On December 8, Bill Donohue released an open letter to the president of the National Education Association asking her to terminate a member of the national board of directors who publicly called for innocent religious Americans to be shot. Days later we learned that this person was released from her teaching job and was removed from the NEA’s board.

We were the only organization in the nation to call for this person to be terminated. Our email subscribers bombarded the NEA with complaints, making possible this victory.

Here is the text of the letter that Donohue wrote to Ms. Rebecca S. Pringle, President of the NEA:

Your role as president of the National Education Association is pivotal, and that is why I am urging you to remove Mollie Paige Mumau from the board of directors of the NEA; she is employed in the General McLane School District in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, which is part of Erie County.

In her December 7 Facebook post, Mumau did more than criticize those who are seeking a religious exemption from receiving the Covid-19 vaccination. She called for them to be shot. Here is an excerpt of her remarks (she was apparently responding to someone who chose not to get vaccinated, citing religious objections).

“Screw this guy and screw them all who are all about hiding behind religious exemptions because they don’t want anybody to tell them what to do….He and his ilk deserve whatever comes their way, including losing jobs, getting sick, and perhaps dying from this virus….I don’t know why the GOP doesn’t just take those guns they profess to love so much and just start shooting all of their constituents who think this way (my emphasis).”

As someone who spent 20 years teaching, 16 as a professor, and as the president of the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization, I am calling on you to terminate Mumau’s membership on the board of directors of the NEA. Given all the gun violence that our nation has endured lately—including school shootings—it is beyond belief that an educator would make such a statement.

There is no legitimate place in public life for anyone who advocates the mass slaughter of innocent Americans, and it is doubly offensive that it should emanate from a teacher. Indeed, Mumau should be prosecuted for what she has done, and that is why I am contacting Erie County District Attorney Jack Daneri.

Copies were sent to the NEA Executive Committee, Executive Officers of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, Dr. Matthew Lane, Superintendent of General McLane School District, and Jack Daneri, Erie County DA.

The year 2021 will be remembered as the year when church vandals and hate crimes against people of faith exploded, not just in the United States but in Europe as well.

We have been keeping tabs on instances of church vandalism and related crimes for decades, but this year we recorded many more cases than usual. It’s actually been in the past two years that the number has spiked.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops tallied well over 100 incidents of vandalism at Catholic churches and other institutions. Arson, graffiti and defaced statues were the most common acts.

While all such behavior is reprehensible, we always make a distinction between vandals who are drunken teenagers and those who are motivated by hatred of Catholicism.

In our research, we found that certain key words were associated with the vandalism, words that makes us think these were politically motivated acts. Abortion was frequently cited by the vandals. Black Lives Matter rioters were also responsible for many of the crimes.

The Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance against Christians in Europe recorded a 70% increase in hate crimes for the last year it collected data. The authors of the study found that “secular intolerance is the driving dynamic in most of the cases and areas of life we observed.” They concluded that the criminals are trying “to relegate religion to the private sphere.”

Radical left-wing secularists are the real threat.

On January 6, 2002, the Boston Globe began a series of stories on its investigation into clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston. It would prove to be the most damaging report on the Catholic Church in U.S. history, shocking Catholic and non-Catholic alike. It also inspired reporters across the nation to take a close look at this subject, resulting in more bad news. The good news is that 20 years later, much has changed for the better.

Regrettably, most of the major media outlets are not exactly religion-friendly, and many are downright hostile, especially to Roman Catholicism. As I detail in my new book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes, this explains why they have no interest in reporting on the progress that has been made.

In the 1970s, which was when priestly sexual abuse was at its height, there was an average of 6,155 accusations made against current clergy members. The average number of substantiated accusations made in the last ten years is 5.9. In other words, this problem is largely behind us. For the media not to report on this is scandalous.

When the Boston Globe broke this story, I wrote the following at the end of 2002: “It was a rare event in 2002 to read a newspaper account of the scandal that was patently unfair, much less anti-Catholic. The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the New York Times covered the story carefully and with professionalism.”

