The May fund-raising letter of the Washington-based Population Institute referred to the Holy See as the “anti-contraceptive gestapo.” The statement, made in reference to the Holy See’s teachings on marriage and the family, was designed to mobilize members against the Vatican’s position at the upcoming U.N. event in Beijing, the Fourth World Conference on Women.

Werner Fornos, president of The Population Institute, wrote the following: “The Vatican continues to undermine the advancements we’ve made in Cairo on issues of pregnancy prevention. The anti-contraceptive gestapo has vowed to double the number of its delegation to 28 and to turn once more to weaken the cause of reproductive rights.” Listed on the Advisory Committee are several sitting Congressmen. As noted in the Washington Times, former President George Bush quit the National Rifle Association because its director sent out a fund-raising letter referring to federal agents as “jackbooted thugs.”

In a news release on this subject, the Catholic League issued the following remarks:

“The Population Institute proves once again that some of the anti-natalist forces are unquestionably anti-Catholic. Not content, or able, to debate the issues on their merits, these activists seek to defame the Holy See and thereby discredit its influence. Members of The Population Institute who share its politics, but not its bigotry, should make a clear and decisive break with the organization.

“Following the lead of former President George Bush, who broke with the NRA over an irresponsible fund-raising letter, those public officials who currently serve on the Public Policy Advisory Committee of The Population Institute should break with the organization. Accordingly, the Catholic League calls upon the following advisors to The Population Institute to resign immediately: Sen. Paul Simon, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Rep. Jim Leach, Rep. Robert Torricelli and Rep. Sam Gejdenson.

“Not to resign would be to give tacit support to anti-Catholicism. It would also show a lack of courage.”

The Catholic League wrote directly to each Congressman involved in this scandal. We’re very grateful to Cardinal John O’Connor who cited the League’s response in his weekly column of June 15 in Catholic New York.

The June 4 episode of the CBS show “The Wright Verdicts” was the most bigoted portrayal of Catholics and the Catholic Church to have appeared on any television program thus far in 1995. Every possible negative stereotype was used to convey the message that the Catholic Church is a despicable organization. Here is a partial list of the characterizations that were presented: a child abuse scandal and cover-up; sexism in the church; bishops as bullies; hypocritical and materialistic priests; alcoholic priests; the trivialization of papal infallibility; a nun accused of murdering a bishop; brutal nuns; guilt-ridden Catholic schools; a nun who had an abortion before entering the convent; “silly” birth control position; a bishop as “a shark in a Roman collar”; corruption in the church; dishonest donors; ridicule of the confessional seal; persecution of a homosexual priest.

The Catholic League issued the following statement on the show:

“Notwithstanding the fact that Klansmen would surely endorse the June 4 episode of ‘The Wright Verdicts,’ the hooded terrorists could not have made the show: they lack the sophistication of Dick Wolf, the show’s creator and executive producer. Unlike Klansmen, Wolf wants to do more than just bash Catholics, he wants to project a vision of Catholicism that promotes his politics. That is why the feminist nun who previously had an abortion and is now unfairly accused of murdering the New York Archbishop is seen as compassionate. The homosexual priest is, of course, another victim, and he is also compassionate. But those who enforce the vicious rules of the church, namely the Archbishop and the Monsignor, are seen as evil (the latter is a pedophile who kills the Archbishop).

“Wolf, the creator and executive producer of the show, has a track record of bashing Catholics. In January 1991, Wolfs show, “Law and Order,” featured pro-life Catholics who were either violent fanatics, sexually repressed or hyp- ocrites. In November 1993, a “Law and Order” episode showed a detec- tive complaining that his Catholic-practicing mother was a child abuser.

“It does not matter that the show will not return next season. Our problem is with CBS, Dick Wolf Films, Universal Television, MCA and Seagram, all of whom bear responsibility for the show. Now that Senator Bob Dole has made Hollywood a target of criticism, we will appeal to him, and to every other presidential candidate-including President Clinton-to address the anti-Catholicism that is evident in the industry. This show will be exhibit A.”

Unfriendly news reporters often tag the Catholic League as “the archconservative Catholic League,” or something to that effect. Friendly news reporters don’t make that charge, but they are curious as to how I respond to such charges. Now that I’ve been president of the Catholic League for two years, the time is right to clear the air on this matter.

