Lena Müller sports pink hair. She is not in the circus. No, she is a Berlin Protestant minister. She recently presided over a “poly wedding.” To be specific, she “married” four men. In keeping with the spirit of diversity, two of the guys were Latvians, one was Thai and the other Spaniard.

The minister belongs to the Evangelical Church of Berlin Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia; it goes by EKBO. She promotes a “queer-inclusive” approach, and said the four men now constitute “one family.” Would God approve? Of course. “We saw that there was a lot of love between them. What could God possibly have against there being four of them instead of two?”

Did the EKBO approve this “marriage”? Formally it did not but that is because church weddings cannot be sanctioned unless they are a legally registered marriage, and polygamy is still prohibited by German law.

The EKBO had to bow to the civil law but that doesn’t mean they didn’t like what the renegade minister did. Instead of rebuking her, they stood by her, saying they were “appalled”—not by what she did, but by her critics. They even threatened legal action against her most vocal adversaries.

These EKBO Protestants have been actively subverting Christianity for years. That is their goal—to destroy Christianity from the inside. To wit: they seek the “decolonization of hierarchical and Eurocentric prayer language.” This is short for hating Christianity and Western civilization.

Their agenda is political, having nothing to do with religion. Indeed, they are in open rebellion against human nature and the very stuff that constitutes society. They are also phonies—they are not against all hierarchies—they love telling others what to do.

It boasts on its website that its texts “do not use binary language.” Translated, this means that the fictional world they live in does not recognize men and women. That’s too restrictive. Indeed, they take umbrage at the very word “women,” arguing that doing so validates the notion that such a biological group exists.

This is the culture that the pink-haired minister was nurtured in, so it was hardly a big leap for her to “marry” four men. It wasn’t all that risky, and the fact that the EKBO elites rushed to her defense proves it wasn’t.

What’s next? If all it takes is “love” to justify a marriage, then Sam and Sally, brother and sister, can tie the knot. Indeed, they can add their cousins to the mix, Saul and Susan, and have a happy foursome. This is what happens when our imagination governs our thought processes, substituting make-believe for reality. It’s also what happens when those who want to subvert Christianity are seen as heroes.

The German Bishops’ conference has issued a document to be implemented in Catholic schools that rejects the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Gone is the teaching that there are but two sexes, male and female. The bishops, with three exceptions, teach that there is a “diversity of sexual identities.” Not only that, they falsely claim it is a “fact,” rooted in science.

Should teachers address a boy named Sam, who now claims he is a girl named Sue, as Sam or Sue? The bishops say teachers should use language that reflects “the diversity of sexual identities,” allowing students to make their own judgments. So the right answer is “Sue.”

This division in the Catholic Church is taking place at a time when Pope Leo XIV embarked on his first international trip, the purpose of which was a call for unity in the Christian world. He has his hands full.

Leo has already affirmed Church teachings on sexuality, saying the family is founded on the “stable union between a man and a woman. When he was the bishop of Peru he spoke against the idea that there is a “diversity of sexual identities,” which is what gender ideology holds to be true.

“The idea of promoting gender ideology is confusing because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist. God created man and woman, and the attempts to confuse ideas about nature will only harm families and people.”

This is consistent with what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches. “God created man in his own image…male and female he created them.”

Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, was even more blunt. He once referred to gender ideology as “demonic.” In his 2016 exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, he wrote, “We cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation,” saying the “biological elements” are “impossible to ignore.”

In 2019, the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education issued an authoritative document, “Male and Female: He Created Them.” It said that gender ideology “denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.”

In 2024, the Vatican Declaration on Human Dignity, Dignitas Infinita, underscored Church teachings on this subject. It said gender ideology “is extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal.” Similarly, this ideology “intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”

Let’s pray that the German bishops find their way back.

Bill Donohue

Zohran Mamdani took over as mayor of New York City on January 1. In December, he chose someone just like himself—a unrepentant radical—to join his transition team, so it is likely we will be hearing more about him.

Alex Vitale and I have some things in common: we both have doctorates in sociology, have taught courses on criminology, and have written extensively on the subject. But that’s where the similarities end: I like cops and he hates them.

This wouldn’t mean much if he never left his Brooklyn College classroom. But once Mamdani put him in charge of public safety issues, we decided to give him a closer look.

Vitale is the author of The End of Policing, and a study guide that accompanies his book. The latter is the basis of my analysis of his work.

In Chapter 1, we learn that “racial profiling is still endemic.” He sees that as a problem. That’s funny—this was never an issue for Rev. Jesse Jackson. “There is nothing more painful for me at this stage of my life than to walk down a street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery—then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

What Jackson understood intuitively is borne out in the statistics. In 2021, black New Yorkers were 24 percent of the population, but they made up 65 percent of those murdered in 2020 and 74 percent of the shooting victims. Just as important, the typical victimizer was also black.

Chapter 2 informs the reader that “police do not prevent crime.” But if he were right, then NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch would not have been able to drive down the crime rate. She did it by deploying more police to high crime areas. Of course, he wants to defund the police, as does Mamdani. They even want to abolish the prisons.

