On Friday, December 2, Bill Donohue received a Christmas card from the President and the First Lady (see below). He was pleased to get the card and was only slightly miffed to discover that it did not say “Merry Christmas.” But later in the day he found something out that made him perturbed.

Alan Cooperman, the senior religion reporter for the Washington Post, called Donohue at the end of the day on December 2 to learn of his reaction to the generic White House holiday card. Donohue said he was not disturbed by it because he assumed that all presidents issued these neutered holiday cards. But when Cooperman told him that this was incorrect—that every president from FDR to Bush’s father in 1992 had issued at least one card while in office that said “Merry Christmas”—that changed things.

When Donohue learned of this news, he told Cooperman the following: “This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture.” That quote wound up on the front page of the Washington Post on December 7, and with it came a barrage of media requests to interview the Catholic League president.

Donohue has met with President Bush on several occasions and considers him to be a good man. But the Catholic League is not a Republican Catholic organization anymore than it is a Democratic Catholic organization. It is a Catholic organization.

Meanwhile, Lands’ End did not anger the Catholic League the way Wal-Mart did (e.g. we never called for a boycott), but we were nonetheless not too happy with the way it handled Christmas. An employee in the store’s customer relations department e-mailed customers informing them that “we have adopted the ‘holiday’ terminology as a way to comply with one of the basic freedoms granted to all Americans: freedom of religion. We recognize that Christmas is a Christian holiday, and one of the foremost teachings of the Christian faith is a love for one’s fellowman—no matter what his race, religion or creed.”

We found this insulting and asked those who visited our webpage to register a complaint. One week after we complained, Lands’ End issued an apology and we immediately dropped the matter.

WHITE HOUSE “HOLIDAY” CARD…

In fairness, members should know that on December 20, the Catholic League received the following e-mail Christmas Greeting from President Bush:

Christmas 2005

‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel’ which means, God with us.
Matthew 1:23

More than 2,000 years ago, a virgin gave birth to a Son, and the God of heaven came to Earth. Mankind had received its Savior, and to those who had dwelled in darkness, the light of hope had come. Each Christmas, we celebrate that first coming anew, and we rejoice in the knowledge that the God who came to Earth that night in Bethlehem is with us still and will remain with us forever.

Christmas is a season of hope and joy, a time to give thanks for the blessing of Christ’s birth and for the blessings that surround us every day of the year. We have much to be thankful for in this country, and we have a responsibility to help those in need. Jesus calls us to help others, and acts of kindness toward the less fortunate fulfill the spirit of the Christmas season.

On Christmas, we pray for freedom, justice and peace on Earth. We remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and for our freedom, and we ask for God’s blessing on their loved ones. We ask God to watch over all of our men and women in uniform. Many are serving in distant lands, helping to advance the cause of freedom and peace. Our entire Nation is grateful to them and prays for their safe return.

Laura and I send our best wishes for a blessed and merry Christmas.

GEORGE W. BUSH

By all accounts, Samuel Alito is a brilliant, honorable man who is well qualified to be on the U.S. Supreme Court. But he has his enemies, almost all of whom are driven by ideology. There are some, too, who fear that if his nomination succeeds, the high court will be dominated by Catholics.

Prominent among Alito’s critics is Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The radical organization released a report on Alito in December that was rife with bogus charges.

The report assumes that Alito departing from rulings held by Sandra Day O’Connor would be somehow unfair, thus implying that Alito should be placed in O’Connor’s jurisprudential straitjacket. Even more absurd is the spectacle of an organization, which is ostensibly interested in religious liberty, going bonkers whenever it discovers that Alito values religious speech as much as secular speech.

Similarly, the report faults Alito for ruling that a first-grade child has a right to draw a picture of Jesus and have it displayed in school. (Alito is also hammered for not wanting to censor the same kid from reading a selection from the Bible in class.) And Alito is criticized for ruling that religious symbols like the crèche and menorah may be placed outside city hall if accompanied by secular symbols.

President Bush made an outstanding choice in selecting Samuel Alito. He deserves to be confirmed.

As one who debates for living, I find it increasingly difficult to find an honest adversary. It used to be that I was able to engage my opponent in a verbal duel where facts and logic determined the outcome, but this seldom happens anymore. That’s because so many debaters really don’t want to debate the issue at hand: they prefer to spin the argument to such an extent that it literally leaves them living in a state of denial.

