Bill Donohue

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is being sued by nuns because they will not call their trans patients “they,” and they will not put those of the opposite sex in the same room in their care facilities. Hochul identifies as Catholic.

The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne operate a Westchester facility that serves the sick and dying. Their specialty is treating cancer patients who cannot afford care, providing housing, meals, nursing, and palliative treatment. Their home serves low-income men and women, who, without their help, would lack hospice services.

The nuns take in patients with no financial resources. They rely entirely on charitable donations and their own labor. Many of these patients are uninsured, homeless or abandoned. The nuns provide medical treatment, daily companionship, meals and a stable living environment. And people of all faiths, or none at all, are welcome.

But none of this matters to Gov. Hochul. She is determined to shove the radical LGBTQ agenda down their throats. She would rather close their facility, throwing their patients to the curb, before she would allow the sisters to honor their religious tenets. To be specific, unless these nuns allow men who falsely claim to be a woman the right to access a women’s bathroom, and refer to them as “she” and “her,” they will have to go out of business.

Hochul’s punishment does not to apply to the Church of Christ, Scientist. They are entitled to a religious exemption. If the nuns do not ratify Hochul’s discriminatory policy, they will be fined $2,000 for the first violation, $5,000 for repeat offenses and $10,000 or one year in prison for “willful violations.” The sisters can be punished even if “no element of evil motive” is extant. The nuns are being represented by the Catholic Benefits Association.

What Hochul is doing is malicious and anti-Catholic. Indeed, she is one who is exhibiting evil intent, not the nuns. She is the professed enemy of the sick and dying.

Contact her communications chief: Scott.Ritter@exec.ny.gov

 Bill Donohue

Fact checking is a non-stop business at the Catholic League, and we are proud of our record. Michael McDonald, our director of communications, uncovered some aspects of an alleged war between the Pentagon and the Vatican that sets the record straight.

It was recently reported that the Department of War threatened the Vatican with military action. It was a bogus story, but it made the rounds on the Internet.

There are two culpable sources: the Free Press and Christopher Hale. The Free Press has done some fine reporting, so this is more of an anomaly. Hale is a left-wing Catholic whose ethics is on a par with his fidelity to Church teachings. Once the story was debunked, Hale was still sticking to his guns; the Free Press backed off.

On April 8, the Free Press reported on an allegedly tense and confrontational meeting between representatives from the Vatican and Trump administration officials. The meeting quickly became hostile, so said the anonymous sources cited for the article. Allegedly, the Papal Nuncio to the United States was given “a bitter lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants—and that the Church had better take its side.”

The Free Press noted that “As tensions escalated, one U.S. official went so far as to invoke the Avignon Papacy, the period in the 1300s when the French Crown leveraged its military power to dominate the papal authority.” The reporter said this came from anonymous sources. He is the author of numerous articles that pit the Vatican and the Department of War against each other.

Hale claims on his blog that unnamed Vatican officials told him they “saw the reference to an Avignon Papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.” He is so radical that even the far-left and anti-Catholic National Catholic Reporter notes that Hale’s activities on his blog are “partisan wish-casting” in a crude effort “to co-opt the papacy to fit into a progressive political agenda.”

On April 9, the Department of War issued a statement claiming that the portrayal of the meeting with the Papal Nuncio is “inaccurate.” The spokesman said the reporting has been “highly exaggerated and distorted,” insisting that “the meeting between the Pentagon and Vatican officials was a respectful and reasonable discussion.”

Further, United States Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch spoke with the Papal Nuncio who also “confirmed the recent media characterizations of his meeting…are fabrications and were just invented.” The ambassador also quoted him saying the meeting “was frank and cordial,” and that there was no mention of the Avignon Papacy.

These new revelations generated more interest, and several outlets ran stories featuring statements that corrected the fabricated narrative put forward by Hale. These outlets included the Washington Post, the Hill  and Forbes.

