This past spring the Catholic League experienced three important victories, winning in Georgia, Vermont and Colorado, all without ever going to court. It is no exaggeration to say that without the League’s help, the outcome in all three cases would almost certainly have been different.

In the last edition of Catalyst, mention was made of the plight of detective Mark Clay, the LaGrange, Georgia policeman who was suspended without pay for refusing to remove ashes from his forehead on Ash Wednesday. As reported, the League contacted those involved in the appeal process pledging its support for Mr. Clay. If necessary, the League counseled, it would take this matter to the courts. Fortunately, justice was delivered without a lawsuit. Upon receipt of a letter from the Catholic League, LaGrange City Manager Jim Hanson announced that the suspension was rescinded and that detective Clay would be paid for the day’s loss of salary; in addition, reasonable provisions were made to accommodate all Catholics in the future. In a news release on the subject, the Catholic League stated its hope that “the experience of detective Clay will not be duplicated elsewhere, for if it is, we will move aggressively to restore justice.”

The League was also delighted with the way things turned out in Vermont. Last winter, Professor Anna-Theresa Houthakker called the Catholic League asking for assistance. Professor Houthakker and her husband were anticipating the release of one of their sons from a treatment center for schizophrenics. Accordingly, they advertised in the local newspapers for a live-in companion for their son. Because their son had a record of being occasionally violent, they were looking for someone who had both a military background and training in rehabilitative techniques.

In the course of one of the interviews, an applicant indicated that he was a homosexual. While this revelation did not sit well with Professor Houthakker, it is also true that the man had already admitted that he did not possess either of the two desired attributes, and was therefore not a serious candidate for the job. The interview ended cordially. But before long, Professor Houthakker was charged by the office of the Vermont Attorney General with discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. She was notified that the case could be settled out of court for $10,000. When she agreed to pay $1,000, the office countered with a figure of $5,000. Then she contacted the Catholic League.

We advised her not to pay a dime, obtained an attorney for her and wrote a letter expressing our interests to Vermont Attorney General, Jeffrey Amestoy. Though our concerns were multiple, we were focused in our statement: “[The Catholic League] would be most interested in knowing whether it is your conclusion that the laws on sexual orientation discrimination extend to private residences. And please keep in mind that according to Section 2[a][4] of the recently passed Religious Freedom Restoration Act, ‘government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.'”

As a result of our effort, and the work of attorney John Fitzhugh, the Attorney General’s office decided to drop the matter entirely. Once again, victory was achieved without going to court.

The League’s intervention in an anti-Catholic episode at Metropolitan State College in Denver, Colorado, also ended in justice. This past academic year, student Matt McGuiness, leader of the campus group Auraria Catholics, was denied school funding for a program entitled “Human Sexuality: What Catholics Believe.” McGuiness was interested in offering a rebuttal to a program that occurred in July, 1993 called “Searching for a Place Within the Catholic Community.” That event featured speakers from Planned Parenthood, Dignity, and Colorado Catholics for Choice.

Four reasons were cited by the Metro Activities Council (M.A.C.) for denying funds to Auraria Catholics: a) the request came late in the year and thus M.A.C. “had already spent the greater portion of the budget” b) M.A.C. requires all clubs to sign a “non-discrimination clause which includes sexual orientation” c) there was a concern that “the issues presented would be oriented to one particular set of religious views” and d) considerations of “diversity and separation of church of state” were also cited.

Matt McGuiness contacted the Catholic League for help and we provided it. In a letter to Metro State President Shelia Kaplan, the League stated that only one of the reasons offered, namely budgetary concerns, “bore any semblance of reasonableness.”

The statement that M.A.C. did not want to “present one particular set of religious views” was chided for intellectual dishonesty. The League reminded college officials of its earlier sponsorship of a program that was nothing but a one-sided attack on the Catholic Church. “And is it true,” the League wondered, “that a program that focused on the religious beliefs of Native Americans would not be allowed at Metro State lest it be balanced with a program of opposing views?”

