BishopAccountability.org purports to be an abuse watchdog, but in reality its only real agenda is to discredit the Catholic Church. Its latest stab at Pope Francis brings further discredit to its reputation. Indeed, it represents McCarthyism.

BishopAccountability.org highlights five cases where Cardinal Bergoglio may have had knowledge of abuse allegations, but it is clear that it has no evidence that he knew about any of these cases. Moreover, only one of the priests was an archdiocesan priest from Buenos Aires (more on him below); two were religious order priests and two were from other dioceses.

The report estimates that between 1950 and 2013, “more than 100 Buenos Aires archdiocesan priests offended against children.” Again, the report cites no evidence for this claim. It further undermines its credibility when it makes a strained analogy: it compares the size of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires to the number of priests accused in the dioceses of Manchester, New Hampshire; Providence, Rhode Island and Los Angeles, California. Even a high school dropout would have chosen a Latin American analogy.

The report tries to sound authoritative by compiling a list of 42 clergy who have been accused of abuse in Argentina. Perhaps it thought that no one would check its own sources. We did. Here is what we found:

•  Thirty-four of those priests had no connection to the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires.
• One was acquitted when the allegations could not be proved.
• One was tried in the U. S. and the charges were dismissed before he moved to Argentina.
• One priest admitted to abusing a 15-year-old in the Diocese of Quilmes, and was transferred to the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires to live.
• One priest was credibly accused in the United States, and was then assigned to missionary work by his order. He was sent to Buenos Aires in August 2013, after Bergoglio was elected pope.
•  One priest was accused of abuse in Uruguay, and was then transferred to Buenos Aires.

Of the three remaining clerics, only one was an archdiocesan priest, Father Carlos Maria Gauna. He was accused of inappropriately touching two girls (he allegedly touched their buttocks) at a Catholic school, and was disciplined as a result. One was a Marianist brother, and there is no evidence that Bergoglio ever heard about, much less failed to report him. Finally, he is accused of commissioning a “secret” study of a Salesian priest, aimed at discrediting the accuser, but absolutely no evidence is provided to support this charge.

We sent a copy of our response to the heads of each U.S. diocese.

On March 11, 2014, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office announced that they would not file charges against St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt; he was accused in December of “inappropriately touching” a young man in 2009.

When the charges were first made in December, Bill Donohue said, “Archbishop Nienstedt has been the subject of a non-stop crusade orchestrated by ex-Catholics, and Catholics in rebellion against the Church, simply because he stands for everything they are not: he is a loyal son of the Catholic Church.” Donohue noted that “out of the blue” came an unidentified male who claims he was touched on his buttocks in 2009 by the archbishop while posing for a group photo.

After the accusation was made, the police identified and interviewed everyone who was in the photograph when the archbishop allegedly touched the boy’s buttocks. No one at the Confirmation ceremony reported seeing anything like this happening. The photo shows Nienstedt standing behind the boy, one step up, meaning that he would have had to bend down to touch the boy’s behind. Moreover, the photo shows Nienstedt with one hand on his crozier and the other on the boy’s left shoulder.

The police asked if anyone recalled a touching episode meant as a joke, or saw any touching between people, or remembered if someone was startled during the photo session. The answer to all three was unanimous: No.

Archbishop Nienstedt is a good man who was unfairly accused. We never doubted his veracity.

William A. Donohue

We often hear people say, “I’m sorry, I lied about that,” when, in fact, they never lied; they were merely mistaken. Let me be plain: it is impossible to lie without first knowing the truth. Once we know the truth, we can correct our mistakes, but knowledge of the truth matters little to liars, and this is doubly true of congenital liars. In my career as a professor and as an activist, I have met many inveterate liars, typically men and women who are so bent on winning that the means are justified by the ends, even if it means millions must die.

