Bill Donohue

Cardinal Robert Prevost chose to be known as Pope Leo XIV partly because he identified with Pope Leo XIII’s interest in meeting the challenges of the industrial revolution. Today, he says, the technological challenge comes from AI, or artificial intelligence. He warns that it poses “new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labour.”

This condition was foreseen by Romano Guardini. His book, The End of the Modern World, was published in 1956, and what he had to say was ominous.

“Something has come up that has not existed before,” he told a gathering of students, “the unity of inhumanity and machine.” He was referring to the confluence of state control with the power of technology. In particular, he foresaw a situation where the technological society would eliminate “the personality of the human being,” creating a society where evil triumphed and morality and ethics were sidelined.

Guardini was an Italian-born German Catholic priest and theologian.

More recently, in 2020, the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life issued a joint statement with representatives from IBM, Microsoft, the United Nations and the Italian government; Rome Call for AI Ethics sought to ground AI discussions in a moral framework. In January 2025, the Vatican released a document, Old and New, that issued guidelines on how to approach this subject, insisting that AI must serve humanity and uphold human dignity.

Pope Francis did not mince words on the challenges that AI posed. “We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for they create the framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups.”

Francis’ concerns were legitimate. Yuval Noah Harari is one of the central figures associated with the World Economic Forum (WEF), the organization of global elites who are accountable to no one, yet wield enormous power. He predicts that AI and genetic engineering will “enable parents to create smarter or more attractive children.”

He does not address how this may impact the rest of society. Nor does he say what happens if AI falters and not-so-smart children are born.

The man’s arrogance is stunning. He envisions a society where AI will replace the Scriptures and create unified “religions that are actually correct.” He believes AI can “even write a new Bible.” He gloats that “In a few years, there might be religions that are actually correct…just think about a religion whose holy book is written by an AI.”

It is a tribute to Pope Leo XIV that he has wasted no time in fingering AI as a moral issue that needs to command the attention of Catholics. We need to establish an array of ethical speed bumps for the WEF elites, lest their militant secularism prevail.

Bill Donohue

Lots of people are wondering whether Pope Leo XIV is a reformer in the same vein as Pope Francis, or more of a traditionalist like Francis’ two predecessors. It depends on the issue, but to those who think he is a clone of Francis, they are wrong. Importantly, he is not an ideologue.

It is striking to see some celebrating what they claim is a “woke” pope, while others are bemoaning that he is one. Neither is right. Beware: All the alarms going off are false.

An article published on Alternet is cheering “Our New Woke Pope.” Why? Because he criticized Vice President J.D. Vance for saying love should begin with loving your family, then others.

Then Cardinal Robert Prevost, an Augustinian priest, said on X that “J.D. Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

It is absurd to conclude from this that the new pontiff is a “woke” pope. Vance was saying love must be set in proper order, and many Catholic theologians agree. No matter, theological disputes are common in all religious circles, but standing alone they do not make anyone “woke.” This is simply a childish way to politicize matters.

Then we have far-right commentator Laura Loomer. She is branding our new pope “woke” and a “Marxist.” She is badly educated.

To show how crazy those on the extreme left and right are, consider what The Nation is saying. It is a left-wing publication that championed Stalin, the genocidal maniac. They are raising the flag for Pope Leo XIV because they see in him what Pope Leo XIII stood for during his pontificate.

The Nation is right to say our new pope identifies with Leo XIII, but they are wrong to say that the late nineteenth and early twentieth century pope was a social justice warrior in the left-wing tradition. They are heralding him for his “sharp critiques of capitalism.” Maybe if they actually read the 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, they wouldn’t sound so silly.

Pope Leo XIII wrote this encyclical eight years after Marx’s death in 1883. He foresaw the horrors that Marx’s ideology would deliver. He said that “ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the leveling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation.” He also made the case for private property, which is hardly an expression of socialism.

Orthodox Catholics will be happy to learn that Pope Leo XIV is strongly pro-life. He is opposed to abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide. He is also pro-marriage and the family, properly understood.

He has criticized in no uncertain terms the “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.” This is great news for practicing Catholics—the ones in the pews who actually pay the bills—but not for dissidents. He has also condemned gender ideology being taught in the schools of Peru. “The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist.” As such, he opposes the exploitation of sexually confused young people.