The Catholic League defends the right of the Catholic Church to say whatever it wants, free of bigotry and insult. The only politics we have is the politics of the Catholic Church. Personally, I would find it difficult to classify exactly what that politics is. After all, the Catholic Church’s positions on marriage and the family are quite con- servative, but its positions on the poor and dispossessed are quite lib- eral. How to score such an admixture is not easy. Perhaps that is why it’s more accurate to say that the Catholic Church has no politics. If that is true then neither does the Catholic League.

Still, the perception persists that the Catholic League is a conservative organization. What gives rise to this perception is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the whole debate.

Anti-Catholic bigots cover the political spectrum from left to right. Some are Democrats, some are Republicans, some belong to extremist parties and some belong to no party at all. We get hate mail from all of them. But it is nonetheless true that we spend more time fending off bigotry from the left than from the right, and it is this reality that gives rise to the perception that we are a conservative organization.

If we spend more time fighting left-wing anti-Catholic bigots, it is not because the left is more big- oted than the right, rather it is because the sources of bigotry on the left are more establishmentarian than they are on the right. For example, the typical right-wing anti-Catholic bigot is an uneducated lout, whereas the typical left-wing anti-Catholic bigot is an educated elitist. It’s the difference between rednecks and Ivy Leaguers, or between Archie Bunker and Norman Lear. Some live on Main Street and others own it.

Uneducated bigots usually aren’t organized and therefore their impact is rather confined. Educated bigots use their influence in activist organizations, governmental agencies, colleges, universities, media offices, publishing quarters, etc. to disseminate their hatred of Catholicism to a very wide audience. The Catholic League does not generally respond to bigotry that comes from the gallery; it directs its attention to those in the first row, and those who sit there usually sit left of center.

We have no reliable evidence as to the politics of our members, but judging from the letters we receive, it appears that conservatives outnumber liberals. This is not surprising. Generally speaking, the more orthodox the Catholic the more conservative are his views. Our latest survey demonstrates this, as does a wealth of other empirical data. It makes sense that those who want the Church to make the most dramatic changes are also the least sensitive to charges of anti-Catholic bigotry: many on the left can’t distinguish between bigotry and criticism, even in cases that are pretty clearly marked.

Here’s an anecdote that is appropo. About a year or so ago, our direct mail consultant contacted a well-known liberal Catholic publication to see if we could buy its mailing list. The response he got was quite telling: the employee said that no, the list would not be made available because readers of the publication would not be interested in anti-defamation issues. Imagine the readers of a liberal (or conservative) Jewish publication not being interested in anti-Semitism. I can’t.

For the record, it should be known that the first act I engaged in as president of the Catholic League was to publicly criticize anti-gay Catholics from obstructing a Mass in a New York church. That earned me threatening letters and phone calls from crazies on the right. Over the past two years, we have defended liberal members of the clergy and we have aligned ourselves with gay groups in criticizing Louis Farrakhan. We have attacked Republican and Democratic office holders and we have defended the Catholic Church on issues that have been politically liberal as well as politically conservative. We will continue to do so.

So what about me? I started as a Democrat and then became a Republican. Now I’ve switched again: I’m a registered Independent. Just like the Catholic League.

By K. D. Whitehead

If there are still any Catholics around today who imagine that their faith and their Church are going to be the beneficiaries of tolerance and respect, these Catholics have evidently not been paying very close attention to the kind of world it is that has been emerging out there in recent years. The kind of world that has been emerging is a world that is willing, and believes itself able, to go it alone, without God. God is not supposed to count any longer-or even necessarily to be mentioned-in the brave new world of today.

“Religion,” especially Christianity (and Judaism too), are objected to today, and officially placed outside what is permissible in public discourse, because they claim to be able to pronounce moral standards for the regulation of people’s moral conduct, i.e., the Ten Commandments; that is, they claim to expound God’s standards for human moral conduct.

But today such standards can no longer be admitted, and precisely because they are religious. Certainly they can in no way be “imposed” on anybody. The law itself no longer presumes to say that people must keep their marriage vows, for example-thus making marriage the one “contract” that is no longer legally enforceable in our country!

In many instances, the law no longer attempts to require people to exercise any control over their sexual impulses; certainly, educators who have brought such things as today’s brand of sex education to our schools no longer believe that anybody can exercise any control over sexual impulses; and “society” has today more or less ratified that viewpoint for the moment.