I am not exaggerating. Eric Hobsbawm was one of the most influential English historians of the twentieth century. He was a Marxist who positively loved communism. In 1994, he was asked a hypothetical question: If communism had achieved its aims in the Soviet Union and China, but at the cost of 15 to 20 million people—as opposed to the well over 100 million deaths it actually resulted in—would you have supported it? He answered with one word: “Yes.”

 When Hobsbawm died last October at age 95, he was lionized in the pages of the Nation, a left-wing magazine that stood with Stalin as he tortured, starved, and murdered the innocent. Hobsbawm, the Nation, and countless professors on both sides of the Atlantic, lied about the mass murders while they were happening in Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China, hoping that their lies would stop the truth from being known. At least it can be said about Hobsbawm that in his later years he was able to come clean and tell the truth: genocide is ethical if it ends in a communist revolution.

 The liars we deal with at the Catholic League today are not pointing guns at us, but they are willfully distorting the truth about Catholicism, and they do it all the time. Lying is a way of life to them, much like breathing and walking is to the rest of us. Just consider some of the articles in this issue of Catalyst.

 On page 13, in the New York Times op-ed page ad I wrote, I quoted Pope Francis accurately when he said, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” It is rare to see him quoted accurately. Instead, the sentence is chopped off at the end, so that it appears, “Who am I to judge?” This way the reader is left with the impression that the pope is justifying homosexuality.

 Others are worse. I recently locked horns with Niall O’Dowd of the Irish Central on this issue. He actually said that the pope was referring to the “gay lifestyle.” I showed the proof that he is wrong, but to no avail. He must know that no one in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is about to justify the “gay lifestyle,” a condition that more closely resembles what noted gay activist Larry Kramer has called a “deathstyle.”

 This edition of Catalyst has much to say about “Philomena,” a movie based on so many lies it is hard to track. Virtually everyone associated with this film has lied about the story of this woman’s life, which includes Philomena Lee herself. I wrote a lengthy analysis of this matter; the article was sent to many in Hollywood, England, and Ireland, as well as to prominent persons in the media. No one has challenged a single sentence I wrote. I have the proof—it’s all documented. No nun stole Philomena’s baby; her son was not sold to the highest bidder; she voluntarily signed a consent form at the age of 22; no fee was charged to the adopting couple in the mid-West; a nun portrayed as being cruel died long before the alleged incident took place; Philomena never went to the U.S. to find her son; she never had a private meeting with the pope; the pope’s personal secretary did not preview the movie, etc.

 Here’s another example, taken from the April Catalyst. After the Bostonians who run the St. Patrick’s Day parade said they would allow an organization of gay veterans to march, with the proviso that they agree not to publicly depict themselves as gay, they had to disinvite them: the group was not a legitimate veterans group, and they planned to wear gay T-shirts. In other words, the gays lied. And in New York, many lies have been told about gays not being allowed to march in the parade; they can, but not under their own banner.

 I can deal with fair-minded people with whom I disagree. Geraldo Rivera, Alan Colmes, and Joe Piscopo, are all gay-rights enthusiasts, but when they learned that gays are not barred from marching in the St. Patrick’s Day parade—anymore than pro-life Catholics are—they all took my side. They are not liars, which is more than I can say for many on their side.

 The worst of them all are those who lie not to protect themselves, but to smear the Catholic Church. That’s why the lead story in this issue is on BishopAccountability.org. What those affiliated with this media outlet did to the pope was not a mistake: it was deliberate, and it was malicious. It gives me great pleasure to expose them to the bishops.

Pope Francis recently gave a homily at Mass in the Santa Marta residence, where he condemned anti-Catholicism.

Militant secularism at home, and militant Islam abroad, are the two greatest threats to Catholicism today. Speaking of the latter, Pope Francis said, “there are more Christian martyrs today than during the early days of the Church.” Communists in North Korea are also killing Christians at a record pace, and Communist China continues its persecution.