The problem for them is that blacks want nothing to do with their anarchic ideas. In 2020, when the “defund the police” movement was surging, 79 percent of blacks nationwide who said they had had an interaction with the police in the past year said they wanted the police to spend the same amount of time—or more time—in their neighborhood.

Cops don’t belong in the schools. That’s what we learn in Chapter 3. He calls their presence “damaging.” Yet a study published two years ago by the University of Albany found that police in the schools reduced fights and threats by 30 percent and increased detection of firearms by 150 percent. He also says that the money saved by moving cops out of the schools “could be given to schools directly to build a better academic program.” If he were sincere, he would endorse charter schools and school choice initiatives, but he doesn’t.

In Chapter 4, Vitale argues that the reason why the police don’t work effectively with mentally ill offenders is because they are “trained to view every scenario as a potentially deadly one.” Thank God for that. Only someone hopelessly naïve would confront a suspected violent offender—mentally acute or disabled—with a relaxed attitude.

Chapter 5 tells instructors that the police don’t work well with the homeless because of “a lack of compassion.” Really? I see cops interact with the homeless every day in New York—my office is across the street from Penn Station—and I have never once seen a cop mishandle, or be rude to, the homeless.

Vitale shows his compassion by endorsing “drop-in centers and emergency shelters” for the homeless, but even here he fails the test. Showing his radically secular stripes, he insists the caregivers must be “nonreligious.” In other words, he wants to discriminate against the clergy.

The next two chapters are on prostitution and drugs, respectively. Naturally, he wants to decriminalize both. Vitale needs to visit Jackson Heights, a Queens neighborhood that has been overrun by street prostitution, drugs, robberies, and muggings, and tell the residents that their quality of life is peachy keen.

In Chapter 8, we learn that “gang suppression” is the problem, not gangs themselves. So how do we deal with gangs? Vitale promotes “restorative justice.” This is a “nonpunitive” measure that in practice means having social workers talk to the thugs.

Chapter 9 targets “border patrolling.” He wants it to end. His entire focus is on the “rights” of those who have crashed our borders and have committed unspeakable crimes. He needs to meet with the surviving crime victims of illegal aliens.

Chapter 10 contends that “The threat of potential violence or destruction of property is not a sufficient excuse” for police violating the First Amendment rights of “protesters.” He cites what happened in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. What he did not say is that these “protesters” went on a violent rampage after a robbery suspect got into an altercation with the police—he assaulted a cop, reached for his gun, resisted arrest, and was then killed after charging the officer.

I challenged him to a debate, but he never responded. Typical.

It is not just Vitale who is a menace to New York. Mamdani has chosen several left-wing activists to work on safety issues, and every one of them share the same anti-cop attitude.

No matter, we are tracking everything that Mamdani, and his staff, do, and we will not hold back in confronting them. Look for a section on the front page of our website, “Mamdani Watch.” We are going to be very busy in 2026.

Bill Donohue

Chubb Insurance is the largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company in the world, valued at approximately $115 billion. “We stand behind the promises we make to conceive, craft and deliver exceptional insurance coverage and service, and to pay our claims fairly and quickly.” That’s how it describes its organizational culture.

Anyone who knows anything about the way it has handled clergy abuse claims against the New York Archdiocese knows this is patently false. Quite frankly, it is a master of delaying, denying and defending its services, and this is hardly confined to Catholics. More about Chubb in a moment. First, this issue must be looked at in context.

The clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church took place largely between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s. It occurred for reasons I detailed in my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes. Because of a law in New York State that allows the accused to file a lawsuit, regardless of how long ago the alleged abuse took place, claims against the archdiocese have mounted over the years.

This has now come to a head. On December 8, the New York Archdiocese announced it was raising at least $300 million to negotiate settlements that would benefit some 1,300 people who contend that they were abused as minors. To pay for this, the archdiocese reduced its operating budget by 10 percent, fired staff, and sold “significant real estate assets,” including its headquarters at 1011 First Avenue. The building was sold last year for more than $100 million.

The alleged cases date back to World War II. No other organization, secular or religious, has been subjected to anything like this, the most egregious example being the New York City public schools, where the sexual abuse of minors is ongoing. This is not a coincidence. There are ideological and financial motives for going after the Catholic Church.

One of the lawyers suing the archdiocese today is Jeffrey Anderson. He once admitted that his goal was “suing the [expletive]” out of the Catholic Church. In fact, he has made hundreds of millions of dollars doing exactly that.

Chubb is also compromised. It simply wants to cash its checks and move on. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, isn’t fooled. Here is what he said on October 1, 2024.

“It has always been our wish to expeditiously settle all meritorious claims. However, Chubb, for decades our primary insurance company, even though we have paid over $2 billion in premium by today’s standards, is now attempting to evade their legal and moral contractual obligation to settle covered claims which would bring peace and healing to victim-survivors.”

Chubb is still reneging on its responsibilities. It says the archdiocese’s policy covers accidents, “but does not provide compensation for knowingly allowing a pattern of abuse to persist for many years.” This is a sanitized way of saying what it has previously said with greater bluntness.

