The media have had plenty of time to discuss Devin Kelley’s atheism and the role it may have played in gunning down the faithful during a religious service in a Texas church. But few have shown much interest in doing so.

This carries even more weight when we consider what was reported on “Good Morning Washington.” The story said, “a family member says he was an atheist who doesn’t like the church and hated religious people.” Kelley didn’t dislike religious people—he hated them.

The following media outlets cited Kelley’s atheism:

ABC (“Good Morning America”)
Boston Globe
CNN
CNN Wire
Fox News
Los Angeles Times
New York Times
TMZ
Washington Times

The following did a profile of Kelley’s background but said nothing about his hateful brand of atheism:

Associated Press
CBS
cbsnews.com
NBC
PBS
USA Today
Time.com
Washington Post

The following left-wing Internet sites covered Kelley’s background but did not report his militant atheism:
Alternet
Daily Beast
Daily Kos
Huffington Post
Mother Jones
Salon
Slate
Think Progress

Kelley’s murderous acts were clearly due to a range of variables, but not to mention that he “hated religious people” is irresponsible.

Had he been an ex-altar boy who attended a Catholic college, it would have been the subject of extensive coverage and unyielding analysis, complete with cheap shots at Catholicism. But because he shared the same animus harbored by many in the media, it wasn’t worth noting.

The secular left is more terrified of religion than it is STDs, and indeed it treats people of faith as if they harbored some deadly infectious disease. Witness the hyperventilating over Rep. Paul Ryan’s statement of faith following the Texas killings.

When asked by Laura Ingraham to comment on what happened at the Texas church on Sunday, Ryan said, “The right thing to do is pray in moments like this because you know what? Prayer works!” He also said the “secular left” doesn’t get it. “People who don’t have faith, don’t understand faith.”

Everything Ryan said is true and none of it is controversial, unless it is interpreted through the lens of the secular left.

Huffington Post got so excited that it condemned Ryan for doing nothing, “especially after reportedly receiving more than $170,000 in contributions from gun rights groups in 2016.” (Its emphasis.)

Atheist blogger Hemant Mehta made another one of his middle-school observations, saying, “That’s what Paul Ryan has to offer the nation. A giant, steaming bowl of jack s***. And he wants credit for that meal because he says grace before gulping it down.”
Think Progress showed how theologically astute it is by exclaiming, “Ryan’s sentiment is also at odds with the teachings of Jesus.”

Ryan was simply noting the necessity of prayer “in moments like this.” He never said, or implied, that it was a necessary and sufficient response to this tragedy.

One quibble. Ryan is too generous in his comment that “People who don’t have faith, don’t understand faith.” There are lots of people who don’t have faith, and don’t understand the faithful, but they are respectful of us nonetheless. Those condemning him are haters, pure and simple.

When a person makes a mean-spirited bigoted comment, he is not exculpated if he is a member of the group he disparages. What matters is not the biography of the bigot: what matters is the bigoted comment.

Lawrence O’Donnell proved once again that he, as an Irish Catholic, is not immune from charges of anti-Catholicism. Here is what this embittered man said on October 19:

“In John Kelly’s neighborhood, in the Catholic parish that he grew up in, in the Catholic parish that I grew up in, women were getting beaten by their husbands, their drunken husbands as a normal weekly occurrence.”

Perhaps O’Donnell’s drunken father beat his mother. We don’t know. If so, it would explain why he projected his own abusive experience onto others. But even if that were true, it is no excuse. If his father was not a violent drunk, and did not savage his mother, then O’Donnell’s remark is even more indefensible.

O’Donnell owes all Catholics, especially Irish Catholics, an apology.

This is not the first time O’Donnell has offended Catholics. Indeed, he is a recidivist.

In a recent New York Times piece, “The Lost Children of Tuam,” about an Irish Mother and Baby Home, reporter Dan Barry tries desperately to affirm the unsubstantiated claims made by Catherine Corless, a secretary with no academic or research credentials, about the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Ireland. He fails. His account is more anecdotal than anything else, breaking no new ground.

Barry has not unearthed one iota of evidence to dispute the charge that we have repeatedly made: There never was a mass grave containing the remains of nearly 800 children. It is a hoax. Perpetrated by Corless, the Irish media, and the American media—especially Irish Central—Barry has now added his name to this discredited list.

