When Bill Donohue filed a complaint with the authorities against Anthony Weiner over the summer, he had no idea it would prove to be so historic. Following the election, Hillary Clinton blamed this FBI probe for her loss to Donald Trump.

On August 31, Donohue asked for an investigation of Weiner on suspicion of sexually abusing his four-year-old child, Jordan. He did so because of a front-page story in the New York Post showing Weiner using his son as a “chick magnet” to lure sexual relations. (Two days earlier the paper ran a story on Weiner “sexting” a middle-age woman.)

Donohue immediately filed a complaint with the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), the New York City branch of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services. His initiative was cited by the New York Post and the British Daily Mail Online.

On September 26, Donohue received a phone call from ACS. He was told that his complaint had been accepted and that Weiner was under investigation by the New York Police Department. The next day, the same ACS official called to question him further. A week later, on October 3, FBI agents seized Weiner’s laptop, phone, and tablet.

On October 28, the FBI announced that it had found emails on Weiner’s  computer from his wife, Huma Abedin, sent to Hillary Clinton on her private server. It quickly examined them, concluding a week later that no law had been broken.

Donohue triggered the investigation because of media bias: it continues to blame priests for sexually abusing minors. He also cited the “emotional and physical well being” of Jordan.

Had Donohue not filed a formal complaint, the NYPD would not have launched a probe looking for child porn on Weiner’s computer. The NYPD, in turn, would not have contacted the FBI had it not found emails between Abedin and Hillary that were on her private server.

On November 12, Hillary held a conference call with her trusted aides. She contended that FBI director James Comey was responsible for turning public opinion against her. She argued that his public statement on October 28 announcing the probe cost her the election.

What Hillary did not say is that in July, after Comey completed his first investigation of her emails, he pledged to alert the Congress if there were any other developments. She and her staff never complained then.

As Donohue sees it, the political fallout must be laid squarely at the doorstep of Hillary Clinton. Had she not had her own server, the FBI would have had nothing to investigate.

At the last meeting of the board of directors, Dr. Walter Knysz was chosen to succeed Fr. Philip Eichner as the new chairman of the board.

Walt holds a Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the Univer-sity of Detroit. What makes him unique is his entrepreneurial background: he has founded several dental business companies.

One of his achievements is the establishment of a global provider of dental insurance; another is his founding of a dental practice management company. More recently, he launched a franchise agreement with independent dental practitioners, providing an array of services.

Walt is past chairman of the Leading the Way Campaign, and has been active for years serving on the board of Ave Maria University. He has also been pivotal serving the Thomas More Law Center.

Walt and Bill Donohue first met at a national Legatus conference where Bill was scheduled to speak. Bill knew immediately that he had met someone special. He remembers the occasion well.

“When I first met Walt, I was impressed by his enthusiasm, great sense of humor, and strong interest in helping the Catholic League,” Donohue said. “He soon joined the board of directors and I am delighted now that he is chairman. A better man for the job would be hard to find.”

Donohue added, “The Catholic League is in good hands with Dr. Walter Knysz at the helm. He and his wife, Jan, make for a splendid Christmas gift!”

William A. Donohue

I tweeted the following on November 4. “Bill Kristol, who has been wrong all along, now says Hillary will win bigger than Obama did in 2012. My takeaway—it’s good news for Trump.”

The eggheads blew it. This election proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Ivy League pundits and scholars are anything but the independent thinkers they claim to be. Indeed, they function more like a herd.

Most of the chattering class never served a day in the armed forces, or even took a swing at a baseball, so pampered has their lifestyle been. From the National Review and the Weekly Standard, to the New Republic and the Nation, the softball kings and queens need to do penance: they need to sit down and talk to the proletariat. George Will—are you listening?

The day before the election, I emailed some friends about the outcome.  In two of my missives, I said, “Look for a Trump upset tomorrow”; the other two said, “I think the pollsters are all wrong. Predicting a Trump victory.”