Even the hardcore ideologues at the New Republic and the Daily Beast ran a news story on the meeting referencing the Department of War and Vatican statements, distancing themselves from Hale.

Still working frantically to protect his narrative, Hale took to X to post a link to the Washington Post’s coverage of the meeting. In the post, Hale quoted unnamed Vatican officials who described the meeting as “highly unusual” and “raising eyebrows” in the Holy See.

Approximately a half hour later, in which time he presumably read the article and discovered it was a rebuke of his own version of events, Hale meekly noted, “The Vatican and Trump Administration statements portray the encounter as far more mild than the news of the meeting was first reported this week by the Free Press.”

This was Hale’s attempt to downplay his part in ginning up this alleged controversy by placing the blame squarely on the Free Press. We have known for years that he is not to be trusted, and this episode simply confirms our assessment.

 Bill Donohue

Pope Leo XIV and President Trump have had their differences before, but now they are at a serious juncture. After weeks of the pope criticizing the president over the war on Iran, Trump hit back on Truth Social saying the pope was “WEAK on Crime, and terrible on Foreign Policy.”

Trump’s recent threats to Iran were stark. “A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” He said he would target bridges and power plants, thus endangering the lives of innocents. Those reckless comments triggered rebukes worldwide, from the U.N. to the Vatican.

The U.N. secretary general responded by saying Trump’s remarks were “deeply troubled statements suggesting that entire civilian populations or civilisations may be made to bear the consequences of political and military decisions. There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale destruction of a society’s infrastructure or the deliberate infliction of suffering on civilian populations.”

The Holy Father was just as strong in his denunciation of Trump’s statement, calling it “totally unacceptable.” He added that to attack infrastructure was a “sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction human beings are capable of, and we all want to work for peace.”

Both the U.N. secretary general and the pope said that if Trump went through with his threats, it would be considered a war crime under international law.

Pope Leo’s desire for peace is understandable. Less understandable was his sweeping statement on March 1 claiming that peace is achieved “only” through “dialogue.” That is simply not true. Historically, war has frequently resulted in peace, an outcome that comes about when dialogue fails. That is why the Catholic Church is not a pacifist religion—it understands the necessity of “just wars.”

Trump’s comment that the pope is weak on crime is no doubt in reference to the pontiff’s criticisms of mass deportations. The U.S. bishops have also been vocal in denouncing the Trump administration on this issue. Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, recently said that “it’s very clear the American people are saying, ‘We really didn’t vote for this.’”

In fact, the American people did vote for mass deportations: Trump made this one of his key issues. Moreover, virtually every survey taken on this subject reveals that a majority of Americans approve mass deportations. They do so because they oppose the Biden policy of deliberately allowing 20 million illegal aliens to crash our borders, about which Catholics—55 percent of whom voted for Trump—heard very little from their leaders, either in Rome or at home.

Trump does not help his case by posing as Jesus blessing a bedridden man; he released this Truth Social picture after he criticized Leo. It is offensive and immature.

There will no doubt be occasions where the pope and the president will continue to make public their disagreements. But there are so many other issues, such as religious liberty, where the two share a common interest. Let’s pray the latter prove to be controlling.

Kyle Nazareth

Over the past decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has significantly expanded religious liberty, restoring religion’s rightful place in the public square. In response, irreligious groups have moved to exploit this advance by turning religious freedom protections into a weapon against authentic religion. Their sacrilegious strategy is slowly succeeding. This raises a fundamental, largely unanswered question: What exactly counts as “religion”?

The Satanic Temple (TST) is a nontheistic political activist organization that rejects the supernatural. It treats Satan as a metaphorical “Eternal Rebel,” a symbol of opposition to arbitrary authority and the right to question sacred laws. The Catholic League has documented TST’s heinous radicalism firsthand: the group opened what it called “the world’s first religious abortion clinic,” staged a “Satanic BDSM Babies” stunt, and poured blood over a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

TST has filed numerous lawsuits invoking First Amendment Free Exercise and Establishment Clause claims to challenge abortion restrictions, demand “After School Satan” clubs in public schools, and install occult statues on government property.