Meanwhile, of course, both society and the law can and do continue to come down hard on those who violate certain purely human and secular contempo- rary standards, such as smoking in specified public situations, for example, or violating certain environmental laws and regulations. Neither society nor the law hesitates to “legislate” or “impose” morality in these cases. The principal rules that have been thrown out are the religious and moral rules, particularly those related to sexuality.

In this sort of new moral and legal climate, an institution as visible as the Catholic Church, with views as definite as the Church’s on what is right and wrong, is virtually bound to run into trouble. The Church cannot escape being resented today, precisely because she continues to insist that there is a God, and that He has issued a law which is actually supposed to be followed.

From the modern point of view, the Church also has another annoying habit of descending into considerable detail in specifying certain things as right and wrong; and thus today, the Church is often found declaring to be wrong the very things that society has decided are good or, at least, optional.

Those who like and accept the way things are going in America today cannot but see Catholics and the Church as the “enemy.” To be anti-life- as our world definitely is anti-life today-is necessarily and inevitably to be anti-Catholic as well. It has now become clear that this is an unmistakable and unavoidable fact.

And, in fact, the world that we see out there today is anti-Catholic. We need to recognize this, even if we do not necessarily have to like it; we need to recognize it, if only in order to understand that we cannot avoid having to deal with it, indeed combat it.

Given what our world has unfortunately now become, though- Pope John Paul II’s “culture of death”-we Catholics should also be proud, we should also be glad, to be on the receiving end of what this world, of all worlds, has to dish out; what we have to deal with out there today is surely an authentic case of what Our Lord, Jesus Christ, Himself described when He said: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely, on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Mt 5:11).

Yes: in the anti-life world of today, we Catholics are called to be “prophets” by virtue of the truth that has been given to us.

An example of how today’ s prevailing anti-life mentality quickly becomes transformed into sharp anti-Catholic bias is provided by the issuance of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Euangelium Vitae, “The Gospel of Life,” itself.

This encyclical has already been the subject of considerable public attention, and we need not summarize its contents at any length. While not neglecting to condemn in fairly strong terms the deadly effects of war, the arms race, economic injustice, pollution of the environment, and capital punishment, the Pope’s emphasis in the document is clearly on abortion and euthanasia (or assisted suicide): that is, the emphasis is on intentional, legalized killing at the beginning and at the end of the human life cycle.

The Pope also focuses strongly on some other evils he sees as inseparably related to legalized abortion and euthanasia, namely, contraception, artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, and experimentation on human embryos and fetuses. All these things are gravely wrong, inadmissible, according to the Holy Father.

An unusual feature of this encyclical is that the Pope explicitly invokes his full authority as the successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ in condemning abortion and euthanasia, and, indeed, the killing of the innocent generally. These teachings are not new, of course; the Church has never ceased to condemn them; but in this document the Pope has reiterated this condemnation in a solemn way calculated to attract maximum attention.

Not surprisingly, the encyclical immediately did attract maximum attention. And although a relatively new note of perhaps grudging respect for the Pope, and for what he represents, was discernible in some of the media coverage-as in a Newsweek cover story on the encyclical and in a Chicago Tribune editorial which admitted that “it is hard to brush off the Pope’s assertion that there is a growing ‘culture of death’ in the world”-the fact remains that plenty of the other coverage of the appearance of this major papal document was as sneering and patronizing as we have unfortunately long since come to expect as the typical public reception given to papal pronouncements.

References to the “aging” Pope at the head of his “outdated” Church were definitely not lack- ing in the reception accorded the encyclical, while references to how little the Pope is actually believed and heeded today, even by many Catholics, were practically universal features of the coverage about the encyclical.

The encyclical is “a political and social document that is out of step with the developed world,” declared Pamela J. Maraldo, President of Planned Parenthood. This is the same “developed world,” of course, which the Pope characterizes in his encyclical as determined upon perpetuating what he calls “a state of barbarism which one had hoped had been left behind forever.” Pamela Maraldo, however-who, incredibly, claims to be a Catholic herself-sheds crocodile tears because, in her words, “the only source of hope” for sufferers from Parkinson’s disease, “fetal tissue research…(is) condemned.” But the Pope merely points out that we cannot morally use one class of human beings, the unborn, as objects, even for the laudable goal of helping others (if it does help them).