Finally, there was the inane contention about diversity and separation of church and state. “A commitment to diversity,” the League said, “would weaken the position of M.A.C. and strengthen the right of Auraria to funding. Or are Catholic clubs considered a threat to diversity rather than an embellishment?” As to the remark about church and state, the League countered by stating that “it is sad to point out to anyone, never mind to those on a college campus, that student clubs are clubs, not churches, hence the foolishness of the old canard about church and state.”

The letter to President Kaplan ended with a plea to offer Auraria the same privileges and opportunities offered those who sponsored the anti-Catholic event. “It is in no one’s interest,” the League concluded, “that this case proceed to the next level.” Fortunately, it never did.

President Kaplan wrote “to express my regret that certain misunderstandings have developed,” and then went on to say that the college’s non-discrimination policy on sexual orientation contains an exception for student religious organizations like Auraria Catholics. The other points were not addressed, save for a sentence regarding the late request for funding and the budgetary constraints that were operative at the time. Matt McGuiness is now free to request his program next year and should experience no difficulty in getting the funding he needs.

Victory is always sweet but the fact remains that none of these incidents should ever have happened in the first place. Those who belong to other religions are rarely asked to remove religious symbols from their clothes or body. Similarly, the idea of dictating to someone of another religion whom they must hire as a live-in companion for a troubled relative is not something that most people would even consider. And funding for a college program that simply disseminates the views of a major religion on contemporary issues would not present a problem if that religion were something other than Catholicism. But making exceptions for Catholics is nothing new and that, of course, is the raison d‘etre of the Catholic League.

From June 18th to the 26th, New York was home to the largest gathering of homosexuals the world has ever seen. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno did her part by welcoming people with AIDS from all over the world, suspending the ban against those with a communicable disease from entering the country. But what began as the Gay Games ended in an ugly display of anti-Catholic bigotry.

Throughout the week the blame for AIDS was put on everyone but those responsible for it. Most disgusting were the countless photos of former President Ronald Reagan that were altered to suggest that he has AIDS; the red blotches that were placed on his face adorned billboards in every corner of Manhattan.

The events that were of most interest to Catholic League members occurred on the last weekend of the festivities. On Friday night, June 24th, Dignity – an organization of homosexuals who claim to be Catholic, though they are not recognized by the Church – held a demonstration across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

The Friday night vigil outside St. Patrick’s was poorly attended. No more than 200 persons showed up to sing a few songs and listen to the two speakers, “Rev.” Jim Mallon and Marianne Duddy. “Father” Mallon is a defrocked priest, and Ms. Duddy is the national president of Dignity. Both had the same message: there are two churches in the Catholic faith, one for the hierarchy and the other for the people. According to this logic, the “institutional Church” is not representative of the masses and that is why Mallon and Duddy urged the people to “take back their Church.”

On Saturday, June 25th, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church hosted Dignity. The Park Avenue Cathedral was packed for the “Mass.” A man wearing earrings, a necklace and short leather pants greeted the crowd with a program of the event. The Prayer of the Faithful, in an allusion to the discredited “history” book by Boswell (story, pg. 6) included calls for the Church to “once again recognize” homosexual relations. There was a Hymn to the New Age and a Lord’s Prayer which began, “Our Mother/Father in heaven….” But most striking was the homilist, Dr. Mary Hunt.

Dr. Hunt drew a distinction between the “hierarchical Church” and what she believed to be the “real” Church. But she didn’t bother to explain why a group of officially unrecognized Catholics could in any way substitute itself for the official Church. She was too busy talking about the “Legacy of Love” that the movement had allegedly spawned to worry about such particulars.

Presiding over this gathering of “lesbians, gays, bi-sexuals, and transgendered persons” was Episcopal priest Ronald E.F. Hoskins. It was ironic. A renegade Catholic group that could not find a Catholic church in all of New York in which to hold its so-called Mass turned for help to the one church that has lost more members than any other because it has yielded to the pop culture on virtually every demand.

