Anthony Malkin, owner of the Empire State Building, says his decision to deny Mother Teresa the honor of having the building’s towers light blue and white on her centenary is “final and irrevocable.” Apropos, our decision to call for a demonstration outside the building on August 26 is “final and irrevocable.”

The support we have garnered is wide and deep. Media outlets all over the world are carrying this story, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Liberals, conservatives, moderates—all are on board. So are people of every religious and ethnic affiliation; we have been especially pleased by the strong response from Mother Teresa’s own ethnic community, the Albanians. Indeed, Malkin has brought people together the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

In fact, few can believe that Malkin has dug himself such a hole. While he has been paying lawyers and consultants for advice, we’ve been reaching out to a record number of bishops, priests, religious and lay leaders. Of special note is the warm reception we have received from several bishops in India; they have fond memories of Mother Teresa. We’ve also been gaining new members at a fast pace.

We called off our petition drive when it was clear that Malkin would not budge. But in just a few weeks, we managed to collect approximately 40,000 signatures; we would have picked up many more had we chosen not to change gears. Instead, we decided to conduct a positive PR campaign via our website: we posted the names and contact information of pro-life organizations in the New York tri-state area, urging people to make a donation in the name of Mother Teresa.

We have a lot of prominent people coming to the rally. Moreover, we are pleased to note that not only will many New York buildings shine blue and white that night, we have learned that buildings in places ranging from Miami to Belfast will do likewise. We encourage everyone—no matter where they live—to wear blue and white on August 26.

While stiffing Mother Teresa is driving much of the response, the lying and arrogance associated with this event are also important factors. On p. 5, see a copy of the application that we filled out in February; see also a copy of the application that was drawn up after our protest was lodged. In other words, they simply invented a new policy regarding religious figures so as to give themselves cover.

August 26 will go down in American history as an important Catholic date. The time has come to rally, and rally we will.

The Catholic League has filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Pacific Justice Institute appealing a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that denied standing to the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) in an important free speech and association case. At stake is the right of the University of California system to reject high school courses in its admission process which have a religious viewpoint. It is our hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case and overturn this decision.

The idea that courses taken at Catholic, Protestant and Jewish high schools merit recognition by any state system of higher education should not even be an issue. But it is. For example, a course taken at a Catholic high school was rejected for the following reason: “We expect a course in the History of Christianity to include more than one Christian viewpoint.” Similarly, a Women’s Studies course was found wanting because it had “a Catholic point of view.”

While these are very important matters, the more immediate problem is the right of ACSI to secure standing, or the right to challenge these decisions. It is vitally important for organizations like the Catholic League to know that its members need not personally participate in lawsuits which affect their interests in cases like this one.

This is a test case that will help decide just how far the state can go in neutering the rights of sectarian schools, and whether associational standing will be respected.

In New York, like all big cities, there are public notables, superstar  athletes, entertainers, politicians, community leaders, businessmen, venture capitalists, clergymen, artists, media personalities, actors, musicians—celebrities of all kinds—persons who stand out and are well known. Not among them is Anthony Malkin. That, however, is changing.

I can see the Empire State Building outside our office windows. We are on the 34th floor of a 46-floor tower just off the corner of 34th and 7th; the building that Kong built is on 34th and 5th. It has always been my favorite building in New York City: bold and majestic, it symbolizes what New York is all about. That all changed in May.

When I made application to honor Mother Teresa with blue and white gushing from the Empire State Building on August 26, I thought it would be a slam dunk. Who would deny a tribute to a person the whole world loves? When denied on May 5 (for the first time), without explanation, I was dumbfounded. I soon learned that someone named Anthony Malkin owned the building. My letter to him was never answered.

Then we learned a few things about Mr. Malkin. His father made himself a small fortune and now Number One Son is in charge. Anthony went to Choate Rosemary Hall, a tony prep school whom no one has ever confused with P.S. 109. He went to Harvard and later met his future bride, a Princeton graduate; she attended the equally tony Dalton School in New York City. It did not hurt Anthony that his wife’s father was a director of Enron and the former president of the Belco Petroleum Corporation.

The Malkin Foundation likes to give money to pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia causes, as well as to radical separation of church and state organizations. What it doesn’t like are organizations liked by Mother Teresa.

There’s more. The Empire State Building denied a lighting tribute to the U.S. Marines in 2008, yet it honored the genocidal maniacs who worked under Mao Zedong in 2009. Now it is slamming the door on Mother Teresa. There is a certain profile emerging, and it is not a pretty sight.

