The bill was sold as justice for the victims of sexual abuse, when, in fact, it was a sham: the proposed legislation that failed to make it to the floor of the New York State legislature in the wee hours of Saturday, June 18 (the session that began on Friday ended at 5:00 a.m. the next day), was a vindictive bill pushed by lawyers and activists out to rape the Catholic Church.

The principal enemy of the Church, Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, was confident that her bill would pass. On May 30, she told her allies at the discredited Daily News—the paper broke every tenet of journalism in its war on Catholicism—that “there is a strong movement in our house to bring [the bill] to a vote in the next few weeks.” On June 5, she told her buddies, “I really think we have a chance of getting this bill passed.”

If the statute of limitations were lifted on offenses involving the sexual abuse of minors, the only winners would be greedy and bigoted lawyers out to line their pockets in a rash of settlements. The big losers would be the poor, about whom the attorneys and activists care little: When money is funneled from parishioners to lawyers, services to the needy suffer.

We put a lot of time and money in fighting this ploy. While similar bills are pending in other parts of the country, it became evident that the professional victims’ lobby was setting its sights on New York this season. A victory there would have given them the momentum to score in other states. Now they have nothing to show.

The Catholic League is proud of its role in this victory. The timeline on this issue can be found on p. 4; it gives a detailed accounting of how events unfolded.

We are especially proud of three accomplishments. First, we succeeded in pressuring lawmakers to amend the bill to include the public sector; initially, the public schools were to be given a pass. Second, the Albany Times Union published a full-page ad that we wrote exposing the agenda of those out “to stick it to Catholics.” Third, we called for the resignation of Markey after she slandered Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio. Fourth, we asked that she be investigated for violating the public trust (see p. 5).

This was a big win for our side and an equally big loss for theirs. We are delighted to support the good work of the bishops on this important issue, especially the work of Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

As the Fourth of July approached, there were ominous signs that religious liberty is in deep trouble in America.

On June 21, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ruled that California can continue to force all health care plans—including those of religious institutions—to cover elective abortions. HHS simply disregarded the Weldon Amendment, enacted by Congress in 2005. It specifically prohibits states from forcing any health care entity to provide abortions. Among the affected entities that sought to invoke the Weldon Amendment are two Catholic universities, Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount.

On June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that would have simply subjected abortion clinics to the same health and safety standards as other health care facilities—common sense requirements like adequate staffing, sanitary conditions, hallways accessible for emergency equipment, and doctors having admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The high court’s 5-3 ruling makes it more difficult for states to restrict abortions, though this will not be the last word on this issue.

The next day, the high court refused to hear an appeal from pro-life pharmacists in Washington state objecting to a law forcing them to dispense abortion-inducing drugs.

“If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead,” wrote dissenting justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts, “those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern.”

True, but it is all the more reason why we can’t give up.

William A. Donohue

On September 4, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, Mother Teresa will be canonized. Already a saint in the eyes of most persons, regardless of religion, she is clearly deserving of this honor. I am even more certain of this now that I have written a book about her critics.

At the beginning of the year, I had no plans to write a book about her. I did plan to write a lengthy piece, of booklet size, but after I completed the research and started writing, it became apparent that it might be attractive as a small book.

As expected, there are many fine books on Mother Teresa. They run the gamut from authorized biographies to devotional and inspirational works, many based on her own reflections. Lacking was any book that directly confronted her critics. That was the void I hoped to fill.

Most of you know that I locked horns many times with Mother Teresa’s most famous critic, Christopher Hitchens, the English transplant. We had it out in a formal debate in 2000 (a video is posted online). Subsequently, we clashed many times on TV. I loved debating him—he was quick and tough. But he was no scholar.

A scholar takes the time to provide evidence for his position, and this is where Hitchens failed. His critical book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, contained not one footnote, endnote, or attribution of any kind. It was merely an essay of his unsupported opinions.

I told him to his face that his book was a disgrace, and that if he were a student of mine, I would assign him an “F.” Anyone who seeks to take on someone of the stature of Mother Teresa, and attempts to show that all previous accounts of her life are wrong, carries a heavy burden. Thus, any book that condemns her, without supporting documentation, cannot be taken seriously.

