n the March 3rd editions of the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, there were editorials praising Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Cardinal Mahony for opposing restrictive immigration bills. If a bill with punitive measures gets passed, Cardinal Mahony wants priests and the laity to defy the law. Our take on the two Times’ was shared with the press:

“The Los Angeles Times not only commends Cardinal Mahony for his latest statement on public policy, it congratulates him for ‘reinforcing the right of religious leaders to speak out on the moral ramifications of political issues.’ This is a dramatic breakthrough given that this same newspaper once ran an editorial condemning Cardinal Mahony for his ‘unwelcome clerical intrusion into the political process.’ Confused? We’re not. Today’s loving editorial concerns the issue of illegal immigration; the damning one concerned abortion. Got it?

“Similarly, the New York Times is delighted with ‘Cardinal Mahony’s defiance’ because it ‘adds a moral dimension’ to the issue. Bursting with glee, the editorial credits the cardinal with ‘a startling call to civil disobedience’ that is ‘as courageous as it is timely.’ But during the last presidential campaign, this same newspaper ran an editorial blasting Catholic bishops for ‘breaching the church-state line that is so necessary to protect religious freedom.’ The difference? The issue was abortion.

“None of this has anything to do with a change of heart—it’s about a change of issues. Still, it’s nice to know what it takes for Catholics to win the approval of these newspapers: call on the faithful to break laws that liberals don’t like and you’ll be an instant hero. Not only that, you’ll be spared their tired lecture about the necessity of keeping church and state separate. Gotta love these guys, don’t you?”

Bill Donohue on dispensations to eat meat on St. Patrick’s Day: “The cuisine calls for corned beef—as well as for lots of green beer. That can’t be ignored” (Beliefnet, 3-9); “It would be imprudent for Cardinal George not to accede to this reality that corned beef and cabbage and green beer are the staples of an Irishman’s diet on St. Patrick’s Day” (Chicago Tribune, 3-16).

The Catholic League contingent marches up New York’s Fifth Avenue

in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade on March 17.

The controversy over the Danish cartoons that lampooned Muhammad continues to swirl. Here is what we told the media:

“The decision of most mainstream media outlets not to reprint or show the controversial cartoons is the right one: the Catholic League sides with the U.S., Britain and the Vatican in denouncing the inflammatory cartoons. Regrettably, the decision by the media not to offend Muslims is motivated by fear, not ethics. Worse than this by far is the violent reaction, and calls for violence, that have sprung up all over the Muslim world. This is pure barbarism.

“Whenever the Catholic League criticizes a work of art, cartoon, movie or TV show, we are told that (a) we’re the intolerant ones (b) what is offensive is in the eye of the beholder (c) art is supposed to make people uncomfortable (d) no one can criticize anything until they have seen it (e) protests have a ‘chilling effect’ on free speech (f) it’s not real anyway, and (g) get over it. So why have Muslims been spared this lecture? Because the extremists in their ranks—and they are not a tiny minority—have shown they may respond with beheadings.

“Why, according to the Washington Post, did European newspapers reprint the cartoons? It was ‘not their love of freedom but their insensitivity—or hostility—to the growing diversity of their own societies.’ The Los Angeles Times says it won’t reprint ‘these insensitive images.’ The Miami Herald boasts that it ‘must take great care not to offend.’ The New York Times says it is wrong to publish ‘gratuitous assaults on religious symbols.’ The San Francisco Chronicle says ‘insulting or hurting certain groups’ is wrong. Both CBS and NBC say it isn’t necessary to show the cartoons in order to report on them. CNN even went so far as to say that it ‘has chosen not to show the cartoons out of respect for Islam.’ Now if Catholicism were treated with such sensitivity and respect, we would have to shut down the Catholic League.

“Ethics, not fear, should guide the media. As for Muslims offended by the cartoons, they should learn what a civilized response entails.”

In February, Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times wrote a striking piece on the Danish cartoons, “A Startling New Lesson in the Power of Imagery.” He recalled how the Catholic League protested the 1999 “Sensation” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art that featured a “collage of the Virgin Mary with cutouts from pornographic magazines and shellacked clumps of elephant dung.” But in contrast to irate Muslims, he noted, “No protester torched the museum or called for beheading anybody.”

All of this was very interesting, but what really caught our eye was the reproduction of the insulting Virgin Mary portrait on the same page as the article. The New York Times, like most of the media, did not print the Danish cartoons. This makes us wonder: What must we do to persuade these guys to treat us as fairly as Muslims without threatening to behead them? In any event, we promise to be good.

The violent Muslim uproar over a cartoon is nothing new. In 1977, a small band of Muslim extremists took 149 hostages at three locations in Washington, D.C. because a movie they found offensive, “Mohammad, Messenger of God,” was scheduled to be shown in area theaters. Threats of violence led to the film being pulled from its opening day in New York and Los Angeles.

Ironically, the movie was not at all disrespectful of Islam—it was Muslim opposition to pictorial representations of Muhammad that motivated the threats. Even more ironic is the fact that there were no portrayals of Mohammad in the movie. To top it off, the producer-director, Moustapha Akkad, a Syrian-born, Hollywood-trained director, said he would “burn” the movie if anyone could find even one historical inaccuracy in his work.

But none of this mattered to these fanatics. When the movie eventually played in New York City, police were assigned to the four theaters where the movie was playing, and in every instance the first matinee had to be stopped in the middle because of security concerns. In other words, the latest outburst has a long pedigree.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals handed a victory to those who have been lobbying to have a “Choose Life” license plate in New York. While it’s not over yet, Dr. Elizabeth Rex is on a roll.