What did I see that others didn’t? Over a year ago, I said neither Jeb Bush nor Hillary Clinton would get elected. Why? Voter fatigue—we’ve had it with the two families. Jeb got .2 percent of the primary vote and Hillary is still in disbelief.

In early 2016, I commented on Trump’s strengths. My first article appeared on February 10, “Elites Don’t Get Trump’s Appeal”; it drew a favorable response from Trump. My next piece, published on April 22, read, “Trump Taps Into Mass Distrust.” On June 2, I wrote, “Trump is a Man of the People.” The titles convey my central point: Trump resonates with angry voters, most of whom have been treated like dirt by the establishment.

The eggheads got it wrong from the get-go, beginning with the primaries. To wit: If Hillary Clinton couldn’t win in Michigan and Wisconsin, she was in deep trouble come November. More-over, I reasoned, many of those same Democrats who voted against Clinton in the primaries were poised to do so a second time. They did.

If the eggheads weren’t so drunk on polls, they would have asked themselves over the summer why all the polls on the Brexit vote were wrong. Similarly, they would have questioned why the polls on the peace deal championed by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos were all wrong; his side was slated to win by a margin of better than 2-1.

Another factor that should have meant something to the eggheads was the survey this fall that showed that 75 percent of the public said the media are biased against Trump. If they can’t understand what that means, they should retire.

Among those who blew it was University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato: “Sabato’s Final Call: Hillary Wins Big, 50-50 Senate.” Here’s another keeper: “Emerson College Polling Predicts Massive Electoral Win for Clinton.” Reuters told us, “Clinton Has a 90 Percent Chance of Winning.” Huffington Post was even dumber, claiming, “98% Chance of a Clinton Win.” The same website also ran a piece by an Ivy professor titled, “Yes, Folks, It’s President Hillary.”

If these sages were lawyers, they would be disbarred for incompetence.

On election day, a poll produced for ABC told us that early voting heavily favored Clinton, 51-43 percent. Slate, the left-wing website, boasted that it teamed with a novel pollster to offer brand new insights on voter behavior, rendering accurate projections in real time. It was another monumental failure.

One might have thought that the folks at Politico would have connected the dots on election day when it reported that those who had already voted said that more than anything else, they wanted “strong leadership.” Yet it posted a picture of Trump saying it would take a “miracle” for him to win. Has anyone ever credited Hillary with “strong leadership”?

One egghead who at least admitted he lives in an intellectual ghetto is David Brooks of the New York Times. He confessed in April that he had spent “large chunks of my life in the bourgeois strata—in professional circles with people with similar status and demographics to my own.”

I wrote to him commending him for his honesty, offering a tonic. “Now you need to visit a working-class pub and meet real people—their anger explains their draw to Trump.” Alas, there is no evidence that he ever left his carrel in the library.

Politico recently had two stories saying how the Anthony Weiner Wikileaks story really hurt Hillary. Her camp is blaming Comey. They should instead blame her for using her private server. Had she not done so, the FBI wouldn’t have seized the computer owned by Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin.

It was the NYPD that alerted the FBI—it was looking for child porn on Weiner’s laptop—and it was me who filed a formal complaint against Weiner for suspected child sexual abuse. I suspect the eggheads would call that karma. Cheers!

William Doino Jr.

Rodney Stark, Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (Templeton Press, 2016)

In the world of religious scholarship, few men are as respected as Rodney Stark. He is a sociologist by training, and now co-director of Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion.

Among his best-known works are The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (1996), The Victory of Reason: How Christianity led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success (2005), America’s Blessings: How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists (2012), and last year’s The Triumph of Faith: Why the World is More Religious Than Ever.

 As one might infer from these titles, Stark has invested a great deal of time and energy exploring the benefits of mainstream religion—especially Christianity—which he sees as influencing civilization in a unique and unrivalled way.

As far ranging as his work is, however, Stark has never published a book exclusively about the Roman Catholic Church, until now. Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History, is Spark’s latest work, and it is as important as anything he has ever written.