By contrast, we at the Catholic League are more of a lunch-bucket gang, the kind of guys and gals who like dirty-water hot dogs off the streets of New York, drink beer and go to Mass. And none of us went to Choate or Dalton. Amazingly, we never felt deprived or even oppressed. But we don’t take kindly to those who spit in our face, and we are especially peeved when the ones doing it were born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

We also don’t like it when the fat cats try to pressure us. In June, we received a fax from a wealthy law firm on Park Avenue informing us of what they regarded as “threatening” e-mails. The letters, none of which were threatening—they were merely jagging in nature—were a few sentences long, chiding them for acting like jerks (they were written by me to the PR person representing the Empire State Building, an employee of the communications giant, Edelman). Yet in the mind of the senior attorney, “The messages are clearly designed to threaten.”

No sooner had the fax arrived when I replied with a letter of my own.

Here is what I faxed: “Your attempt to intimidate us has failed. Please make a note of it.”

I have been writing and teaching about the First Amendment for the better part of my career, and I don’t need some Park Avenue hot shot trying to nail me with his thinly veiled threats. This is not the first time I have had to deal with bully lawyers: I never fail to call their bluff (see Secular Sabotage for examples). They pull these tricks because most people who field such missives are intimidated when they see a letter from a prominent law firm issuing them a warning. But it doesn’t work with me. Indeed, if I really felt threatened by someone, I wouldn’t write a letter. I’d call 911.

It’s all so bizarre. While Malkin is having his reputation trashed and is spending money hand over foot on PR reps and lawyers, the Catholic League is surging in acclaim and membership. All because a rich boy with a militant secularist agenda enjoys saying no to Mother Teresa.

Word has it that Malkin has hated me for years. Fine. Lots of people hate me. It happens in this business. As I’ve said before, being president of the Catholic League is not a popularity contest—I am being paid to tell the truth and confront those who offend Catholics and/or the Catholic Church. I am not here to be everyone’s buddy. Leadership means drawing a line in the sand, and that is exactly what we do here at the Catholic League.

If Malkin were prudent, he would go on hating me without stiffing Mother Teresa. That was his fatal mistake. The reason why we will turn thousands into the streets of New York on the evening of  August 26 is not because of me: it is because of Mother Teresa. Unfortunately,  Anthony Malkin can’t distinguish between hating me and dissing the world’s most beloved humanitarian. But that is what hate does—it skews our thinking and blinds us to reality.

Below is the calendar we followed in contacting various organizations in the New York tri-state area regarding the rally. All of them received a letter explaining why the rally was being held (we have included those entities which we have yet to contact).

May

May 12-13: Kick-off
May 14: Missionaries of Charity
May 17: Bishops of India
May 18: Indian Government Officials
May 19: Bishops of the Northeast
May 20: Bishops of the South
May 21: Bishops of the Midwest
May 24: Bishops of the West
May 25: New York City Mayor and Public Advocate
May 26: New York City Council
May 27: Governors in Tri-State Area
May 28: Legislators in Tri-State Area

June

June 1:   Announcement of Aug. 26 Rally
June 2:   Catholic Elementary Schools in New York
June 3:   Catholic Secondary Schools in New  York
June 4:   Catholic Colleges in New York
June 7:   Catholic Elementary Schools in New Jersey
June 8:   Catholic Secondary Schools in New Jersey
June 9:   Catholic Colleges in New Jersey
June 10: Catholic Elementary Schools in Connecticut
June 11: Catholic Secondary Schools in Connecticut
June 14: Catholic Colleges in Connecticut
June 15: Lay Catholic Professional Groups in Tri-State
June 16: Irish Lay Catholic Groups in Tri-State
June 17: Italian Lay Catholic Groups in Tri-State
June 18: Polish Lay Catholic Groups in Tri-State
June 21: German Lay Catholic Groups in Tri-State
June 22: Latino Lay Catholic Groups in Tri-State
June 23: Albanian Lay Catholic Groups in Tri-State
June 24: Knights of Columbus in Tri-State
June 25: Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Tri-State
June 28: Knights of Malta in Tri-State
June 29: Catholic War Veterans in Tri-State
June 30: Catholic Daughters of America in Tri-State

July

July 1:   Ladies of Charity in the Tri-State
July 2:   Legion of Mary in the Tri-State
July 6:   Holy Name Societies in the Tri-State
July 7:   Indian Community Groups in the Tri-State
July 8:   Nuns and Brothers in the Tri-State