On immigration, Leo is much more in the liberal camp. He is opposed to the Trump policies and has even criticized the president of El Salvador for his crackdown on illegal immigration. How the heads of state are supposed to deal with those who are crashing their borders, causing misery for its citizens, is something he may have to address.

Is Pope Leo XIV a Republican, a Democrat or an independent? He’s a Republican. A registered Republican in Illinois, he pulled the GOP lever in the 2012, 2014 and 2016 elections. But apparently he did not vote in the 2016 general election and chose to vote by absentee ballot in 2024. It appears he is more of a Bush Republican than a Trump Republican. But he is certainly not a “woke” or “Marxist” activist.

If some progressives who wanted Francis II are not expressing dismay in public, don’t be fooled. It is because they want to have entrée with the new pope. The Left exists for one thing—power—and they are masters at deceiving people.

It looks like practicing Catholics will have in Pope Leo XIV someone they can rally around.

Bill Donohue

The voting members of the College of Cardinals elected an Augustinian priest, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, to be the new pontiff. He chose the name Pope Leo XIV.

While he is the first American pope—he was born in Chicago—he is not well known to most American Catholics. That is partly because the 69-year old spent many years as a missionary in Peru. What helped him enormously with his fellow cardinals was his previous assignment as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.

In that role he advised Pope Francis on the appointment of bishops around the world; he also dealt with the resignation of bishops. Thus was he able to know many high-ranking clerics in faraway parts of the world, places that most westerners have never been to. That gave him a strategic advantage over the other cardinals in the election of a new pope. He clearly was more of an international cleric than an American one.

On issues that are of interest to many Catholics, he is not in favor of ordaining female deacons, never mind being an enthusiast for women priests. But when it comes to many other issues, not much is known about where he stands. For example, when it comes to making priestly celibacy optional, restricting the Latin Mass, and the Vatican-China accords, he has not been forthcoming.

However, it is reported that he has shown some support for Fiducia Supplicans, the Vatican document that allows for select blessings of gay couples. That got Pope Francis into a lot of trouble, especially with the African bishops. He will have to be more specific about his position.

He will also have to answer a barrage of questions about two cases of clergy sexual abuse that he has been accused of mishandling.

The first occurred in 2000 when he allowed a homosexual priest in Chicago who was convicted of sexually abusing boys to stay in a residence near a Catholic elementary school; he never told the school administration about him. Also, the convicted molester, Father James Ray, was allowed to function as a priest, until he was later removed.

To this day, Prevost has declined to discuss this issue.

While the case of Father Ray occurred a few years before the Dallas reforms were issued, a more recent case, involving three sisters, raises new questions.

In 2022, when Prevost was the bishop of the Peruvian Diocese of Chiclayo, the girls say that when they reported being sexually abused by a priest, he failed to investigate it. They also say that they were never called by an investigator to hear their side. Prevost disputes these charges.

Did Pope Francis know about any of these accusations of mishandling sexual abuse cases? There is no evidence that he did. However, he did know about very serious cases of sexual abuse—some sacrilegious in nature—that his fellow Jesuits were involved in and he did not act with dispatch to seek justice.

Two strong supporters of Prevost are Father James Martin, the most famous advocate for homosexuals and transgender persons, and Austen Ivereigh, a vocal fan of Pope Francis.

If there was one cardinal who rallied for Prevost more than any other it was Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga from Honduras; he was known as Francis’ “vice pope.” When news broke in 2018 that former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was involved in serial sexual abuse cases—he is the most disgraced American prelate in American history—Maradiaga blasted those who made a big deal about it. He called it a “private mater.” He has also been accused of covering up a homosexual “epidemic” in his diocesan seminary.

Catholics pray that Pope Leo XIV will be able to demonstrate just how wrong his critics are. Meanwhile, he has much to celebrate. Congratulations to our new pope!

Bill Donohue

As we approach Mother’s Day, it is inspiring to note that mothers are among the happiest persons on earth. Interestingly, this has nothing to do about being a woman: It is women who have families who are the happiest. Indeed, the obverse is also true: single women are among the least happy.

The most authoritative data on social wellbeing is found in the United States General Social Survey. Each year since 1972, it asks men and women how happy they are. What the researchers found is that women report being less happy each year. So what accounts for the change?

The feminist revolution in the 1960s explains a good part of this societal shift. It gave way to greater women’s equality in law, education and the workplace. Indeed, the gains have been impressive. But why has this not translated into greater happiness? More pointedly, if women went forward in achieving educational and occupational success, why have they gone backwards in achieving happiness?

