On September 16, the city of Eugene, Oregon, hosted the Eugene Celebration Parade. A panel of volunteer judges gave cash prizes to the top entries. Winning second prize ($200) was a group called the “Rickies.” Their exhibition included 18 people dressed as the Pope, bishops, priests and nuns. The title of their entry, “Pope Goes the Weekend,” was a play on the theme “Pop Goes the Weekend.” Books titled Pope Fiction were held by people dressed as monks and there was a man dressed as the Pope named George Ringo. In obvious reference to the Beatles rock stars George Hanison and Ringo Starr, “Pope George Ringo” rode atop a float wearing a papal tiara.

As the float passed St. Mary Catholic Church, some of the Rickies ran onto church steps and lifted their cassocks and habits in exaggerated bows and genuflections. Area Catholics were offended by this exhibition and a complaint was filed with the Human Rights Commission in Eugene. The Catholic League is supporting the complaint, filed originally by Michael Whitney of Springfield, Oregon. A ruling on the complaint had not been made when Catalyst went to print.

In response to this incident, Catholic League president William Donohue offered the following comment to the press:

“It is always distressing to learn of anti-Catholic bigotry, but it is doubly distressing to learn that public officials have done nothing to combat it or to denounce it. Eugene Mayor Ruth Bascom still refuses to condemn the Catholic bashing that took place in her city on September 16. Though the prizes came from parade entry fees, the celebration steering committee is a city-sanctioned group.

“Mayor Bascom doubts that what the ‘Rickies’ did was intentional. The best she can offer is that we should ‘be respectful of the deep roots of religious beliefs.’ But that is a shallow and unsatisfactory remark. Having contacted her office, it seems plain that Mayor Bascom is prepared to let the matter rest. The Catholic League, however, is not.

“We will publish an open letter to Mayor Bascom in the Register-Guard, securing a half-page ad to register our concerns. It is hoped that this action will motivate the Mayor to make a forceful statement condemning anti-Catholicism, thus assuring Catholics everywhere that bigotry will not be tolerated in Eugene.”

If necessary, the Catholic League will bring this case before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

In protest to what happened to Catholic Answers, the largest Catholic apologetic and evangeliza- tion organization in North America, the Catholic League has quit LifeLine, the Christian long distance telephone service that is managed by AmeriVision Communications. In effect, LifeLine told Catholic Answers that it was “too Catholic,” and that is why the Catholic League has decided to quit the program.

The purpose of LifeLine is to provide Christians with an alternative to secular carriers of long distance telephone services while simultaneously supporting pro-life work and charitable programs. In addition, subscribers to LifeLine can give 10% back to their favorite ministry. Over the past year, the Catholic League has advertised LifeLine to its members and as a result has reaped a small financial gain.

Here is what LifeLine told Catholic Answers: “The purpose of this letter is to regretfully inform you that because Catholic Answers exists to spread and defend the Roman Catholic Faith, Carl Thompson, LifeLines’ Vice President, has decided not to go forward with your account.”

William A. Donohue wrote the League’s response:

“It was your decision not to enlist Catholic Answers in your program because Catholic Answers defends the ‘Roman Catholic Faith’ (your curious emphasis, sir, not mine). Apparently, you know very little about the Catholic League, otherwise you would have denied us as well. Please be advised that we, too, defend the Roman Catholic Faith and, as such, are not worthy of inclusion in your ‘Christian’ program. Accordingly, I will urge our members to quit LifeLine immediately.

“Furthermore, it is my decision to inform every Catholic in the United States about this matter. Quite obviously, I will urge all those who belong to LifeLine to quit and all those who were thinking about becoming members not to. Indeed, I will go further: I will ask our Protestant friends to practice ecumenism by also quitting your organization.

“Perhaps you could be sued for false advertising, but my own tactic is to honestly advertise exactly what you have done.”

I defy anyone to name a single organization that has more rabid members than the Catholic League. Indeed, one of the reasons why we don’t rent our membership list to other organizations is because of the special nature of our members. Our members are generous, loyal and extremely active. When we ask them to write to offending parties and the like, they respond with a vigor that is unparalleled. It cannot be exaggerated that the Catholic League is all of us, not simply the paid staff.