Bearing False Witness examines ten alleged sins of the Church: creating anti-Semitism; suppressing secret Gospels; persecuting pagans; fostering the “Dark Ages”; launching immoral Crusades; sponsoring the Inquisition; obstructing science, sanctioning slavery, embracing authoritarianism, and opposing modernity.

Employing the best modern research, and heavily documenting all his points, Stark shows that every one of these charges is either false or seriously exaggerated—often maliciously so.

Stark’s mastery of the topic is displayed in his opening chapter, where he thoroughly dismantles the claim that the Catholic Church gave birth to anti-Semitism, fostered it, and then turned a blind eye to its millions of victims during the Holocaust.

In fact, anti-Semitism emerged in the pagan world, well before the beginnings of the Catholic Church, which was a minority sect during its early existence, without the ability to dominate anyone.

 After the Catholic population grew, and its leaders did obtain power, they treated those with opposing viewpoints with far greater charity than pagans ever had. Christ’s command to love one another had a profound impact upon Catholic behavior, especially toward the long-suffering Jewish community. Not surprisingly, when Jews became targets of fascist and Nazi militants, in the early twentieth century, the Catholic Church, far from remaining “silent,” was among the first to come to their defense, as records from the fascist-Nazi era amply demonstrate.

More importantly, the Church’s defense of persecuted Jews wasn’t restricted to words; Catholics everywhere, led by the heroic Pope Pius XII—who was involved in three separate plots to overthrow Hitler, and denounced as a “mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals” by the Nazis—backed those words up with concrete actions, saving hundreds of thousands  of Jewish lives.

At one point, the Nazis decided to kidnap and possibly even kill Pius XII, but he never left Rome, despite being urged to do so, and continued his life-saving activities from Vatican City. As just one of many interventions, Stark notes that the pontiff “used his summer home, Castel Gandolfo, to shelter thousands of Jews during the War, providing them with kosher food and turning his private apartment into an obstetrical ward.”

Jewish communities graciously thanked Pius XII for his leadership and rescue efforts during the War; and no amount of anti-papal revisionism will ever be able to erase the truth and sincerity of those tributes, without doing violence to history itself.

Stark’s takedown of anti-Catholic polemicists who have tried to depict the Church of Pius XII as complicit with Nazism marks a real turning point, for what it proves is that the best and most respected scholars of our time have now repudiated the claim that the Church posed an existential threat to the Jewish community, and that Pius XII remained aloof and indifferent toward their persecution during the Holocaust. “The Roman Catholic Church,” concludes Stark, “has a long and honorable record of stout opposition to attacks upon Jews. And Pope Pius XII fully lived up to that tradition.”

Batting away the charge that the Catholic Church was anti-Semitic sets the stage for Stark’s ensuing chapters, which expose equally disreputable myths.

Confronting the claim that the Church suppressed alternative and equally valid “Gnostic Gospels,” a favorite theory of certain academics, Stark demonstrates just the opposite: there were no “alternative” forms of legitimate Christianity at that time—and the “Gnostic Gospels” were no more validly Christian than science fiction or the Da Vinci Code. The Gnostic sects and their writings eventually collapsed because of their own lack of credibility and incoherence, not because of any Church conspiracy to cover-up supposed secrets about Christ and His apostles.

The oft-heard claim that the Church ruthlessly crushed paganism is equally off the mark. While the coming of Christ, and the establishment of His Church, clearly marked a break from pagan living, the early Christians tried to incorporate whatever was good and honorable in pagan civilization, while rejecting its destructive parts—and even then, most often and successfully did so through persuasion and Christian witness. Brute force and coercion were not the hallmarks of the early Church.

That being so, is it not at least true that the Church routinely resorted to force and wicked cruelty during the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and slavery?

Stark answers each question honestly and comprehensively, and the short answer is “Yes, and No”—with an emphasis placed on the “No.” While the very concept of an inquisition resorting to physical punishment is objectionable, the Spanish one led by Catholics was usually much less severe than other forms of justice then being meted out. Indeed, when those suspected of wrongdoing learned they would face investigation—and might have to pay mightily for their actions—they invariably preferred placing their fate with the Church, rather than secular regimes, realizing they would receive a much fairer hearing among committed Catholics.

