Time Warner has a pathological problem with Catholicism. Consider the following.

On November 10, Bill Maher proved to be both a bigot and a coward. His commentary on Jesus, Mary, and Joseph was despicable: He used an obscenity to describe Joseph and Mary having sex. He showed his cowardice when he refused to comment on his perverted friend, Louis C.K.

Maher’s bigotry triggered a petition drive demanding that HBO respond to Maher the way it did when he offended African Americans in June. Thousands signed it online. You can sign it by filling out the form on p. 15 and mailing it to HBO chief Richard Plepler.

HBO is a Time Warner company. So is TNT. Within a week of Maher’s assault on the Holy Family, a TNT show, “Major Crimes,” portrayed a priest as a child abuser, indicting the entire Catholic Church. That was on November 14.

TBS is also a Time Warner company. During the same week, “comedian” Samantha Bee mocked the Immaculate Conception. That was on November 15.

This led Bill Donohue to write an open letter to Time Warner Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes.

“Could you please tell me how many practicing Catholics—the ones who actually accept the teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church—work for Time Warner in the production and writing of the programs? I am not expecting a definitive tally: a guesstimate will do.”

Donohue explained his reasoning. “I ask this because many producers and writers in your employ obviously hate Catholicism. Moreover, as someone who touts his commitment to diversity and inclusion, perhaps you can tell me what’s driving this double standard.”

Donohue pointed out that when Maher dropped the “N-word” on June 2, HBO called his remark “completely inexcusable” and “tasteless.” Maher quickly apologized.

When news of Louis C.K.’s sexual perversions surfaced—to cite one example, he found it fun to masturbate in front of women—HBO pulled all of his programs from its website and removed his past projects from its On Demand services.

The petition drive was occasioned by HBO’s duplicitous response. Maher gets reprimanded, Louis C.K. gets sanctioned, and Catholics get nothing!

On November 17, Maher had another chance to slam Louis C.K. He balked again. Worse, he made a half-hearted defense of Al Franken, another one of his sick buddies. He finished with a vile statement about Jesus and Our Blessed Mother.

Maher, Louis C.K., and Franken are all cut from the same cloth. Their anti-Catholic bigotry is sickening. They’ve long made sweeping generalizations, blaming all priests for the behavior of some, but are now closing ranks protecting each other.

Sickos and hypocrites all.

When the news broke that Senator Al Franken molested a woman when she was asleep, we immediately called for his resignation. There is no place in public office for sexual abusers.

We pointed out that if Franken were an accused priest, he would be forced to step aside, pending an investigation. In his case, because he is an admitted molester, he should resign.

The priest reference is particularly poignant given that Franken has a history of mocking priests, and indeed the entire Catholic Church, for sexual offenses.

In 2008, we noted that Franken mocked the Eucharist, ridiculed the crucifixion, slandered all priests as molesters, belittled practicing Catholics, and disparaged Church teachings on life. Four years earlier, he trashed the Eucharist and attacked priests.

For Franken to now be caught up in a sex scandal of his own is hardly surprising given the morally debased circles he used to run in: he was a Hollywood fixture before entering political life.

If he does not step aside, the Senate is obligated to invoke all of its powers to see that he does.

The Republicans have their own problems with serious accusations of sexual misconduct being made about senatorial candidate Roy Moore. The explanations he offered are unconvincing. He is another disgrace.

How ironic it is to observe that after years of Hollywood bashing the Church over a few miscreant priests, the stories of abuse and perversion in their own ranks are now surfacing non-stop.

William A. Donohue

In schools all across America, Frederick Douglass is known as a former slave who became one of the nation’s leading abolitionists; he was also a champion of women’s rights. Not so well known was his bigotry: his anti-Catholicism was a trait he shared with most abolitionists, especially those who were Protestant ministers. Douglass was an ordained deacon and a preacher in a local African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

In his classic, Catholicism and American Freedom, University of Notre Dame historian John T. McGreevy notes that Douglass “displayed a casual anti-Catholicism, attacking the ‘cunning illusions’ of Catholic leaders.” Professor Richard Hardack offers plenty of evidence to support McGreevy’s observation; his work is available in an edited volume by Alan J. Rice and Martin Crawford, Liberating Sojourn: Frederick Douglass & Transatlantic Reform.