The Catholic League is growing by leaps and bounds. There are many reasons for our success, some of which I’d like to discuss.

As I’ve said before, the style of the Catholic League is to be “responsibly aggressive.” I know that our members love this style because we’ve never gotten as much positive mail as when I first wrote this in the September edition of Catalyst. Therefore, we will keep it up and hope not to let you down.

Second, we put our money where it counts: we do not spend money on frill events, rather we target specific issues and problem areas. For example, the ads that we recently ran in the newspapers in Eugene, Oregon and Las Vegas, Nevada were all unbudgeted expenditures. We take the money you give us and put it into meaningful projects, because otherwise, what in the world are we here for? Just to say we’re a bunch of good guys who feel wounded by bigots?

Third, we aim to win. Obviously, we don’t win them all, but our record of victories is impressive. If there is one thing that I am particularly impatient about, it is the idea that good intentions are good enough. Sorry, good intentions that never materialize into palpable results are nothing more than drawing board ideas. We specialize in public embarrassment of public figures who have earned our wrath and that is why we are able to win so many battles: no person or organization wants to be publicly embarrassed, and that is why we specialize in doing exactly that, when, of course, a case merits such a reaction.

Fourth, the Catholic League prizes its autonomy. This is critically important if the League is to succeed. We are neither ideologically driven nor in the pocket of fat cats. Our only mission is to defend individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation and discrimination. We defend, and criticize, Republicans as well as Democrats. Independent of wealthy contributors, we are proud to get our money from the rank and file.

Fifth, we stay focused. We do not try to be all things to all Catholics. Though we are pro-life, we are not a pro-life organization. Though we are pro-vouchers, we are not a pro-voucher organization. Though we are pro-family, we are not a pro-family organization. And so on. We are a civil rights organization. Our mission is the defense of individual Catholics and the institutional Church. Catholic rights and anti-defamation issues occupy the lion’s share of our work.

Sixth, we have a great staff. You’ve all heard the cliche about being “mean and lean.” Well, folks, that’s not an empty platitude for us-that is us. We’re not big in staff but we are staffed by big-hearted persons, men and women who know how to get the job done. So do our chapter leaders. They are becoming the kind of force that I dreamed they would become.

Lastly, we have you. You are the eyes and ears of the Catholic League. How do you think we got involved in the Eugene, Oregon case? If it hadn’t been for League member Daniel A. Sullivan of Noti, Oregon, we probably wouldn’t have known. The good news is that there are thousands of Dan Sullivans who belong to the Catholic League.

For all these reasons, and more, we are moving ahead doing the job of defending Catholic civil rights. The relatively few cheap shots that were taken at the Pope by the media in October is testimony to a change in the culture. We don’t want to become a politically correct force, but we do want to become a respected force, and that, I think, is exactly what we have become.

Merry Christmas, everyone, you’ve made this a very special one for all of us at the Catholic League.

In one sense, it sounds like an awfully dumb question to ask “Are Catholics Christians?” It is a matter of historical record that the Catholic Church is the world’s longest living institutional testimony to Christianity. But as the sociologist W.I. Thomas once said, “perception is reality,” and on that count, it may very well be that Catholics are not Christians.

When sociologists are asked who is a Jew, the textbook reply is, “someone who considers himself a Jew and is considered by non-Jews as a Jew.” And that is why everyone knows that Sammy Davis, Jr. was never a Jew, despite his own convictions. The same is true of Christians. When that term is invoked, it typically refers to Protestants, not Catholics, though technically Catholics are Christians. To be a Catholic, then, is to be someone whose primary identification is with Catholicism, notwithstanding nominal inclusion in the family of Christians.

The term “Religious Right” is typically employed by those who are critical of Christian conservatives, and by that they mean Protestants, not Catholics. Even those Catholics who are conservative generally don’t think of themselves as part of the “Religious Right,” and neither are they thought of that way by most conservative Protestants. So in “reality,” Protestants are the real Christians and Catholics are not. They are Catholics.

