the scorecards would be different.

Let’s face it, the problem with those who have invented the Christian nationalist bogeyman is that they really have a hard time dealing with patriotic Christians who support traditional moral values. They should just say so and stop with the bigotry and the intellectual posturing. It makes them look like phonies.

Contact Blake: John.blake@turner.com

Contact Du Mez: kristin.dumez@calvin.edu

Bill Donohue

The 119th session of the Congress that began on January 3 is overrepresented by Christians. While most are Protestant, 28 percent are Catholic. Nationwide, Christians make up 62 percent of the population, but they make up 87 percent of the new Congress. Almost three-in-ten Americans are religiously unaffiliated (28 percent), though the three Congressmen who fall into this category make up less than 1 percent of Congress.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has repeatedly said that abortion is the “preeminent priority” for voters. Accordingly, we examined the voting record of every returning Catholic member of Congress, and sought to ascertain the position on this issue as expressed by Catholic freshmen when they were running for office.

We used the scorecard of National Right to Life, and the scorecard of Reproductive Freedom (formerly NARAL), to see how they rated these Catholics. As expected, the results of the pro-life organization and the pro-abortion organization showed wide agreement.

To simplify matters, we will refer only to the National Right to Life scorecard. To see the complete tally of all Catholic members of Congress as scored by both organizations, click here.

In the House of Representatives, there are 126 Catholics: 71 Democrats and 55 Republicans. From our analysis, more Catholic representatives are pro-abortion (70) than are pro-life (54); two can be regarded as moderates.

Six-in-ten (59) Catholic representatives received a score of 0 percent from National Right to Life, and all of them were Democrats. Two scored near zero (both Democrats) and two scored near the middle (one from each Party). There were 44 Catholic representatives who received a 100 percent rating from National Right to Life, and all were Republicans. Nineteen, all freshman, had no scores.

In the Senate, there are 23 Catholics: 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans. From our analysis, more Senators are pro-abortion (14) than are pro-life (8); one, a Republican, can be regarded as a moderate.

Of the 14 Catholic Senators who are pro-abortion—they received a score of 0 percent from National Right to Life—all but one was a Democrat. There were 7 Catholic Senators who received a pro-life score of 100 percent; one was a freshman without a score, though he was endorsed by the Susan B. Anthony List.

The data show how sharply the Parties differ. The Republican Party is overwhelmingly pro-life and the Democrats are overwhelmingly pro-abortion.

Bill Donohue

Former Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp has joined the Catholic League’s board of advisors. A committed pro-life Catholic, he served for 14 years in the Kansas Legislature and six years as a member of the House of Representatives. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from American University, and prior to that he spent two years in a Catholic seminary. He was Senior Advisor to CatholicVote and was a member of Catholics for Trump in 2020 and 2024.

We are delighted to have Congressman Huelskamp on our board of advisors and we look forward to working together.

Bill Donohue

With one notable exception, news stories on the death of Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, did not fail to mention that he was a convicted sex offender. Only Reuters, the British news wire, failed to mention it. Initially, the American news wire, the Associated Press, failed to mention it as well, but it corrected itself in later editions. Reuters did not.

The media outlets that did the best job on reporting Yarrow’s abuse of a minor were Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Now some might say that it could be that Reuters has little interest in reporting on sexual abuse. But that is not the case. From May 2021 to December 2024, the British news agency ran nearly 300 stories on the Catholic Church and abuse, even though it was given very little to report on: most offending priests are either dead or have been kicked out of ministry.

Reuters is so anxious to report on priestly misconduct that it can’t even get its facts straight. We had to correct the U.K. journalists in 2018 when it ran a piece on Father Kevin Lonergan of the Diocese of Allentown (PA) who groped a 17-year-old girl and sent nude photos of himself to her. Reuters wrote that “The Allentown Diocese removed Lonergan from his duties after prosecutors alerted them to the case.”

This is false. It was Allentown Bishop Alfred Schlert who notified the authorities, right after he learned about it.

What exactly did Yarrow do that Reuters is covering up?

In 1970, a 14-year-old and her 17-year-old sister went to his hotel room after his concert to get his autograph. He came to the door naked and then sexually abused the younger girl in front of her sister. He was sentenced to a one-to-three-year prison sentence, but only served three months.

Yarrow later gave himself a pass, blaming it on the sexual revolution. “In that time, it was common practice, unfortunately—the whole groupie thing.” He also said, “It was an era of real indiscretion and mistakes by categorically male performers.” So child abuse is a “mistake.”

If this isn’t sick enough, consider that the child molester was pardoned in 1981 by none other than President Jimmy Carter, just as he was going out the door. Yarrow was not at all contrite. Indeed, he took the occasion to blast those who nailed him. “With the mean-spiritedness of our time,” he said, “it gets hauled out as if it’s [the sexual abuse of the 14-year-old girl] relevant.” That it might be relevant to his victims does not matter.

After I read that in 2014, I said, “It just makes me want to reach for the vomit bag.”