In fairness to Barry, he does not take the fatal leap that Niall O’Dowd of Irish Central has. Barry writes of “the deaths of nearly 800 ‘illegitimate’ children at the since-demolished Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, from 1925 to 1961.” Notice he says nothing about a “mass grave.”

Thus does Barry depart from O’Dowd’s false accusations. To be specific, Irish Central ran a bogus article earlier this year, “Tuam Mass Infant Grave is Confirmed, Now What Are We Going to Do?” In fact, no mass grave was ever confirmed. Even a government report never confirmed the existence of a mass grave. Does this not count for anything?

Bill Donohue repeats his challenge to O’Dowd: Where are the pictures? Where are the pictures of the bodies of 800 children? Irish Central has a moral obligation to provide pictures of the bodies found in an unmarked grave.

Barry may not have taken O’Dowd’s bait, but he is guilty of saying that Corless has exposed “this property’s appalling truths.” So what are those truths? Anecdotal musings are not a substitute for evidence. Moreover, the more serious the charge, the more credible the evidence must be.

The closest Barry comes to providing evidence is his discussion of Mary Moriarty, a woman who called Corless about her story.

Moriarty said that in 1975, when she was a young married mother living in subsidized housing on the grounds of the former Mother and Baby Home, she and several neighbors encountered a young boy running around with a skull on a stick. He told them there were many more, and they followed him to the site. When they got there, Moriarty said the ground under her gave way, and she fell into a cave or tunnel.

Barry writes, “As far as she could see were little bundles stacked one on top of another, like packets in a grocery, each about the size of a large soda bottle and wrapped tight in graying cloth.” What were in those bundles? Barry does not say because Moriarty never bothered to find out.

Moriarty then reached out to Julia Carver Devaney, who once lived in the Mother and Baby Home, and later worked there. Speaking about the same site, she said, “Ah, yeah, that’s where the little babies is. Many a little one I carried out in the nighttime.”

Did Moriarty contact the authorities? No. Did she ask anyone to investigate? No. She offered her story in 2014, almost 40 years after her alleged findings. Barry never bothers to question why, or to question those who worked alongside Moriarty to validate her story.

As it turns out, 1975 was the same year when Barry Sweeney, and a friend of his, stumbled on a hole on the grounds of the Mother and Baby Home and found skeletons. In 2014, he was asked by the Irish Times to comment on Corless’ claim that there are “800 skeletons down that hole.”

Sweeney said, “Nothing like that.” How many were there? “About 20.” He later told a reporter for the New York Times there were “maybe 15 to 20 small skeletons.” This eyewitness account contradicts the Corless story, yet is apparently of no interest to Barry.

When the Corless account made a media splash in 2014, Ireland’s Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn, said her story was “simply not true.” The local police said at that time that “there is no confirmation from any source that there are between 750 and 800 bodies present.” (Donohue’s italics.)

Why didn’t Barry mention any of this? Why is he so willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the unsubstantiated claims made by a local secretary? Why did he not question Corless about how her story continued to evolve, in a more dramatic fashion, as she became a media sensation? Donohue has written about this before and is awaiting someone to answer him.

The willingness to believe the worst about the Catholic Church in Ireland is what Irish Central is known for—it loves the Irish, but is not exactly friendly to the Church. The New York Times, which has shown it is capable of rendering an honest account of this issue, should know better than to get ensnared in this trap.

The Irish are gifted storytellers. But there is a difference between telling stories and providing empirical evidence about a serious issue.

Roman Polanski is a child rapist beloved by Hollywood and the entertainment industry worldwide. On October 30, he was honored at an extravaganza in Paris for his wonderful work.

Polanski is accused of molesting four women—the latest of which is an actress who last month said he raped her when she was 15. Even he acknowledges that he drugged and raped a 13-year-old in the 1970s.

Does it matter to Polanski’s colleagues that he is a molester? Not many. According to the New York Times, at Monday’s event film director Costa-Gavras rushed to defend Polanski: He said it was not the business of his organization, Cinémathèque, to act as an “arbiter of morality”; his group sponsored the event.

Costa-Gavras, however, has a record of being an “arbiter of morality.” He took it upon himself in 2003 to make a movie, “Amen,” that told out-and-out lies about the Catholic Church’s role during the Holocaust. He blamed the Church for being “silent” about the Nazi genocide—a position that has been widely and authoritatively discredited—and even created a fictional character, a Jesuit priest, to promote his propaganda.