Neuroscience News reported on this subject in 2023, and what they found is startling.

“Something strange is going on in women’s happiness research. Because despite more freedom and employment opportunities than ever before, women have higher levels of anxiety and more mental health challenges, such as depression, anger, loneliness and more restless sleep. And these results are seen across many countries and different age groups.”

Equality before the law is a noble goal, but its relationship with happiness is tenuous at best. We know from a mountain of evidence that happiness is best achieved when people’s interactions with others are positive, and this begins in the family. To put it differently, social bonds matter more than stock bonds.

Women, in general, may not be as happy today as they were compared to women who lived before the 1970s, but it remains true that married women with children fare well. For example, we know from the results of the General Social Survey in 2022 that men and women who have the benefit of a spouse and children are the most likely to report being “very happy” with their lives.

Importantly, it was also revealed that among married women with children between the ages of 18 and 55, 40 percent reported they are “very happy,” compared to 25 percent of married childless women, and just 22 percent of unmarried childless women.

The idea that motherhood yields happiness is consistent with Catholic teachings. As Saint John Paul II said, women are called by their nature to be mothers; it is part of their “feminine genius” to serve their children. Furthermore, their calling is to “humanize humanity,” a task that signifies their unique abilities.

It is undeniable that the feminist revolution played a major role in accounting for the declining happiness of women. Not by accident was it led by women intellectuals who devalued masculinity and motherhood, often viciously so.

Betty Friedan led the way by deriding the housewife’s dependence on her husband; she contended that women lived vicariously through their husbands and children. Women had become so infantile, she said, that their passive existence resembled a “comfortable concentration camp.” The feminine mystique, she maintained, “has succeeded in burying millions of women alive.”

Friedan, of course, lived a pampered lifestyle. She was bored and unhappy. But she was not representative of most women. Millions of women found happiness in suburbia, and millions of working-class and poor women desperately wanted to live in her “comfortable concentration camp.”

Other feminists at that time made Friedan look conservative.

Shulamith Firestone declared that “pregnancy is barbaric,” saying it is unfair that “half the human race must bear and rear the children.” Vivian Gornick contended that to be a housewife was to be in “an illegitimate profession.” Linda Gordon insisted that “the nuclear family must be destroyed.” Gloria Steinem pleaded that we have to “abolish and reform the institution of marriage.” And Kate Millett said we must abolish all “traditional sexual inhibitions and taboos.” No wonder she spent many years in the asylum.

All of these women lived dysfunctional lives and were miserably unhappy.

So what exactly was it about the feminist revolution that led to such a sharp increase in women’s unhappiness? For one, those who led it were more interested in women’s autonomy than they were in enhancing their happiness. Importantly, radical feminist ideas were not limited to the classroom—they found expression in law and public policy.

From this perspective, it was better for women not to be married so they could achieve success in the workplace. In other words, feminists cared not a fig about what made women truly happy. If they had, they would have encouraged them to get married and have a family. They did just the opposite.

It is a very bad sign for society that the marriage rate and the birth rate have fallen. But at least for women who are mothers, and who put their children first, it is comforting to know they have a happiness advantage over the rest of us. Happy Mother’s Day.

Bill Donohue

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is zeroing in on the medical profession’s role in providing services to sexually confused minors. She will focus on “the medical community’s fraud and exploitation of parents and children who have fallen prey to radical gender ideology.” She said the Department of Justice (DOJ) will not sit back and allow doctors who are “motivated by ideology, profits, or both [to] exploit and mutilate our children.”

Bondi is not making a talking point—she means business. She is putting “medical practitioners, hospitals, and clinics on notice” that they will be held accountable for engaging in sex-reassignment surgeries of children. She is also instructing her lawyers to draft legislation that will allow “children and the parents of children whose healthy body parts have been damaged by medical professionals through chemical and surgical mutilation” to take action against them.

What motivated Bondi to act were reports that the Biden-Harris administration aided and abetted the suffering of children by the medical profession, all in the name of providing “gender affirming care.” There is nothing noble about sexually reconstructing children. It is a monstrous act done for politics or cash.

The American Medical Association (AMA) is a disgrace. The elites who run it know that sex is binary yet they pretend it is not. It is so far gone that it opposes designating sex on birth certificates as male or female, as if there is some legitimate third choice.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (APA) is just as irresponsible. It not only agrees with the AMA, it does not allow doctors to set up a booth at its annual conference challenging its flawed transgender position.