There’s a lot to chew on with this story, but don’t look for Reuters to educate its readers.

Contact the president and CEO of Thomson Reuters: steve.hasker@thomsonreuters.com

Bill Donohue

For the past four years, the Catholic League has been fighting an array of public policies initiated by the Biden administration that touch on serious moral issues. We are happy to report that they have finally succumbed to pressure and are dropping four of their most morally bankrupt policies.

On December 23, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it has withdrawn a rule change that would have barred religious non-profits from claiming an exemption to the HHS mandate that was initiated by the Obama administration; it would require employers to provide abortion and contraceptive coverage in their healthcare plans.

This means that the Little Sisters of the Poor, and other religious social service agencies, have cleared another bar in their pursuit of maintaining fidelity to their mission. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court twice granted religious exemptions to the HHS mandate, the Biden team still sought to deny them; they have finally backed off.

We have been fighting the HHS mandate from the get-go. It was added to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in August 2011 (it became law one year later). On September 19, 2011, a month after it was announced, we registered the first of a long series of objections.

We noted that the HHS mandate “made an exception for religious employers,” but we hastened to add that “when looked at closer, it became apparent that the exception was flatulent. To wit: a religious employer was defined, in part, as one that primarily employs, and serves, persons who share its religious tenets.”

This was meant to cover houses of worship, but would extend no further. For example, it would punish the Little Sisters, and Catholic schools and hospitals, because they serve non-Catholics. But they wouldn’t be Catholic if they were forced to discriminate on the basis of religion!

Over the next four months, we issued six additional public statements on the flawed HHS mandate. Then, on January 23, 2012, we made our first comment noting that the mandate was meant to force these Catholic agencies to provide for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plan. Though the HHS mandate does not mention these drugs, per se, it was cleverly inserted in the provision that said “contraceptives” covered “emergency contraception (ulipristal acetate), and any additional contraceptives approved, granted, or cleared by the FDA.”

In other words, abortion-inducing drugs such as ulipristal (known as “Ella”)—which is similar to the abortion pill RU-486—was to be included in Catholic employee healthcare plans. We subsequently issued more than a dozen public statements condemning the HHS mandate. Now, finally, this intolerant policy has been scrapped.

The second policy change made by the Biden administration prohibits the Department of Defense (DOD) from covering transgender drug prescriptions of minors. But it was not done for principled reasons. This  provision was part of the huge defense spending bill that Biden wanted, but due to Republican resistance on including transgender drug coverage for minors, he had to nix it.

In Biden’s first year in office, we released a three-part series on the physical and psychological damage that transgender health procedures can cause; we also addressed how young people are being indoctrinated into thinking this is normal. So we are delighted that Biden had to kill the drug prescription provision in the DOD budget.

The third policy change that Biden made at the end of December was its decision to withdraw a rule that would force schools that receive federal funds to allow boys and young men to compete in girls’ and women’s sports.

On his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order saying that children “will not be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports” on the basis of their declared sex. This was a perverse reading of Title IX, the 1972 law that mandated that women could not be discriminated against in sports. It has nothing to do with males competing against females.

From 2019 to the present, we issued nearly 50 public statements and reports warning of the dangers of men crashing girls’ and women’s spaces, including sports. We also published over 40 articles on this subject in our monthly journal, Catalyst, and I included a chapter on transgenderism in my 2024 book, Cultural Meltdown. To say we are delighted with this outcome would be an understatement.

We are most proud of our role in getting the Biden administration to withdraw a proposed rule that would have rescinded a rule initiated when Trump was president that secured the right of religious student organizations at public colleges and universities to maintain their beliefs and practices, free from administrative interference.

The Department of Education said it made the change because during the period when public comment was allowed, it received 58,000 comments, and many expressed opposition to rescinding the Trump rule. On February 28, 2023, we detailed how the rights of religious students were being decimated on campus. More important, we called for Catholics to register their objections, providing them with directions on how to make their voice heard.

Resistance matters, and we are happy to have participated.

Bill Donohue

On January 4, President Biden gave the Medal of Freedom to George Soros. It is the nation’s highest civilian award, given to “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.” The White House said those who received the award are “great leaders because they are good people who have made extraordinary contributions to their country and the world.”

The truth is that George Soros has done more to destroy western civilization and the United States, in particular, than any single person in the world. An inveterate anti-Catholic bigot, his anti-law enforcement policies have impoverished and punished legions of innocent black Americans. A self-hating Jew, he has been condemned by Jewish leaders in the United States and Israel.

Soros uses his Open Society Institute to help “reset” America’s priorities. He contributes to “dark money” organizations that make it hard to trace the origins of their funding services. This includes funding the Tides Foundation. According to the Capital Research Center, “If the Left does it, Tides funds it.”

Among the most important American values is freedom of speech. Soros has worked overtime to kill it, donating to causes that fight “disinformation,” or speech that the Left deems worthy of censoring. He was particularly active in promoting President Obama’s efforts at censorship.