Christopher was not a happy man, but not without reason. When he was a young man, his mother, and her lover, an Episcopalian priest, committed a joint suicide. That would rock anyone. He became a chain-smoking alcoholic, filled with rage; he died prematurely at the end of 2011.

This may come as a surprise, but Christopher and I had a few things in common. Though one would never know it by reading his harsh comments on Mother Teresa’s opposition to abortion, he was actually pro-life. He was pleasantly surprised when I commended him for his enlightened position. He was also no fool when it came to Islam—he knew that the radical interpretation of the “religion of peace” led to terrorism, and posed a grave threat to the West. We also liked to drink, though I am happy to say that my tastes extend only to beer and red wine.

Christopher may be the most well known critic of Mother Teresa, but he is hardly alone. They have much in common: their accusations can be easily disproven, and all are either atheists or socialists, or both. There is not a single, dispassionate writer among them, including a trio of Canadian professors who emerged a few years ago. It is because there is a small cottage industry of critics who continue to surface that I felt compelled to take them on.

My book is available August 18, a few weeks before her canonization. The timing should be ripe for discussion. The presidential conventions are over at the end of July, and nothing much will be going on in August, which is why those out to sunder Mother Teresa’s reputation will appear. Let them. I relish the opportunity to confront them.

Everyone has shortcomings, Mother Teresa included, but her critics are not content to list them. Instead, they pound away by distorting her record and misrepresenting events. Worse, many of her critics are out-and-out liars. I refuse to give these charlatans a break—I have more footnotes (134) than there are pages in the book (115). No one can accuse me of making any of this up.

After reading the accounts of her critics, I am convinced more than ever that Mother Teresa earned sainthood, hands down. She was a true altruist, one who took self-giving to a new level. Sadly, that is one reason why she was hated by socialists: they contend that only the government should tend to the needs of the poor. Thus, she was a deterrent to statist prescriptions. Worse, her altruism was grounded in Jesus, and that drives atheists mad.

In 2010, when the owner of the Empire State Building—a militant secularist and left-wing operative—refused to shine the tower in blue and white, on the date of her centenary, I led a demonstration in the street. Speaking at the rally were New Yorkers of many religions, ethnic backgrounds, and races. They all came to honor her. It was quite a moment.

Mother Teresa’s big honor now awaits her. This is something that none of her detractors can diminish, not even in the slightest.

On March 23, 2000, Bill Donohue and Christopher Hitchens squared off in a fiery debate at New York’s Union League Club. Much of the debate centered on Mother Teresa. The following is an excerpt from a play by professor Remi Dubuque; it is based on the evening’s debate. Mother Teresa’s upcoming canonization, and Donohue’s new book on her critics, explains why we are publishing their exchange now.

Remi Dubuque 

In 1995 Mr. Hitchens published a devastating and admittedly scurrilous critique of Mother Teresa, whom he later called,”a thieving, fanatical Albanian dwarf,” and a “self-adoring fraud”; he also labeled her a demagogue and fanatical zealot. Then, a few years later Hitchens, accepted an invitation to debate in New York City none other than Dr. William Donohue, the formidable president of the Catholic League, which is the leading voice for defending Catholicism against anti-Catholic attacks.

Moderator to Mr. Hitchens: In a few days you’ll be debating before a largely Catholic audience against William Donohue. This IS not likely to be one of your usual polite and courteous exchanges. He’s known as a bulldog and a fierce defender of his Faith; he also was a great admirer of Mother Teresa. I wouldn’t expect him to be overly-friendly and happy to make your acquaintance. He’ll be coming with a somewhat justifiable chip on his shoulder.

C.H.: I’m the Englishman. I’m the bulldog—he’s only an Irishman, and a Catholic at that. I have nothing to worry about.

Moderator: Donohue is well-read and a published scholar. He’ll come prepared.