Theologically speaking, then, Catholics are Christians, but sociologically speaking, they most certainly are not. For the purpose of this analysis, it is the sociological reality that is operative.

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It is just as true to say that most anti-Catholics are Protestants as it is to say that most Protestants are not anti-Catholic. The former is true simply because of size: almost 6 in 10 Americans are Protestants, and when the quarter of the population that is Catholic is factored in, that doesn’t leave too many others to bash Catholics. The latter is true because Protestants have no monopoly on bigotry. To wit: Catholics are no more free of prejudice than their Christian brothers are.

So if we have prejudiced Catholics and prejudiced Protestants, why is it that we have so few, if any, well-known Catholics who are anti-Protestant bigots, but we have no shortage of well-known Protestants who are anti-Catholic bigots? From Jimmy Swaggart to Dave Hunt, there are not a few Protestants of notoriety who have been known to bash Catholics. But can anyone name a Catholic who is a public fig- ure who has a track record of bashing Protestants?

Take the 1994 Evangelical-Catholic accord, formally known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium (ECT). ECT was designed to have Catholics and Evangelicals put aside their doctrinal differences so that they might work together on cultural issues of joint interest. Led by the Catholic intellectual, Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, and the prominent Protestant spokesman, Chuck Colson, ECT showed great promise. But soon after the non-binding accord was signed, the grumbling began, and it came almost exclusively from Protestant circles.

The Protestant rebellion against ECT was the subject of a six part series of television programs hosted and moderated by John Ankerberg. Entitled “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” the series featured Ankerberg, D. James Kennedy, John McArthur and R.C. Sproul, all of whom are of some standing in Protestant circles. Their goal is to persuade the Evangelical signers to the accord to reconsider their position and remove their name from ECT. They have not been without some success and they show no sign of stopping.

What bothers the dissenters of ECT is that cooperation with Cath- olics on social issues will necessarily mean theological prostitution in the long run. Now if that were all there were to the grumbling, it would matter little in the end. But, unfortunately, the dissenters have not been able to broach their dissent without engaging in some old-time Catholic bashing along the way.

To Ankerberg, Kennedy, Sproul and McArthur, Catholicism is not merely a religion that has doctrinal differences with Protestantism, it is “a false religion.” Catholics, according to McArthur, are “trapped” in a “system of superstitious and religious ritual.” But not to worry, there is a solution: the dissenters boldly defend the noble cause of “sheep stealing,” that is, the process of systematically seeking to proselytize Catholics, bringing them over, it is hoped, to the one true religion.

The reaction among Catholics to all this has been one big yawn, and that explains why the bashing that has taken place over this accord has come from one side, not both. Meanwhile, “sheep stealing” efforts are lavishly funded in Latin America by U.S. Christian organizations. It would be interesting to know, for example, how Christians Evangel- izing Catholics would explain the absence in the Catholic community of any organized effort to “steal” Protestants. Christians Evangelizing Catholics is known for its aggressiveness in converting Catholics, and for entertaining some wild-eyed views of Catholicism. That there is no Catholic analogue of any stand- ing says something important about both communities.

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Not only are there no Catholic public figures who are known to bash Protestants, there are no Catholic publishing houses that bash Protestants either. To be sure, there are plenty of Catholic publishers who print books that defend Catholicism from its Protestant detractors. But I know of none that publishes what could fairly be called anti-Protestant books. Protestants, however, cannot say the same as there are Protestant publishing houses that bash Catholics.

If the only anti-Catholic material being published by Protestants was the junk that Chick Publications has to offer (little cartoon type book- lets), it may not matter too much. But when one of the largest Christian publishers in the nation regularly releases anti-Catholic books, it matters greatly. Harvest House boasts that it is one of the five or six largest Christian publishing houses in the country, and among its bestsellers are volumes like The Gospel According to Harvest House: Six Hundred and Sixty-Six Ways to Bash the Church. The reader can guess what Church they mean.