This is not to rationalize a procedure which never should have existed in the first place, only to point out what its actual record was, in comparative terms, and in a world filled with miscarriages of justice. And it should be noted that the Spanish Inquisition often exonerated people, particularly those accused of witchcraft, who were burned at the stake by many non-Catholic governments.

Yet, it is the Spanish Inquisition which is constantly singled out for unspeakable and unique acts of cruelty. Stark contends that this is a consequence of rival religions and cultures: “The standard account of the Spanish Inquisition is mostly a pack of lies, invented and spread by English and Dutch propagandists in the sixteenth century during their wars with Spain, and repeated ever after by the malicious or misled historians.”

The practice of slavery is also indefensible, but, like anti-Semitism, it wasn’t begun by Christians, and Stark proves that slaves were treated considerably better by Catholic masters than Protestant ones. This may be because Popes strongly and repeatedly condemned the practice, ameliorating its evils, even as they did not always have the power to enforce their teachings. Had temporal rulers and ordinary believers fully obeyed the Holy See, the slave trade would have ended much sooner than  it did.

Having already written a book on the Crusades, boldly entitled, God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (2009), Stark challenges a whole body of polemical literature which condemns the Crusades unequivocally. He shows that, contrary to popular belief, they were not launched to ruthlessly conquer non-Christians, but to defend Christian people already under ferocious attack by Islamic warriors.

Stark’s history of Catholic-Muslim conflict is jolting and  politically incorrect, but it is based on a careful, dispassionate reading of history, and Stark’s conclusion is striking: “The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot or converts. The Crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. The Crusades are not a blot on the history of the Catholic Church. No apologies are required.”

 Stark’s exposé of anti-Catholic mythology reaches a crescendo when answering those who invented the idea of the Catholic “Dark Ages.” No reputable historian who writes about the years in question, roughly 500-1500 AD, believes they were backward or superstitious, at least in comparison to what came before them. If anything, these were Catholic ages of progress and enlightenment—in education, the arts, and scientific advancement; and the Middle (not “Dark”) Ages also marked the beginnings of a rudimentary free-market system.

According to Stark, the whole narrative of the “Dark Ages” was an act of intellectual pride perpetrated by seventeenth-century atheists and rationalists who were determined to prove that their age was the first of “Enlightenment,” and that the Catholic Church was uninvolved in the advance of modernity. They could not be more mistaken. Not only was the Church involved in the best aspects of modernity, it laid its very foundations.

The same is true today, when it is the Roman Catholic Church, more than any other institution on earth, which defends human life and dignity against violence, abortion, euthanasia, human trafficking and pornography, to mention only a few of the many evils which now surround us.

In marshaling peer-reviewed research and unassailable evidence on the Church’s behalf,  Stark does not commit the opposite mistake of whitewashing Catholics who have truly done wrong. Stark knows—and we all know—that there have been individual Catholics, both religious and lay, past and present, who have violated the Gospel, and he makes no excuses for them.

“But no matter how much importance one places on these negative aspects of Church history,” he writes in his introduction, “it does not justify the extreme exaggerations, false accusations and patent frauds in the chapters that follow. Faced with this enormous literature of lies, I have heeded the words of Columbia University’s Garret Mattingly (1900-62), ‘Nor does it matter at all to the dead whether they receive justice at the hands of succeeding generations. But to the living, to do justice, however belatedly, should matter.'”

Actually, I believe that the unjustly maligned, now in Heaven, do appreciate historical justice, however late its arrival; and those now living, still dealing with the slings and arrows of anti-Catholic bigotry, should be even more appreciative to Rodney Stark—a non-Catholic, independent and conscientious Christian scholar—for writing this courageous and exceptional work.

William Doino Jr. is a contributing editor to Inside the Vatican magazine, and an online contributor for First Things. Known for his research and writings on Church history, his 80,000-word  annotated bibliography on Pope Pius XII and the Second World War appears in the anthology, The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII.