C.H.: Good. The bigger they are…(makes hand-sign of someone falling)

Debate

C.H.: (Seated Stage Left, stands and begins)

Everything everybody thinks they know about Mother Teresa is false; not just most of the things, but all of the things. Her international reputation represents the single largest con job of the century. She was corrupt, cynical, nasty, and cruel. Mother Teresa has received worldwide adulation for her saintliness, for at least a few decades now; she has been hailed from every quarter of the globe as a living saint. Mother Teresa is a Nobel Prize winner—though whatever she has done to deserve it remains to me a mystery—and even she herself admits she did nothing to deserve such an honor. At the ceremony when she received the Nobel Peace Prize she cleverly seized the opportunity to preach against abortion—even though one of the obvious major problems in her Calcutta mission was over-population.

Mother Teresa has received awards and plaques from political leaders all over the world; in her role as the Great White Hope coming to the rescue of the heathen of India and other places, her rewards have by no means been restricted to only those in heaven. It was only by my intervention, my 1995 exposé, that we can even now say something bad about Mother Teresa. It was my book about her, The Missionary Position, which brought her back down to earth; it was my book that exposed her for the thieving, lying fraud that she really is. I was the one that destroyed the myth of “Holy Mother Teresa,” who built hundreds of hospices and orphanages, but all in her own honor.

What she does with all the financial gifts she has received is not known; she never seemed ready and willing to open her books to any public accounting. For someone whose kingdom is not of this earth, Mother Teresa had an easy access and rate of success with earthly kingdoms and powers. She has a long history of tapping into the treasures of tyrants and dictators—dictators like the Duvalier family of Haiti, which robbed the country’s poor people to greedily boost their own vast and corrupt fortunes. In addition, her well-honed talent for fundraising made her a valuable asset of the Vatican, which rewarded her later on with an oddly premature procedure of canonization.

In the United States, Mother Teresa accepted well over a million dollars from Charles Keating, a California savings and loan tycoon. The only problem was that the money that he gave her didn’t belong to him. He had embezzled it from his clients. She never offered to return that stolen money to its rightful owners and Keating went to jail after what was then the greatest financial scandal in America’s history.

The annual Mother Teresa cult has resulted in millions of dollars annually for her mission. That money could go to supporting a large hospital. Instead, we observe her homes and hospices offering only a low level of service to the homeless and destitute. She has decided to spend her franchise very thinly. To her, the convent and the Catechism matter more than the clinics.

In her proclaiming that abortion is the greatest threat to world peace, one would have to take leave of his critical faculties to not recognize in her the tedious ravings of the dangerous zealot and the grim fanatic.

She was an old, gruesome Albanian dwarf, an elderly, wrinkled, presumed virgin terrified of sex, and she shouldn’t have been preaching to the rest of us who enjoy sex on how to conduct our sex lives. Nor should we listen about sex from the repressive standards of the Catholic hierarchy which also is composed of old, unmarried celibates.

   W.D.: (Stands at podium—Stage Right)

You, know, Christopher, both you and Mother Teresa professed deep concern for the plight of the poor and the destitute and the homeless. The only difference is that Mother Teresa actually did something for all of them. How many people have you literally carried out of the filth and vermin of the gutter, washed the maggots off them, put clean clothes on them, fed them, and gave them a secure place to rest, away from the terrors of the street? You criticize her and her nuns for not building a modern hospital for the desperately ill. That was never her stated intention—she was in the vocation of providing for the last days of the destitute and the dying. If you had taken the time to read the sign in front of her hospices, you would have seen it state,”Home for the Dying and Destitute”—and not THE MAYO CLINIC.

In your so-called book on her you criticize her for providing a hospice in the Bronx that is without an elevator. You don’t mention how she and the other nuns actually carried the destitute up the stairs—those who were unable to physically make it on their own. Your dishonesty is deplorable.

A number of your criticisms are deliberately misleading by leaving out relevant facts. Your book is a study in bigoted and dishonest selectivity. For example, you accuse her of taking stolen money from Charles Keating; you don’t point out that Keating gave the money to Mother Teresa in 1982, but it was not until the 1990s that the details of his swindling came to light—long after the missionaries had already spent it. How conveniently you alter the truth.