Two gay rights marches on Sunday, June 26th marked the grand finale of the week. A legal march on First Avenue was festive and without incident, but the demonstrators on Fifth Avenue were vulgar, both in word and in deed. In front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, they bellowed four letter words, pointed their middle finger at the Cathedral and laid down in the street. Amidst the vulgar chants were dozens of bare breasted women, as well as a dozen or more fully naked men and women. Almost all showed some sign of disrespect as they passed the Cathedral, especially the contingents from Act Up and Pagans and Witches.

Dr. William A. Donohue had this to say about the event:

“What happened on Fifth Avenue on June 26th was in stark contrast to the respectful and legal demonstration on First Avenue. Those who marched on Fifth Avenue showed no respect for the law, engaged in the most vile anti-Catholic behavior and jeopardized the public safety of all New Yorkers. Led by Act Up, the gay radicals once again showed their anarchists’ stripes by flaunting a court order not to march.

“The degree of anti-Catholic bigotry that was vented in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral could not have been outdone by the Ku Klux Klan. Filled with hate, the demonstrators conducted themselves in a manner that gives new meaning to the term blasphemous. They also showed how very different they really are from all other protesters: only gay events inspire marchers to undress. And their mockery of the one institution that has done more to service AIDS patients than any other in the city of New York shows how irrational this segment of the gay population is.

“In addition to the vengeful Fifth Avenue protesters, criticism must also be made of Mayor Giuliani, Police Commissioner Bratton and the media. The media failed to report the Catholic-bashing that took place outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. If the identical behavior had taken place outside an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, it is doubtful that the disrespect would have gone unreported.”

This issue of Catalyst marks the end of my first year as president of the Catholic League. Fortunately, there is much good news to report.

The best news is the growth in membership. We have tripled our membership in the past year, hitting a record high of 90,000. We fully expect to top 100,000 before too long. But even that won’t be enough. It is our goal to become the biggest force to hit the lay Catholic community that the nation has ever witnessed. We are well on our way to doing that but there is much more that needs to be done.

Financially, the League is solvent. The declining revenues and increasing expenditures that marked the League’s performance in the early 1990s has been more than arrested, it’s been reversed: we now have increasing revenues and declining expenditures.

We are getting new members from every segment of the population and from every geographic part of the country. Word of mouth is still an important means of garnering new members, and that is where your presence is most valuable. By telling friends and relatives about the Catholic League, you are proving to be our best base of recruitment. There is no substitute for personal solicitation and all of you deserve a special thanks in helping the Catholic League grow by leaps and bounds.

In addition to the personal touch, our direct mail campaigns have also proven to be a major success. We mailed approximately 62,000 pieces of mail in July of 1993 and have increased the amount with each campaign. This summer we will mail almost 1,000,000 pieces. The increase is a direct result of the fabulous success we have had reaching Catholics with our petitions and surveys. We are now fielding more than ten thousand new members every few months and have every reason to believe that our recent success is no fluke.

Another major area of success is our relationship with the Catholic hierarchy. We have won the support of all the Cardinals and many of the Bishops as well. Our job is to keep the channels of communication open, to allow all Catholics to disseminate their views with as much vigor and with as much respect as is accorded other segments of society. We are here to defend the Church from the scurrilous assaults that have been mounted against it, and we definitely need the support of the hierarchy if we are to get the job done.

One of the major reasons why people are giving is the success the Catholic League has had. We have had a string of victories (some of which are recorded in this issue) and we have also had an unprecedented degree of media coverage. We don’t win every fight but our overall record is quite good. Our presence on radio and TV, combined with coverage in newspapers and magazines – both religious and secular – is excellent. We expect that this kind of attention will only grow in the years ahead.

The growth of our volunteer chapters is on schedule. While much of what we do concerns issues of national importance, there is much happening in every region of the nation. If you or someone you know is interested in starting a chapter of the Catholic League in your area, please contact Joe Doyle, our Operations Director, for information (see the last page of Catalyst for details).

