Last month we predicted that voters in Oregon would decide against the repeal of their assisted-suicide law. We were right. By a huge margin of 60 to 40 percent, Oregonians secured their status as the only state that allows doctors to kill their patients. Chances are there will not be a net increase in migration to the state, though Dr. Kevorkian must surely be weighing a move.

As we previously noted, the pro-death forces also tend towards bigotry. The fight to maintain the doctor-assisted suicide law was strewn with anti-Catholicism, so much so that Auxiliary Bishop Kenneth Steiner of the Archdiocese of Portland said, “It’s popular to bash Catholics.” He added, “If they did it with any other minority, they wouldn’t get away with it.” Trish Conrad, campaign manager for the pro-life side, agreed: “To single out the Catholic Church from the hundreds of endorsements we’ve received is blatant bigotry.”

To demonstrate the anti-Catholic nature of the campaign, just consider the name of one of the organizations that opposed the position of the Catholic Church. It’s called, Don’t Let Them Shove Their Religion Down Your Throat Committee.

In the 1920s, Oregon was famous for the anti-Catholicism of the Klan. In the 1990s, it’s famous for the anti-Catholicism of the elite. So some things do change, after all.

In a review of William F. Buckley’s autobiography, “Nearer My God,” William Monahan of the New York Post charged, “Buckley may truly be pious, but he often comes across like a warlike dominie of the Catholic League….” Maybe that’s why we like the book.

Many things on both sides of the Atlantic have a way of traveling to the other side. Here’s one thing we hope stays over there.

In October, the Royal Academy of Arts in London promoted an exhibition of art called, “Sensation.” It was quintessentially modern, that is, it was vulgar, blasphemous and lacking in genuine creativity.

One of the pieces was entitled, “The Holy Virgin Mary.” It is an image of Mary surrounded by pornography, enmersed in elephant dung. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal said it all: “Attacks on Catholicism by the artsy crowd are so commonplace these days that many people, we presume, are no longer aware that they should be offended.” Exactly. Which is why we will continue to shake the public, including Catholics, from their slumber.

One of the favorite magazines of those who are still stuck in the ‘60s is Mother Jones. The Nov/Dec issue was dedicated to a newcomer of a subject for the publication, spirituality. Some religions were treated with kid gloves. It will surprise no one that ours wasn’t.

The whole point of the article on Catholicism, “The Unfaithful,” was to try and convince the reader that at least half of all priests and nuns are sexually active. It does this by relying on the work of Richard Sipe, as well as on anecdote, and that is why it fails: Sipe’s work has been thoroughly discredited and anecdote is no basis for generalizations.

Richard Sipe’s estimate of the number of priests who are sexually active speaks to “sexual tendencies,” not behavior. By that count, we responded, the figure should be 100 percent. The logical question, then, is: What are we supposed to make of such a profound insight?

Mother Jones also wants to us to believe that the celibacy requirement is the principal cause of declining vocations. But even Andrew Greeley has confessed that there is no data to support this assertion. More bad news for the anti-celibacy crowd: those dioceses that have the most orthodox seminaries also have the most seminarians while those that are the most trendy are virtually empty.

We thought it interesting that Mother Jones asked William Donohue to respond to this article in a letter to the editor even before the piece was published. Even more interesting was the call he received asking him to verify the comments he made in his letter rebutting the claims of the author. He did so with alacrity.

Not a Christmas goes by without the politically-correct police taking up the cudgels to make the month safe from Christians. It’s not interest in the First Amendment that propels them, it’s paranoia, pure and simple.

Even before Thanksgiving, the convulsions were evident in the Mahopac school district in New York. It seems that those subversives, the Boy Scouts, wanted to sell a holiday wreath at their annual fundraiser. But the mandarins of culture, the Mahopac school officials, wouldn’t allow it. They were afraid that someone might think that the school was endorsing favoritism of one religion over another.

Leaving aside the fact that a wreath is not a religious symbol, what struck us as not simply odd, but mean-spirited, was the contention that at the school’s official fundraising drive, Christmas tree ornaments could be sold because Hanukkah gifts are also sold (the Boy Scouts don’t sell Hanukkah gifts). In other words, it’s okay to hawk religious objects provided that there is representation of more than one religion.