Take the Christmas wars. We could fill this entire issue of Catalyst with nothing but examples of the war on Christmas that took place in 2005. (We also could have filled this issue with nothing but “In the News” entries—we were cited in hundreds of stories all over the world, and I appeared on radio and TV in Britain, Brazil and Germany.) Yet for all the evidence that an assault on Christmas raged from coast to coast, the standard line promoted by secularists was that there never was a war on Christmas.

So what do the secularists say when presented with evidence to the contrary? They typically laugh if off, saying that the examples cited constitute nothing but anecdotal evidence. Or they say that everywhere they went they saw wreaths, green and red lights, snowmen, etc. For them, this is Christmas. That’s why they would prefer to see Rudolph in the public square, and not baby Jesus. Jesus makes them uncomfortable.

Pope Benedict XVI released the Vatican document on homosexuals in the priesthood, and immediately we were told that he was wrong to single out homosexuals as a problem because there is no direct link between homosexuality and pedophilia. This is true, but it has nothing to do with the issue: we never had a pedophilia crisis in the Catholic Church—it’s been a homosexual crisis all along. To wit: 81 percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are males and almost as many are postpubescent. This means that the molesters typically have been homosexuals, not pedophiles.

Even more absurd is the contention—now frequently expressed by those living in denial—that many of those who molested adolescent males were heterosexuals. Their reasoning goes like this: for decades, straight priests, having had access to altar boys, but not girls, had no other choice but to have sex with teenage boys.

Now I spent four years in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam war, and never did I know of a single case where a heterosexual male was even tempted to have sex with another male—never mind engage in homosexual behavior—simply because access to women was limited. But according to the illogic of the Vatican’s critics, there must have been guys hitting on guys all the time. It’s just that I never noticed it.

Perhaps there is no issue where more spin and denial are more evident than abortion. As Kate O’Beirne nicely documents in her new book, Women Who Make the World Worse, those who make the case for abortion-on-demand are fundamentally dishonest. From the lies about the number of so-called back-alley abortions that allegedly took place prior to 1973, to the lies about partial-birth abortion today, the radical feminists have been spinning a web of lies for over 30 years.

Nothing upsets radical feminists more than to face the likes of O’Beirne in a debate. Which explains why they avoid her. As courageous as she is brilliant, Kate O’Beirne is every feminist’s nightmare: they do not want to deal with a woman who is armed with the facts and not reluctant to confront them. And they really resent it that she is attractive, to boot.

“Contrary to popular belief, Hollywood not only believes in God, Hollywood loves God.” To prove this dribble, which was written by Joanna Connors of Religion News Service in the Los Angeles Times just before Christmas, the author says The Chronicles of Narniais only the latest in a long line of religious movies to come out of Hollywood. Connors cites the works of Cecile B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith, and the films E.T., Shane, The Matrix, the Star Wars series and The Passion of the Christ.

But as Brent Bozell’s NewsBusters.com website shows, most of these movies are decades old (E.T. appeared in 1982 and Shane debuted in 1953). By citing The Matrix and Star Wars, Connors has to “stretch her premise” to make her case. As for The Passion, perhaps Connors didn’t notice that no one in Hollywood wanted to touch Mel’s film, which is why he had to do it himself. NewsBusters concludes, “Hollywood loves God? Connors might want to get in touch with the Catholic League.”

So this is the world we live in. Spinning into denial is now commonplace. Facts and logic can never prove these people wrong—they are too ensconced in their comfort zone of ideological bliss to ever worry about such trifling matters ever again.

Kate O’Beirne

For over thirty years, the plain words of Roe and Doe have been distorted by the media. On the 30th anniversary of the decisions, media polls reflected the ongoing disinformation campaign. CNN asked, “Do you favor the Supreme Court ruling that women have the right to an abortion during the first three months of their pregnancy?” The Washington Post’s poll misrepresented the 1973 decisions in the same way. Feminists translate public support for Roe v. Wade, which is based on the public’s misunderstanding of the case, to support for their abortion-on-demand agenda.