Douglass’ bigotry became apparent when he visited Ireland for four months in 1845; it was part of a two-year visit to the United Kingdom. According to Hardack, Douglass’ extensive lectures and writing amounted to an “anti-Catholic diatribe” seeking to blame the Catholic Church for slavery. He also blamed Irish Catholics, not the English, for their victim status in the United States and Ireland.

“Irish Catholics, especially Irish Americans,” Hardack says, “are not simply ignored or critiqued, they are systematically cast out of Douglass’s circle.” Douglass spoke compassionately about the Irish experience, but he also depicted the Irish as unfairly competing with blacks. “Throughout his life,” Hardack notes, “Douglass worried about Irish American prejudice, intemperance, and competition with blacks regarding foreign support, jobs, and voting rights, anxieties partly reflected in and partly caused by his distaste for all varieties of Catholicism and Irish Catholicism in particular.”

Douglass got away with his “anti-Catholic convictions” because America was receptive to this strand of bigotry. Indeed, his “anti-Catholic animus” was evident in his “descriptions of religious practices throughout his life.” He was known for his “senseless tirades” and long lectures on the pope and bishops.

It cannot be that Douglass was reacting bitterly against his experience in Ireland—it was uniformly positive. He even went so far as to say that “one of the most pleasing features of [his] visit [to Ireland]…has been a total absence of all manifestations of prejudice against [him] on account of [his] color.” No matter, he gave the Irish no slack, blaming the Catholic Church, not the English, for their plight. He referred to the Church as the work of “Satan,” ultimately holding the Irish responsible “for this crushing religious” system.

This pro-black, pro-suffragette, and anti-Catholic American recorded many of his writings in his weekly publication, The Douglass Paper. In it, Hardwick writes, Douglass “minces no words in literally demonizing the Catholic Church as a force of evil and in following popular prejudice in equating Irish Catholicism with popery.” In his own words, Douglass bragged how he spoke of “the prevalence and power of the Christian Church and religion at Rome and of the strange things that are believed and practiced there in the way of religious rites and ceremonies.”

Douglass was quick to finger the Catholic Church with bringing about the “evil” that existed in Ireland, namely the “ignorance, cunning, and crimes” associated with “Romanism.” Yet his expressed interest in opposing social injustice did not allow him to comment on the Irish famine.

“The potato blight was only a rumor and a worry when Douglass visited Ireland in 1845,” says journalist Joan Walsh, “but it was a crisis by the time he left England in 1847 to return to the U.S. How could such a towering human-rights figure remain silent on the catastrophe, as it seemed he had?”

Douglass was struck by the suffering of the Irish, but he always chose to blame the victim. He noted that the “streets [are] almost alive with beggars,” and women with “infants in their arms, whose emaciated forms, sunken eyes and pallid cheeks,” clear evidence, he concluded, that they “had nursed in vain.” He said the only difference between blacks and the Irish was the “black skin and wooly hair” of the slaves. But as Walsh notes, he attributed these conditions to Irish “drunkenness.”

On the eve of the famine, Douglass wrote a letter to his abolitionist ally, William Lloyd Garrison, that summed up his position. “The immediate, and it may be the main cause of the extreme poverty and beggary in Ireland, is intemperance. This may be seen in the fact that most beggars drink whiskey…. Drunkenness is still rife in Ireland.”

Drunkenness was also rife with Native Americans at this time as well, but not to mention the role that European explorers played in accounting for such conditions would be seen as irresponsible, if not bigoted. Douglass’ reaction should not be treated in a different manner.

Like virtually all heroic figures in history, Frederick Douglass was a complicated person. His contributions to human rights, as far as blacks and women are concerned, must be recognized, but it cannot proceed without citing his anti-Catholic bigotry. It is time to set the record straight about him.

Bill Donohue

Those waging war on the monuments—public celebrations of prominent Americans—assume that history is replete with good guys and bad guys; the good guys are those who stood up to injustice and the bad guys are responsible for it. The assumption is baseless. More typically, the good guys have had their fair share of flaws, too.