Four years later I was just as impressed with the Boston Globe. I credited reporter Brian McGrory for slamming church-suing lawyer Mitchell Garabedian after the attorney twice sued a priest who was exonerated of all charges against him. The priest died in 2011, a broken man. McGrory said what Garabedian did was “a disgrace.” I called Garabedian and asked him if he had any regrets about going after the priest. He responded like a maniac and blew up at me.

Over time, the Globe changed. Its once objective stance gave way to writing pieces about the Catholic Church that were more of an editorial than a news story. The animus it sported was palpable. Worse, under McGrory, who was promoted to editor of the newspaper in 2012, the Globe became duplicitous.

On November 14, 2018, there was a front-page story in the Globe alleging more than 130 bishops, or about a third of those still living, had been accused of “failing to adequately respond to sexual misconduct in their dioceses.” It received wide media coverage, and it was released just prior to a bishops’ conference in Baltimore.

As a sociologist, I had some serious problems with the methodology of the study, and so I emailed the Globe about them. I wanted to see the data, but they said no. I asked several more times, limiting my scope each time. It made no difference.

This was the same newspaper that had won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the Boston archdiocese—accusing the Church of not being transparent—now deciding that transparency does not apply to itself.

The hypocrisy extends beyond the newspaper: Boston’s liberal elites, in and outside the Catholic Church, are just as phony.

One of the most famous perverts in the Boston archdiocese was Father Paul Shanley. The “hippie priest,” who raped children and adults—provided they were male—was the darling of the Boston literati and political class. They loved his public defiance of the Church’s sexual ethics, and his rebellious character.

In the 1970s, when Shanley was on the prowl, Boston was home to some of the most pro-homosexual activist organizations in the nation, including the pedophile group, NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association). Shanley attended its first conference in 1978.

Boston is a college town, and like most of them, it is proud of its liberal politicians, including those known for their predatory behavior. The Kennedys are a prime example. John, Bobby, and Teddy made the rounds with celebrities and many others and never paid a price for it at the ballot box; they learned their ways from their father, Joe, who was another philanderer.

The voters were just as kind to homosexuals who bounced around with their lovers. Rep. Gerry Studds was censured by the House in 1983 for his sexual romp with a teenage boy, but he continued to be reelected. Rep. Barney Frank hooked up with a male prostitute in 1989, but that didn’t bother his constituents, most of whom voted for him time and again with wide margins.

The Boston electorate also likes pro-homosexual legislation. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize gay “marriage.” It did so with the help of four priests who testified the year before against a bill that would define marriage as an institution between a man and a woman.

These same people—who voted for straight and gay promiscuous men, and who loved Shanley—went ballistic when the Globe published stories about sexually active priests. Apparently, there is nothing wrong with being sexually reckless, unless one is a priest.

The Catholic Church has cleaned up its act. Too bad its critics have yet to catch up.

Michael P. McDonald, Director of Communications

The following is a shortened version of what is posted on our website.

If one considers the hostility the Catholic Church and traditional Judeo-Christian values faced from the Biden Administration, corporations, education, and the perpetually aggrieved activist class, 2021 was a long year. However, the Catholic League managed to achieve many victories.

Out of all the enemies hostile to the Catholic Church, the government poses the most danger of them all. Particularly, with Joe Biden holding the presidency, the forces of the federal government ushered in many anti-Catholic policies. That this occurred under a self-described “devout Catholic” made this all the more infuriating.

Biden wasted no time attacking teachings at the heart of the Church. On January 20th, his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order allowing males who claim to be female the right to compete with females in high school and college sports. He also approved of them showering together.

On January 22, Biden said he was “committed to codifying Roe v. Wade.”

Then, on January 28, he issued an executive order to rescind the Mexico City Policy, the rule that bars U.S. foreign aid to international non-profit organizations that provide for abortion or abortion counseling. Biden also asked the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to begin the process of rescinding the Trump administration’s Title X family planning rule; among other things, it denies funds to Planned Parenthood and other abortion mills.

On February 14, the White House issued a statement that the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships “will not prefer one faith over another or favor religious over secular organizations.” But the whole point of creating an office of faith-based programs was to prioritize religious social service agencies.
Biden’s decision to appoint Melissa Rogers to head this endeavor was even more telling. He could not have chosen a more seasoned secularist to steer these faith-based entities.