Recently, in one of these occult statue cases, an Arkansas federal district court struck down a state law permitting a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the state Capitol. The court held that the law violated the Establishment Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection rights of TST, among other plaintiffs, explicitly recognizing TST as a religion and ruling that “TST was prevented from competing with Christianity on an equal footing for placement of its [occult] monument on State Capitol grounds.”

The ruling comes just weeks after two related victories.

In Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1, a federal judge permanently blocked an Arkansas law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools and libraries, citing Free Exercise violations on behalf of atheist, agnostic, and non-religious parent plaintiffs.

And in Anonymous Plaintiff 1 v. Individual Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana, a state court permanently blocked enforcement of Indiana’s abortion ban because it violated the plaintiffs’ rights under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The plaintiffs claimed a “supernatural force…larger than any individual person” compelled them to seek abortions; the court explicitly deemed these “personal religious and spiritual beliefs.”

Why are irreligious groups succeeding in inverting the First Amendment and perverting religious liberty?

As legal analyst Frank DeVito documented in “The Original Meaning of Religion,” the U.S. Supreme Court has had a decades-long doctrinal drift in its definition of religion. The Constitution never defines religion; the First Amendment simply bars laws “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

In United States v. Ballard (1944), the Court began subjectivizing religion by prioritizing the “sincerity” of belief over its truth or traditional content. Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) gestured towards extending constitutional protections to non-theistic systems such as Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, and Secular Humanism. United States v. Seeger (1965) and Welsh v. United States (1970) went further, granting religious exemptions to beliefs that were “purely ethical or moral,” rooted in “history and sociology” rather than theology. Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) tried to draw a line between philosophical and religious convictions, but the dam had already broken.

DeVito further observes that most modern court decisions address only whether a belief system resembles a religion, not whether it actually is one. But take, for example, theistic Satanism, which worships Satan as a literal deity and steals consecrated hosts from Catholic masses to use in satanic black masses that mock Christ. Even if theistic Satanism may function like a religion, it is not one substantively, in any correct sense of the term.

In discussing whether Satanism could qualify as a protected religion, a Seventh Circuit judge wrote, “We should not lightly conclude that because of its content, Satanism is to be denied the full protections of the First Amendment. . . . Basically, therefore, we ought to give the Devil his due.” Rebellion against God is not religion; the devil is not due the same constitutional protection as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Conservative religious advocates are starting to push back against the secular paradigm by articulating an objective definition of religion. In McCutchan v. Nicholson, a Texas district court ruled in July 2025 that a secular humanist group seeking to officiate marriages “is not a religious organization or a religion under the First Amendment.” That decision is now on appeal before the Fifth Circuit, where the Becket Fund, a religious liberty law firm, filed an amicus brief urging the court to return to the original, Founding era meaning of religion as articulated by James Madison: “the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it.”

The Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court should adopt Madison’s historic definition of religion. What hangs in the balance is not merely a legal definition but the integrity of religious liberty itself. The First Amendment must protect authentic religion, not become a tool for dismantling it. Because if everything is a religion, then nothing is.

Bill Donohue

We deal with issues all the time that require multiple rounds of fact checking. That’s because there are so many bogus comments, stories, reports and studies that have surfaced that it makes us skeptical. There is no substitute for doing your own homework.

The latest “arbiter” of truth is AI. From our perspective, AI is a useful tool, but it is no more dispositive than any other resource. This is particularly true when it is generating interpretative responses, or making normative judgments about persons or events.

Here is one example where AI did not fare well. We sought to evaluate a comment recently made by Miranda Devine, a columnist for the New York Post.

In her April 2 column, Devine wrote the following:

“When a black cop, Michael Byrd, shot dead an unarmed white woman, Iraq war veteran Ashli Babbitt, on January 6, 2021 during the Capitol riot, Democrats conspired to hide his identity, pay him secret bonuses, and ensure he suffered no consequences.”