The following article written by Bill Donohue was recently published by CNSNews.com.

The corruption of American culture is evident in many ways, but few markers are more telling than the way Hollywood entertains us at Christmastime.

It was 70 years ago when “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released. NBC describes it as “a holiday classic and remains the movie people associate with Christmas more than any other. Frank Capra’s definitive film is a tearjerker that proves that, even in our darkest hours, the human spirit can and will rise triumphant.”

Today, we are being treated to obscene lyrics, raw sex, misogyny, and violence. Not one of the four Christmas-themed films released this season is worthy of being described as a family movie. There are no guardian angels directing the lead characters to consider how the world would be without them; no triumph of self-sacrifice; no statement against greed; no childhood sweetheart to marry; no inspiration of any sort. Just filth.

The first of the Christmas-themed flicks opened on November 11. “Almost Christmas” is proudly touted as another one of those “dysfunctional-family holiday movies.” Danny Glover brings the whole family together for Thanksgiving, hoping to quell the in-fighting. It doesn’t work: family members start attacking each other with fire extinguishers and shotguns.

The movie depicts a crude, hard-drinking female showing how much respect she has for children. Speaking about a young boy, she says, “I got vibrators older than that child.” Then there is the gal employee in the grocery store who pulls the back of her panties up above her pants, asking one of the male family members, “Did you find everything you need?”

There is another scene where a woman is outside the house and sticks her head in the window, only to have it close on her. Stuck, a man comes up behind her to help. He puts his hands on either side of her while trying to open the window, appearing to neighbors as if he’s having sex with her.

In another scene, Santa’s head is severed and it comes tumbling down from the roof, scaring one of the little girls. All throughout the movie, women call each other bitches. Nice lesson for teenage boys.

“Why Him?” opens December 23. It features an overprotective dad who meets his daughter’s socially retarded Silicon Valley billionaire boyfriend. It doesn’t go well. The boyfriend greets the family with a slew of “F-words.” He says of their daughter, Stephanie, “Remember when we made love in the hot tub? Steph just opened up like a flower. You should have seen it.” The mother replies, “No, I shouldn’t have seen it, but now I feel like I did.” Most parents would have upbraided him, but there is no fun in that.

Jennifer Aniston stars in “Office Christmas Party,” which opens December 9. She plays a CEO who wants to close the failing company branch run by her brother. His employees insist on a Christmas party.

In the course of the party, Jesus is mocked, and Santa yells, “Merry Christmas, bitches.” A female employee unloads with the following (poorly constructed expletive) remark, “It’s f-word Christmas b-word let’s get motherf-word drunk.” Santa is also seen sledding down the stairs in the office, crashing into the nativity scene.

This is curious. When was the last time a nativity scene was displayed—or even allowed—at an office Christmas party? Why didn’t Santa crash into a “holiday tree”?

By far the most vulgar Christmas movie this season is “Bad Santa 2.” It is a sequel to the 2003 original.

When the first “Bad Santa” appeared, I described Santa as a “chain-smoking, drunken, foul-mouthed, suicidal, sexual predator. He is shown soiling himself in Santa’s chair, vomiting in alleys, having sex with a woman bartender in a car, and performing anal sex on a huge woman in a dressing room. And commentary in front of kids is replete with the ‘F-word.'”

Who would be drawn to such a film? “The movie will be a hit with college drop-outs, toilet-humor buffs and those who think like the Weinstein brothers.” The latter was a reference to Bob and Harvey Weinstein of Miramax, a subsidiary of Disney.

Miramax is one of the production companies behind “Bad Santa 2,”  though the Weinstein boys have since gone their own way. As expected, this movie is ever faithful to the original. Here’s a sample, taken from the trailer, of what’s in store; it opened November 23.

A child sits on Santa’s lap (played by Billy Bob Thornton) and asks, “Why do you have two beards?” The hard-drinking Santa replies, “That’s none of your f***ing business.” The audience is treated to a string of “F-words” and other obscenities. When Santa sees a cute redhead, he says to himself, “I bet that p**** got lips like an orangutan.” Santa, an elf, and others repeatedly shout the “F-word” at children.