On May 14, our worst fears for the office were confirmed. Rogers met with representatives from six secular organizations. None of them were religion-friendly and some are positively militant in their agenda.

Biden pushed for action on the Equality Act. The effect of this legislation is to promote the most comprehensive assault on Christianity ever written into law.

The Equality Act has two major goals: it would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity to the definition of sex; it would also significantly undermine the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) by allowing gay rights to trump religious rights.

On September 20, the White House issued a statement saying, “The Administration strongly supports House passage of H.R. 3755, the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021.” The proposed law has nothing to do with women’s health—it is a pro-abortion bill.

Biden surrounded himself with henchmen who have long track records of hostility to religious liberties. Xavier Becerra was President Biden’s worst nominee for a Cabinet post. The man is a menace to life and liberty and has no business serving in this capacity. The Catholic League found 16 serious flaws with his nomination. While we sent our detailed list of complaints to the Senate, they voted 50-49 to confirm him as Secretary of HHS.

In October, President Biden nominated Joseph Donnelly to be the new U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. When Donnelly served as a congressman, he was largely pro-life, but when he became a U.S. Senator, he pivoted and joined the pro-abortion camp. There is a reason why Donnelly was co-chair of Catholics for Biden. Like our “devout Catholic” president, he turned rogue.

We did better at securing victories on the state level.

North Dakota State Sen. Judy Lee introduced legislation that would bust the seal of the confessional. The Catholic League quickly jumped into the fray. We mobilized our supporters to put pressure on the legislators to kill this bill. Soon after our supporters expressed their outrage, the legislation was withdrawn.

Another major victory we scored this year, ensuring the due process rights of accused priests, was in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The court ruled 5-2 that the statute of limitations begins when an alleged crime took place not when the so-called victim recalls the alleged offense. In their ruling, the court cited an amicus brief from the law firm Jones Day hired by the Catholic League.

We learned that Judicial Watch was representing the Center for Medical Progress in a quest to obtain documentation of alleged human organ harvesting at the University of Pittsburgh. According to their probe, organs were harvested while the baby’s heart was still beating.

Bill Donohue wrote a letter to Pennsylvania Auditor General, Timothy L. DeFoor, asking him to determine whether state and federal funds were being used by Pitt for arguably criminal activity. This was another victory because in September the university agreed to have its fetal tissue research practices independently reviewed.

While the forces of the federal government working against traditional Catholic values created challenges, we unfortunately witnessed a massive sea change on the part of the corporations.

For instance, Major League Baseball (MLB) decided to get involved in politics and promote social justice causes in America; however, MLB has no problem working with Communist China to increase revenue. This is the same communist regime that is committing the biggest violation of human rights, particularly the right to religious liberty, in the world today. To call out MLB for this hypocrisy, Bill Donohue wrote an open letter to the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, and called on our supporters to contact him as well. Manfred got belted by our email base.

Although corporations are largely succumbing to cancel culture and woke ideologies, the Catholic League continued to fight and has been successful in making them relent on some of their more egregious violations.

Catholic World Report (CWR) received notice from Twitter that its account had been locked for hateful conduct when it described HHS Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine as “a biological man identifying as a transgender woman.”

Three hours after we listed the email address of a key official at Twitter, asking our subscribers to protest its decision to freeze CWR’s account, Twitter reversed itself.

As the new school year began, what children learn became one of the biggest flash points in the culture war. With this as our backdrop, the Catholic League reviewed many prominent history and government textbooks.

One thing became abundantly apparent from our deep dive into these textbooks; namely, the current curriculum provides a biased perspective against traditional and Catholic values. By and large, these textbooks present religion, traditional values, and conservatism in a negative light.

In 2021, activist organizations joined the culture war on Catholicism as well.

The bishops were their favorite targets. Ultimately, this stemmed from Biden’s radical departures from Catholic teachings. On June 16, the bishops met to discuss how to address this situation. They agreed to formulate a teaching document on the Eucharist. On November 15, they met to complete their task. While the final document did not address the problems Biden created, that did not stop the activists from attacking them.

Faithful America and Faith in Public Life, two groups funded by atheist billionaire and Catholic-hater George Soros, were the most vocal to attack the bishops.