Asking Google AI to evaluate the veracity of Devine’s statement generated this response: “The claim is largely false or misleading, mixing verified facts with unsupported conspiracy allegations.” The response also notes “there is no evidence of a partisan conspiracy to hide his identity or provide secret bonuses.”

The AI response offers these points as evidence for its claims:

“Shooting Fact: U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd shot and killed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021, as she attempted to climb through a broken window near the Speaker’s Lobby while lawmakers were being evacuated.

“No Consequences/Clearance: The U.S. Department of Justice (April 2021) and the Capitol Police Office of Professional Responsibility (August 2021) concluded the shooting was lawful, within department policy, and did not violate criminal law. Byrd was not disciplined and was later promoted to captain.

“Hidden Identity & Threats: Byrd’s identity was not ‘hidden’ by Democrats, but rather withheld for months by Capitol Police due to ‘numerous credible and specific threats’ against him and his family after his name was leaked on right-wing websites.

“Secret Bonuses: While Byrd has been praised by his department, claims of ‘secret bonuses’ to reward the shooting are largely unsupported or misinterpret standard department retention or security actions.

“Pardon Claim: Claims that Joe Biden granted a ‘secret pardon’ to Byrd are false; Reuters reports that Byrd’s name does not appear on any official pardon lists.”

We investigated Google’s AI statement and found it wanting.

“Shooting Fact:”

This is an accurate summary.

“No Consequences/Clearance:”

As AI notes, Byrd was investigated by Capitol Police and the Justice Department for the shooting. Both investigations cleared him of wrongdoing. But as Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton points out, in most officer involved shootings the cop is usually investigated by a grand jury. In this instance, Byrd faced no such scrutiny. Rather, he was investigated by his own agency and the Justice Department. This may be defensible, but it is in stark contrast to how Black Lives Matter offenses are handled. Grand juries are typically demanded to ensure there is no cover-up. Apparently, AI cannot make this connection.

“Hidden Identity & Threats:”

AI tries to make a technical distinction between the Capitol Police and Congress. Yes, technically the Capitol Police withheld Byrd’s identity. However, as the attorney for the Babbitt family, Terrell Roberts, claimed, “The U.S. Congress wants to protect this man. He’s got friends in high places, and they want to protect him.” AI did not seem to believe this information was worthy of consideration.

“Secret Bonuses:”

It was later disclosed that Byrd received a $37,000 retention bonus, and that he received help accessing funds for officers wounded in the line of duty. But this was not well reported, and indeed it was kept under wraps for some time. The chairman of the Capitol Police Union complained that the bonuses were above what other officers received. This prompted the union boss to call on Capitol Police to either give everyone else the same bonus that Byrd received or force him to repay the excess amount.

“Pardon Claim:”

This is a red herring. Devine never said he received a pardon. Thus, no correction was needed. AI could just as well have told us that Byrd was suspended for leaving his loaded firearm in a public restroom in the Capitol, or that he was disciplined for shooting at a moving car while he was off-duty. In other words, AI not only makes a false comment, it makes no mention of relevant facts.

AI is not a light switch that either works or it doesn’t. It is a resource that requires discernment, and a willingness to probe further.

In the showdown between Miranda Devine and AI, she wins going away.

April 8, 2026

Hon. Cory Booker
306 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510

Dear Sen. Booker:

On the April 6 edition of the Fox News show, “Special Report with Bret Baier,” you accused ICE agents of “dragging Americans out of churches.” This is a very serious charge. It is also manifestly untrue.

Perhaps you are thinking about an incident at North Hills United Methodist Church in the San Fernando Valley on February 26. There was a migrant who was arrested, but he was apprehended while running across the church parking lot.

The only source that supports your accusation is from a piece in the “People’s World” (formerly known as the “Daily Worker,” an organ of the Communist Party of the United States) on December 2, 2025. It is titled, “ICE Now Grabbing People Out of Churches.”