When a child makes a Christmas donation, Mrs. Santa comments, “Cheap little f*****.” Scatological commentary is commonplace, and Santa is shown having anal sex with the redhead, laughing how “pretty f***ing dirty” it is. When a man complains about the foul language used in front of children, Santa turns to him and says, you can “suck my f***ing d***.”

Only a Christian holiday would be trashed this way by the Hollywood moguls. Islam and Judaism are out of bounds, but Christianity never is. None of this is by accident. If anyone thinks I exaggerate, read what those responsible for these movies have admitted.

Bob Weinstein recently commented on why he accepted the script for the original “Bad Santa.” He did so after Universal Studios decided not to pick it up. “I asked a Universal executive,” Weinstein said, “Why’d you guys pass on it?” The executive replied, “It was the most foul, disgusting, misogynistic, anti-Christmas, anti-children thing we could imagine.” To which Weinstein said, “That’s exactly why I bought it.”

Weinstein, as I have pointed out many times, has a history of making anti-Catholic movies, so his reply is simply an honest account.

Billy Bob Thornton was attracted to doing “Bad Santa 2” precisely because the original was so vulgar. “I think part of it was that there hadn’t been a movie that profane and unapologetic about itself. I think it’s the alternative to the real syrupy Christmas movies.”

In other words, Christmas films are entirely too wholesome, so much so that they are considered offensive by these people. But it’s not just Hollywood executives who feel it is their cultural duty to degrade Christmas, it’s movie reviewers as well.

One prominent website lists “Bad Santa 2” as among the “Best Christmas Movies 2016 for Kids & Family.” It must upset them to no end that the film is rated R.

Even more revealing is what amc.com has to say about the original. It listed it as one of the “Top 20 Christmas Movies” of all time. Why? “Full of expletives and sexual innuendos, Bad Santa upends the feel-good tradition of holiday movies—and it was about time.”

They like dirt. They like Christian bashing. And they especially like to attack the sensibilities of children at Christmastime. It’s who they are. They are the heart and soul of Hollywood.

Previous Wikileaks emails show that John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good as a Catholic front group to push for a “revolution” within the Catholic Church.

A new batch of Wikileaks emails show how Podesta colluded with Catholics in Alliance in August 2015 to reach out to Catholics working for the Archdioceses of Baltimore and Washington in an attempt to persuade them to support the Iran Treaty.

An email by Christopher Hale, executive director of  Catholics in Alliance, shows how little respect he has for separation of church and state. “I have phone calls early next week with senior advocacy staffers for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Archdiocese of Washington (which includes territory in Maryland), and the Maryland Catholic Conference,” Hale wrote.

Hale was working with the Obama administration to do its bidding. “I spoke to the White House yesterday and they assure us the media’s moniker calling us ‘God Squad’ isn’t just sweet nothings, but actually a fair assessment of the substantial difference we’re making in this conversation.”

In 2013, the IRS revoked the tax exempt status of Catholics in Alliance for failing to file a 990 form for three consecutive years. This is hardly surprising: Catholics in Alliance is a dummy Catholic letterhead established to do the work of left-wing operatives in the Democratic Party. In short, it was founded in deceit and operates in deceit.

The question before the court was, “Can a priest be forced to divulge what he has learned in the confessional?” The Louisiana Supreme Court said, “No.” This was a victory for religious liberty, Catholic civil rights, and the Catholic League—we filed an amicus brief in this historic case.

The Catholic League’s involvement began in 2014. We supported a Louisiana priest, Fr. Jeff Bayhi, who had been sued by the parents of a girl for failing to report to the authorities that she was abused by a now-deceased lay member of the parish. If the venue had not been the confessional, Fr. Bayhi would have been free to contact the police, but the confessional is no ordinary place: it is home to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and the priest is not free to discuss what he learns from the penitent.