No one can blame Costa-Gavras for being silent about his rapist buddy. No, he has long been on Polanski’s side. In 2009, he was one of more than 100 prominent filmmakers, actors, producers, and technicians who signed a petition defending the rights of the child rapist. The petition was organized by serial sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein.

Child abuser Woody Allen signed the petition in defense of Polanski, as did Pedro Almodovar and Martin Scorsese, all of whom have made movies attacking the Catholic Church.

Polanski was arrested in September 2009 for what he did in 1977. He got a 13-year-old girl drunk, forced her to take a Quaalude with champagne, and then tried to rape her in a Jacuzzi. She resisted. Then he followed her into a bedroom, kissed her, and performed oral sex on her. Then he had intercourse with her. Then he had anal sex with her.

And what did the Hollywood crowd and their European counterparts do when Polanski was arrested? They signed a petition in his defense. Weinstein said, “We are calling upon every filmmaker we can to help fix this terrible situation.” The “terrible situation” was not sodomizing a girl; it was restrictions on Polanski’s travel plans.

Weinstein garnered plenty of support for his fellow molester. “Obviously, my sympathies are with Roman,” said Robert Towne, winner of an Oscar for his role in “Chinatown.” He added, “I have great respect and affection for him.”
Debra Winger, the Zurich Film Festival Jury President, said of Polanski at the time, “We stand by and await his release and his next masterwork.” Her organization even blasted Switzerland for arresting Polanski, accusing it of “philistine collusion.” In other words, those who object to a Hollywood mogul molesting a child have no respect for the arts.

Weinstein gave cover to these stars by writing an op-ed at the time referring to what Polanski did as a “so-called crime.” What he was saying is that it is a “so-called crime” to ply a child with alcohol and drugs, and then rape her orally, vaginally, and anally. Whoopi Goldberg agreed, saying “I don’t believe it was ‘rape-rape.'”

This is a window into the mind of Hollywood. They all criticized molesting priests, but unlike virtually all Catholics who also condemned the offending clergymen, the celebrities continue to be quite at home defending sexual abusers in their own ranks.

No one at the time of Polanski’s arrest explained the Hollywood mind better than Weinstein. Referring to the outpouring of support for his beleaguered friend, he said, “Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion.” It sure does—for the rapist, that is.

“Trouble No More—The Bootleg Series Vol. 13, 1979-1981,” is now available. It contains eight CDs and a DVD of Bob Dylan’s recordings during the years when he was a Christian; never before released songs are also included.

Dylan was raised Jewish, converted to Christianity, and eventually separated himself from all organized religions, though he remains a “true believer.” His religious migration mattered not a whit to practicing Jews or Christians, but it did matter to left-wing secular Jews and left-wing ex-Christians—they hated him for his embrace of Christianity.

It is worth recalling how these “open-minded” liberals greeted Dylan’s Christianity. In 1981, music reviewer Geoffrey Himes of the Washington Post was so deeply offended by Dylan’s Christian lyrics that he almost had a nervous breakdown. He charged Dylan with “righteously divid[ing] the whole world between the evil of nonbelievers and the wonders of the Lord.”

Why were these liberals so angry? In 1980, Canadian reporter Paul McGrath summarized Dylan’s music at that time by saying the singer focused on such Christian themes as “abandonment and redemption, confusion and clarity, sin and salvation.” Sin. That’s scary stuff.

How did his old fans react when confronted with Christian lyrics? Like good liberals, they shunned him. In November 1979 the Associated Press put it this way: “When Bob Dylan made his debut as a born-again Christian, angry San Francisco fans stalked out of the concert.” Yes, they no doubt felt more at home at a swinger’s bar or in a gay bathhouse.

A month later Newsweek wrote that “500 of the faithful marched out during the intermission in San Diego” because of his Christian lyrics. They would have stayed and cheered had he used a string of “F-words.”

Steve Turner, writing in the Guardian in 2012, wrote about Dylan and his Christian years, saying, “Nothing guarantees more scorn in rock ‘n’ roll circles than a man who gets religion.” True. If he gets AIDS, that is forgivable, but not if he gets religion.

That’s exactly right. The liberal gurus can stomach just about every perversity in the world—indeed many of them revel in it—just don’t push the God button.

All across the nation, students are learning about genocide committed in the twentieth century, yet most know next to nothing about genocide taking place right now. That’s partly because the victims are Christians: many academics and journalists have become accustomed to seeing Christians as victimizers, not victims, thus leaving them unmoved when reports surface about genocide against the faithful.

“Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians Oppressed for their Faith, 2015-17,” is a study released by Aid to the Church in Need, an organization chaired by George J. Marlin. Its findings are devastating.

“In 12 of the 13 countries reviewed,” the report notes, “the situation for Christians was worse in overall terms in the period 2015-17 than within the preceding two years.” Genocide has been recorded in Syria, Iraq, and northern Nigeria, either by ISIS or affiliates such as Boko Haram.

North Korea is singled out for persecuting Christians. Its atrocities include starvation, abortion, and hanging Christians on crosses over a fire; others were run over by steamrollers.

As usual, Muslim madmen go about killing converts in public, and they do so with impunity. This is in line with the stated goal of Islamists, namely, the “eradication of Christians, and other minorities.” In Sudan, the killing is orchestrated by the government.

One of the report’s most salient findings, which deserves greater attention, is something that Catholics, and indeed all Christians, need to confront. “The defeat of Daesh [ISIS] and other Islamists in major strongholds of the Middle East offers the last hope of recovery for Christian groups threatened with extinction.”

Notice that the report did not say that more dialogue is needed: it said ISIS must be crushed. That is a glum, yet realistic, conclusion; it is certainly supported by the evidence.

Now that ISIS is on the run throughout the Middle East, the time to finish the job is more important than ever before. As the report says, “Many [Christians] would not survive another similar violent attack.”

This report deserves a wide audience.

There is a reason why “Novitiate” opened in only two cities recently, New York and Los Angeles, even though it has Sony money behind it: the appetite for Catholic-bashing movies is greatest in those two cities.

Hollywood, fresh off a sex scandal involving women and children, is a bastion of liberalism, a place where stereotypes of blacks, Hispanics, Indians, homosexuals, Jews, and Muslims are universally condemned. But Hollywood does make one exception: Catholics. Ditto for New York.

A story about young nuns would not be tolerated in Hollywood unless it trashed them. This explains why “Novitiate” scored big time at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. The New York Times, no stranger to anti-Catholicism, offered a preview of the movie for those who belong to its Film Club.

Stereotypes about nuns always involve sexuality and cruelty. “Novitiate” does not disappoint. Naturally, all the nuns are in habit—a film about progressive sisters in skirts wearing makeup and earrings will never be made; there is no audience for it. Unlike the “Sound of Music,” this film is rated R for language, sexuality and nudity.

Maggie Betts is the genius behind the movie. Neither Catholic nor religious, she says she read a book about Mother Teresa and was impressed. So what did this director and screenwriter do next? Read more about the saintly nun? No, she decided to read one book after another written by embittered ex-nuns who bolted after Vatican II.

The movie centers on two nuns, Cathleen and the Mother Superior. In the movie, Cathleen’s mother is an agnostic who is not too happy about her daughter becoming a nun. Betts chose Margaret Qualley to play Cathleen. It was a good choice—Qualley is an atheist.

Cathleen desperately wanted to become a nun, but unfortunately for her she entered the convent at a time when Vatican II reforms left many parts of the Church in crisis. Not only did poor Cathleen get caught up in the changes, so did Sister Evelyn, Sister Emily, and Sister Margaret.

Hollywood cannot make a movie about young nuns without portraying them as sexually repressed, and on this measure, “Novitiate” is a home run. Not only are the gals horny beyond belief, they all suffer from sexual impulses during the consecration. That’s right, at the most sacred part of the Mass, the nuns are depicted as orgasmic. The fact that virtually all the reviewers missed this only proves their ignorance of all matters Catholic.

“Novitiate” wouldn’t fulfill stereotypical expectations unless it featured a wicked Mother Superior. This one is a grand slam: the tyrannical nun is easy to hate.

Some of the early reviews are precious. Proving once more that even Catholic-hating liberals do not want to be called a bigot, they bend over backward to show how sophisticated they are. One lout said the movie “isn’t anti-religion but it certainly doesn’t pull its punches when showcasing how cruel its leaders can be.” Another wizard said, “This isn’t an overly-religious film, nor does it attempt to proselytize or convert the viewer.”

Notice that they do not say it is a movie about Catholicism—it’s merely a “religious film.” The latter reviewer wins first prize. But it is debatable whether it should be for stupidity or lying: In actual fact, “Novitiate” strains in its attempt to proselytize and convert. It’s just that its goal is to get the audience to hate the Roman Catholic Church.