Faye Wattleton was president of Planned Parenthood for 14 years. A beautiful black woman whose fawning media coverage included a fashion spread in Vogue magazine, she put an extremely attractive face on Margaret Sanger’s legacy. It was Wattleton who decided that Planned Parenthood should be in the lead in promoting abortion rights. When an equally attractive and articulate pro-life black woman was willing to take her on—Kay James of the National Right to Life Committee—Faye Wattleton refused to make joint appearances with her. Wattleton’s reluctance to face a well-armed opponent is understandable. Kay James would have had the better of the argument, because the facts are on her side.

In 2003, even a poll commissioned by Wattleton’s new outfit, the Center for the Advancement of Women, found that 51 percent of women thought abortion either should not be allowed or should only be available in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. Another 17 percent thought abortion ought to be available but with stricter limits. Only 30 percent agreed with Faye Wattleton and her abortion absolutist allies, which was down 4 points from two years earlier. Of the top 12 priorities for women, keeping abortion legal was second to last.

A 1999 poll by another feminist outfit, the Center for Gender Equity, found a similar 53 percent of American women favor outlawing abortion or permitting it only for cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. In fact, men typically favor abortion more than women do.

In a rare departure from its typically feminist-friendly coverage, in 2003 The New York Times reported on the growing number of young people with pro-life views. Their own polling found that among people from 18 to 29, only 39 percent thought abortion should be generally available, down from 48 percent ten years earlier. One young pro-lifer explained, “Myself and my classmates have never known a world in which abortion wasn’t legalized. We’ve realized that any one of us could have been aborted.”

A 2004 Wirthlin Worldwide poll found that 61 percent of those polled said abortion is “almost always bad” for women. Polls consistently show that about half of the public would ban abortion with exceptions for rape, incest, or life of the mother, which would ban about 95 percent of abortions. Another quarter of the public would ban all but first-trimester abortions.

Because less than a quarter of the public agrees with Kate Michelman, Gloria Steinem, Gloria Feldt, and their allies that abortion should be available at any time for any reason, pro-abortion activists fight to keep the issue in the courts, beyond the reach of the public’s pro-life sentiments. When she left her top post at NARAL, Kate Michelman headed to the Democratic National Committee to run a program called Campaign to Save the Court. But here too, pro-abortion feminists are at odds with public opinion.

A 2005 poll by Ayres, McHenry and Associates found that 79 percent of voters disagreed that a pro-life judicial nominee should be disqualified from serving on the Supreme Court.

Elected officials haven’t been kind to the abortion-rights agenda in recent years. Kate Michelman notes, “Since 1995, states have enacted nearly 400 restrictions on a woman’s right to choose.” Gloria Feldt laments that the White House and both chambers of Congress are controlled by “anti-choice politicians.” So too are the majority of governorships, and “the state legislatures are overwhelmingly anti-choice.” These abortion absolutists seem to believe that some strange alchemy has handed such a political advantage to pro-life politicians given their constant claims that their abortion-on-demand agenda enjoys the broad support of voters.

When the question has been asked of voters, polls show the pro-life advantage is unequivocal in the voting booth. A 1996 Wirthlin exit poll found that among voters who listed abortion as one of their top two issues 45 percent voted for Bob Dole and 35 percent for Bill Clinton. A Los Angeles Times poll found even a bigger advantage for Dole among women who voted on the abortion issue. In 1994, among single-issue abortion voters, the pro-life advantage was 2 to 1.

Following the election in November 2004, Kristin Day, the executive director of Democrats for Life of America, explained how her party had been damaged by abortion-rights forces. She stated, “For the past 25 years, pro-life Democrats have been leaving the party over the issue of abortion.” Day pointed out that 25 years ago, when Democrats held a 292-seat majority in the House, 125 of those seats were held by pro-life Democrats.

Feminists’ unyielding support for this “women’s issue” that doesn’t have the support of women puts them at odds with the large majority of Americans who support recent protections for unborn children, like the ban on partial-birth abortions.

Feminists vehemently defend the hideous procedure its opponents descriptively call “partial-birth abortion.” A federal judge considering the constitutionality of a ban on the procedure described it as a “gruesome, brutal, barbaric, and uncivilized medical procedure—the fetus’s arms and legs have been delivered outside the uterus while the fetus is still alive. With the fetus’s head lodged in the cervix, the physician punctures the skull with scissors or crushes the head with forceps.”