Take the issue of slavery. It is easy to cheer the abolitionists today: after all, it takes no courage to champion their cause. Monuments in their honor, therefore, seem well deserved. But are they? What if we found out that most of them were bigots? What then? Should we scrub the public square free of all American heroes?

The unpleasant fact is that almost all of those who sought the abolition of slavery were bigots—they were virulently anti-Catholic. What they said and did to Catholics was shameful. So what now? Should we take a sledgehammer to their statues as well?

Most Americans think that the anti-Catholicism of the 19th century was the product of uneducated nativists. But the truth is that the biggest anti-Catholic bigots were also the most liberal, and most educated, segment of the population. It was they who set the cultural tone against Catholics.

In his masterful book, Catholicism and American Freedom, Notre Dame historian John T. McGreevy offers plenty of evidence to back up his charge that those who supported abolition typically saw Catholicism and slavery as one in the same: both were seen as despotic systems. Indeed, the first abolitionist martyr, Elijah Lovejoy, “spent much of 1835 warning of the Catholic menace.”

Lovejoy, a Presbyterian minister, believed that “slavery was a papist product.” Fond of calling the Catholic Church the “Mother of Abominations,” his rhetoric was matched by legions of anti-slavery and anti-Catholic ministers.

For instance, New School Calvinists spoke about the Catholic Church as the “Whore of Babylon” and the pope as “the Antichrist.” Many said that Catholicism was not a religion at all: it was a usurpation of Christianity, the work of the “masterpiece of Satan” headed by the “man of perdition.” This is why ministers such as George Bourne claimed that the Episcopal Church was “the sole true Church of God.”

According to historian John d’Entremont, Moncure Conway was “the most thoroughgoing white male radical” of the pre-Civil War period. Known as “Monc” or “Monk,” the Unitarian minister hated Catholicism as much as he did slavery, holding a special animus for the Jesuits. He even called up his followers to “Be warned and armed!” No wonder University of North Carolina historian Peter Walker concluded that his hate-filled campaign came “close to calling for a jihad against Catholics.”

If there was one family of abolitionists which worked tirelessly to bash Catholics it was the Beechers. Headed by Lyman Beecher, he was joined by sons Edward and Henry Ward, and his daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (it was not by happenstance that in the novel Uncle Tom steers Catholic Eva away from the shackles of Catholicism, delivering her to the Methodists).

Lyman proved to be the reliable patriarch, teaching his children and his followers about “the most powerful secret organization that ever existed,” namely, the Catholic Church. He made that accusation, and many others like it, in his 1835 book, A Plea for the West. He argued that this “evil” institution “holds now in darkness and bondage nearly half the civilized world,” relegating Catholics to “debasement and slavery.”

What was Beecher afraid of? Fear that Rome will affect American elections, and fear that Protestants might fall under the Catholic spell. He, and many like him, were also terrified of being captured by Catholics. He was especially worried that Protestant children might succumb to the rich teachings and traditions offered to them as students.

To those who say that “the Catholics do not interfere with the religion of their protestant pupils,” Beecher answered, “They cannot help interfering with the religion of their pupils.” It’s in their blood.

He gives the nuns a backhanded compliment saying they are so effective in their work that they always outclass Protestant teachers. But the praise is qualified: he blames them for “underbidding us in the cheapness of education,” drawing unsuspecting Protestants into their ranks. Worse, “Catholic Europe is throwing swarm on swarm upon our shores.”

Edward Beecher proved that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Like his dad, he taught that “Romanism is the enemy of mankind.” His 1855 book, The Papal Conspiracy Exposed, maintains that the Catholic Church is a “stupendous fraud,” one that is “devised by Satan” to subjugate the faithful.

Led by the pope, who “claims supremacy over all earthly governments,” the Catholic Church developed many “peculiar doctrines,” among them being “transubstantiation, purgatory, saint and image worship, and the whole system of sacramental regeneration and sanctification.”