However, attacks on the bishops were not limited to Soros-funded paid activists. Even politicians heaped insults on the bishops. Rep. Jared Huffman tweeted, “If they’re [the Catholic bishops] going to politically weaponize religion by ‘rebuking’ Democrats who support women’s reproductive choice, then a ‘rebuke’ of their tax-exempt status may be in order.” After our supporters lambasted him, he changed his tune.

Unfortunately, the activists did not just limit their attacks on the Church to insults and threats. In 2021, we saw a continuation of the vandalism and destruction of Catholic property.

If there was one Catholic target the activists loved going after in 2021, it was St. Junípero Serra. The 18th century priest did more for the rights of indigenous peoples than any of his contemporaries, yet activists across California, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, have removed his statue and name from the public square.

Over Thanksgiving, the media revealed that the Salvation Army’s elites made common cause with the activists in promulgating Critical Race Theory. The International Salvation Army issued a lengthy report, “Let’s Talk About Racism,” that accuses white people of being racists and therefore must apologize while arguing that America is an inherently racist society.

The Catholic League issued a comprehensive report analyzing the initial statement from the Salvation Army and the hypocrisy in their efforts to cover their tracks. Once again, our supporters expressed their ire and hopefully the elites at the Salvation Army will stop this nonsense that gives a bad name to their noble volunteers.

In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court made several strong rulings defending religious liberty. First, the Court dealt a blow to church restrictions in California. This led to a slew of victories over states limiting the ability to worship. Later in the year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Catholic foster care agencies can reject gay couples from adopting children. This was a huge victory for religious liberty.

However, not everyone is a fan of religious liberty. For instance, in December, Mollie Paige Mumau, who was listed as a member of the board of directors for the National Education Association (NEA), took to social media attacking those who sought a religious exemption from vaccine mandates. She specifically said they deserved to lose their jobs, get very ill, and die. Additionally, she recommended that they be shot for not getting the vaccine.

Bill Donohue sent a letter to the NEA urging the leadership to remove Mumau from her position on the board. Within a week, she was no longer employed at her school leaving her with no standing in education. The Catholic League was the only civil rights group in the nation to weigh in on this fight.

In a bold defense of the Church, Bill Donohue released his new book The Truth About Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes. In its pages, he sets the record straight and defends the Church.

Additionally, the Catholic League launched a new YouTube series. The “Catholic League Forum” takes a timely look at the big issues threatening our Church and freedoms in pithy and entertaining segments.

With so many forces working against us, the Catholic League not only continues to find new ways to fight but more importantly score significant victories. While no one can guarantee what 2022 might bring, with the fantastic support of our members, the Catholic League will continue the staunch defense of the Church and undoubtedly secure more victories.

The Catholic League’s headquarters is located directly across the street from Penn Station and Macy’s in New York City. Every Christmas season we look forward to The Salvation Army men and women in uniform ringing their bells, and frequently dancing to Christmas music, aside their red kettles, collecting money for the needy. Unfortunately, there have been some organizational changes that gave lots of people pause this past Christmas season.

As always, it is the elites who are the problem. The average volunteer is just as good as ever, doing God’s work.

In the spring of last year, the International Salvation Army issued a lengthy report, “Let’s Talk About Racism,” that is aimed at everyone associated with the organization. It is meant as a discussion guide.

Part of it is commendable: Scripture is frequently cited on the need to treat everyone equally, regardless of race. But it is interposed with the same kind of critical race theory polemics that is cause for concern all across the nation. Instead of combating racism, it is unwittingly contributing to it.

The report is no longer available on the internet, but we obtained a copy before it was taken down by The Salvation Army. It was taken down because of the backlash the report engendered. On Thanksgiving Day, the top brass issued a statement, “The Salvation Army’s Response to False Claims on the Topic of Racism.” This was simply dishonest.

Instead of apologizing for adopting the politics of the hard-core left, the elites doubled down by lashing out at its critics.

“They [the critics] have claimed that we believe our donors should apologize for their skin color, that The Salvation Army believes America is an inherently racist society, and that we have abandoned our Christian faith for one ideology or another. Those claims are simply false, and they distort the very goal of our work.” Not so fast.