President Clinton vetoed bans on partial-birth abortion that passed Congress with bipartisan majorities. In 1996, I had the pleasure of appearing as a guest on CNN’s “Crossfire” with Eleanor Smeal, who was there to defend the indefensible.

The co-hosts asked us about the political fallout from the president’s opposition to the ban. Smeal warned that the gender gap threatened anyone who doesn’t allow this gruesome procedure, and I pointed out that 64 percent of women supported the ban. Bob Novak noted that people don’t like abortion, and Eleanor Smeal responded, “For some women it saves their lives.”

What is telling about my experience in that debate with Eleanor Smeal is that these abortion absolutists don’t openly defend their radical agenda. On the show, I freely admitted that I opposed both the partial-birth abortion procedure and other methods of abortion.

Just as Smeal was only willing to defend a procedure as allegedly life-saving for the mother, in an editorial urging the election of John Kerry, Kate Michelman also deceptively avoided making the case for abortion on demand. “If you are raped, if you are a victim of incest or if carrying a pregnancy to term will endanger your health, it’s a decision for you—not the government—to make.” In the interest of accuracy, she might have added, “If you decide on the eve of your full-term delivery that you want to choose an abortion instead, it’s your decision and not the government’s.”

In fact, these feminists defend every single one of the over 40 million “choices” that have been made since Roe v. Wade, which itself was the product of a series of lies. Feminists at the time argued that they wanted to see “therapeutic” abortions legalized. The plaintiff in Roe falsely claimed she had been raped. Justice Blackmun falsely claimed that abortion had never been a common-law crime.

Feminists still lie about the incidence of back-alley abortions that served as a justification for legalization. In a celebratory column welcoming the euphemistically titled March for Women’s Lives, in the spring of 2004, Ellen Goodman wrote, “After all, those of us who remember when birth control was illegal and when ten thousand American women a year died from illegal abortions don’t have to imagine a world without choices.” As she later had to allow, her memory was faulty. When her column prompted charges that she was repeating “propaganda” or an “urban legend,” she did a little research and admitted in a later column that the claim that there were thousands of deaths in the years prior to abortion’s legalization (which she hadn’t bothered to check in the 30 years since Roe v. Wade) is false.

In 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 39 women died of illegal or self-induced abortions. Overall improvements in prenatal and obstetrical care beginning in the 1940s saw the rate of pregnancy-related deaths from causes other than abortion drop at roughly the same rate as abortion-related deaths.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese is the Eleonore Raoul Professor of the Humanities and professor of history at Emory University. This founding director of the university’s Institute for Women’s Studies believes that the abortion rights agenda betrays women. She writes, “Doubtless we would benefit from more complete studies, but we now have enough evidence to say with confidence that for the vast majority of women, abortion represents a worst-case scenario-and, too often, a confirmation of their abandonment by the father of the child and by the larger community. More often than not, girls and women have abortions because they lack the support to have their child.”

Kate Michelman, Faye Wattleton, Gloria Steinem, Gloria Feldt, Eleanor Smeal, and their abortion allies have been promoting an antiwomen agenda in the name of women’s liberation by waging a campaign for “choice” on behalf of women who often feel they have no choice at all.

Kate O’Beirne is the Washington editor of National Review and is a member of the Catholic League’s Board of Advisors. She served for 10 years as a panelist on CNN’s “The Capital Gang.

Jackie Mason and Raoul Felder

Editor’s note: Jackie Mason, the comedian, and Raoul Felder, the noted New York attorney, had the courage to directly confront those who have joined the culture war against Christmas. They are both founding members of Don Feder’s group, Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation (JAACD). Having people of this quality in the Jewish community stand up for Christians is enormously helpful. We are indebted to them for all their good work, and their bountiful goodwill.

You would have to be a refugee from a sanitarium not to look forward to Christmas. Christmas in America is not a clash of civilizations, but rather a celebration of diversities. But to lots of people, it doesn’t seem that way. Across America school districts are forbidding the singing of Christmas carols, nativity scenes are being banned in public places, and in malls the “Christmas sales” are now “Holiday sales.” Although we are part of the 15 percent of Americans that are not Christian and the 5 percent who do not celebrate Christmas—unless the giving of gifts and gratuities constitute “celebrating”—and if that is true then we are part of the 95 percent who are celebrants—we have nothing against, and are part of those who enjoy the entire Christmas experience. What’s not to like? People are friendlier and music fills the air.