What makes this all the more disconcerting is the legitimacy that Harvest House has gained from respectable Protestant publishers. Harvest House is a member in good standing in the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, an organization that has no policy on publishing anti-Catholic books. As I said before, there is no shortage of Catholics who are bigots in this country, but for the life of me I cannot envision any anti-Protestant books being released by a big Catholic publishing house, much less one that would earn inclusion in respectable Catholic quarters. Once again, it seems Protestants have a monopoly on this kind of bigotry.

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There are Catholic pro-life groups and there are Protestant pro-life groups, and there are Christian pro- life groups that say they welcome both Protestants and Catholics. I don’t know of one Christian pro-life organization that doesn’t welcome all Protestants but there is at least one pro-life company, LifeLine (see p.l) that doesn’t welcome Catholics, not, at least, if it’s discovered that they’re “too Catholic.”

I think I know the real reason why Karl Keating’s Catholic Answers was denied participation in LifeLine’s program. Keating’s organization, and his influential publication, This Rock, specializes in educating Catholics about their faith, and it is his special mission to educate Catholics about the myths that some Protestants have spread about Catholicism. LifeLine says that Catholic Answers was denied participation in its program because of the “threats and demands” made by Keating’s organization. When pressed by the Catholic League to identify the nature of those threats, LifeLine failed to answer. Having spoken to Karl Keating, and to the person at LifeLine that worked with Keating, it is clear that the only “threat” that took place was the threat that Keating’s work posed to LifeLine’s work. A full audit of how LifeLine spends its money might reveal the real reasons for their discomfort with Keating.

This is not the only instance where Catholics have been made to feel unworthy by Protestants in the pro-life camp. Complaints from around the country have reached this office about the tendency on the part of some Protestants to question the Catholic commitment to the pro-life cause, resulting, in some cases, of attempts to commandeer the pro-life movement away from Catholics. Yet the irony is that it was the Catholic bishops who first led the pro-life cause. (Much the same could be said about the school voucher issue, only worse. There was a time when Catholics not only led the movement for vouchers, they did so while being resisted by Protestants, many of whom have now joined the campaign for vouchers.)

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It is not likely that a Catholic campus would embarrass itself by hosting a Catholic who is well-known for his Protestant bashing. This is one area where supply and demand are equal: there are no such figures in the first place and there is no such demand. But as we saw with Regent University, and with the sponsoring Rutherford Institute, the same does not hold for Protestants (see pg. 6).

Regent University, after some stumbling, got the picture and did the honorable thing by denouncing the appearance of Ian Paisley on campus. But Rutherford, long-time foe of the ACLU’s, all of a sudden became more civil libertarian than the ACLU.

All Rutherford had to do was make a statement similar to that of Regent’s and move on. But no, Rutherford tried to take the high road and instead got lost in doing so. It fell back on legalisms, always the mark of those who can’t win on moral grounds. And even there, Rutherford lost.

As I said in my statement to Rutherford, no one has a right to speak at any private institution; it is always a privilege to do so. Censor- ship occurs when government stops speech before it is uttered, not when a private university says no to an Ian Paisley, a Mark Fuhrman or a Louis Farrakhan or anyone else. “Let’s face it,” I wrote, “you are trying to hide behind a First Amendment that doesn’t give you protection.” Even worse, I added, “Not one word of condemnation of Ian Paisley can you utter.”

What was particularly galling about the Rutherford response was the way it tried to pretend how open-minded it was about Catholics. “Let me remind you,” I was told, Rutherford defends many Catholics, as evidenced in the defense of Catholics arrested for picketing an abortion clinic.

My reply was as follows: “Here’s another reality check for you: you tout your defense of Catholics engaged in pro-life work as proof that you are not anti-Catholic. But you know as well as I do that such action is taken out commitment to your pro-life stance (a commend- able one, I might add) and not because you are pro-Catholic. And I hasten to add that there is nothing wrong with Rutherford not being pro-Catholic (that is not your mis- sion), bul, alas, there is something wrong with Rutherford when it sanctions anti-Catholicism.”