“In the face of the AIDS epidemic,” Ms. Maraldo goes on, “the encyclical bans condoms.” But condoms prevent the transmission of the AIDS virus little more than fifty per cent of the time. Who would ever take an airplane, if the chances of crashing were even remotely close to that percentage?

A Washington Post columnist, Colman McCarthy, scored off what he called “the Vatican keepers of the truth against the ungovernable committing the unspeakable.” Mr. McCarthy did not blush to ask: “Is the Pope a scold or a teacher?” His own answer was, unhappily, predictable: according to him, the Pope “scoldingly lashes out at those with whom he disagrees.” Since when, it is necessary to ask, did intentional killing of the innocentbecomesimplyamatter about which people simply “disagree?” What is the truth about it? Who is right about it, the Pope or his detractors?

This sort of sneering, condescending opposition to the Pope’s words proves John Paul II’s thesis more dramatically than almost anything the Pope himself says: we have indeed entered into a modern culture of death; we have gotten so far into it that shallow, self-righteous commentators such as Mr. McCarthy, who think the pope is merely a “scold,” no longer even notice the kind of world that we have entered into.

It was probably predictable how Massachusetts Senators John Kerrey and Edward Kennedy would react to the Pope’s encyclical: they both issued statements denying that the Pope’s words applied to American legislators and judges. “It would be wrong for any public official, whatever their religion,” Senator Kennedy’s statement said, “to attempt to legislate the law of their church”-but then the Pope’s main point is that abortion and euthanasia, and the other evils he condemns, are violations of God’s law, not any church law; and for that reason, the Pope logically holds, any civil law authorizing them “ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law.”

“There is no obligation in practice to obey such laws,” the Pope continues. “Instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them.”

Incidentally, all of the above comments critical of the Pope’s encyclical which I have cited so far come from people who apparently still consider themselves, at least in some sense, as Catholics. We must realize that we have a particularly serious problem today when we find such people so ready to rush to defend the modern world and its culture of death against the solemn words oftheVicar of Christ. How can it be that these Catholics have not noticed that the anti-life culture of today is necessarily anti- Catholic?

In the midst of all of the evils of today’s culture of death, we are surely fortunate to have the voice of John Paul II. Let us try to imagine how bad things would be, if we had only the evil and immoral spectacle that our world has become, and if at the same time we did not have the Vicar of Christ, not only able to define and delineate and speak out against these evils, but, what is more, able to make himself heard! Nobody can say this Pope has not managed to make himself heard! And more than anyone today imagines at the moment, he is going to be increasingly heeded, as well as merely heard; the culture of death, as we observe it today, cannot keep going on indefinitely; it bears within itself too many of the seeds of its own destruction.

On the other hand, those who, unfortunately favor this modern culture of death cannot but see anything but an enormous obstacle in this Pope and in his Church-and, hopefully, also in all of us who will reaffirm our resolve to follow the lead of this man whom Christ has providentially given to us. To be anti-life is to be anti-Catholic, for those who have unfortunately bought into the culture of death. But their plans are destined to fail; they have, precisely, chosen death.

by Waller W. Benjamin

My boyhood years during the 1940s were spent in a small town in southwestern Minnesota. There were many virtues in that idyllic community but religious tolerance and ecumenism were not among them. The virus of anti-Catholicism was as pervasive then as was polio during the dog days of July and August. Only unlike polio, hating Catholics was popular and widely supported.

Catholics were second class citizens, not quite fully American in belief, practice, and ethnic origin. Catholic adjudicatories were supposed to have a secret plan to subvert cherished American institutions by means of parochial schools. The board of our public school was entirely Protestant and the superintendent was on notice not to hire more than a token number of Catholics.

“Teachers, especially coaches, get very close to students,” reflected one board member. “We don’t want any proselytizing.” Protestants inwardly rejoiced when a succes- sion of priests were unsuccessful in raising money to build a parochial school. They breathed a sigh of relief when the inadequate funds went to refurbish a bingo parlor. “How characteristically Catholic,” mused a Baptist pastor.

Fifty years ago we called Catholics “mackerel snappers” and nuns “penguins.” There were lurid tales of lascivious sex between priests and imprisoned sisters behind monastery walls. The pope was called the anti-Christ by a number of minor precursors of Jimmy Swaggert.