However, we have the whisper of an unworthy thought that if polls were taken of only the givers: the bosses, the employers, the apartment dwellers and all the myriad people from whom gifts are sought on a virtually obligatory basis, as opposed to the people with their hands out, the percentages probably would tip more towards the Scrooges.

Personally we like Christmas carols—especially sung by Bing Crosby—with their simple and elegant melodies and chord structures that have survived in the same manner as other folk songs that have been handed down through the ages, such as those of Scotland and Ireland.

We cannot see how our beliefs are jeopardized by someone else celebrating his beliefs—particularly if the celebrations are those consisting, at least in part, of love, family values, spirituality and giving thought to the less fortunate.

We would have a very fragile religion if 2000 years of our culture and beliefs were threatened by Bing Crosby singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”—incidentally written by a Jew, Irving Berlin—Santa Claus and mistletoe. Now, if it were the KKK celebrating their holiday by exchanging presents of bed sheets and singing carols beside burning crosses, or the Romans tossing another Jew on the Yule log, or the Ghost of Christmas Past turning out to be Osama Bin Laden in a Santa Claus suit, it would be another story. But until then, hand us the check books and turn up Bing Crosby.

Jews seem to be heavily involved in this repeal movement. They would do well to remember Pastor Niemöller’s observation: “In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me—and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

The point is, of course, if Christmas is abolished from public display, can the fate of Chanukah and the myriad of other Jewish holidays be far behind?

Also, if the Christians are discouraged from buying Christmas presents, some thought must be given to the question, “Who is selling the presents to the Christians?”

And lastly, a word about the ACLU. The ACLU is an organization supported by many liberal Jews and is in the forefront of efforts for a public suppression of Christmas. They are also vocal in criticism of American treatment of terrorists. It is our respectful observation that it is the terrorists who have affected the way in which we now have to live our lives, have created serious economic consequences for us and caused the death of thousands of Americans—and not Bing Crosby.

It is significant that the ACLU’s position is that pornography is protected under the Constitution, while the Christmas tree is not. So, if this bunch were successful, the only way you could see a Christmas tree is if you visit a porn shop that had one.

With these thoughts we want to wish our friends both Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah—at least as long as we are permitted to do so.

Coda: Proof that the work of Don Feder, Jackie Mason, Raoul Felder, Rabbi Spero et al. is having an effect was evident in Frank Rich’s column in the New York Times on Christmas day. He railed against the “manufactured” Christmas wars, accusing those who are protesting the censoring of Christmas of exhibiting “a strong anti-Semitic and far-right pedigree.” Rich explicitly criticized Jackie Mason, calling him “Fox News’s obligatory show Jew.” This is exactly what we would expect from Frank Rich.

The next time someone tells you that the war on Christmas is exaggerated, have them read the following. All of these events/remarks were made at Christmastime 2005:

The Palm Beach Post said that in South Florida malls, “There are dangling ornaments, Christmas trees, but no crosses or angels, certainly no Mother Mary cradling her newborn son” (our italics). Senior citizens were told by government officials in Winter Park, Florida that they were not allowed to sing Christmas carols. Government workers in Illinois were ordered not to say “Merry Christmas.” Christians in Rhode Island were told they could not put Christmas decorations on the City Hall’s lawn.

In a park shared by Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach, Florida, the private display of a manger scene was censored, but a large menorah was said to be okay. No schools in Palm Beach permitted crèches, but some allowed menorahs. School districts in Glendale, Wisconsin, Eagle County, Colorado and Long Island, New York, banned Christmas religious songs but allowed songs celebrating Hanukkah.

Residents in Middletown, New Jersey, got a holiday card from town library officials that included Christmas greetings in Spanish, Chinese, French and German, but not in English. Students at an Alexandria, Virginia school were told they could sing “Feliz Navidad,” but not “White Christmas.” A school in the Belleville, Illinois area banned all references to Christmas but allowed an Indian, John White Antelope, to speak about his native religion.

In the Los Angeles Times, writer Joel Stein said, “We Jews find it a little embarrassing that adults can still make such a fuss over Christmas. To us, Jesus was just a cool guy everyone liked because he died young. And even 16-year-old girls eventually take down their James Dean posters.” Andrew Edlin, a New York gallery owner, offered, “All the people who have murdered us over the years have Christmas trees.”