Then, you denounce her for taking money from the wealthy and dishonest Duvalier family in Haiti. Tell us, where else in Haiti could she have obtained money to build the orphanages there? From the penniless poor? This is just another phony criticism of yours. As a matter of fact, your entire book on Mother Teresa reeks of phony scholarship: no index, no footnotes or endnotes, no checkable sources, no evidence. If I were your college teacher, I’d have to give it an “F.”

It’s part and parcel of the research you produce for your two favorite sources of publication. The Nation, a pretentious pseudo-intellectual rag, and Vanity Fair, known widely as an anti-Catholic tabloid.

The majority of your writings are on the level of People magazine: superficial and without any in-depth research. What you compose most often lacks any careful study or any thorough scholarship. You write for effect—not for discovering the real truth. You’re the one who’s a fraud, Christopher—not Mother Teresa. She has backed up her world-wide reputation with countless good works for the downtrodden. Her life is her genuine testimony. Your opinion of her is based on distortion and prejudice.

You blame the lack of population control on Catholic doctrine, yet on the very previous page of your book you actually state that the secular-leftist government predominates there in Calcutta—the type of politics that you personally espouse. Thus, your position lacks consistency and logic. Your hatred of her is also partly because you disagree with her position on sexual behavior; she disapproves, like the Catholic Church, of sodomy and promiscuity. If everyone were to follow what the Catholic Church teaches about sex and marriage, there would hardly be any venereal disease and death due to AIDS. And yet you’re happy hurling cheap jokes and insults at the missionary nuns, their work, and their celibate vocation.

C.H.: Let me protest that I don’t do nun jokes. Never did. Never will. And I resent your implying that I do. Also, to say that AIDS is death from sex I regard as an obscenity. Your Church has a long history of blaming homosexuals for their sexual behavior; what they die of is a filthy and deadly virus which can and will be cured. You have no right to condemn them for expressing love to each other.

W.D.: You don’t make jokes about nuns? You just earlier referred to the supposed virginity of Mother Teresa. And how about the title of your book against her, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice? Only a phony would deny there’s a cheap sexual pun in the title. Again, you’re being the ultimate phony. And do you really think people get AIDS from a bug biting their behinds? Christopher, if you drink too much alcohol, you can get cirrhosis of the liver; if you smoke too many cigarettes, you can get lung cancer; and if you practice sodomy or promiscuous sex, you’ll likely wind up with some venereal disease.

Your libertine leftist philosophy somehow prevents you from accepting these truths.

Ultimately, the real reason you hate Mother Teresa is that her whole life stands for Jesus Christ. And you hate Jesus Christ so much that you’re unwilling to frankly acknowledge even His historical existence—which is truly stupid and absurd. Christopher, you’ve lost objectivity; you’re so blinded by your bias and ill will. Your attacks on Mother Teresa amount to no more than phony, dishonest logic based on personal animosity.

Moderator (to audience):

Whether Mr. Hitchens won or lost that debate with Dr. Donohue may be a matter of one’s opinion. But I can tell you this—judging by his visible outward appearances and facial expressions during the debate, this seemed to be Hitch’s most uncomfortable and least pleasurable debating experience. It was evident that he was not used to being openly and blatantly called “a phony.” The hostility and ill feelings Hitch had created with his unrelenting attacks on Mother Teresa truly emerged on that memorable evening in New York.

Remi Dubuque received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Notre Dame and is an expert on the Shroud of Turin.