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I can’t imagine a Catholic, unprovoked, going up to a Protestant at a Catholic function and asking him whether he believes in Jesus. Perhaps there are such people, but I’ve never met them. But that is exactly what happened to Catholic League staffers at this year’s Christian Coalition conference in Washington. We were also asked-not by the same person-whether we were Americans or Catholics. In addition, more than one of the attenders asked us to explain, in a hostile way, why Catholics needed a civil rights organization in the first place.

Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, the executive director and president of the Christian Coalition, respectively, are no more to blame for this big- otry than I am for the bigoted behavior of some Catholic League member. Indeed, Robertson has signed the Evangelical-Catholic accord and is comfortable with keeping his distance from the dis- senters. And Reed has made a deter- mined effort to reach out to Cath- olics. So if Reed and Robertson aren’t to blame, why mention this at all?

During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, it was common for well-meaning whites to ask blacks how they could help. Malcolm X had the best advice of all when he said that whites should go back into their own communities and clean up the bigotry that exists. Much the same needs to be said to Reed and Robertson: their new auxiliary, the Catholic Alliance, should rethink its emphasis on protecting Catholics from bigotry and instead focus on cleaning up the anti-Catholicism that exists in the Protestant community.

When plans were being made to launch the Catholic Alliance within the Christian Coalition, its goal was political mobilization. But that’s risky business as the Catholic hierarchy takes no position on most of the issues the Christian Coalition wants to address. It is one thing for Evangelicals to say that the line item veto, tax cuts and gun control are positions that merit a specific Christian response, quite another for lay Catholics to slap the Catholic label on these issues and offer what is in essence nothing but the Republican response.

Even more difficult is dealing with all those issues (capital punishment, immigration, the U.N., social welfare programs) where the Catholic Church, either through the bishops or through the Vatican, has taken a stand that is in direct opposition to the one favored by the Christian Coalition’s Catholic Alliance. The fact is that the Catholic Church is liberal on some issues and conservative on others. Not to realize this is to make a big mistake.

Even trickier for the Catholic Alliance is its new-found goal of combating anti-Catholic bigotry. It’s tricky for the reason I said earlier, namely, that most anti-Catholic bigots are-for no other reason than because of supply-more likely to be Protestant than anything else. So when Protestants bash Catholics, that puts the Catholic Alliance in the uncomfortable position of fighting Protestants who are anti-Catholic bigots. For this reason alone, I wouldn’t dream of forming an auxiliary within the Catholic League called the Protestant League. Besides, who am I to defend Protestants from bigots?

The proof that the Catholic Alliance has reached too far came with-in a few weeks of its launching. To my knowledge, the first public statement that the group made was to join with the Catholic League (at our invitation) in condemning anti-Catholic bigotry on the campus of the person who is president and founder of the Christian Coalition and president and chancellor of the university where the incident took place, namely on the campus of Pat Robertson’s Regent University. Talk about awkward.

It would also be advisable for the Catholic Alliance to stay away from the affairs of the Catholic Church. I say this because the Alliance’s parent, the Christian Coalition, has had a tendency to stick its nose in where it doesn’t belong. For example, when an allegedly controversial Catholic funeral was said in Seattle this past summer for a state senator who died of AIDS, the state chapter of the Christian Coalition in Washington publicly criticized the priest for presiding over the service.

It is important to note that this action was defended by the national office of the Christian Coalition, so we are not speaking here about some trigger-happy operative in the state of Washington. When the national office asked for my advice about this matter at the time, I replied by saying “I think it would be ill-advised for the Christian Coalition to pursue this matter.” They didn’t listen and continued to press the issue. Now if this is an indication of the way the Catholic Alliance is going to behave, we will all be in for some fireworks.

It could also be questioned why a Catholic Alliance is necessary in an organization called the Christian Coalition. Why is there no Lutheran Alliance or Methodist one? But then again, maybe that’s because Catholics aren’t Christians.