Those were the days before John F. Kennedy. His election in 1960 was supposed to have symbolized the final acceptance of Catholics as full-fledged citizens. His ancestors had seen signs “No Catholics or Dogs Need Apply” in Boston. Mobs had burned monasteries and rectories when Nativism and the Know-Nothing Party rode high in the saddle. During the Civil War, many WASPs subject to the draft paid Catholic immigrants $120 to wear the Union blue in their stead. Tens of thousands of Catholic proletarians died to preserve the nation and free the slaves.

But Kennedy’s election proved, said most political scientists, that this form of religious bigotry was now finally over. Tragically, recent events, many of them chronicled in Catalyst, have proved them wrong.

I am deeply troubled, as a Protestant religion professor, that the media have failed to come to the defense of the Catholic Church. If such attacks were directed against a Black Church, and Islamic mosque, or Native American rituals, outrage by the media, the professorate, and the opinion makers, would be fortissimo. When the Pope visited Denver in 1993, the media again gave the back of its hand to Catholics. It focused on those who disagree with established Church doctrine, such as Catholic feminists, homosexuals, and those who no longer participate in the church.

When a gay man, infected with HIV, suddenly recovered a “repressed memory” after 20 years and said Archbishop Bernardin sexually abused him, why did the media give knee jerk credence to his charges? The accusation has now been withdrawn but a sterling character has been defamed and sullied. Meanwhile, both the California and Minnesota Board of Medical Examiners are bringing charges against psychologists and psychiatrists who have been charged with injecting “repressed memories” of sexual abuse in their adolescent clients. The Catholic Church, it seems, has “deep pockets” for unethical counselors and their clients.

Catholic bashing makes good copy for there is a deep and visceral hatred of Catholicism among the media elite and opinion makers. To be sure, at times church officials have not properly handled mentally and sexually sick priests. But then, had not this also been true of the legal, medical, and Protestant church adjudicatories? But where in the media is fairness, compassion, and understanding?

Hilton Kramer, a former New York Times reporter and now a writer with the New York Post, states that “the bias that the media has against Catholics has no rival anywhere in the population.” Among many of my liberal and intellectual friends, it is fashionable to bash Catholi- cism. It is their form of anti-Semitism. The very existence of the Catholic Church offends them. “How can people believe ‘that stuff”‘- is their common mantra. Of course, as a Protestant, there are Catholic doctrines with which I disagree. That’s why I am a Protestant.

Nevertheless, I am pleased that the Catholic Church is strikingly countercultural. It holds to a moral hierarchy in spite of the moral rot, drift, and pathology that stalks our land. A “go-with-the-flow” morality is no morality worthy of a name. Instead, Catholic moral universals are an anchor of comfort and guidance to millions in a way that a “feel-good” situationalism, relativism, and nihilism do not provide.

Unlike the mainline Protestantism, Protestant evangelicalism is forging common bonds with Catholic social witness. Both are against the increasing disrespect for life, media sensuality, public school incompetence and arrogance, Statist intrusion into familial and private matters, and the increasing diminishment of decency and civility in our public life. Both see the collapse of sphere sovereignty where an omnicompetent government ignores the historic boundaries of a free society and the canons of subsidiarity.

As a Protestant, I want Catholicism to flourish. The church has a core of teaching and tradition that has endured. It knows that modernism is not necessarily right nor tradition necessarily archaic. It is not a weather vane that is subject to every changing moral or cultural fad. After thirty-seven years of teaching, I find that many of my Catholic students have a firm hold on life. They have been enriched, not impoverished, by their faith. There is little that is antiquarian, regressive, or bigoted in their familial or church training. They seem to have a spiritual centeredness and a moral compass that will guide them well in life.

So I plead with my liberal friends to embody that cardinal virtue of liberalism, tolerance, and take the pledge: “I promise to make Catholic bashing as politically incorrect as antipathy toward African Americans, Jews, Hispanics, Native Americans, and homosexuals.” Moreover, I urge them to read contemporary Catholic theology and ethics so that their data base is larger than some hoary stories of those who have left the Church some time ago. Let us get beyond the paradigm of “Us versus Them” of an earlier bigoted America.

Our society needs a vibrant Catholicism to help heal the terrible social pathologies of our society. And that is why I want Catholic bashing to stop.