The following timeline shows how the Catholic League helped to defeat New York’s unjust bill on sexual abuse:

• On March 28, Assemblywoman Margaret Markey wrote an op ed in the Daily News touting her bill, while making no mention of the public schools.
• On March 30, Sen. Brad Hoylman, in an op ed, called for “every childhood sexual abuse victim” to have “the opportunity to confront their abuser in court.”
• On March 31, we sent him a letter, noting that his bill would apply exclusively to private entities, exempting the public schools. We urged him to “amend your bill to be inclusive of all institutions.”
• On April 1, we wrote to every member of the NYS Legislature, suggesting they submit a bill that would cover only the public schools.
• On April 10 Hoylman and Senate Democratic Minority Leader Andrea-Stewart Cousins announced that they would submit a new bill, which Hoylman said “creates a single standard for both private and public institutions.”
• On May 2, we published a full page ad in the Albany Times Union exposing the underlying agenda of professional activists pushing for the Markey bill: “to stick it to Catholics.” We highlighted the Catholic-bashing history of some of these professional agitators and organizations, and pointed out that the legislation they were pushing would still not address the unequal treatment between public and private institutions.
• On May 25, we continued to expose the agenda of the professional victims’ advocates, with a news release that hammered the anti-Catholic agenda of steeple-chasing lawyer Michael Dowd.
• On June 7, Markey resorted to a desperate smear of Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, telling the Daily News that he had offered her a $5,000 bribe—six years earlier—to drop her support for this bill.
• We immediately called for her resignation, in a June 7 news release that took apart her claim against the bishop, showing her numerous factual errors (she got the year, as well as the location of the meeting wrong) and calling out her well-known anti-Catholic bigotry.
• We followed up on June 8 with a letter to Assemblyman Charles Lavine, chairman of the standing Committee on Ethics and Guidance, calling on the Committee to investigate Markey for violating the Code of Ethics.
• On June 13, we named seven liars in the victims’ lobby. We listed specific lies they told about this issue.
• On June 18, the bill failed.

The Daily News engaged in an aggressive campaign to pass the Markey bill, growing increasingly strident in its attacks on the Catholic Church as the bill’s prospects dimmed.  

• On May 30, the Daily News posted an article excoriating the Catholic Church for hiring lobbyists to push for desired legislative outcomes.
• Our May 31 news release noted that the Daily News ignored the far greater amounts spent on lobbying by other groups—including public schools and teachers’ unions, who had played a key role in defeating the 2009 version of the Markey bill. That bill, for the first and only time, had included the public schools.
• On June 5, Daily News reporters accosted Catholics leaving Sunday Mass at various NYC churches, asking them to comment on the statute of limitations bill.
• In a June 6 news release, we asked why no reporters were sent to any synagogues even though Orthodox Jews also opposed this bill.
• In our June 7 news release we called out the Daily News for hyping Markey’s slander of Bishop DiMarzio. We noted that no other reputable news outlet had picked up the story.

Bill Donohue recently called for a formal investigation of New York State Assemblywoman Margaret Markey. Her defamation of Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio warrants a probe as to whether she has violated New York State’s ethics laws. Below is a copy of Donohue’s request.

June 8, 2016

Hon. Charles D. Lavine
New York State Assembly
Legislative Office Building 441
Albany, New York 12248

Dear Assemblyman Lavine:

As chairman of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Guidance, you are empowered to commence an investigation of lawmakers who may have violated New York’s state ethics laws. Accordingly, I am requesting that you instruct the Committee to investigate Assemblywoman Margaret Markey for violating the Code of Ethics.

The Code of Ethics “Standards” section of the Public Officers Law (see #74, 3h) says that lawmakers “should endeavor to pursue a course of conduct which will not raise suspicion among the public that he is likely to be engaged in acts that are in violation of his trust.”

It can be reasonably maintained that Assemblywoman Markey has violated the public trust: She has slandered Most Reverend Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn.

In the lead story of the June 7 edition of the Daily News, Markey is quoted as saying that Bishop DiMarzio offered her a $5,000 bribe. She said this occurred in 2010 at Bishop Ford High School, and that a nun was present at the time (see enclosure).

Markey is wrong about the accusation, wrong about the date, wrong about the venue, and wrong about the meeting (see enclosure).

There never was a bribe, or anything close to it, and Markey does not have one piece of evidence to substantiate her scurrilous charge.

Markey now admits that she was wrong about the date—by three years: the actual meeting took place in 2007. She is also wrong about the venue: the meeting did not take place at Bishop Ford High School; rather, it was held at the Chancery Office of the Diocese of Brooklyn.