The article begins by saying ICE “is ushering in the Christmas season by launching immigration raids inside churches across the country.” This is a lie. Not one example is cited.

Oh, yes, we learn about a Chicago woman who says she saw “ICE vans and agents swarming in front of her house, which is very close to the church.” There was also an arrest made of a “Latino man trimming a church lawn in Charlotte, N.C.” Speculation about ICE raiding churches at Christmas was also made, but there is no evidence that they did.

By making unsupported accusations about ICE agents, you wind up smearing them, frightening Americans, and undercutting your credibility. Please retract your statement. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President

cc: U.S. Senators

Subscribers can contact his chief of staff, Veronica Duron: veronica_duron@booker.senate.gov

Bill Donohue

There is nothing new about die-hard secularists trying to game the courts. They typically like to say that their newly found group qualifies as a religion and is therefore entitled to the same First Amendment protections afforded Christians and members of other recognized religions.

However, there is something novel about Hoosier Jews for Choice arguing that their religious beliefs demand that their adherents have a religious right to abort their baby. This invocation is occasioned by a restrictive abortion law in Indiana.

Hoosier Jews for Choice says that its Jewish members champion abortion rights and bodily autonomy, and, most important, they argue that their religious beliefs require access to abortion. They say that “under Jewish law and religious doctrine, life does not begin at conception and a fetus is considered a physical part of a woman’s body, not having a life of its own or independent rights.”

Leaving aside the overriding biological issue, the most salient legal matter before the court is whether this entity is truly a religious organization. Of secondary importance is whether this belief is an accurate reflection of Jewish convictions.

Is abortion access a Jewish value? Yes, according to the Women’s Rabbinic Network it is. But don’t tell that to Agudath Israel of America and other Orthodox Jewish groups. They opposed Roe v. Wade and are staunchly pro-life. Even those religious Jews who allow that abortion is acceptable under certain circumstances maintain that abortion is never something to celebrate. Indeed, they say that saving lives is what guides Jews, not ending it.

If Hoosier Jews for Choice qualifies as a religion, and its women must have access to abortion, what if it claimed that the parents of newborns should have the right to kill their kids until their offspring are 28 days old? That’s what Princeton professor Peter Singer believes. While he is a Jewish atheist, there is no reason why Hoosier Jews for Choice couldn’t reach the same conclusion, invoking religious reasons for infanticide.

This begs the question: What is the legal definition of religion? It has already been decided by the Supreme Court that Secular Humanism is not a religion. Moreover, declarations of a religion can be made by anyone, but are they legally valid?

According to the District Court of Colorado, for a belief system to qualify as a religion, it must possess five characteristics: (a) it must address ultimate ideas (b) it must contain metaphysical beliefs (c) it must prescribe a particular moral or ethical system (d) it must involve comprehensive beliefs and (e) it must be accompanied by accoutrements of religion. Fortunately, this is not a legal bar that is easy to clear.

Regarding the latter, this would require such factors as having (a) a founder (b) seminal writings (c) designated gathering places (d) keepers of knowledge (e) ceremonies and rituals (f) an organized structure (g) holidays (h) dietary rules (i) prescribed religious clothing and (j) opportunities for propagation. These strictures alone would screen out many fraudsters. Hopefully, they nix Hoosier Jews for Choice.

What makes this case so rich is that the ACLU brought it to the Indiana courts. It has typically sought to restrict religious rights, not expand them. It was founded in 1920 by an atheist, Roger Baldwin, and it never listed religious liberty as one of its original ten goals, though it did list freedom of speech, assembly and the press.

In short, the ACLU is a dishonest broker trying to game the courts, while seeking to deny the right of unborn babies to live. That they are wrapping their case in religious garb makes it all the more depraved.

Bill Donohue

Let’s cut to the quick. No, pacifism is not moral. Pacifism means that self-defense, and the defense of one’s nation, is immoral. However pure the intent, pacifism holds that it is better to permit innocents to die than it is to use force to stop the aggressors. Now that is immoral.