According to the medical watchdog, Do No Harm, between 2019-2023, approximately 14,000 children underwent sex-change operations. This was supported by both the AMA and the APA.

Attorney General Bondi is right to go after the medical schools as well. Here’s a quick look at the elite ones.

Harvard Medical School houses Mass General, the oldest and largest medical school in the country. It specializes in gender-affirming care. It is so specialized that it even offers vocal feminization and masculinization services. They just don’t get it: If there is no such thing as a biological man or woman, why are they tinkering with kids’ vocal cords to make them sound like a man or a woman? Are they that ideologically drunk that they don’t see how this undercuts their position?

Boston Children’s Hospital is also affiliated with Harvard Medical School. It is the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the nation, providing “Gender Multispecialty Services” such as “menstrual suppression” and “dilation therapy and care of neovaginas.” This is really sick. They are boasting about manipulating the bodies of women to stop their normal cycle of menstruation, and they are also bragging about creating new vaginas for men who hate their bodies.

Johns Hopkins Medicine runs the Emerge Gender and Sexuality Clinic for Children, Adolescents and Young Adults. It starts playing with the bodies of individuals “between the ages of 5 and 25 years.” In other words, when Johnny is still on his tricycle, he is a prime candidate for these exploitative doctors. They even provide “penile construction” for little girls who want to become a boy.

Stanford Medicine not only makes new vaginas for the guys, it removes the ovaries from the gals. In doing so, it works “hand-in-hand” with the Stanford LGBTQ+ Health Program. Did they forget the “I”? At least they didn’t forget the +, which covers them.

The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania offers “facial feminization and facial masculinization surgeries.” Again, these savants are giving away the store—every time they say one’s sex is subjective, they offer proof that it isn’t. Do they teach logic at any of these schools? They sure don’t teach ethics.

Attorney General Pam Bondi should hold all of these predators responsible. They are preying on individuals who suffer from serious mental issues. They are not only injurious to their health, they are anti-science. Bondi should declare a mental health emergency and shut these Frankenstein facilities down ASAP.

Bill Donohue

In 2013, I published a monograph, “Myths of the Magdalene Laundries,” that debunked the myths about the rotten living conditions in homes for unwed mothers run by Irish nuns from the mid-eighteenth to the late nineteenth century.

In 2014, I published another monograph, “Ireland’s ‘Mass Grave’ Hysteria,” that debunked the myths about a mass grave containing the remains of nearly 800 children that were alleged to have been found outside a former home run by nuns in Tuam [pronounced Chewum] near Galway.

On May 6, 2025, the New York Times published a front-page story that repeats all the falsehoods that were previously told about the homes and the “mass grave.” Ironically, one of the persons who showed the mass grave story to be a hoax was a New York Times reporter. They really ought to read their own newspaper before publishing another story on the same subject.

Even the title of Ali Watkins’ article, “75 Years of Longing for a Child Taken From Her,” is bunk. The baby was dead on arrival. Furthermore, no one “took” the baby from Chrissie Tully—she was in a jam and had to give the baby up.

When Tully was a teenager, she got pregnant out-of-wedlock and her “family disowned her.” A priest took her to St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Tuam. As Watkins says, “for some like Ms. Tully, there was nowhere else to go.” Not exactly. There was always the street. She made the right choice.

Watkins bemoans the fact that Tully’s boy, whom she named Michael, “was taken away” from her and “never held him or saw his face.” But she went to the home because she could not care for her baby—that’s why  the homes exist—and because he died at birth, she never had a chance to see him. At the time, she thought the nuns were lying, but she doggedly pursued this issue for decades, and finally obtained the hospital paperwork. It read, “Stillborn.” This settles it. She was never lied to.

Right on cue, Watkins tells readers about the homes being “one of Ireland’s enduring moral stains,” where “forced labor for young mothers, high infant mortality rates, pervasive shame and emotional abuse” occurred. The facilities, known as the “Magdalene Homes,” were established in England in 1758 and in Ireland in 1765. Similar homes existed until the 1960s.

Unlike today, where there is no shame for girls who get pregnant out-of-wedlock, there was back then. Of course, the young girls were required to work—it would have been unethical not to demand that they contribute to their livelihood. Infant mortality rates were common all over Europe during those days—the homes had no monopoly on that.