Finally, we have had a lot of positive feedback regarding Catalyst. The move from a newsletter to a journal, complete with a name that conveys the pulse of the organization, has been well received. We are increasingly cited by other publications for the work we are doing and for the quality of articles that appear in the journal.

Our readers want to see material that is fresh in style and in substance, and we hope to provide both.

And speaking about style. If there is one thing that has helped bolster our ranks more than anything else, it is the style of the Catholic League. Never timid, reticent or afraid of controversy, the Catholic League eschews the idea that the only answer to bigotry is dialogue. Dialogue is a great way to pursue progress with those who, though disagreeable, are nonetheless reasonable. But when reason no longer prevails, talk alone will not succeed. The threat of a lawsuit is the only language that some people understand. The specter of public humiliation is another weapon that must be used.

Petitions and boycotts are helpful. The use of the bully pulpit – via the airwaves – is a most effective strategy. Press conferences can be used to enlighten or, alternatively, to embarrass. We must be prepared on all fronts.

The real heroes in this struggle are the ones reading this column. Without your prayers, kind words of support and financial contributions, we don’t exist. The Catholic League is all of us.

I look forward to a strong second half of the year and can’t wait to report the day when we top 100,000 members.

It is no secret that much of the hatred of the Catholic Church these days emanates from radical feminists and those sympathetic to the feminist movement. The push for women’s ordination and the passion to expand abortion rights are two of the most important forces driving anti-Catholic sentiment in the 1990s. Unfortunately, a fair amount of the rancor stems from alienated Catholics. The reasons for this disaffection are multiple but it is not they who are the object of this essay: the concern here is with non-Catholics, and more specifically with those non-Catholics who hate the Catholic Church because of the Church’s teachings on ordination and abortion.

At one level, the hyper-criticism of the Catholic Church that is so trendy these days makes no sense whatsoever. When the Church doesn’t deliver a politically correct message, the usual retort is that the Church is a dictatorship. But of course no one is coerced into joining the Church and those who have come to hate it can always quit. Even so, the larger question is “why do some non-Catholics get so angry about what Catholics believe?” In short, what business is it of theirs to sit in judgment? And aren’t the ones passing the harsh judgments normally associated with the value-free, non-judgmental school of thought?

If it were curiosity at work, that would be understandable. But that’s not what’s happening. The Catholic Church isn’t being looked at by curiosity seekers, it’s being scrutinized, measured, examined and judged by a host of politically inspired voyeurs. In their own strange way, they can’t get enough of the Catholic Church; they feed off of it. Take the issue of the Pope’s recent statement on the ordination of women.

This past spring, Pope John Paul II restated the Church’s teachings on ordination and immediately set off a firestorm of protest. On a local New York TV show, I discussed this issue with two men and one women. One of the men was Jewish, the other Pentecostal; the woman was an avowed atheist. So here I was debating the wisdom of the Pope’s apostolic letter with three non-Catholics, two of whom, the Pentecostal and the atheist, were outspoken in their denunciation of the Pope’s letter. Perhaps the most cogent remark of the day came from the former Mayor of New York, Ed Koch, who politely remarked that his mother always advised him not to speak ill of other religions. It is a lesson that apparently few have learned.

Newspapers all over the country were consumed with rage over the Pope’s statement. Editorialists and cartoonists led the way, acting as though they had some legitimate kind of leverage on the Catholic Church. Now just imagine what the reaction would be if a priest or bishop criticized from the pulpit one of the incredibly stupid editorials or cartoons found in those newspapers. “Foul” they would cry. More than that, they would accuse the Catholic Church of imperialism, of sticking its nose in where it doesn’t belong. Unhappily, this is one shoe that doesn’t fit all sizes.