The pope rightly said “the world does not tolerate the divinity of Christ. It doesn’t tolerate the announcement of the Gospel. It does not tolerate the Beatitudes. And we have persecutions: with words, with insults, the things that they said about Christians in the early centuries, the condemnations, imprisonment….But we easily forget. We think of the many Christians, 60 years ago, in the labour camps, in the camps of the Nazis, of the communists: So many of them! For being Christians! And even today…But (people say) ‘today we are better educated and these things no longer exist.’ Yes they do!…They are condemned for having a Bible. They can’t wear a crucifix.”

The Holy Father is right. Islamism and communism are responsible for both murdering Christians, as well as for persecuting Christianity. But the insults, the condemnations, and the censoring of religious speech that he has addressed stem from another source: militant secularism.

It is precisely the “better educated” class who are leading the militant secularist crusade. They are the ones who seek to ban the public expression of religion,   create movies that insult Catholicism, paint priests as molesters, ban Bibles from hotels, display vile anti-Catholic billboards, attempt to crash the St. Patrick’s Day parade, sponsor Catholic-bashing artistic exhibitions, force Catholic non-profits to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, and the like.

Kudos to Pope Francis. His words underscore the reason why the Catholic League exists. Look for the media, including many in the Catholic media, to ignore them.

Diageo, the parent company of Guinness, and Heineken, recently pulled their sponsorship of New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade; the Boston Beer Company, maker of Sam Adams, has withdrawn its sponsorship of Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.

None of these companies believe in diversity. No gay person has ever been barred from marching in any St. Patrick’s Day parade, anymore than the parade bans pro-life Catholics or vegetarian Catholics; they simply cannot march under their own banner. The parade has one cause: honoring St. Patrick. Those who disagree do not have to march—that’s what diversity is all about.

The parade is quintessentially Catholic, beginning with a Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It is this Catholic element that angers those who are engaged in a bullying campaign against the St. Patrick’s Day parades. The bullies also have nothing but contempt for the constitutional rights of Irish Catholics.

In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 9-0 decision that the First Amendment guarantees the right of private parade organizers to determine its own rules for marching. It is this liberty that the makers of Guinness, Heineken, and Sam Adams want to squash. Heineken was always slop, so there is no sacrifice there.

Donohue urges Catholics, and all those who believe in tolerance, diversity, and the First Amendment, to join with him in boycotting these brews.

We are focusing our efforts on Guinness because it is the most prominent of the brewers. We are contacting many Catholic groups, and virtually all Irish ones, asking for their support. The intolerance that Guinness is showing must not go unanswered.

Catholic University of America recently came under attack again for receiving a donation from the Koch Foundation. In December, Bill Donohue exposed Faith in Public Life, which led the first attack, as a group that is funded by a George Soros foundation, the Open Society Institute. Another left-wing entity, Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice, was responsible for spearheading the latest attack.

According to a Religion News Service story by David Gibson, Faith in Public Life revealed that while it receives $200,000 a year from the Open Society Institute, its officials claim that they “work with Catholic leaders in support of Catholic teaching,” and the Koch brothers do not.

Fully 13 percent of Faith in Public Life’s budget comes from an atheist who supports abortion, euthanasia, drug legalization, and many other causes that are opposed by the Catholic Church. By contrast, the Catholic League is a grass roots organization that is listed in the Official Catholic Directory; we wouldn’t accept funds from a pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, drug legalization foundation. That’s dirty money.

If it is true that Faith in Public Life “works with Catholic leaders in support of Catholic teaching,” then why did the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issue a three-page “Advisory Memo to Journalists” on June 27, 2012, warning them of the totally misleading comments made by Faith’s Catholic Program Director, John Gehring? Gehring’s memo advised the media about the “inflammatory and irresponsible” rhetoric of “several bishops,” and he tutored the secular media on how to handle the USCCB. In short, he worked against the bishops.

Donohue was happy that he helped to subvert Faith in Public Life. To wit: John Gehring’s June 7 memo that the USCCB blasted was made public by Donohue on June 18; it was leaked to him by a loyal Catholic in the media.