In the Introduction to the report, on page 3, advice is given to their flock, or what they call Salvationists. One of the items suggest that they “Lament, repent and apologize for biases or racist ideologies held and actions committed (our italic).” This is more than an assumption: throughout the document, as will be detailed, the understanding is that white people are racists, thus necessitating the need to “apologize.”

It is similarly disingenuous to say that the critics are wrong when they say that “The Salvation Army believes America is an inherently racist society.” On page 3 in Appendix D, it explicitly says of America that “Our foundations were built on racism, and it is still strongly felt in every aspect of American life.” There is no other way to read that other than to say that “America is an inherently racist society.”

While it would be unfair to say The Salvation Army has “abandoned [its] Christian faith for one ideology or another,” it is true that its deep dive into critical race theory has created several blind spots. For example, on page 1, Appendix A, it offers a morally neutral interpretation of the Affordable Care Act.

One would expect that a Christian organization would at least mention, if not condemn, the ObamaCare healthcare mandate forcing religious nonprofits, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, to include abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plan. But there is no such mention.

It is abundantly clear that the authors of this report are generally ignorant of both the natural and social sciences. Indeed, it reads like a manifesto, not a document informed by science.

On page 2 of the Introduction, it says race and racism “have no basis in science or biblical thought.” On page 2 of Session One, it says, “Race is not biological. It is a social construct.”

It would be more accurate to say that the consensus in scientific circles is that the term race has both genetic and environmental roots.

A.L. Kroeber, the distinguished cultural anthropologist, was clearly aligned with those who emphasize nurture over nature, yet even he admitted that “race is a valid biological concept.” Furthermore, he studied under the early 20th century anthropologist Franz Boas, who, while adhering to a belief in cultural relativism, nonetheless said that race was “a scientific concept [that] applies only to the biological groupings of human types.”

If race were purely a social construct, why is it that racial groups differ widely on their susceptibility to certain diseases? There is more at work than mere environmental matters when we learn that sickle-cell anemia is more prevalent among African Americans than it is whites.

Why is it that this disease affects 1 in 13 African Americans but only 1 in 100 Hispanic Americans? Sickle-cell anemia is a function of hemoglobin A (HbA), the usual form of hemoglobin, and hemoglobin S (HbS), a variant group. Is hemoglobin a social construct? If it were, then why in Bill Donohue’s doctoral training in sociology was hemoglobin never mentioned?

A more honest approach, to cite one example, is found in an article in the Oct. 26, 2020 medical publication, Stroke. “Identifying Genetic and Biological Determinants of Race-Ethnic Disparities in Stroke in the United States” was authored by five men and women who hold PhDs and MDs. One of their conclusions gets directly to Donohue’s point. “Although the Black-White disparities in stroke have been known for at least a half century,” they write, “only recently have studies focused on biological and genetic factors that contribute to racial disparities in stroke.”

In other words, the notion that race is nothing more than a social construct is plainly false.

In the Introduction, the term racism is given a fairly standard definition, but on page 3, Session One, the report slides into politics. Racism is defined as “The prejudiced treatment, stereotyping or discrimination of POC [People Of Color] on the basis of race.”

If a sociology student of Dr. Donohue’s were to offer this definition, he would fail. Since when does racism apply only to “People Of Color”? According to this definition, “People Of Color” are incapable of being racists. That would mean that Louis Farrakhan, the notorious black anti-Semite, is not a racist. No one believes this save those drunk on ideology.

In reality, the world is not divided between white racists and their victims. Indeed, to imply as such is a prime example of racism. Furthermore, the term “People Of Color” is meaningless. Asians are at the top of the educational and socio-economic scale, and African Americans are at the bottom. So what exactly do they have in common? That they are not white?

On page 5 of the Glossary we learn that a racist is “a person who belongs to a dominant or privileged group that discriminates against people of other races, or someone who believes that a particular race is superior to another.”

The latter part is true, but it is absurd to imply that a person cannot be a racist unless he belongs to “a dominant or privileged group.” Lori Lightfoot is the black mayor of Chicago and she expressly said in May 2021 that she would not grant interviews to white reporters (she rescinded the rule two days later amid a backlash). What she did was racist, and there is no getting around it. She discriminated against white reporters.