This issue is back in the news largely because of the war in Iran. But it is also relevant again because of the recent death of Colman McCarthy, America’s premier pacifist, and some remarks by Pope Leo XIV.

McCarthy wrote for The Washington Post for decades. He studied to be a monk and was popular in left-Catholic circles for his opposition to violence in any form and for any cause. He was 89.

He was such a purist that he even refused to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” objecting to the refrain “the bombs bursting in air.” No doubt he hated fireworks. Any pacifist who views grades and exams as “forms of academic violence” surely must find Fourth of July celebrations to be verboten.

Though McCarthy was loved by his left-wing Catholic fans, he spoke with derision about Catholicism. “As the secretly elected leader of a male-run, land-rich, undemocratic, hierarchic, dogmatically unyielding organization headquartered in a second-rate European country, Pope John Paul II had few, if any, worries about accountability. He ruled, accordingly, as an autocrat.”

Why the invective? Among other things, he hated the pope’s defense of the “just war” doctrine. In his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, His Holiness wrote that “the intrinsic value of life and the duty to love oneself no less than others are the basis of a true right to self-defense” (his italics).

McCarthy would have none of it. He believed that we have no right to kill an aggressor even in circumstances where that it is the only viable option. Moreover, he believed that even when someone was able to kill an aggressor from killing scores of non-combatant women and children, it would be better to let him slaughter the innocent. This is what pacifism yields—immoral outcomes.

Catholicism ascribes to the “just war” doctrine as broached by St. Augustine. He wanted peace as much as anyone but he also knew there were times when we had to fight in order to achieve it. He laid down several criteria for war, among them that the cause must be just; that there must be a probability of success; that the means used must be proportionate to the desired outcome; and that force should be invoked only as a last resort.

Many years ago when I was teaching at a Catholic college, I listened to a visiting professor lecture the mostly Catholic faculty on the merits of pacifism. He cited the tradition of the Quakers as exemplary and had the audacity to chide the audience for its affiliation with a religion that justifies war in some instances. He was not too happy with me when I stopped him in his tracks, arguing that the only reason any of us are alive today is because enough Americans rejected pacifism as a just option in World War II.

Pacifists may say they believe in peace, but in my book they confuse peace with surrender.

Pope Leo XIV has not openly rejected the “just war” doctrine, but recent comments he made about the conflict in Iran come close.

On Easter Sunday, Pope Leo XIV called for all nations to lay down their arms and choose negotiation. On March 1, he went further, saying about the Middle East, “Stability and peace are not achieved through mutual threats, nor through the use of weapons, which sow destruction, suffering, and death, but only through reasonable, sincere, and responsible dialogue.” That comment drew the ire of Wall Street Journal columnist Bill McGurn.

McGurn took strong issue with the word “only.” He is, of course, right. Countless wars have resulted in peace. In fairness, the pope was not speaking from a traditional mantle of authority—it was a tweet. No matter, he left himself open for rebuke. It also needs to be said that there are those who wage war on innocents and explicitly reject dialogue. What then? There are times when we can’t talk our way out of a confrontation.

St. Augustine won the debate in 418 A.D. when he wrote that “Peace should be the object of your desire; war should be waged only as a necessity…in order that peace may be obtained” (my emphasis).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church agrees with Augustine. “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggression against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.”

The great American political philosopher, Sidney Hook (whom I greatly admired and studied under), once wrote that “Those who will never risk their lives for freedom will surely lose their freedom without surely saving their lives….” A better rejoinder to Colman McCarthy would be hard to find.

Bill Donohue

As Christians head to church this Easter weekend, they should pray for those who are struggling with their uneasiness over their apparent loss of faith. I say “apparent” because it appears many of them have not given up altogether.

Working at the Catholic League invariably means we get a chance to study, and occasionally interact with, agnostics, atheists and those who have no religious affiliation. Our impression is more negative than positive, but that may be due to the fact that we are dealing with activists, not ordinary non-believers.