FYI: Catholic University of America does not have pro-abortion clubs on campus; Georgetown University has two. Just thought you’d like to know.

A recent survey of Catholics conducted by the Pew Research Center highlighted the difference between practicing and non-practicing Catholics. It also tapped into the extent to which Catholics appear to be conflicted on moral issues.

On questions regarding birth control, married priests, women priests, and same-sex marriages, the average approval difference between practicing and non-practicing Catholics was 23 percent. That was an enormous difference. It suggests that non-practicing Catholics have more in common with non-Catholics on these issues than they do with those who attend Mass weekly.

The survey did not distinguish between practicing and non-practicing Catholics on the following: Catholics were asked to assess Pope Francis on his “Standing for traditional moral values.” He received his highest rating on this issue (tied with “Spreading Catholic faith”): 81 percent. It can be surmised that this figure would be even higher among practicing Catholics, but that is not why this matters.

How can Catholics say they are okay with birth control, married priests, and women priests (only a third of practicing Catholics say the Church should recognize gay marriages), yet state that Pope Francis is doing an excellent/good job in “Standing for traditional moral values”?

The strong support for traditional values suggests a continuity in Catholic thought that is typically underplayed, if not totally ignored, by the media.

The American Conservative Union (ACU), which is the host of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) extended an invitation to American Atheists for this year’s CPAC Conference, but they eventually decided to rescind this decision.

It took Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, to set off the alarms at CPAC. But it was too late: Bozell was right to say that it made no difference that the ACU and CPAC backed down. Donohue had his own reasons for agreeing with him.

In 1989, Donohue spoke at the 16th annual CPAC conference on the subject, “Liberty and the ACLU.” Even back then, it was clear to him that conservative principles were being compromised, which is why he wound up debating an empty chair: after Ira Glasser, the head of the ACLU, refused to debate Donohue, he was disinvited. Were it not for a protest by Reed Irving of Accuracy in Academia, and the support Donohue received from The Heritage Foundation (he had just completed a year there as a Bradley Resident Scholar), the second invitation would not have been granted.

Regarding the latest incident, a spokesperson for ACU said that it withdrew the invitation to American Atheists because of the “divisive and inappropriate language” of its president, David Silverman. In other words, had Silverman used more temperate language, the invitation to the CPAC Conference would have still been open. Hate speech is hate speech, whether delivered with invective or polish.

There is more than incompetence at work here. CPAC is a disgrace. They should have learned by now that big tents have a way of collapsing in the middle.

The following article by Bill Donohue was published by Newsmax on March 12:

On June 19, 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade was a privately run operation that could write its own rules for participation. Writing for the high court, Justice David Souter noted that gays and lesbians had never been barred from marching in the parade; they were banned from marching under their own banners. The court’s unanimous ruling was a victory for the First Amendment right to freedom of assembly.

Once this decision was reached, gay and lesbian groups in many cities, including New York, were angry, and some tried, unsuccessfully, to march without a permit on the same day as the big parade. The protests quickly fizzled: only a very small contingent of gays and lesbians showed up in subsequent years. Now the fight has been rekindled, thanks to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio: He is not marching in the parade because gays and lesbians can’t march under their own banner. Other public officials have followed suit.

It must be noted that the organizers of the parade, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee, do not allow pro-life Catholics to march under their own banners. Nor are NRA Catholics allowed. But just as gays can march, so can pro-lifers and NRA members: they simply must blend in like everyone else. No one feels victimized save for homosexuals.

Besides the huge march up Fifth Avenue, there are also many local St. Patrick’s Day parades; they are usually held on the weekends prior to the big one. On March 2, Mayor de Blasio marched in the Sunnyside, Queens “St. Pat’s for All” parade, organized by gay Catholics. He looked lovely with his arm around Pandora Panti Bliss, an Irish drag queen. In one sense, this was a plus: it showed exactly what the goal of these gay activists is. They do not want to honor St. Patrick—they want to draw attention to themselves.