It is ironic to note that this report, which was written to combat racism, smacks of racism. The bias against white people is palpable. “Whiteness and White racialized identity refer to the way that White people, their customs, culture and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups are compared.” That is what it says on page 6 of the Glossary.

This is a prime example of racism. Not only is “Whiteness” a contrived slang term designed to denigrate all Caucasians, there is no such thing as white “customs, culture and beliefs.” The customs, culture and beliefs of the Irish are not that of the Ukrainians. For that matter, it is racist to assume that the Chinese and Japanese share the same customs, culture and beliefs. They manifestly do not.

One of the biggest problems with this report—another clear reflection of critical race theory—is the propensity to see racism everywhere. On page 3, Session 4, it labels as an example of “racial inequities” the fact that more blacks have died of COVID-19 than whites.

One reason for this disparity is that the obesity rate among whites is 30.2% and among blacks it is 42.4%. This matters because there is a positive correlation between obesity and COVID-19, meaning the more obese someone is the more likely he is to get the disease.

Similarly, on page 3, Session 2, the report offers as an example of racism the fact that blacks are much more likely to be incarcerated than whites, and that they don’t do nearly as well in school. There is a reason for this: blacks commit an inordinate amount of violent crimes and they score at the bottom in tests measuring educational achievement.

Lest someone think we are implying that blacks are naturally given to crime, or that they are not as intelligent as whites, let us hasten to add that that is not what we mean. Both conditions are easily explainable, and they have nothing to do with race.

It is the family that matters, not race. Men of any race who come from fatherless families are much more likely to be involved in crime, and students who are raised in one-parent families generally do not do as well in school as those raised in two-parent families. For reasons tied to public policies that have undermined the black family—policies advocated by the “anti-racists”—most black kids are raised in female-headed households.

On page 3, Session 4, the report lists George Floyd as a victim of police brutality, and on page 1 Appendix C it lists Michael Brown and Eric Garner (as well as three largely unknown persons) as victims of police racism. Yet in each case there were factors having nothing to do with race that led to their deaths. In the case of Brown, it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the police did nothing wrong. Even the Obama administration’s Department of Justice came to this conclusion.

It is clear that the authors are in over their heads. On page 4, Session 5, they say that it is a problem when people do not intermix with those of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. This is astonishing. They have just unwittingly condemned the Chinese. Wherever they live, they choose to live in “Chinatowns” (quite unlike the Japanese who assimilate). Does this make them racists?

If this isn’t bad enough, the report ends with a list of recommended books on the subject of combating racism, many of which actually promote the very racist ideas that this document promotes.

The Salvation Army elites have done a disservice to this great organization. They need to do more than just withdraw this dreadful report: They need to make a public statement apologizing for the damage they have done to the status of the organization and a pledge never again to succumb to left-wing politics.

Never has religious liberty been more seriously threatened than it is today. That the man responsible for this all-out assault professes to be a Catholic is all the more offensive. It is his Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that are leading the charge.

News of Biden’s latest war on religious liberty was selectively leaked to the media. A draft memo by OCR to HHS indicated the Biden administration was planning to revoke the Trump administration’s policies governing religious liberty, including conscience rights. On December 7, 2021 the Trump era protections were overturned.

HHS, under the leadership of Secretary Xavier Becerra, who has a long record of trampling on religious liberty, has worked in tandem with OCR to gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In his capacity as California Attorney General, he sued the Little Sisters of the Poor for resisting the HHS mandate of the Obama administration; it tried to force the nuns to provide for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans.

OCR has contended that the Trump administration “took an expansive view of the use of RFRA that resulted in negative impacts for underserved communities.” Translated this means that attempts of radical homosexual and transgender activists to impose their secular agenda on religious institutions and agencies were blocked from doing so by the previous administration. The Biden team wants to undo all of that.

We were delighted that Sen. James Lankford called out the Biden administration on this issue. Unfortunately, another news story broke, detailing how matters have only worsened.

Becerra is actively seeking to eviscerate a wide range of religious liberty exemptions that lawmakers and the courts have granted. He is doing an end run around legislators, appealing directly to the courts to satisfy his agenda. In court filings obtained by the Catholic Benefits Association, there is a symbiotic relationship between HHS and radical left-wing activist organizations, the most prominent of which is the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The evidence shows that transgender rights and abortion rights are being pursued full throttle. Their success depends on the destruction of religious liberty exemptions put in place by the courts, lawmakers and administrative agencies. More than any other entity, it is Catholic institutions that are under the most severe attack.