If there are two Catholic teachings that most upset these anti-slavery and anti-Catholic ministers it was the discipline of celibacy and the sacrament of reconciliation; both were seen as modes of social control. Celibacy, Beecher says, “cuts off the clergy from all ties of family or home, and leaves them to the full power of the great centres at Rome.” Similarly, “to fix the despotism on the people, the confessional is used.”

There is another link between celibacy and the confessional: sex.

Referring to celibate priests as “these unhappy men,” Beecher depicts them as “condemned through life to control impulses which God has implanted in their breasts,” rendering a situation wherein they are “not allowed to retire from temptation and call off their minds from forbidden thoughts, but are deliberately, remorselessly, and constantly thrust into the very centre of the fiery furnaces.”

How does Rome manage to pull this off? “This is done by requiring them to hear the confession of all their flock, in which, of course, are included those of females of all ages, and on all the points that are involved in a thorough confession.” In doing so, the Church has outdone Satan. Beecher argues that “satanic ingenuity could not devise a system better adapted to corrupt and debase the clerical body as a mass.”

He is nothing if not melodramatic. “The great law of the compulsory celibacy of the clergy,” Beecher writes, “together with the established practice of appointing unmarried ecclesiastics to examine females in the confessional on all points on which the polluted mind can form a conception, is as perfect a system for debauching the clergy as Satan could devise.”

It is because of these endless stories of licentiousness—made famous in The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (a bestselling tale of lies about sex between priests and nuns published in 1836)—that noted historian Richard Hofstadter once described anti-Catholicism as “the pornography of the Puritans.”

The Beechers reached a wide audience, making anti-Catholicism respectable. The famous abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, echoed their work, speaking of the need to unseat the tyrannical pope. “The overthrow of the despotic power of the Pope…removes the most formidable barrier which has ever been erected against free thought, free speech, free inquiry, and popular institutions.”

Frederick Douglass, a former slave and a leading abolitionist, was also known for his anti-Catholic diatribes. In his weekly publication, the Douglass Papers, he often spoke of “the prevalence and power of the Christian Church and religion at Rome and of the strange things that are believed and practiced there in the way of religious rites and ceremonies.”

Douglass showed sympathy for the plight of the Irish at the hands of the English, but he nonetheless blamed the victim: it was the religious bigotry of Irish Catholics that was responsible for their plight. They may have had some things in common with blacks, he said, but in the end they were pawns of “Romanism,” that nefarious force that brought “ignorance, cunning, and crimes” to Ireland.

Other liberals of the day who hated Catholics were the suffragettes. Jane Swisshelm played an integral role at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848; it was foundational to women’s rights. But she was no fan of the Church. She saw Catholicism and slavery as one and the same, casting priest and slaveholder as equals.

A more well known suffragette, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, spoke out against “Popery,” warning the nation that Catholics posed a threat to the advancement of individual rights. If they ever succeeded in their ambitions, she said, it would be the “death-knell of American liberties.” Other suffragettes issued admonitions about the “idolatrous perversions of the Romanish faith,” saying that wherever it prevailed, “progress and freedom” lose.

Leading the liberal brigade against Catholics were intellectuals such as Edgar Allan Poe, Melville, and Samuel F. B. Morse. Giving voice to the most scurrilous accusations against them were the New York Times, the New York Observer, Harper and Brother, Harper’s Weekly, and the Nation. The New York Times said that Catholicism and slavery were “incompatible with the spirit of the age [and] liberty and civilization,” both worthy of destruction.

According to one source, as recounted by professor Jenny Franchot, a partial count of anti-Catholic publications between 1800 and 1860 “shows some 25 newspapers, 13 magazines, 210 books, 40 fictional pieces, 41 histories, and scores of giftbooks, almanacs, and pamphlets dedicated to the anti-Catholic cause.” Ivy League institutions such as Harvard and Yale were also home to anti-Catholics.

The idea that Catholicism was analogous to slavery even touched learned men such as John Adams. In 1821, he asked Jefferson whether “a free Government [can] possibly exist with a Roman Catholic Religion.” The same sentiment was prevalent throughout Europe. Indeed, all of the 1848 revolutions were showcases of anti-Catholicism.