Watkins just doesn’t get it. She contends that the homes were horrid, yet she admits that Tully returned to the same Tuam home after she got pregnant again! Why would she do that? Was she a masochist? Or was she being prudent? It was obviously the latter—she admitted that the father was “not the marrying type.”

Moreover, Watkins is apparently unaware that the McAleese Report on the Magdalene Laundries, a government study published in 2013, found that the women were not abused and that the conditions were not “prison like,” as critics have contended. In fact, they were relatively good.

Regarding the mass graves hoax, Watkins writes, “In 2017, a mass unmarked grave was discovered in a septic tank at St. Mary’s, which was shut down in 1961. Within it were the bodies of at least 796 children.”

This is simply wrong. The allegation that a “mass grave” was found was first made in 2014, not three years later. That is when a “local historian,” Catherine Corless, made this claim (she is actually a typist who has no academic credentials). What Watkins is referring to is the 2017 statement on this subject made by the Mother and Baby Commission. What she failed to say is that it made no mention of a mass grave.

There never was a “mass grave.” As I previously detailed, Douglas Dalby, a New York Times reporter, quoted what Barry Sweeney said (he is one of the sources who testified about what he found when he was 10 years old). “People are making out we saw a mass grave. But we can only say what we seen [sic]: maybe 15 to 20 small skeletons.”

The septic tank story is also bogus. Dr. Finbar McCormick, who teaches at the School of Geography, Archeology and Palaeoecology at Queens University in Belfast, said the so-called septic tank was “more likely to be a shaft burial vault.” He said that “Many maternal hospitals in Ireland had a communal burial place for stillborn children or those who died soon after birth. These were sometimes in a nearby graveyard but more often in a special area within the grounds of a hospital.”

It does not speak well for the New York Times to peddle such trash.

Contact the newspaper’s executive editor, Joseph Kahn: joekahn@nytimes.com 

Bill Donohue

When I learned of President Trump posting an AI-generated image of himself dressed as the pope, I told a CBS reporter that it was dumb, but not bigoted. Here’s why.

What Trump did was analogous to what Whoopi Goldberg did in playing a nun in “Sister Act.” While I have criticized her for some comments she has made about priests, I have never criticized her for “Sister Act.”

There are Halloween costumes of nuns that are playful, but not malicious. I never address them. But I have objected to some that are vulgar. There is a difference. Context matters, and to some extent so does intent.

“Saturday Night Live” had good fun with Trump’s “pope” stunt, and that is all fine and good. On the other hand, it is bizarre to see left-wing Democrats like Bill Kristol getting exercised about Trump, but they never open their mouth when egregious examples of Catholic bashing occur. Just recently, Bill Maher mocked the Eucharist, the heart of Catholicism, and Trump’s critics said nothing.

We don’t play favorites at the Catholic League. I recently wrote a letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Ethics Committee asking for a House censure of Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. She noted that on April 21 there were “major shifts in global leadership. Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.” As Newsweek reported, that was the day Pope Francis died and Klaus Schwab resigned from the World Economic Forum.

As I said to the House Ethics Committee leaders, “It is obvious that Greene’s remark about God defeating ‘evil’ was aimed at the Holy Father. How can we be sure? In 2022, I asked the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Ethics Committee to sanction Greene for saying,  ‘Satan’s controlling the church.’ In short, she has a history of slandering Catholics.”

We are working with the staff of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, supplying them with documents that offer proof of anti-Christian bias stemming from the federal government. We are dealing with serious matters, e.g., legislation that would force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions and sex-reassignment surgery.

What Trump did was silly, but it was hardly an expression of bigotry. We deal with real cases of anti-Catholicism at the Catholic League, not junior league pranks.

Conor Gallagher, CEO of TAN Books (Saint Benedict Press), recently interviewed Bill Donohue at their headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a wide-ranging and thought-provoking conversation about the legacy of Pope Francis, the rise of the Latin Mass, and what lies ahead for the Catholic Church.

Bill Donohue doesn’t hold back—offering decades of insight on:

• The media’s misquotes and manipulation of Pope Francis
• Internal contradictions in Vatican policy
• The future challenges the next pope will face
• Why the Latin Mass is making a comeback

If you’re a serious Catholic or care about the future of the Church, this is a must-watch episode.

To watch click, here.