Mayor de Blasio looked even more foolish when his spokesman said the reason his boss would not march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in the Rockaways, held the day before the Sunnyside one, was because gays were banned from marching in their own unit. This was false—they can. More likely, he was afraid of being booed by those who live there: the Rockaways are home to legions of Irish cops and firefighters. For the same reason, the mayor also didn’t march in the parade held on Staten Island, though the ban on a separate gay contingent didn’t stop him from marching as a public official before he became mayor.

Adding to de Blasio’s confused approach to the St. Patrick’s Day parade was his decision to cancel the annual breakfast at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence. I have publicly accused him of not wanting to associate with Irish Catholics; apparently such criticism has had an effect because the breakfast has been reinstated.

What is particularly disturbing about this contrived controversy is the reaction of gay activists and public officials. Moreover, the Stonewall Democrats have accused the parade of “breathing hate.” The following have levied the charge “bigoted” at the parade: City Councilman Daniel Patrick Dromm; Irish Queers; the Irish Independent; and Denis Hamill of the Daily News. Moreover, dozens of New York notables have signed a statement accusing the parade of discrimination.

People such as Brendan Fay, an Irish gay activist, Niall O’Dowd of the Irish Central, and even Father Brian Jordan OFM, are proposing various “solutions” and attempts to “mediate” this issue. But there is nothing to solve: they lost. They lost in the U.S. Supreme Court, and in the court of public opinion. Quite frankly, there is nothing to mediate with those who are bent on crashing the parade. If there is any doubt about this, consider that the organizers of the Boston St. Patrick’s Day parade approved a bid this year to what they thought was a gay veterans’ group, but had to rescind their invitation after they found out they were lied to: it is not a legitimate veterans group, and the marchers intended to wear gay T-shirts.

The New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade is as Catholic as it is Irish: it begins with a Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Over 200,000 march in the world’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parade, and they have been doing so every year since 1762. Those who truly believe in diversity and tolerance love the parade for what it is—a celebration of St. Patrick and Irish heritage. That some want to deny Irish Catholics their constitutional rights, when no one is stopping them from having their own parade, is a sad commentary on the state of our culture.

A little over two months ago, de Blasio won in a landslide election, yet his approval rating today stands in the thirties. His arrogance is on a par with his contempt for the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

On the website of the liberal Catholic outlet, Commonweal, Mollie Wilson O’Reilly accused Pope Francis of ignoring the problem of priestly sexual abuse. According to her, “he [the pope] has said and done little about the scandal itself”; and she maintains that “things haven’t been fixed.” Similarly, Father Thomas P. Doyle said the pope “has done almost nothing” about this issue, calling one of the pontiff’s efforts “so meaningless it is almost comical.” An editorial in the National Catholic Reporter also expressed its chagrin with the pope on this issue, imploring him “to meet with victims of clergy sex abuse.”

Here are some fast facts. We know from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice that 81 percent of the sexual abuse of minors was the result of male-on-male sex, and that less than 5 percent involved pedophilia. In other words, the Church witnessed a homosexual scandal.

Perhaps these people haven’t noticed but the scandal largely ended over a quarter century ago in the U.S., and has witnessed a marked decline in other nations. The data show that most of the abuse occurred between 1965 and 1985. In the last six years, a grand total of 7.0 credible accusations have been made against 40,000 priests. In short, there is little left for the pope to “fix.”

It is particularly galling for liberal Catholics to admonish the pope on this issue when their hero remains former priest Anthony Kosnik. A book he wrote, Human Sexuality, suspended all moral judgment on homosexuality, sodomy, and bestiality, and was taught to seminarians in the 1970s. It was commissioned by liberals at the Catholic Theological Society of America and was given a first-place award by the liberal Catholic Press Association. Subsequently, it was condemned by the bishops, but to this day it is celebrated by the National Catholic Reporter.

The call for the pope to meet with victims was a cruel ploy: these liberals have a vested ideological interest in keeping the scandal alive. Why? So they can press for their “reforms.”