The real-life effects of this relentless intellectual assault on Catholicism were felt in the streets: churches and convents were burnt to the ground in many cities, provoking New York Bishop John “Dagger” Hughes to implore the faithful to take up arms in defense. Non-violent repercussions were felt in the schools and on the job.

If there was one famous American who opposed both slavery and anti-Catholicism, it was Lincoln. He said that if the nativists got their way, the Constitution would have to be changed to read, “All men are created equal, with the exception of blacks, foreigners and Catholics.”

Those engaged in the monument wars have no interest in taking down the statues of anti-Catholics. Neither should we. But for different reasons: they don’t give a hoot about anti-Catholicism, and would, if anything, celebrate the antics of these bigots. We should oppose the removal of the monuments because it smacks of historical revisionism, and because it feeds the cause of uprooting our heritage.

Don’t be fooled. The crusade to tear down the monuments has nothing to do with the truth. It is driven by politics. Those at the forefront of this movement are not guided by justice—they are driven by hate.

Seventeen “women’s rights” organizations, all of which complain there aren’t enough women in public office, tried to stop the appointment of a woman, Amy Coney Barrett, to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. They failed. She was confirmed by a vote of 55-43.

This was also a victory for those who oppose anti-Catholicism, the one prejudice still tolerated, and indeed promoted, by those who say they are opposed to bigotry.

Here is a list of the “women’s rights” groups opposed to Notre Dame law professor Barrett:

Advocates for Youth
Catholics for Choice
NARAL Pro-Choice America
National Abortion Federation
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Council for Jewish Women
National Health Law Program
National Institute for Reproductive Health
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
National Network of Abortion Funds
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women and Families
National Women’s Health Network
People for the American Way
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Secular Coalition for America

What do these “women’s groups” have in common? They hate women who disagree with them, they hate the Catholic Church, and they love abortion. And now the three-time losers have lost again.

Maybe if they spent more time trying to defend women and children raped by their Hollywood pro-abortion and anti-Catholic male friends, they would finally win one.

Senate Republicans, joined by three Democrats, stopped a filibuster of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; the vote was 54-42.

It was two Mormon Republicans, Senator Orrin Hatch and Senator Mike Lee, who made the most impassioned defense of Barrett’s nomination.

The Notre Dame law professor’s religious convictions were attacked recently by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin, teeing up a response from those supporting her. Both Democrats questioned her suitability to be seated on the federal bench given her strong Catholic beliefs. Neither has apologized for their bigoted remarks.

Senator Hatch did not hold back in his statement. “I have to say that we stoop pretty low if we start to raise questions of religious beliefs before somebody can serve on the federal judiciary. Now I hope that that type of questioning will hit the dustbin of history, where it belongs.”

Senator Lee said “the fact of her religious beliefs or religious affiliation have nothing to do with her qualifications to serve as a federal appellate court judge.”

Lee said of those Democrats who made snide remarks about her Catholicism: “They were asking, ‘Do you actually believe that stuff? Do you actually believe the doctrine of your church? Do you believe it deeply, sincerely?’ Suggesting that if so, that is somehow a problem.”

Feinstein, who is Jewish, tried to deflect charges of anti-Catholicism by referencing her attendance at a Catholic school. Durbin, who is Catholic, referenced his Catholic status. But credentials do not matter: What matters are words. On this count, both of them came very close to invoking a religious test against Professor Barrett, something which is barred by the Constitution.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi spoke at the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus on October 26 urging her colleagues to overturn President Trump’s rollback of the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate. She supports a new bill, the Protect Access to Birth Control Act, that restores funding for services provided by the HHS mandate.

Pelosi called the Trump rollback “outrageous,” saying it was a “cruel decision.” She did not say why it was cruel to make women pay for their own birth control pills.

More important, Pelosi once again misrepresented the HHS mandate.

Pelosi focused entirely on birth control. She never once indicated that the HHS mandate forces the public to pay for abortion-inducing drugs. She also personalized the subject, bringing her children into it.

“I have five children,” she said. “When I took my baby home from the hospital, my fifth child, my oldest child was turning six that week—that week. God blessed us, it was glorious and the rest. That doesn’t mean that is the way it should go for anybody else. Women and families should have that determination.”