Soros has sought to destabilize America by supporting open borders, welcoming those who have illegally entered the country. His embrace of Black Lives Matter, which has openly said it wants to destroy the nuclear family, is of a piece with his attacks on the criminal justice system. He gave Alvin Bragg $1 million when he was running for the DA in Manhattan in 2021; he gave George Gascón nearly $3 million when he ran for DA in Los Angeles in 2020. In 2022, he gave $40 million to elect seventy-five “social justice” prosecutors.

Between 2016 and 2022, Soros gave more than $29 million to a personal network of political action committees specifically established to back radical DA candidates. By mid-2022, one in five Americans, or seventy million people, were living in a jurisdiction overseen by a Soros-backed prosecutor. Soros DAs were running New York, Chicago, Saint Louis, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Crime-ridden Austin, Texas, was made worse when he gave $500,000 in 2021 to defeat a ballot initiative that would have provided more money to hire police officers (cops were retiring at record levels).

[See my book, War on Virtue: How the Ruling Class is Killing the American Dream, for the documentation.]

Soros’ Open Society Institute has waged war on Catholics for decades. It funds many dissident organizations, activist groups that falsely claim to be Catholic. They include Catholics for Choice, a pro-abortion, anti-Catholic letterhead funded by the likes of Soros. He was also the money behind Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United, two front-groups set up by Clinton aide John Podesta to create a “Catholic Spring” revolution in the Church.

Though Soros is Jewish, he has been accused by the ADL of blaming anti-Semitism in Israel on the Israeli government, and the Jerusalem Post has accused him of weakening support for Israel in the Democratic Party. The editor of the New Republic, Martin Peretz, called him “a cog in the Hitlerite wheel.”

As a young man in Hungary, Soros became a Nazi collaborator. In a 60 Minutes interview he admitted that he helped confiscate property from Jews. He told Steve Kroft that he never regretted doing so. When asked if this was difficult, Soros said, “Not, not at all.” Stunned, Kroft said, “No feeling of guilt?” “No” came the reply.

Biden has been telling us for four years how much he supports DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). His decision to honor George Soros, the world’s most influential anti-Catholic bigot, shows what a liar this “devout Catholic” really is.

Contact the White House Secretary: Karine.Jean-Pierre@who.eop.gov 

Bill Donohue

A decade ago, I ran into Alan Dershowitz in the green room at Fox News, awaiting a TV interview. We exchanged some small talk, and then he said something that has stayed with me.

He said he has lived through the McCarthy years, the 1960s and so much more, but never has he seen such hatred in America as there is today. Given what we have witnessed in the past few years—most conspicuously the past few days—it’s a sure bet he would conclude that matters have only gotten worse.

What happened in New Orleans was Satanic. Planned, coordinated assaults on innocent human life—done in the name of evil—are a sign of just how much hatred has flourished. And it is not confined to New Orleans. From the Tesla car explosion outside Trump’s Hotel in Las Vegas, to New Yorkers celebrating Hamas—to say nothing of people being set on fire and pushed into subway tracks—it is clear that hatred is ubiquitous.

There are non-violent expressions of hatred that need to be checked as well.

From December 16 to December 29, the Catholic League paid for a billboard to be displayed in the vicinity of Madison, Wisconsin. It was a short statement against atheists who have tried to neuter Christmas; we chose this beltway location because Madison is home to the headquarters of Freedom From Religion Foundation, an anti-Catholic atheist organization known for its annual attacks on Christmas.

While our members were happy that we responded with vigor, we received dozens of hateful emails. Here is a short list of the remarks.

• “No one is ‘striking out’ at Christmas! Clear-thinking, non-brainwashed and non-deluded people” know better.
• “And you wonder why more and more people are calling bull**** the worthless Bible and its monstrous God who condones slavery and rape. So how are you doing with your altar boys?”
• “When was your mythical savior born? Certainly not in December.”
• “Good day to you, have a happy solstice, and hail Satan!”
• “I hope you find some peace in the coming year before you meet the devil in hell.”
• “We are celebrating Solstice before your God started leering at thirteen year olds.”
• “You are a fascist, racist, nazi organization.”
• “It’s Christians who usurped the winter solstice as part of its scheme to indoctrinate the ‘heathen pagans.’”
• “Your behavior is equal to the evangelical Christians worship of a sexual predator and felon. God has nothing to do with your business model and behavior.”
• “You really need to f***ing kill yourselves, you baby raping monsters.”
• “You don’t own winter, you child raping motherf******.”

[While writing this post, I had to stop on three occasions to notify the hotel that is catty-corner to our office building about two teenage girls who were hurling dozens of glass objects, cans, etc. from their balcony on the 34th floor onto the street below. Security finally put an end to it. Another sign of our times.]

It is impossible to reason with those imbued with such deep-seated hatred. But it is equally important that they not succeed in intimidating Catholics and other people of faith.

The year 2025 promises to be tumultuous. There are good reasons to believe, however, that our adversaries are on the defensive, and that is something that should inspire the vast majority of Americans not to give up. Evil must be confronted and defeated.