For years, cartoonist Pat Oliphant has been taking irresponsible shots at Catholicism. Yet when it came to the controversial Danish cartoons that so inflamed the Muslim world, Oliphant wrote in a recent column, “I have to say that the point of these Danish cartoons eludes me, except as a needless and useless provocation.” Which means he apparently thinks his cartoons deriding Catholicism have some salient point to make. In other words, his cartoons constitute “useful provocation.”

It gets better. In his column, which appeared in the February 19 Chicago Tribune, Oliphant wrote that he is able to accomplish his aims “without resorting to gratuitous ridicule of their religion or the icons attached to it.” Really? Then how does he explain the cartoon below? To top it off, why did the same Chicago Tribune that refused to print the Danish cartoons see fit to reproduce this cartoon on the same page as Oliphant’s article? Are they so blinded by ideology that they can’t see straight? In any event, they all look like hypocrites.

The Daily Illini, the student newspaper at the University of Illinois, recently republished cartoons that made fun of Muhammad. Those responsible for doing so, the editor in chief and the opinion page editor, were suspended.

The response of school officials to this incident was the subject of a news release by Bill Donohue:

“Richard Herman, the chancellor of the University of Illinois, is critical of the decision to reprint the anti-Muhammad cartoons. He maintains that a discussion about the controversial Danish cartoons could have taken place without republishing them. He’s right, but that is not the way the university treats anti-Catholic fare on campus.

“In March 1997, the same Urbana-Champaign campus displayed drawings by Michele Blondel that showed red glass vaginas hanging inside European Roman Catholic cathedrals; two of them had red glass holy water cruets with crosses on them. I wrote a letter to the president registering my objections, and received a reply from the chancellor, Michael Aiken.

“Aiken said he regretted that the art ‘disappointed’ me (flat beers disappoint me, not lousy art). He instructed, ‘Most viewers find Blondel’s art to be quite subtle as it invites the viewer to contemplate and reflect on topics as diverse as the body, the church, and architectural and religious symbolism.’ Stupid me—I thought it was Catholic-bashing porn. His closer was precious: ‘The University believes that true intellectual discourse extends not only to written communication but also to the visual.’ Except when Muslims get angry.

“So what’s changed? Do Catholics have to call for beheadings to get respect? How else to explain the condescending response I got, and the sympathetic response afforded Muslims? Similarly, nobody was disciplined for offending Catholics, but two kids have been suspended for offending Muslims!”

The text below is an excerpt from Bill Donohue’s interview with Matt Lauer on the March 8 airing of NBC’s “Today” show. The two discussed the upcoming film release of “The Da Vinci Code.”

LAUER: Lots of buzz here, William. Obviously we’ve got a big book, we’ve got big star, big director, big movie company, lots of controversy. But the author, Dan Brown, has said it’s fiction; Ron Howard, the director, has said it’s fiction; the movie company, Sony, has said it’s fiction. Shouldn’t that be the end of the story?

DONOHUE: Dan Brown said on this show, the “Today” show, that it was based on historical fact. I have the record on this. Dan Brown opens his book with three facts, all of which are historically wrong. So he can’t have it both ways. He’s playing both sides of the street the way Oliver Stone did, the way Alex Haley did.

LAUER: All right, so let’s say, so—so Ron Howard, the director of the movie, has come out in interviews and said, `I know it’s fiction. But why should I have to put a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie?’

DONOHUE: Well, John Calley, his co-producer, said the movie’s anti-Catholic. That should be bad enough. At least accede to my request. I’m not asking for the moon here. If in fact Ron Howard is the great Opie man that everybody loves, then come out and accede to my request. Say it’s fiction and I’ll walk away.

LAUER: By the way, it’s not being released as a documentary, Bill, it’s being released as a movie, entertainment.

DONOHUE: Well—well first of all, my—my request is—is that. It’s not a demand, it’s a request. It’s up to Howard what he wants to do. A third of the people encountered in a scientific survey think—who read the book—think it’s authentic. This is a hoax. Jews would be upset if they made a movie out of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion…” Is there anybody in Hollywood who would boast, come out like John Calley did in the New York Times, and say that this movie is anti-Catholic? Would they say it’s anti-Semitic, if it’s a homophobic or a racist movie? How come somebody in Hollywood can boast about it being anti-Catholic?

LAUER: Isn’t this all about faith though, Bill? I mean, you know, when it comes right down to it, if your faith in your religion is so weak that one movie or one book is going to shake or shatter it, then that’s the problem, isn’t it?

DONOHUE: I—I’m not worried about the Catholic Church surviving, I want it to thrive. And I don’t want this book, which was built on a bunch of lies, to poison people’s minds in a time when it’s very seductive to think the worst about the Catholic Church because of some of the things the church itself has done.

LAUER: People are skeptical about you, Bill, because in part of the ad you plug a book that the—the—the Catholic League has put out, The Da Vinci Deception…

DONOHUE: Yes.

LAUER: …One Hundred Questions About the Facts and Fiction of “The Da Vinci Code,” selling it for 7 bucks. You’ve admitted you’re going to make about 4 bucks per book.

DONOHUE: Right.

LAUER: So is this just a way to make money for the Catholic League?

DONOHUE: I’m a ca…

LAUER: By create—by creating this controversy?

DONOHUE: I love capitalism, and the more money I get, the more I can use it against the bigots.

LAUER: And—and some people say you’re going to help Ron Howard and Sony Pictures and their capitalism by creating more buzz, more people are going to go see this movie.

DONOHUE: Everybody knows about it. And by the way, why hasn’t Hollywood put out a rerun of “The Birth of a Nation”? The D—D.W. Griffith movie of 1915, which is so invidiously racist against blacks, which glorified the Ku Klux Klan? If it’s just a movie, how come gays complain about movies, like the one about “Jay and Silent Bob,” and said it’s dangerous to homosexuals? How come only when Catholics complain, it’s just—we’re supposed to lighten up?