It is nice to know that Pelosi opted to allow her children to be born. Regrettably, as a public policy matter she is not prepared to extend that right to all children.

Pelosi is a dissident Catholic: she rejects the Church’s teaching on an issue branded “intrinsically evil” by the Catechism. Now, in her statement attacking the president, she added to her assault on the religious liberty rights of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Don’t those women’s rights count?

Pro-abortion and anti-religious liberty. Those are two of Nancy Pelosi’s most defining characteristics.

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

“Spotlight” won an Oscar for best picture in 2016 for its portrayal of the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston. At least nine of those associated with this film have worked with Harvey Weinstein, yet eight have said nothing about his sexual abuse, and all nine refuse to indict Hollywood the way they have the Catholic Church.

No one who worked on “Spotlight” was more condemnatory of the Catholic Church than actor Mark Ruffalo. On the day the movie won the Oscar, he participated in a rally with SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), a fully discredited band of lying anti-Catholic activists. He took the occasion to blast the Catholic Church.

It is telling that Ruffalo has not sought center stage registering his outrage at his buddy, Harvey Weinstein. Ruffalo starred in two Weinstein films, “Begin Again” and “Can a Song Save Your Life?” The best he could do was to issue a two-sentence tweet saying that it was “horrible” what Weinstein did. How brave.

Unlike the Catholic Church, which Ruffalo blamed for not posting the names of sexual abusers, he has said nothing about the breadth and depth of Hollywood’s culpability in sexual abuse and child rape. Moreover, if Hollywood were to list the names of all the predators and perverts in Tinseltown, it would take an army of researchers to compile.

When “Spotlight” won the Oscar, producer Michael Sugar did not pass up the opportunity to lecture the pope. “Pope Francis,” he bellowed on TV, “it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.” But when it comes to his friend Harvey, whom he knows well, Sugar goes mute. Why isn’t he shouting about Hollywood’s need to protect women and children from the claws of those who work there?

“Spotlight” director Tom McCarthy also joined the SNAP rally attacking the Catholic Church. He worked with Weinstein in the film “Good Will Hunting.” He has been totally silent on Weinstein’s unseemly conduct, and wouldn’t be caught dead in a rally against Hollywood abusers.

Peter Lawson, the executive producer of “Spotlight,” bragged how the movie was “getting these guys [miscreant priests] up in front of the Vatican.” He is a close associate of Harvey Weinstein, having been executive vice president of acquisitions and co-productions at The Weinstein Company. He has said nothing about Weinstein’s behavior, and has shown no interest in “getting” Hollywood predators.

John Slattery, who starred in “Spotlight,” did not shy from making sweeping generalizations about priests as abusers. “Ask anyone—it was someone they knew, someone they went to school with, some teacher, or the priest, and it was kept under wraps,” he said.

Well, I would like to ask Slattery—he is currently in production for a Weinstein movie, “The Romanoffs”— one question: Why have you said not a word about your boss? Also, is he going to deny that if we asked the housekeeping staff who work in Hollywood studios that they couldn’t tell us endless tales of sexual exploitation? “Ask anyone,” Slattery.

Another actor in “Spotlight” was Stanley Tucci. He hollered that “if it’s happening in Boston, you know it’s happening all over the place. If it’s that systemic in one city…the Catholic Church, it’s all connected.” Imagine how much Tucci could tell us about the systemic sexual abuse that defines Hollywood! But he won’t address that. And even though he was in the Weinstein film, “Shall We Dance?”, he has said absolutely nothing about Weinstein.

Liev Schreiber was in “Spotlight” and, like the others, spoke out against the Church. He starred in four Weinstein movies, “The Butler,” “Scream,” “Scream 2,” and “Scream 3.” But he is not screaming about Weinstein’s indefensible conduct, and indeed has not said a word.

Actor Billy Crudup was in “Spotlight,” and he lobbied to end the statute of limitations for priestly sexual abuse. He had a role in the Weinstein film, “Dedication.” But he has never uttered a word about either Weinstein’s behavior or the need to rid Hollywood of civil liberties.