The sign, “Jesus Is The Reason For The Season,” incensed Amanda Alpert of Raleigh, North Carolina, because “I’m Jewish, and the reason for the season is upsetting to me.” When asked to explain why Christians were unhappy with her opposition to crèches, Rabbi Leah Richman of Pottsville, Pennsylvania said, “They’re taking my stand as being anti-tolerance and anti-diversity because I’m not tolerant of their nativity scene.”

Kiera McCaffrey, as quoted in The Detroit News: “It seems, in the past few years, people have noticed how much Christmas has become so secular and they’re reacting to that, and we’re seeing more and more people making a point to ask that stores mention Christmas.”

Vandals destroyed everything from nativity scenes to secular Christmas displays, and they did so from coast to coast. The following places were hit by vandals at Christmastime in 2005:

Birmingham, AL; Homewood, AL; Montgomery, AL; Bella Vista, AR; Van Buren, AR; Eureka Springs, AR; Little Rock, AR; Covina, CA; Fremont, CA; Newport Beach, CA; Fresno, CA; Westlake Village, CA; Westminster, CO; Cape Coral, FL; St. Petersburg, FL; St. Lucie West, FL; Port Saint Lucie, FL; Delray Beach, FL; Longboat Key, FL; Galesburg, IL; Belleville, IL; West Frankfort, IL; Cohasset, MA; Brockton, MA; Quincy, MA; Londonderry, MA; Severn, MD; Glen Burnie, MD; Waltz, MI; Port Huron, MI; Blaine, MN; Marquis Point, MN; Hilton Head, NC; Wilmington, NC; Asbury Park, NJ; Branchville, NJ; Sayreville, NJ (police found 27 baby Jesus statues in the car of a suspected thief); Trenton, NJ; Old Bridge, NJ; Howell, NJ; Prospect Park, NJ; Hamilton, NJ; Holbrook, NY; Pearl River, NY; Troy, NY; Dayton, OH; Fremont, OH; Hamilton, OH; Cheviot, OH; Whitaker Park, OK; Medford, OR; Watsontown, PA; New Kensington, PA; South Kingstown, RI; Houston, TX; Killeen, TX; Murfreesboro, TN; Draper, UT; Logan, UT; Fredricksburg, VA; Eatonville, WA; Seattle, WA; Madison, WI; Oak Hill, WV.

Some of this is the work of very sick people. In many cases, Christmas decorations in cemeteries have been vandalized, and headstones have been overturned. Orlando, FL was home to a bloody Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer hanging from a tree. A large blindfolded Santa was found hanging from a tree in Miami Beach, FL: in Boston, vandals decapitated Santa: Santa had his throat cut in Lincoln, NE: a dead Santa turned up in Oklahoma City, OK: and homeowners displayed a bloody Santa holding a severed head in New York City.

Editor’s note: the following story contains graphic material of an offensive nature.

As 2005 came to a close, the Catholic League scored another major victory: we got Comedy Central to pull a scheduled rerun of a vile episode of “South Park.” News stories trumpeting our victory were printed on December 30. Here’s how the story unfolded.

For four consecutive nights, beginning on December 7, the Comedy Central show “South Park” defiled Our Blessed Mother and offended Catholics nationwide with its “Bloody Mary” episode. The plot was unbelievable.

A “South Park” character gets a DWI and is ordered to attend AA meetings. Told about the 12-step program, he concludes that he needs a miracle to cure him. The plot then focuses on a statue of the Virgin Mary who is “bleeding out her ass.” The Vatican dispatches a cardinal to investigate, who is sprayed with blood when he walks behind the statue. He then declares this to be a miracle, which draws even more people. The alcoholic, now in a wheelchair, is also sprayed with blood: he then claims he is cured and jumps out of his seat.

Pope Benedict XVI goes to investigate. He, too, is sprayed with blood when he walks behind the statue. A reporter says, “The pope investigated further and determined that the statue was not bleeding out its ass, but its vagina.” To which the pope replies: “A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time.”