If Biden gets his way, Catholic doctors and hospitals will lose their autonomy. They will either have to shut down or bend to the anti-Catholic norms of his administration. It’s just that serious.

Currently, no Catholic doctor can be forced to perform gender-transition surgery, and Catholic hospitals can refuse a request by a transgender woman—meaning a man who claims to be a woman—from doing a hysterectomy. Biden wants to change that. He also wants to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Not to be outdone, Biden wants to deny Catholic hospitals the right not to hire abortionists, doctors who perform abortions.

Biden has also invented a new right: the right of “socially infertile” single persons and homosexual couples to receive fertility treatments. His administration actually believes that these people cannot “reproduce via sexual intercourse due to social factors (our italic).” And what might these social factors be? A “lack of a partner or because of a person’s sexual orientation.”

In other words, it is not biology that stops single people and homosexual couples from having babies—it is society. This is the kind of insanity that happens when nature, and nature’s God, are dismissed and disdained. Regrettably, not only is this nonsense accepted by left-wing organizations, it is embraced by the ruling class, including elites in the healthcare industry. None of them have the guts to call this out for what it is—madness. They are complicit in this contrived universe.

Similarly, denying a woman an abortion, or what Biden prefers to call “termination of pregnancy,” is a matter of sex discrimination. He, and those who work for him, claim that men can also become pregnant. Yet none of them can provide a scintilla of evidence—taken from any country in the history of the world—to verify this baseless claim.

There are several pieces of legislation written by Democrats, such as the Equality Act, that are designed to crush Catholic institutions, but they have been stalled in committee due to their lack of public support. That is why OCR and HHS have elected to bypass Congress and seek court approval for their extremist policies.

The Leadership Conference, which is feeding the Biden team, is comprised of many familiar left-wing organizations. The ACLU, American Atheists, the Anti-Defamation League, the Human Rights Campaign, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood, and the Center for American Progress are all on board. Their hostility to religious liberty in general, and Catholic rights in particular, are well known. What is not widely known is that AARP is a member of this organization. Catholics take note.

We contacted every senator, in both parties, about our concerns and asked our subscribers to contact their senators and voice their objections to this radical agenda.

Congressman Thomas Massie’s Christmas card showed a picture of him and six other members of his family each holding a long gun. The card carries the inscription, “Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo.” A photo of the card was posted on Twitter on December 4.

Massie was criticized for doing so, drawing the ire of those who say that this card came on the heels of the Michigan school shooting. On December 6, he stood his ground saying he would not delete the photo.

Rep. Massie’s Christmas card was offensive, but not because we believed he intentionally tried to make a statement relative to what happened in Michigan.

The gun imagery was in bad taste. If this needed to be explained, then he has an even bigger problem. Most importantly, it had absolutely nothing to do with honoring the meaning of Christmas.

Throughout the years, we have objected to the dumbing-down of Christmas, using it as a medium to make statements that are extrinsic to the meaning of Christmas. Whether it was a nativity scene with animals in lieu of the Holy Family, or Christmas cards that were nothing more than a family album, the trend has been to relegate the birth of Jesus to a second-class status. That’s why Massie’s contribution was not welcome.

In 2006, Bill Donohue received a Christmas card from President George W. Bush and the First Lady. When asked by the Washington Post if he objected to its secular tone—”Merry Christmas” was noticeably absent—Donohue said that while he did not like it, he assumed all presidents issued some generic Christmas cards. He was wrong.

Reporter Alan Cooperman told him that every president from FDR to Bush’s father had issued at least one card while in office that said “Merry Christmas.” That changed things. The newspaper quoted Donohue saying, “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.”

Rep. Massie had plenty of other opportunities throughout the year to sport his guns. Christmas should not have been one of them.

After Bill Donohue criticized Rep. Thomas Massie for his Twitter Christmas card showing his family holding long guns, on December 7, in a show of support, Rep. Lauren Boebert mimicked Massie by posting a Twitter photo of her standing in front of a Christmas tree with her four young sons, all of whom are holding long guns.