When this issue first went before the State Supreme Court, our side lost; the judge ruled that Louisiana law mandated that the priest report such crimes to the authorities. That ruling was overturned by the State District Court in February. Louisiana District Judge Mike Caldwell said Fr. Bayhi, who serves in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, was not required to break the seal of the confessional to report this offense. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld that decision on October 28.

The Catholic League has fought to preserve the integrity of the confessional before, and we have always won. But given the number of highly secular federal judges appointed to the bench over the last eight years, this issue is bound to reappear. No religious liberty is safe in this hostile environment.

“The Real O’Neals” draws fewer viewers on Tuesday nights during prime time than any other show on ABC.  Each week, it loses close to a million viewers from the shows that precede it, only to see them return to ABC after the “O’Neals” goes off the air.

It was recently reported that ABC has ordered only three additional episodes, a sure sign it is floundering. If the show weren’t in trouble, it would air 22 times; as it stands now, there are only 16 scheduled.

As one media site said, its ratings last season were so anemic that it “could have been cancelled last May.” Another media outlet put it this way: “The Real O’Neals was renewed despite pretty thin ratings last season, as ABC took a chance on a marginally rated show it owned, presumably hoping it would build on its first season.”

So why wasn’t it cancelled last May? It wasn’t because ABC took a chance on it rebounding. No, the decision not to cancel was based on politics: ABC did not want to appear giving in to pressure from organizations such as the Catholic League. We not only pounded the “O’Neals” for its bigoted-themed script, we took out an op-ed page ad in the New York Times denouncing it.

The “O’Neals” is crashing not simply because of poorly written scripts, but because there is less tolerance for Catholic bashing in the general population than there is at Disney/ABC.

It’s just a matter of time until this Dan Savage-inspired show is finally cancelled.

We knew that being so public in our condemnation was risky: it was sure to be met with resistance by the corporate boys and girls at ABC. But it was still worth a shot. Besides, we are used to taking the long view, betting that if its rating did not spike in a new season, it was done.

Now that the end is near, we are salivating at the bit. Shamelessly.

Columbia University’s wrestling team has been accused of making offensive comments about blacks, women, and gays. Harvard’s men’s soccer team has been accused of making offensive comments about women. In response, both universities have cancelled the rest of the season. But why?

Why were these schools upset with offensive remarks made by their male athletes? After all, both have a record of tolerating offensive events targeting Catholics. More-over, both celebrate sexual deviance.

In 2002, Fordham and Columbia faced off against each other in a football game held on the Ivy campus. During half-time, the Columbia game announcer shouted, “Fordham’s tuition is going down like an altar boy.” The crowd loved it. The offending student, Andy Hao, did not fly off the handle: his bigoted remarks were approved by an administrator, Catherine Webster.

Bill Donohue later met with Columbia president Lee Bollinger, who apologized. Did it do any good? The next year, the Columbia band performed during a half-time game against Dartmouth; it invited the crowd to join them in their “celebration of partial-birth abortion.”

In 2010, “XMAS!” was performed at Columbia. The play depicted the Virgin Mary begging for sex.

In 2012, Harvard hosted a “Black Mass,” the work of the Satanic Temple. The express purpose of this event was to denigrate the Mass by inviting students to participate in Satanic worship. The initial response of Harvard was to distance itself from the attack on Catholics; it stressed the independent status of the student group that made the invitation. Under pressure by the Catholic League and others, President Drew Faust condemned the stunt and led a protest against it. Donohue commended the president for her response.

Christmas on the campus of Harvard has been neutered for years. “Holiday trees” are allowed, but not without resistance: Students at Leverett House have compared the tree to a “Trojan horse.” Jewish religious symbols are permitted, but not Christian ones. In fact, some students say that allowing a nativity scene might occasion the display of swastikas.

If this isn’t perverse enough, consider that both Columbia and Harvard—now horrified by sexist language—have been encouraging sexual depravity for decades.