Activists tend to be highly critical of people of faith, but from a recent public opinion survey of Vermont adults, “The Green Mountain State Poll,” conducted by researchers at the University of New Hampshire, it seems they are not representative of most non-believers.

Vermont is home to relatively few believers. Two-in-three never attend religious services. That is more than double the average number nationwide, which is 31 percent. Sixteen percent of Vermont adults are atheist; 14 percent are agnostic; and 16 percent have no religious affiliation.

Given this distribution, it is surprising to learn that half of them combined (50 percent) profess a belief in God, Gods, or a Supernatural entity or entities exist. Moreover, seven-in-ten believe in an afterlife. These non-believers are reachable.

If there is one finding that separates activist non-believers from ordinary non-believers, it is the response that non-believers in this survey gave when asked about the following: “Religious people in the United States are often persecuted for their beliefs.” Almost half of all agnostics (48 percent) agree with this observation; exactly half (50 percent) of atheists agree; and just over half (51 percent) of those with no religious affiliation agree.

If those with no religious convictions acknowledge that people of faith are “often persecuted for their beliefs,” who might they think are to blame? It suggests they are conceding that much of the problem can be laid at the doorstep of the more militant members of their community. If this is true, and no doubt it is, this would confirm the notion that ordinary non-believers are not the problem; it’s the activists in their ranks who are.

Ergo, we should not give up on non-believers at Easter. Many may, and clearly will, come back to the fold.

Bill Donohue

Jaden Ivey, a professional basketball player for the Chicago Bulls, has been put on waivers after he made a series of alleged anti-LGBTQ comments, as well as remarks critical of abortion and Catholicism. To read what he said, click here.

The issue that has garnered most of the attention were his LGBTQ  statements. They shouldn’t have. While his comments were inelegant, they were entirely defensible, especially from a Christian perspective. Being against abortion is also defensible. Catholics are understandably upset when they hear Protestants say their religion is “false”—it is pure ignorance—but it is not likely Ivey would have been sanctioned had he only said that.

Ivey’s biggest mistake is not what he said—he did not make slurs against gays the way other professional athletes have—but that he went on a rampage, relentlessly creating discord with his team. That’s where he crossed the line. He engaged in lengthy rants on three occasions online in one week. Thus did he become a divisive force, jeopardizing team unity. Had he not spoken a word, but simply whistled in the locker non-stop while game plans were being discussed, sanctions against him would be justified.

It’s too bad Ivey didn’t say these things on just one occasion. If he had, and the Bulls still put him on waivers, that would have made them the guilty party. To put it differently, if players cannot express their biblically grounded convictions in public, the bad guys are the censors, not the players.

This needs to be said because the NBA, the NFL and MLB have drifted into left-wing territory in recent years, evincing an intolerance for free speech and a preference for politically correct messaging. Indeed, this problem surfaced in responses made about Ivey’s speech.

Mike Vrabel, the coach of the New England Patriots football team, responded to a tweet from one of his players, TreVeyon Henderson, who defended Ivey. All he did was quote Matthew 5:10, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Vrabel somehow found fault with this unexceptional statement, saying that he likes Henderson, and that his players should be “able to express what they believe.” Not really. “I also wanna make sure that they’re educated. We want to be inclusive.”

He sounds like a woke robot. Indeed, his remark smacks of thought control. So nice to know that Vrabel wants to make sure his players are “educated.” Meaning, of course, that they must learn to think like him. It doesn’t get more condescending than this.

It is also offensive for him to declare that “We want to be inclusive.” Who’s the “We,” and who appointed him and others to set these kinds of goals? It’s also phony. Vrabel’s inclusive tent obviously doesn’t apply to Ivey, who has been summarily excluded because of his “uneducated” comments.

Apparently, Ivey is beset with multiple problems, and he needs to deal with whatever is ailing him. The dons of professional sports are also in need of a corrective—they would benefit by freeing themselves from the left-wing ideologues that surround them.