Boebert’s card was not doing Republicans any favor by supporting Massie in this offensive display. Christmas is about Jesus, not gun-toting family members.

That this fact needed to be explained suggests that Massie and Boebert were either clueless or just plain insulting. Either way, they are a disgrace.

Given the prominence of several abortion cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the subject is weighing heavily on the minds of those on both sides of this issue.

If there is one thing that everyone should insist on it is honesty. Regrettably, the pro-abortion side is jam packed with those who have a hard time telling the truth. Here are three examples, all from the first half of December.

On December 13th, Whoopi Goldberg said on “The View” that “I, too, am pro-life. No one I know [who] has had an abortion went willingly or happily. They went because they had to go, because they didn’t have a choice.”

They didn’t have a choice? What does this say about the “pro-choice” movement? Is it based on a lie? Moreover, it is disingenuous for Whoopi to say she is “pro-life”: it is reported that she had six or seven abortions by the age of 25.

Barbara R. Casper is a retired professor of medicine at the University of Louisville, and the author of a recent op-ed in the Courier Journal on this subject. Taking the pro-abortion side, she said, “I am not pro-abortion. In fact, I dare say no one is actually pro-abortion.”

She is wrong. On September 30, 2021, Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi testified in front of the House Oversight Committee on abortion. She told the panel that “for thousands of people I’ve cared for, abortion is a blessing, abortion is an act of love, abortion is freedom.”

On December 2, 2021, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended Roe v. Wade, which effectively sanctions abortion-on-demand. She expressed grave concern over the prospect that the Supreme Court might overturn this decision. “It’s really scary—and I say that as a practicing Catholic.”

The Catholic Church regards abortion to be “intrinsically evil.” By contrast, Pelosi is not only an enthusiast of partial-birth abortion, she wants to force the taxpayers to pay for them. Practicing Catholics don’t endorse the killing of babies who are 80 percent born, and they do not want the public to fund these abominable procedures.

One of the great things about being pro-life is that our side doesn’t have to lie.

On December 1st, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the most important abortion case ever brought since Roe v. Wade; indeed, it could overturn Roe. The case involves a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. A decision is not expected until June 2022. One thing is for sure: there will be plenty of pro-life and pro-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court.

The way protesters on opposing sides typically conduct themselves is dramatic. In early October, at the beginning of the Supreme Court’s new term, pro-life and pro-abortion activists protested outside the high court.

Pro-life protesters were shown praying, saying the rosary, holding huge sheets of paper with the names of Americans who signed a petition to end abortion, and carrying a wooden Cross with the inscription, “Jesus Saves.”

In keeping with this respectful approach, the pro-life side convened a prayerful event on November 28th in Jackson, Mississippi. The “Pray Together for Life” rally was orchestrated by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and was attended by other prominent pro-life leaders.

By contrast, in early October pro-abortion protesters were shown carrying anti-Catholic signs, “Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries,” and placards denouncing pro-life activists, “You Are Pro-Life Until the Baby Is Poor, Black, Transgender, Gay, Mexican, Disabled, Sick.”

Other pro-abortion signs included, “Consent to Sex Is Not Consent to Pregnancy,” “My Body Is Not A Political Playground,” “You Will Not Control Us,” and “When Will My Body Be My Own?” Those who were arrested included a woman who held her hands above her head with a hanger placed around her wrists.

The different styles of protests are reflective of the respective goals of the protesters. Pro-life demonstrators invoke God. Pro-abortion demonstrators invoke hate.

The pro-abortion camp also distorts the truth. Pro-life Americans, who tend to be religious, are far more generous in giving to the poor than their secular pro-abortion counterparts. Thus, the bit about them not caring about all babies is ludicrous. But it is at least refreshing for the pro-abortion side to acknowledge that a pregnant woman is carrying a baby. If they weren’t so clueless, they would understand that this seriously undercuts their position.

Similarly, pregnant women are carrying the body of another human being, thus negating the foolish contention that abortion affects only the body of the expectant mother. Moreover, it is irresponsible for men and women who consent to having sex to deny that they are at least potentially consenting to pregnancy. Indeed, such irresponsibility accounts for a large part of the problem.