League members are active in their communities, bringing to our attention instances of anti-Catholic bigotry. They personally undertake action themselves, voicing their opinions. And they have been successful. One example involves a syndicated cartoon which shows the three Magi going to visit the Baby Jesus. One of the shepherds says, “Wait…aren’t we just encouraging these teen-age pregnancies?” Many people complained to Connecticut’s New Britain Herald, one of numerous newspapers that printed this cartoon. The newspaper issued an apology on its editorial page. Individuals can make a difference; letter writing is an important avenue of expressing one’s opinion. Keep up the good work!

The best-selling book, Sleepers, is soon to be a movie. The author, Lorenzo Carcaterra, claims that the book is a true account of his years at Sacred Heart School, a Catholic elementary school in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen area. According to Carcaterra, he and three of his friends were sent to a New York State reform school in the 1960s for engaging in a prank that left a street vendor injured. While at the upstate reform school, the four youths were allegedly brutalized and sexually assaulted by four guards.

Sometime around 1980, two of the youths (both street criminals by then) met one of the guards and killed him. The book, which is published by the Random House subsidiary, Ballantine Books, alleges that one of the other two youths, who had since become an Assistant District Attorney in New York, arranged to get assigned to the case so that he could sabotage it for his friends. The remaining youth, Carcaterra (then a reporter for the Daily News) , supposedly arranged for the parish priest at Sacred Heart to provide alibi testimony for the two youths charged with murder. Both of them were subsequently acquitted.

The book is soon to be a movie starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, and is being released by Propaganda Films.

When confronted with the charge that the book is a work of fiction, none of the principals to the work-author Carcaterra, editor Peter Gethers, or anyone else associated with the script-is willing to make public any evidence that the account is true.

Catholic League president William A. Donohue offered the following remarks to the press about the case:

“I am convinced that Sleepers is a fraud. If I am wrong, then Lorenzo Carcaterra and Peter Gethers can prove me wrong by providing a sworn affidavit that the account is true and will provide me with the names of the priest and the Assistant District Attorney they allege were involved in this caper.

“To exploit a Catholic parish and school for financial gain and notoriety is despicable. Rev. Kevin Nelan, the pastor of Sacred Heart, and Father John Duffell, who served at Sacred Heart while Carcaterra attended school there, know that the work is a fiction, and so does the Catholic League. This is a matter for New York Attorney General Dennis Vacca; we will see to it.”

Within minutes of sending the news release, New York Attorney General Vacca’s office called Dr. Donohue regarding this case. The Catholic League is working closely with Bill Callahan, a former federal prosecutor who now heads an investigative firm, and Thomas Harvey, attorney for Sacred Heart. The U.S. Attorney ‘s office has also been drawn into the case.

On November 8, Dr. Donohue, Bill Callahan, and Thomas Harvey, met with with a representative of the New York State Attorney General’s Office.

Now it may be that for technical reasons, this case cannot be prosecuted. But that doesn’t mean that wrongdoing hasn’t been done and that the Catholic religion hasn’t been unfairly maligned. As far as the Catholic League is concerned, this is an open case, and that is why it will pursue this matter to the end.

When the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel opened last March in Las Vegas, it featured a restored carved gothic altar in one of its cocktail bars, the Viva Las Vegas Lounge. The offensive use of the altar has been a source of criticism by many area Catholics, among them Bishop Daniel F. Walsh of the Diocese of Las Vegas.

As soon as the lounge opened, Bishop Walsh registered his concerns with Peter Morton, the owner of the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel chain. Morton assured the Bishop that plans were underway to remove the sacrilegious use of the altar. However, despite repeated promises that the altar would be removed, seven months later it is still standing, and that is why the Catholic League got involved in the matter.

The Catholic League outlined its strategy to the press:

“For seven months, Bishop Walsh has labored to get Peter Morton to remove the offensive use of the altar at the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. At every juncture, promises have been made to remove the altar and still nothing has been done. Indeed, the bartenders who work at the Viva Las Vegas Lounge in the Hard Rock establishment openly scoff at the idea that plans are underway to remove the sacrile- gious use of the altar. Accordingly, the time has now come to put public pressure on Mr. Morton.