July 9:   Order Priests in the Tri-State
July 12: Parishes in Nassau County
July 13: Parishes in Suffolk County
July 14: Parishes in Manhattan
July 15: Parishes in the Bronx
July 16: Parishes in Queens
July 19: Parishes in Brooklyn
July 20: Parishes in Staten Island
July 21: Parishes in the Diocese of Albany
July 22: Parishes in Dutchess County
July 23: Parishes in Putnam County
July 26: Parishes in Rockland County
July 27: Parishes in Orange County
July 28: Parishes in Sullivan County
July 29: Parishes in Ulster County
July 30: Parishes in Westchester County

August

Aug. 2:   Ads in Tri-State Diocesan Newspapers
Aug. 3:   Parishes in Archdiocese of Newark
Aug. 4:   Parishes in Diocese of Trenton
Aug. 5:   Parishes in Diocese of Camden
Aug. 6:   Parishes in Diocese of Paterson
Aug. 9:   Parishes in Diocese of Metuchen
Aug. 10: Parishes in Archdiocese of Hartford
Aug. 11: Parishes in Diocese of Bridgeport
Aug. 12: Parishes in Diocese of Norwich
Aug. 13: Parishes in Ukrainian Diocese
Aug. 16: Non-Sectarian Allies
Aug. 17: Protestant Allies
Aug. 18: Jewish Allies
Aug. 19: Hindu, Muslim and Mormon Allies
Aug. 20: Talk Radio Nationwide
Aug. 23: Newspapers in Tri-State Area
Aug. 24: TV Stations in Tri-State Area
Aug. 25: AP Day Book
Aug. 26: Rally

Click here to view the application we submitted to the Empire State Building and the amended application noting a “policy” of not honoring religious figures.

In June, Time magazine ran a cover story on Pope Benedict XVI titled “Why Being Pope Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry: The Sex Abuse Scandal and the Limits of Atonement.” Not only was the piece an unfair attack on the pope, but it was strewn with misinformation and falsehoods.

Article writers Jeff Israely and Howard Chua-Eoan demonstrated that they could have not only benefited by having a competent editor, but that they could have used a Catholic education growing up.

The story began by speculating whether Pope Benedict XVI would apologize for the behavior of abusive priests, yet in no time the authors quoted the pope apologizing for such priests. But that just wasn’t enough. It never is.

The reporters then got melodramatic: the pope can’t apologize for fear of damaging the magesterium and papal power. Begging the question: Why has he already done so?

The authors wondered why the pope hasn’t mentioned his own role in the scandal. There is a reason for that: no one, including those at the New York Times, has been able to nail him. But that didn’t stop Time from laying its seed.

Citing the pope’s apology regarding wrongdoing by some Irish priests—decades ago—Time posited that he didn’t apologize “for anything he or, indeed, the Holy See may have done, much less the mystical entity called the Church, the bride of Christ.” Why anyone would apologize for offenses he never committed was never explained: it’s just assumed the pope is guilty and, worse, refuses to admit it. This isn’t objective journalism—it’s an indictment.

The piece also asked, “Why didn’t the church simply report to the civil authorities the crimes its priests were suspected of committing?” For the same reason every other religious, as well as secular, institution did not: following the lordly liberal wisdom of the day, the accused was sent to therapy and then returned to his post. Similarly, the decision not to immediately laicize an offending priest in 1985 was not done for sinister reasons, as the article implied, but because of an age-sensitive policy (the priest was dumped two years later).

On the subject of papal infallibility, the authors appeared as clueless as their managing editor, Richard Stengal, who flubbed terribly during his interview on MSNBC promoting the story.

Those at Time need to get a clue and to quit with the lousy reporting.

In a recent interview with ABC-News reporter Diane Sawyer, scientist Stephen Hawking opined that human life is “insignificant in the universe,” and then went on to say that “there is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason.” He concluded by saying, “Science will win because it works.”

How any rational person could belittle the pivotal role that human life plays in the universe is a wonder, but it is just as silly to say that all religions are marked by the absence of reason. While there are some religions which are devoid of reason, there are others, such as Catholicism, which have long assigned it a special place.

It was the Catholic Church that created the first universities, and it was the Catholic Church that played a central role in the Scientific Revolution; these two historical contributions made Mr. Hawking’s career possible.

Reason, in pursuit of truth, has been reiterated by the Church fathers for nearly two millennia. That is why Hawking posits a false conflict: in the annals of the Catholic Church, there is no inherent conflict between science and religion. Quite the contrary: science and religion, in Catholic thought, are complementary properties. Ergo, nothing is gained by alleging a “victory” of science over religion.