Walter Benjamin is Professor of Religion and Applied Ethics at Hamline University, St. Paul. This is an edited version of his “Stop The Catholic Bashing!” that appeared in the October 1994 edition of The St. Croix Review.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is proud to announce that Bernadette Brady has been appointed Vice President of the Catholic League. Ms. Brady, who is currently the Deputy Director of the Family Life/Respect Life office of the Archdiocese of New York, has worked in the New York Archdiocese for nineteen years. She is perhaps most noted for her managerial expertise: she currently administers ten major programs providing direct services to more than 20,000 persons. The success of Project Rachel, a program that services women who have had an abortion, is due largely to Ms. Brady’s efforts.

Bernadette Brady will oversee much of the daily operations of the Catholic League.

Catholic League president William Donohue offered the following statement regarding her appointment:

“Bernadette Brady is bright, seasoned and able. She is a committed Catholic who is prepared to do battle in the public arena with those who would abuse the Catholic Church. That’s good news for us and bad news for  our adversaries. I look forward to working with her.”

The Catholic League wishes to thank all of the members who participated in the petition drive against Disney, launched in the May issue of Catalyst. Of the thousands of petitions returned to the national head-quarters, the majority had several names per petition. Many, in fact, had lists of names. The League estimates that at least 7,500 names were sent to Disney Chairman Michael Eisner.

The League also congratulates the Diocese of Sacramento for its “excommunication [of] Disney stock from its stock portfolio” (Sacramento Bee, 6/13/95). During the week ofJune 5, Bishop William K. Weigand wrote a letter to Disney Chairman Michael Eisner saying that 3,400 shares owned by the diocese were sold because of the movie “Priest.” Bishop Weigand pointed out that the diocese had owned stock in the company for many years because of its squeaky clean image. “Why is it that every priest featured in the movie is in some way dysfunctional?” wrote Bishop Weigand.

The Diocese of Orange (Southern California) and the Ordinary Mutual, an insurance carrier owned by a dozen Western dioceses, also sold shares of Disney stock in response to the movie. Commenting on the divestment by the diocese, Orange Bishop Norman F. McFarland criticized the “callous disregard” for the sensitivities of millions of Catholics. And Burlington Bishop Kenneth A. Angell advised Vermont Catholics in early May that they may wish to avoid the film.

Finally, at press time, after nine weeks in theatres, the Hollywood Reporter’s Boxoffice ranked “Priest” 34th out of the top 35 movies nationwide.

“Catholic videos that compete with Disney-and win!” That’s how the Catholic Family Media Guide described a series of delightful videos distributed by Creative Communication Center of America and aimed squarely at Catholic youngsters. Titles currently available include: Bernadette: The Princess of Lourdes, Francis: The Knight of Assisi, Francis Xavier and the Samurai’s Lost Treasure, Patrick: Brave Shepherd of the Emerald Isle, and Ben Hur: A Race to Glory.

For further information and pricing call CCC toll-free at 1-800-935-2222.

On March 31, Catholic League president William Donohue wrote to four Congressional leaders asking them to make a statement regarding the anti-Catholic movie “Priest.” Senators Robert Dole (R) and Thomas Daschle (D) and Representatives Newt Gingrich (R) and Richard Gephardt (D) were contacted, but only Senator Dole responded.

On April 14, Easter Sunday, Senator Dole registered his criticisms of the movie on “Meet the Press.” Mrs. Elizabeth Dole announced on June 2 that she was selling more than $15,000 worth of Disney stock. On June 7, Dr. Donohue sent a letter to Senator Dole thanking him and his wife for their support.

On Saturday, May 20, one hundred supporters of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Catholic League picketed the Dedham Community Theatre in Dedham, Massachusetts, over the decision of the theatre owner to show the anti-Catholic movie “Priest.” League members prayed the Rosary, carried signs proclaiming “Stop Catholic-bashing,” and distributed over a thousand leaflets to motorists and passersby. The theatre, which normally opens for a Saturday matinee, remained closed during the demonstration.

The Catholic League called for a boycott of the Dedham Community Theatre and the Norwood Cinema, both of which are owned by Garen Daly. During the entire week that the movie was shown in Dedham, the Catholic League, assisted by local members of the Knights of Columbus, leafleted theatre-goers.