Rachel McAdams is my favorite. She starred in Weinstein’s “Southpaw” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife.” She can’t bring herself to slam Weinstein but she sure made a spectacle of herself speaking about priests. Young men, she said, “go into the priesthood when they’re nine years old or even younger, and they’re raised by men who are not necessarily sane.” (My emphasis.) Only someone who is not necessarily sane is capable of making such a remark.

So there we have it. These people are much worse than the typical phonies who work in the entertainment industry. They are quick to point fingers at priests, quick to make wild generalizations about the Catholic Church, quick to join demonstrations against the Church, and quick to moralize about Catholicism. But when it comes to their sick friend, the only thing they are quick to do is run away.

Hollywood’s moral capital was never in big supply, but now it is shot altogether. We don’t need one more lecture about cover-ups and sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. When it comes to deceit, lying, and sexual deviance, Hollywood has no rival.

Catholics in the Diocese of Madison are very fortunate to have such a brilliant and courageous leader in Bishop Robert Morlino. He is currently under attack by dissident Catholics, ex-Catholics, and those who never were Catholic, for merely upholding the teachings of the Catholic Church.

The uproar is wholly unjustified, and is indeed scurrilous. It was occasioned when the vicar general of the Diocese of Madison, James Bartylla, recently told his priests how to handle funeral rites for persons known publicly to have been involved in a homosexual relationship. His remarks were not meant as “official diocesan policy,” though they certainly had the backing of the bishop.

One would think from the reaction by DignityUSA, an organization that has long been in open defiance of the Church’s teachings on sexuality, and Faithful America, a left-wing group frequently at war with the bishops, that Bartylla had condemned homosexuals, barring them from a Catholic burial. That is a lie. He did nothing of the sort.

The vicar general’s comments were entirely measured. To begin with, he was not talking about the burial of homosexuals, per se; rather, he was addressing those instances where a homosexual was involved in a public union with his partner. What should a priest do when confronted by the family of the deceased about a person who was in such a relationship? Bartylla instructed them to “think through the issue thoroughly and prudently.”

The micro issue involved in this matter is the funeral rites for homosexuals known to be engaged in a public relationship. The macro issue is scandal.

Citing canon law, Bartylla said that “ecclesiastical funeral rites may be denied for manifest sinners in which public scandal of the faithful can’t be avoided….” Scandal, as defined by the Catechism, is “a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.” In other words, causing scandal—inviting others to believe that it is morally acceptable to engage in sinful behavior—is the big issue.

The Catholic Herald offered a cogent statement on this subject two years ago. “Canon law makes it clear that funerals should be refused to manifest sinners to whom a Church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful.”

In 2014, Pope Francis illuminated the macro issue involved when he excommunicated members of the Mafia: their public profile made them “manifest sinners,” thus offering “public scandal to the faithful.” The central concern for the pope had nothing to do with crime—never mind public declarations of homosexuality—it had to do with sending the wrong signal to the faithful by acquiescing in the deeds of “manifest sinners.”

Donohue knows Bishop Morlino as a kind person who holds no animus against any person or group of persons. He deserves our support. Shame on those agenda-ridden activists who are out to smear him.

It is hardly a secret that many on the Left are militant secularists who hate religion, saving a special loathing for Roman Catholicism. The latest evidence appears online by Joe Lapointe.

We had to look him up. He was a “segment producer” for the always-fired Keith Olbermann, which means he did not have a full-time job. He also “taught journalism” at New York University, which means he did not have a full-time job. No matter, this struggling part-timer has now caught our eye at the Catholic League.

Ingraham’s new show on Fox News started on October 30. Lapointe begins his screed calling her “The Church Lady.” He says she “appeared before us in purple vestments that highlighted the gleaming gold cross on her chest.”

The cross. That is what set him off. Had Laura been a Jew wearing a Star of David he would have said nothing about it. But the cross is different—radical extremists have killed over it, and are doing so again today.

Lapointe expresses his anger at Laura for telling White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that there are “very few Christians” being helped by U.S. immigration policy. The gypsy scholar did not dispute her statement, because he could not. So he called her a “fundamentalist Catholic extremist.” Why? The cross. It’s the cross that drives him mad.