California lawmakers are selectively targeting the Catholic Church by pushing a bill that would lift the statute of limitations for one year on cases of the sexual abuse of minors; it exempts all public institutions, including the public schools. Fighting the discriminatory law are Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, the California Catholic Conference and the Catholic [...]
The Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate forcing Catholic non-profits to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization will not kick in on August 1, as scheduled; an extension has been granted to January 1, 2014. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ initial reaction was cautious; a complete analysis of the final rules is forthcoming. [...]
William A. Donohue July 1 marked my 20th anniversary as president and CEO of the Catholic League. The vice president, Bernadette Brady, started 18 years ago on the same day. Father Philip Eichner, the chairman of the board of directors, was chosen to lead the board the year before I was hired. While I may be [...]
The following is the text of Bill Donohue’s letter to the members of the California Assembly: June 6, 2013 Dear Members of the California Assembly: Congratulations on passing AB 349, the bill that was passed unanimously on May 30 to prevent child abuse in the schools. A related bill was passed in the Senate the day [...]
Last December, Ohio State University president E. Gordon Gee explained to the athletic council why the University of Notre Dame wasn’t invited to join the Big Ten: “The fathers are holy on Sunday, and they’re holy hell on the rest of the week. You just can’t trust those damn Catholics on a Thursday or a Friday, [...]
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s lust for abortion rights has effectively killed his chances of ever becoming president of the United States. His failed proposal to allow abortions in New York through term was an act of political suicide. Not since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973 have more Americans identified themselves as pro-life. And [...]
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) recently announced that the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided not to investigate or prosecute Pope Benedict XVI. SNAP, in an act of pure vindictiveness, had asked the ICC to prosecute the pope, and other high ranking Catholic leaders, for “crimes against humanity.” On September 14, 2011, the [...]
The Obama administration recently announced that it “strongly objects” to a National Defense Authorization Act amendment that would protect the religious liberty of men and women in the Armed Forces. The reason, it was announced, was that the amendment would have a “significant adverse effect on good order, discipline, morale, and mission accomplishment.” If the religious [...]
There was a time when we needed a group called Catholic Whistleblowers, but this assembly is a little too late: they missed the boat by a half-century. The homosexual scandal began in the mid-1960s and ended 20 years later. Today, it hardly exists. In 2012, six credible allegations were made against approximately 40,000 priests. To put [...]
Peter Steinfels, in his obituary on Father Andrew M. Greeley in the New York Times, notes “there was resistance among liberal Catholics to his [Greeley’s] positive findings about Catholic schools.” This is striking. Steinfels, who is himself a liberal, writes about Greeley, another liberal (on most subjects), about how liberal Catholics react to good news about [...]