Abortion gets the same reaction. Some years ago I remember discussing abortion with an acquaintance of mine. She remarked that she contributes to Catholics for a Free Choice, the anti-Catholic pro-abortion group that is comprised mostly of self-hating Catholics. “But Gerda,” I said, “you’re a Jew.” I didn’t get much of an answer, just an uncomfortable shrug. “That would be like me joining ‘Jews for Jesus,”‘ I offered. Again I got a cold response.

One of the most telling commentaries against the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion appeared recently in the New York Times. On June 15th, the front page headline read, “Vatican Fights U.N. Draft on Women’s Rights.” I read the article with interest wanting to know why the Vatican would fight against a U.N. document on women’s rights. Then I read it again, figuring I must have missed something. But I hadn’t. There was no draft on women’s rights. Not only was there no document by that name, there was no document that focused on women’s rights. Here’s what happened.

The draft that Alan Cowell discussed was a preliminary statement on population control, a document that would be hammered out in final detail in Cairo this September. The Vatican has registered its misgivings about the wording of the document and has urged that the sections on abortion and the family be reconsidered. Loose definitions of the family, coupled with the right of adolescents to make decisions about abortion independent of the wishes of their family, are troubling issues for the Vatican and, one would hope, for all Catholics.

But instead of portraying the document as a statement on population control, the prism of the New York Times reduced it to a commentary on abortion. And instead of citing the Church’s concerns for the integrity of the family and for the life of the unborn, the subject was altered to make the Church look like the great oppressor of women. This isn’t journalism at work, it’s politics, pure and uncut.

Non-Catholics would do well to follow the advice of Ed Koch’s mom and just give it a rest. Their crankiness is wearing thin.

–William A. Donohue

June 23, 1994

Richard Ahlborn
Curator, Division of Community Life
National Museum of American History
14th and Constitution,N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20560

Dear Mr. Ahlborn:
I am writing to express the concerns of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights regarding the exhibit “The American Encounters.” If the purpose of the exhibit is to educate, it does a very poor job. To be specific, the portrayal of Catholic missionaries as one-dimensional beings out to oppress Native Americans is pure propaganda.

No one who has seriously studied the subject would accept such an unqualified account. Certainly there were abuses by some missionaries of some Indians. But it is also true that some Indians were hardly kind and gentle in their treatment of Europeans. Moreover, much of what the missionaries did was truly beneficial to those whom ‘they touched, including the Pueblos. Not to present any of this smacks of the worst kind of political correctness.

If a one-sided portrait of Jews were proposed for an exhibit at the Smithsonian, it is doubtful that it would ever be approved. That is partly because Jews are more responsive to assaults on their heritage than are Catholics. But it is also true that Smithsonian curators would deem it morally outrageous to bash Jews. Why they findCatholic-bash­ing acceptable is a question I would very much like answered.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President
cc: Vice President Albert Gore, Chancellor, Smithsonian

 ***********************************************

June 23, 1994

Patricia Gossel
National Museum of American History
MRC636
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C. 20560

Dear Ms. Gossel:
I am writing to express the concerns of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights regarding the exhibit “Science and American Life.” A crude caricature of the Catholic position on birth control has inexplicably found its, way into this exhibit. It seems gratuitous, to say the least, to insert commentary on Catholic teaching on birth control into an exhibition that purports to be about science. And it is offensive to see the rich teaching of Humanae Vitae reduced to such a pedestrian level.

I would not expect to see commentary on the dietary practices of Orthodox Jews inserted in an exhibition on “Food and American Life.” If I did, and if the statement was not meant to flatter Jews, I would wonder what motivated such a presentation.

The selective presentation of the Catholic Church’s teachings on birth control is also mystifying. Why didn’t the exhibition take note of the notorious racist ideas of Margaret Sanger, the early feminist promoter of birth control? Surely it would fit the criteria for inclusion in a program on “Science and American Life,” at least as defined by the Smithsonian.