Religion without reason, Pope Benedict XVI instructed us in his Regensburg address in 2006, leads to fanaticism. That much Hawking seems to understand. What he doesn’t get is its contra: science without faith also leads to disaster—the genocidal regimes in Germany, the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia being Exhibits A, B, C and D.

It was about a year ago—last August to be precise—when Showtime aired what was the most anti-Catholic television show in history, namely, a Penn & Teller episode on the Vatican. We took out ads in Hollywood publications; we made copies of the video and sent them to every bishop in the U.S.; we conducted a media campaign against the show; and we enlisted our members in the protest.

Well, it looks like we won a belated victory.

We recently learned that the ugly episode was not included in the DVD collection of Penn & Teller’s 2009 series of shows. Guess they got the message.

With great consternation, Penn Jillette (the talking half of the duo) made his confession in Vanity Fair.

In the last issue of Catalyst, we mentioned that Comedy Central was contemplating running a show this fall, “JC,” that promised to be trouble for Christians. The question remains whether a cartoon that mocks Jesus Christ will air. Here are some developments.

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center and a member of the Catholic League’s board of advisors, put together a group, Coalition Against Religious Bigotry, that was organized explicitly to protest “JC.” On June 3, members of the group held a teleconference with many members from the media.

Joining Bozell were Bill Donohue, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, nationally syndicated talk radio host Michael Medved, Parents Television Council president Tim Winter and Rabbi Daniel Lapin of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians.

The teleconference received a great deal of media coverage. While a formal boycott was not announced, the case was made very clearly that it was not in the best interest of Comedy Central, which is owned by Viacom, to push this show. The purpose of the conference call was stated by Bozell as follows:

· Denounce “JC” and the concept of glorifying religious bigotry as Comedy Central openly mocks and disparages God and Christianity yet takes every precaution to not attack Islam

· Release the joint coalition letter to companies that have advertised on Comedy Central in the past, urging them to refrain from spending ad dollars on “JC” as it is “an abomination purported to be entertainment”

· Unveil an exclusive, four-minute video mash of some of Comedy Central’s most offensive portrayals of Jesus Christ and God to date as evidence of the kind of mockery we can expect from “JC”

· Announce when and how the coalition will release the names of those companies that have taken a position on “JC” advertising, and those who have not

We will keep you posted of how things unfold. The coalition has since been joined by many other groups. The fact that Catholics, Protestants and Jews are coming together to fight this show is encouraging, and the Catholic League is proud to be a part of it.

A lawsuit against the Vatican was filed recently in Louisville, Kentucky by attorney William McMurry seeking to depose Pope Benedict XVI. McMurry contends that officials of the Catholic Church in Rome, including the Holy Father, knew about cases of priestly sexual abuse and then covered them up.

It is, of course, a staple of anti-Catholic thinking that every priest on the face of the earth follows lockstep with the orders from the pope. It is also the calling card of anti-Catholic thought that every instance of priestly wrongdoing is known to the Holy Father and his inner circle.

The fact is that the Roman Catholic Church is among the most decentralized entities in the world, and it is positively preposterous to think that the pope sits around orchestrating cover-ups in places ranging from Louisville to London.

McMurry knows this as well, but having skimmed over $10 million for himself (out of a $25.7 million pot) from a 2003 settlement with the Archdiocese of Louisville, he can afford to be motivated more by ideology than greed at this point.

“I have yet to meet a Catholic, expert or otherwise,” McMurry said, “who does not believe that the Holy See has the absolute right to control the day-to-day activities of a bishop’s work.” Yet when even parents cannot possibly control the day-to-day activities of their children, only someone who is hopelessly naïve—or malicious—would contend that the pope is tweeting the bishops and keeping tabs on them all day long.

McMurry has three clients: one says he “thinks” the local bishop knew of his alleged abuse; another maintains that he was molested over three decades ago; and the third contends that a priest touched him through his pants pocket in 1928. If this is the best that McMurry can come up with, then he is bound to fail. Besides, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act makes it difficult to prosecute a head of state.

In another development, on June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court left standing a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that allows an Oregon man to try to hold the Vatican financially culpable for a case of priestly sexual abuse that occurred a half-century ago. Though the priest was laicized in 1966, the plaintiff, who says he was abused, is pursuing the case because he wants the Holy See to admit that the priest was an employee of the Vatican.

It should be noted that a month before this decision, the Obama administration sided with the Vatican holding that the Ninth Circuit erred in its ruling. We commended the Obama administration for being on the right side of the issue.

In both the Kentucky and Oregon cases, it is clear that vengeance, disguised as justice, is playing a major role. We will keep an eye on how these cases proceed.