We get the point. It’s okay to for Christians to celebrate Christmas in December because Jews celebrate Hanukkah. Good thing Hanukkah isn’t celebrated in November.

A newspaper in Pennsylvania that purports to be mainstream, the Carbondale News, recently gave air to a column on Catholicism that wouldn’t be found in most tabloids. To make matters worse, the writer is a paid member of the newspaper’s staff.

Tom Flannery doesn’t believe in the Real Presence of Jesus. He also doesn’t believe in ethics. He accuses those who don’t accept his beliefs as proclaiming “gross heresies,” and of promoting “detestable teachings” and “abominable lies.” Catholics are charged with “cannibalism” and for that they will see their souls “damned to everlasting perdition.”

We took our complaint to the editor. But given that Flannery works for the newspaper, we have no confidence that anything will be done about it. This was no mistake, rather it was a blatant in-your-face shot at Catholics.

Members may want to let the editor know what they think. They can contact him at 41 N. Church Street, Carbondale, PA 18407-1991.

Actress Lauren Hutton believes that though “the maker of us all” is sacred, religion should not be. She objects to religion because it “is a bunch of rules made up mostly by men.” Such logic dictates that she must be anti-basketball as well.

Hutton’s dislike of religion is not universal: she hates our religion more than others. Referring to a recent visit to Africa that the pope made, Hutton exclaimed, “The pope was there, in the middle of the AIDS belt, in his pope-mobile, exhorting hundreds of thousands to poor Kenyans to burn their condoms, which were given to them by the U.S.” How ungrateful of him.

Hutton’s comments, though worthy of the sanitarium, were made at a “Women Together” conference in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

On November 12, a story ran in many metropolitan newspapers about a Miami prostitute who maintained in court that she was just a nymphomaniac. The story was initially picked up by Reuters News Service and then farmed out to various newspapers.

The only reason we’re mentioning it is because, for some strange reason, Reuters decided to state that the woman was “a former Catholic high school student.” We’re waiting for the day when a stellar judge is mentioned by Reuters as “a former Catholic high school student,” but we won’t hold our breath in anticipation.

It is not everyday that the New York Times publishes a lengthy story on a piece of art that is being displayed in a Los Angeles museum. It is even more unusual to publish a color photo of it. But then again this is no ordinary work of art—it’s an explicitly anti-Catholic contribution.

In last month’s Catalyst, we did a story on the Gober exhibition that defiles Our Blessed Mother. This was the subject of the New York Times spread. The article proved to be as revealing in its rationalizations as the work it describes. William Donohue sent the Times his thoughts on the matter:

“The promotional literature of Gober’s work says that the artist ‘pierced his Virgin Mary with a phallic culver pipe,’ the purpose of which was to deprive ‘the Virgin Mary of the womb from which Christ was born.’ Yet the article says that objections should not be raised on the basis of a photo because the Gober is profoundly experiential and even interactive, a journey that must be traveled before an informed opinion can be arrived at.’

“This suggests that suffering must be experienced before an informed opinion can be made. But if this is true, then it would be irrational to oppose famine, disease and genocide without first experiencing it. Such a claim would be irrational because it would effectively end all future experiential journeys. In short, those who want to justify anti-Catholic art should simply do so without recourse to tortured logic.”

On Thursday evening, April 16, the Catholic League will celebrate its 25^th anniversary with a buffet dinner at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. All members, their families and friends are invited to attend.

The typical dinner in New York runs $500 per person. The Catholic League dinner, though still expensive, is half that price. By charging $250 per person, the league will not make much money, but we’re more interested in celebrating our accomplishments than in using the dinner as a fundraiser.

So mark your calendars now. Cardinal O’Connor will be the keynote speaker. April 16 is the Thursday following Easter so we hope that out-of-towners will be able to be with us.

Those who are interested in coming can send their checks to us at the Catholic League. Please mark this for the anniversary dinner.