“The Catholic League will contact the media in Las Vegas about this incident, and will alert the national media to it as well. We will also take out ads in the local newspapers, as well as the diocesan newspaper, requesting Catholics not to patronize the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel and to organize demonstrations in front of the establishment. We will also contact local Catholic organizations to organize phone trees and deliver their message straight to Mr. Morton. If more pressure is needed, we will bring it to bear, including a national boycott of all Hard Rock Cafes.”

The Catholic League followed through on its promise by taking out three ads in area newspapers: The Las Vegas Review-Journal (the most influential newspaper in Las Vegas), El Mundo (the Spanish newspaper of record) and the Desert Clarion (the diocesan newsletter). A copy of the ad as it was submitted to the Las Vegas Review-Journal appears below.

However, the ad as it appeared was altered without permission of the Catholic League. Deleted from the ad was the name of Steve Cavallaro. More important, the hotel management number, (702) 693- 5000, was substituted for Cavallaro’s number, thereby bypassing the culprit.

When the story broke, Cavallaro called Dr. Donohue and denied that the altar was an altar. He said it was “a wooden object found in someone’s basement.” When Donohue asked him what the public would say if, for example, ten people were randomly chosen off the streets of Las Vegas to say what they thought the object was, Cavallaro said he wasn’t sure what they would say.

Hard Rock says it will remove the altar on November 30. Ironically, they are now thinking about putting the altar in a wedding chapel within the hotel. That being the case, it settles the matter as to what the object is: why would they want to put “a wooden object found in someone’s basement” in a chapel?

The Catholic League will announce its next move once it finds out what happens on November 30.

But the Sponsoring Rutherford Institute Does Not

On October 26, Regent University hosted Rev. Ian Paisley, the man most responsible for inflaming anti-Catholicism in Ireland. To those unacquainted with Paisley, he is a man who refers to the Vatican as “Harlot City” and the Pope as “the Antichrist.” Invited by the student chapter of the Rutherford Institute (a Christian legal defense organization), Paisley spoke on “Religious Liberty: Its Role in International Politics.” The student group is fully recognized by Regent but is not funded by the school.

Pat Robertson is the founder and chancellor of Regent University and is founder and president of the Christian Coalition.

The Catholic League issued the following statement on this matter to the press:

“Rev. Ian Paisley is, unquestionably, the most notorious anti-Catholic bigot in all of Europe. For decades he has provoked warfare between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, even to the point of organizing his hooded Third Force para-military thugs. It is therefore outrageous that any American university would extend to Paisley the right to legitimize his demagoguery. Moreover, to ask Ian Paisley to speak on religious liberty is akin to asking Mark Fuhrman or Louis Farrakhan to speak on racial harmony.

“The most disturbing aspect of this affair is the nature of the school that is hosting Ian Paisley. In the November edition of the Atlantic Monthly, Baptist minister and Harvard theologian Harvey Cox describes Regent University as ‘the intellectual and theological center of the Christian Coalition’ (Cox also notes the presence of anti-Catholicism on the campus). It is important, therefore, that the Christian Coalition condemn the decision to extend a forum to Paisley.

“It is doubly important that the newly-created auxiliary of the Christian Coalition, the Catholic Alliance, join with us in denouncing Regent’s role in this affair. After all, the Catholic Alliance advertises itself as an organization that ‘was formed this year as Christian Coalition’s largest and most important affiliate to speak out against anti-Catholic bigotry….’ That being the case, we anxiously await the response of the Catholic Alliance, as well as the Christian Coalition.”

The initial response from Regent administrators was to defend Paisley’s visit, though that was quickly reversed by the president of the university. After Paisley spoke, J. Nelson Happy, dean of the law school, offered the following remark to a reporter from the Associated Press: “I guess Ian Paisley wouldn’t have been my poster boy for Regent University,” adding that Paisley’s presence “shows a maturing of the institution, a willingness to permit different opinions.”