There was a time when the Smithsonian was known for excellence. It is a tragedy that political correctness has overcome that standard.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President
cc: Vice President Albert Gore, Chancellor, Smithsonian

Massachusetts Governor William Weld has apologized for a December, 1993 conference at which Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Planned Parenthood officials discussed strategies for neutralizing opposition from religious and “far right” organizations (Catalyst, Vol. 21, No. 1, Jan.-Feb. 1994, pg. 1).

The nationally syndicated “Doonesbury” cartoon strip, with a series of strips in early June, has brought national attention to a badly flawed “history” book by a Yale professor who is dying of AIDS.

The book, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, purports to show that medieval Christians blessed homosexual unions. Author John Boswell bases his outrageous claims on rituals used by the Byzantine rite church to bless two people of the same sex. He infers, without basis, that the ceremonies were in fact homosexual marriages. Church scholars have acknowledged the existence of the rituals but note that these ceremonies were intended to publicly reconcile feuding men or women, not join them in matrimony.

Despite research which included visits to the Vatican library, Boswell was unable to find any evidence for similar rituals in the Roman rite, but that does not prevent him from using smoke and mirrors to infer their existence and to place his preposterous interpretation on the intent of these non-existent rituals.

Newsweek religion editor Kenneth L. Woodward described the openly gay Boswell as “a devout – if conflicted – Roman Catholic convert.” In an interview with Woodward, federal Judge John T. Noonan, a widely respected historian, characterized Boswell’s book as “a curious attempt to create for himself a past in a church whose Scriptures and teachings never accepted the relationships he defends.”

The book is certain to generate much more publicity and attention than it deserves. The media, ever watchful for anything that might put the Church in an unfavorable light, are sure to prominently feature favorable reviews. The advanced illness of the AIDS-stricken author will at least spare us from an endless round of fawning appearances on “news” and talk shows.

The Catholic League has joined a coalition of religious organizations in defending an Evangelical Church from efforts by a trustee in bankruptcy court to seize funds donated to the church by a couple who subsequently filed for bankruptcy.

Ruling that the Youngs received nothing of value for their donations, a federal district court ignored the religious freedom rights of the church and the Youngs, and ordered the Evangelical Free Church to turn over to the bankruptcy trustee the contributions made by the Youngs in the year preceding the bankruptcy filing. What is especially troubling in this case is the fact that the Justice Department, rather than upholding the recently passed Religious Freedom Restoration Act, has sided with the trustee in the dispute.

Editorial Criticism of Papal Letter Earns Response

The secular media declared open season on the Catholic Church after release ofthe papal letter on ordination. Catholic League president William A. Donohue sent the following letter to The Day in response to an editorial. The New London, Connecticut newspaper published the letter.

The editorial that condemns Pope John Paul II for simply repeating a 2000 year old rule of the Catholic Church – namely that the priesthood is reserved for men – is curiously titled “Beyond Understanding” (June 2). What is truly “beyond understanding” is not the Catholic Church’s position, it is the fact that a secular newspaper has the audacity to stick it’s nose in where it doesn’t belong. It is nobody’s business what the Catholic Church does: those who don’t like its rules can quit or refuse to join. The same is true of all other religions.

To think that the Catholic Church ought to pass a politically correct litmus test is not only “beyond understanding,” it smacks of bigotry, pure and simple. If a priest ever blasted this newspaper from the pulpit for its persistently stupid editorials, you guys would be screaming bloody murder. One final thought: I await your slam on Orthodox Jews for denying women the right to be rabbis. Please send it along in case I miss it.

With two different cartoons published on June 1st and 3rd, Newsday cartoonist Bob Marlette succeeded in offending Catholics everywhere and raised pope bashing to a new level.

An “apology” from Newsday published in the form of a “Memo to Readers” failed to satisfy the Catholic League and a petition (see page 9) was distributed to Long Island pastors.

By the time we went to press, more than 75 pastors had returned petitions and still more were expected. Catholic League president William A. Donohue was scheduled to present the petitions to Newsday officials in person.