On the website of Columbia, prominently featured under “Sex Week,” is an article titled, “A Woman’s Right to be Spanked.” The author describes a movie that features a secretary who is interrogated by her boss about her sex life. She is told to “bend over the boss’s desk to receive a spanking for making repeated spelling errors.” That’s just for starters.

“At one point,” the female writer says, “she is seen delivering the mail to her boss while crawling on her hands and knees, with the letters clutched in her mouth. In another instance she is gussied up as a horse on his desk complete with a bridle and a saddle.” And so on.

The author’s conclusion is telling. “While this may sound like a definitive extreme case of sexual harassment, in fact it is the plot to a love story.” Romeo and Juliet, move over.

Harvard’s idea of “Sex Week” is just as fascinating. Two years ago, it featured a workshop, “Anal Sex 101.” It offered graphic instruction on “anal anatomy and the potential pleasure for all genders.” Unfor-tunately, none were told of the dangers to this abnormal sex practice.

If Columbia and Harvard want civility on campus, they need to treat everyone equally—beginning with Catholics—and stop exercises that foster incivility. And if they are really serious about stopping sexually exploitative language, they may want to ask themselves what lessons young men are likely to draw from their “Sex Week” events on campus.

Jack Chick, the anti-Catholic cartoonist and publisher, died on October 23 at the age of 92.

Chick’s goal was to convince Protestants that Roman Catholicism was a false religion. He published scores of books and magazines, and released many videos, but he was most famous for his small tracts and comic books. His 3×5 inch cartoon-like booklets were released all over the world, and in dozens of languages. His titles were provocative: “Are Roman Catholics Christians?”; “Why is Mary Crying?”; and “The Death Cookie” (meaning the Host). These were among his bestsellers.

Some of the assaults on Catholicism were quite specific. For example, Confession was the work of Satan. The Jesuits constitute a “truly secret army” all over the world. The Catholic Church was responsible for the Nazi death camps. Pope Pius XI and John Paul I were drugged. Protestants must beware of the “Catholicization of America.” The Vatican is bent on creating the “New World Order.”

The person most to blame for these recent conditions is none other than Our Blessed Mother. Here is how Chick author Dave Hunt put it: “Uncompromising Christians will be put to death for standing in the way of unity and peace. From current trends, it seems inevitable that a woman [his emphasis] must ride the beast. And of all the women in history, none rivals Roman Catholicism’s omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent ‘Mary.'”

Chick built an empire, not just a company. Headquartered in California,  he had operations in Scotland, Germany, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. He published over 800 million tracts. He was the Amazon of Anti-Catholicism.

In 1996, Bill Donohue wrote that “the most invidious form of anti-Catholicism is that which emanates from elite circles. When men and women of power and influence engage in Catholic bashing, the effects can be devastating, which is why the Catholic League responds so quickly and decisively. But there is also a brand of anti-Catholicism that comes from less urbane quarters, from places that target the undereducated. And no one is better at doing this than Chick Publications.”

Twenty years later, nothing has changed. The anti-Catholic bigots who have worked for Hillary Clinton are the ones that command our attention, not Chick Publications. The ever-tolerant professors who hate Catholicism, along with their allies in the media, the entertainment industry, and the arts—they are the real threat.

It is so fitting that a recent AP story on Jack Chick was not only the most quoted, it was also the least accurate. In the first sentence of the story by Robert Jablon we learn that Chick vilified “the beliefs of Catholics and Muslims.” Later, we read that his hate-filled tracts were aimed at “blacks, homosexuals, Arabs and others.”

The fact is that Jack Chick concentrated most of his time and resources attacking Catholics, not Muslims and homosexuals. Indeed, on the website of Chick Publications there are 680 stories on Muslims, 260 on homosexuals, and 2,460 on Catholics.

However, in today’s politically correct world, any “microaggression” against homosexuals is bound to be treated on a par with John Podesta’s quest for a “revolution” in the Catholic Church. This is what the left calls parity.

Catholics may finally be rid of Jack Chick’s legacy. Now if they could only free themselves from his more educated comrades, that would be real progress.