Comedy Central is a subsidiary of MTV, which is owned by Viacom. On the board of directors of Viacom is a practicing Catholic and a distinguished public servant, Joseph A. Califano; he served under Presidents Johnson and Carter. We wrote to him requesting that he intervene in this matter.

We told Mr. Califano we wanted two things: a) an apology to Roman Catholics and b) a pledge that this episode be permanently retired and not be made available on DVD. In the event Viacom refuses to cooperate, we asked Mr. Califano to issue his own statement of condemnation. We asked our members who visit our website to contact him as well. And we reminded them that Comedy Central chose to insult Our Blessed Mother on the eve of the Immaculate Conception, and the holy day itself.

Califano wasted no time issuing the following statement (it was issued on December 9, the same day he received our request):

“Today I viewed the South Park segment about our Blessed Mother. I found it an appalling and disgusting portrayal of the Virgin Mary. It is particularly troubling to me as a Roman Catholic that the segment has run on the eve and day of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day for Roman Catholics. I have talked to Tom Freston, the president and chief executive of the New Viacom, and asked him to review this show and determine whether any action should be taken. That decision is his.”

We commended Mr. Califano for his quick and unequivocal response. But when we heard nothing from Freston, we called his office. Not once, but several times. We made it clear that we would not go away until a decision had been rendered. Indeed, on December 28, Catholic League vice president Bernadette Brady called Freston’s office warning them that if we did not hear by December 30, we were going to report his refusal to cooperate to our members in the January-February edition of Catalyst.

On December 29, we received a phone call from Tony Fox, executive vice president for corporate communications at Comedy Central, informing us that there were no plans to rerun “Bloody Mary.” The next day, UPI reported that “Comedy Central pulled a scheduled rerun of the season finale of ‘South Park’ that incensed the Catholic League.”

In our news release of December 30, Bill Donohue said: “The decision reflects what I asked for in our news release of December 8. Therefore, I commend Comedy Central for finally making the right decision. That it aired in the first place, however, does not speak well for the bigots responsible for creating it.”

Donohue concluded, “Already, we are being deluged with hate mail that is as obscene as it is viciously anti-Catholic. All because we exercised our First Amendment right to request that Comedy Central not offend Catholics again! But we’re used to such things and will not be deterred.”

Another Comedy Central attack on Catholicism was made by Denis Leary on November 27 and 29, and again on December 17. His special, “Merry F#%$in’ Christmas,” consisted of several skits, a cartoon and musical performances, many of which were anti-Catholic. Bad it was, it was nothing like the “South Park” episode.

It is a credit to our members who tap into our website that we were able to beat “South Park.” We provided the e-mail link to Joe Califano’s office that started the ball rolling, and many of you contacted him.

Those of you who think that “I am only one person” and can’t affect change, should keep this victory in mind: When you, and others like you, act in concert, the result is an avalanche.

To show how fair she is, Patricia Sonntag, director of the office of Services to Students with Disabilities at California State University, Sacramento, banned 4th of July celebrations, along with Christmas, from her office. Here is what her directive said:

“With the new year, we will now celebrate the seasons and holiday without decorations in the public areas and hallways. This is a secular university and we are a public service area that has a diverse employee and student populations [sic] even in our private offices. In order to avoid offending someone else, we will not display celebratory reminders. This specifically includes Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Valentines, 4th of July, St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, off the top of the list [my emphasis]. I, for one, am the worst offender and celebrant. Time has come to recognize that religious discrimination, as well as ethnic insensitivity to certain holidays, is forbidden. I am sorry if this offends anyone, but it is time to start the new year differently.”

We contacted Frank Whitlatch, Associate VP, Public Affairs, about Sonntag’s directive. He said, “The guidelines it sets out do not reflect general practice at Sacramento State, and in fact there are holiday decorations on display in offices and public areas throughout the campus.” But not in Sonntag’s area.

Bill Donohue responded with the following news release:

“Everyday I come to work, I learn something new. Today I learned, courtesy of Patricia Sonntag, that the 4th of July is a religious holiday. Last week a rabbi told me the Christmas tree is a religious symbol. Yesterday, one of Donald Trump’s towers banned Christian mangers but allowed Jewish menorahs, because, as condo board member Laura Esrov explained, the religious menorah is really secular. It never occurs to these secular supremacists that it is their aversion to anything religious—or patriotic—that accounts for their desire to muzzle free speech.”