The Catholic League’s objections to this event were taken seriously by the president of the university, Dr. Terry Lindvall, who was not on the campus when the incident took place. He apologized to Dr. Donohue and denounced the statement by Dean Happy. Dr. Donohue accepted the apology and this effectively ended the dispute between the Catholic League and Regent.

The situation with the Rutherford Institute, however, was quite different. On October 27, Dr. Donohue faxed a letter to Rutherford director John Whitehead asking whether he, personally, agreed with the decision of the Rutherford student chapter at Regent to sponsor Ian Paisley.

The Rutherford reply was written by Rita Woltz, their Education Coordinator.

Never once did she criticize Paisley or the decision of the Rutherford student chapter to invite him. Instead, she took the occasion to defend the students by making a free speech argument.

In reply, Dr. Donohue said, “I find it absolutely incredible that as a lawyer representing a legal organization that you do not know the meaning of the term censorship. Censorship is something that only government can engage in, not private institutions. That is precisely why the First Amendment says that “Congress shall pass no law…abridging the freedom of speech….” He then proceeded to explain his position, challenging Rutherford to make good on its “free speech” pledge by inviting Mark Fuhrman or Louis Farrakhan to speak at Regent.

The following article puts this incident in a wider context, raising some disturbing questions about Catholic-Protestant relations.

In October, Catholic League Review, the Catholic League’s Long Island television show, hosted Bob Peters of Morality in Media, local Catholic activist Jacques Casanova and educator Dr. Catherine Hickey.

The discussion with Bob Peters and Bill Donohue centered on how the media have changed over the past decade, both in the film industry and the television industry. Peters, an attorney with considerable experience in First Amendment law, proved to be a lively and informative guest.

Jacques Casanova is a parishioner at St. Joseph’s Church in Garden City and is known for his work in promoting school vouchers and for monitoring the public schools on Long Island. Casanova attended the Central Park Mass that the Holy Father presided over and used that experience as a platform for his remarks. Casanova adopted vintage Catholic League style by aggressively tackling Frances Kissling’s phony group, Catholics for a Free Choice.

Dr. Catherine Hickey, Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of New York, did two shows for Catholic League Review. The first focused on the reasons why Catholic schools have such a good academic record, and the second part dealt with Catholic values and how they impact on the curriculum. The discussion with Dr. Hickey demonstrated why Catholic schools are so lucky to have people of her caliber directing them.

The Broadway play, Sacrilege, is not anti-Catholic the way the movie Priest was, but it is certainly not designed to flatter the Catholic Church either.

The play involves a progressive nun who wants to be a priest. Sister Grace (played by Ellen Burstyn) is portrayed as a nun who serves the poor while openly defying the teachings of the Catholic Church. At one point, she pretends to hear confession and bestow the last rites on a dying man. Responsible for turning a street bum into a priest, Sister Grace is quickly identified by the audience as a person who serves the Lord while disobeying her superiors. The play ends with Cardinal King (who just removed Sister Grace from the Sisters of Charity) stating that he is leaving for Appalachia to work with the poor so that he can see what it is like to be a priest again. He then asks the ex-nun to hear his confession.

Catholic League president William A. Donohue saw the play on October 29 and issued the following remark to the press:

“Sacrilege will be welcomed by every disaffected Catholic, feminist and secularist as a worthy political statement against the Catholic Church. Though the play does not engage in Catholic bashing, it does invite the audience to see the Catholic Church as an oppressive institution. True to form, traditionalists who uphold the Church’s teachings are seen as authoritarian and unenlightened while progressives who challenge the Church are cast as humane and intelligent. The silly ending to the play, coupled with its political tendentiousness, makes Sacrilege the kind of artistic com- mentary that is vintage 1990s.

“Those who perceive the play as making an accurate statement on the Catholic Church would do well to explain why any institution-secular or religious-should permit public displays of insubordination. It would also help to know why the teaching prerogatives of the Catholic religion seem to warrant such public fascination, even to the point of being voyeuristic.”

The play, in short, is one big lament and will find favor with those who are more interested in egalitarian politics than in service to the Church.