Chubb has said that it is not obligated to settle claims against the archdiocese because the abuse of victims was “expected or intended.” This is an outrageous lie. Indeed, it intentionally maligns Cardinal Dolan’s predecessors, effectively saying that people like Cardinal John O’Connor deliberately intended to harm children. That would make them evil.

What is truly evil is what Chubb is alleging.

I worked with Cardinal O’Connor for many years. He was one of the greatest priests I ever met. Not only was he kind and responsible, he reached out to his staff, lay and clergy alike, who were going through a rough patch, offering the services they needed. He never willfully sought to hurt anyone, and this certainly included children. To imply otherwise is a vicious smear on his character.

Chubb’s position is morally indefensible and legally spurious. It is not only feeding anti-Catholicism, it is making mince meat out of its purported interest in standing by its promises. It is just as preposterous to argue that it is “delivering exceptional insurance coverage and service,” paying its claims “fairly and quickly.” Just the opposite is true.

It is one thing for an insurance company to balk on its financial commitments; it is quite another when it imputes vile motives to its carriers, and this is doubly true when it is aimed at the Catholic Church. Its credibility is shot.

The FBI still needs to answer more questions about the would-be Trump assassin. Here is the text of a letter written by Bill Donohue on Nov. 24 to Rep. Pat Fallon and Rep. Mike Kelly about this issue.

Thank you for speaking out about the less-than-candid information that has been disclosed regarding Thomas Crooks, the man who attempted to assassinate President Trump. You have both noted the shortcomings of the FBI disclosures on this subject, and have called for a new probe.

On November 20, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino were interviewed by Fox News reporters and they said the evidence was clear that Crooks acted alone and that there was no foreign involvement of any kind. This is good news, but it does not answer all outstanding questions.

The Catholic League urges you to call for a new investigation. While there are many aspects to this case, what concerns us most are the details about Crooks’ sexual identity and like interests.

Patel says there is “no evidence” of his involvement with those who run in trans circles. That may be but it does not empty our concerns.

He was living with a man who was in the process of transitioning from male to female, and he himself identified as “they/them.” He had a “muscle mommy fetish” and was also attracted to the “furry” community, people who identify as animals and who are sexually attracted to them. None of this is normal.

We are well aware of the travails of those who are caught up in these sexual lifestyles, and of the violence that marks their behavior. We are also aware of calculated efforts to keep the public in the dark about this matter.

Without full knowledge of what motivated Crooks, we will not be in a position to check the behavior of those who share his profile.

Transgender Day of Remembrance was held on November 20. According to GLAAD, the gay rights organization, it is “an annual commemoration of those whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence.” What they don’t say is that most of the violence against these people is being committed by other trans people. They would have the public believe that they are being killed by hate-filled heterosexuals.

Transgender Day of Remembrance honors the memory of Rita Hester, a man who falsely claimed to be a woman; he was killed in 1998. Others who are memorialized antedated the Hester murder. They are Chanelle Pickett, Debbie Forte and Monique Thomas; they were also men who falsely claimed to be women.

The more we know about these murders, all of which occurred in Massachusetts, the less convincing the narrative is that heterosexuals are a threat to the trans community.

After all these years, Hester’s case remains unresolved, but there are clear indications that he was done in by his own. His real name was William Hester; he changed his name when he “transitioned.” The 6-foot, 2-inch man liked to hang out in trans bars in Boston, dressed as a woman. After he left the Silhouette Lounge one evening, he went home to his apartment. Neighbors heard a lot of banging sounds and a loud yell. He was stabbed 20 times.

The police said there were no signs of forced entry, and that “the killer might have known the victim.” This suggests he was murdered by another trans person (they tend to associate with those of the same identity), though everyone is reluctant to draw the obvious conclusion.

Chanelle Pickett’s real name was Roman Pickett. Dubbed a “transsexual” by the Boston Globe, he was strangled to death five hours after he met William C. Palmer Jr. in a Combat Zone bar, located in the redlight district, in 1995. They hooked up at the Playland Café, one of Boston’s well-known “transsexual pick-up bars.” They smoked crack cocaine before heading to Palmer’s bedroom, where they had sex.

A jury found Palmer guilty of assault and battery, but not murder. He told the court he did not know Pickett was trans. But this account was shot down by several others, including Pickett’s brother, who also falsely claimed to be a woman. They said he was a frequent customer at the trans bar. Moreover, six trans people came forward admitting they had sex with him, and two of them testified against him.

Debbie Forte’s real name was John J. Forte Jr. He was dressed as a woman the night he was murdered by Michael Thompson in 1995. The killer said they were “messing around” and after he discovered Forte had a penis, he killed him. There is no evidence to the contrary.

Monique Thomas’ real name was Rufus Thomas. He was killed by George Stallings two months before Hester was murdered by asphyxiation. His body was found next to his bed. That does not appear to be a coincidence. We know that after he was sexually abused by a family member growing up, he became confused about his sexuality.

In other words, in three of the four most heralded cases where a trans person was killed—they are the basis of Transgender Day of Remembrance—the killer was apparently a trans person himself. And since we know that most of the violence against trans people today is an inside job, the day of remembrance should focus on the violence within their own community.