There were actually two meetings that day at the Chancery Office, not one. The first discussed the policy implications of a proposed bill by Markey; in attendance was a priest, a nun, two assemblymen, and the director of the New York State Catholic Conference. The second one, which immediately followed, was arranged to discuss more personal issues, such as assistance to abuse victims; only the bishop, Markey, and the nun were present.

The nun was Sister Ellen Patricia Finn, OP. She is quoted in the June 8 edition of the Daily News as saying, “No money, no $5,000 was ever mentioned” (see enclosure). So much for Markey’s account.

Markey’s defamation of Bishop DiMarzio is violative of the public trust. She is entrusted to represent all her constituents fairly, but given her slanderous assaults on a sitting bishop, and her unwillingness to withdraw her comments, it is not hard to conclude that she has done more than “raise suspicion among the public” about her fidelity to the public trust—she has earned an investigation by your Committee.

I implore you to pursue this matter. I feel confident that your findings will validate the account of the bishop (as represented in this letter), thus necessitating a vote to censure Assemblywoman Margaret Markey.

Thank you for your consideration.

The following article by Bill Donohue was recently published by CNSNews.com.

The man responsible for the Orlando killings, we’re told, was a devout Muslim who attended a mosque several times a week, brought a prayer rug to work, pledged his allegiance to ISIS, cheered the 9/11 massacre, traveled to Saudi Arabia, and was raised by his Taliban-loving father. Yet, despite all this reported evidence, Christians are being blamed for the killings.

There is no greater proof of why the Catholic League exists than this: Christians, especially Catholics, are typically held responsible for the sins of others, and this is doubly true when sexuality is implicated. Most troubling is the fact that the anti-Christian hate mongers are not just dopey bloggers—they are academics, lawyers, activists, and writers.

When it comes to Christian haters, few can top Jonathan Katz, a homosexual activist and University of Buffalo professor. Now he is deflecting attention from the role that ISIS played in the Muslim murders: he says the real culprits are Christians. In fact, he refers to the ISIS connection as merely the “ISIS thing,” as if the Islamic State were only tangentially related to the killings.

“The ISIS thing is a distraction,” Katz says, arguing that we should instead be “looking at the long legacy of anti-gay violence in this country that has itself been stoked and promoted by the Christian right.” The central problem, he says, is not to be found in “the Middle East,” but at home where the “homophobia problem” exists.

Katz has a history of bashing Christians for not embracing the gay agenda. In 2010, he objected to my criticism of a taxpayer-funded Smithsonian exhibition that featured a vile video of ants crawling all over the crucifix. For simply exercising my First Amendment right to free speech, Katz called me an “American Taliban.” I reminded him that the Taliban puts gays in human shredders.

Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern is another homosexual activist who refuses to blame Islamists for what happened, opting to point the finger at Christians instead. The title of his screed tells it all, “How Conservative Christian Activists Spent Decades Fomenting Anti-Gay Hate in Orlando.”

To make his point, Stern blames the Catholic League for cultivating gay hatred. How did we do this? By allegedly joining a boycott of Disney in 1996. He says we were angry about a Disney employment policy on gays. Stern is wrong. We didn’t join any such effort. In 1995, I led a boycott of Disney because of its role in promoting an anti-Catholic movie, “Priest” (at that time Disney owned Miramax, the film’s distributor).

Just as with Katz, Stern paints me as anti-gay for fighting anti-Catholicism. Moreover, he believes I laid the groundwork for Omar Mateen’s killing spree. Why I haven’t been arrested he does not say.

Katz, Stern, and others (Sally Kohn and the ACLU) are so driven by their hatred of Christianity that there is virtually nothing that Muslim barbarians can do that cannot be deconstructed to exculpate them and implicate Christians.

Adding to the crazy talk, and proving my point better than I could ever do, is Ben Brenkert. Like many other homosexual seminarians who never made it—he spent 10 years training to become a Jesuit priest—he has a score to settle with the Catholic Church.

Brenkert’s article in the Daily Beast on the Orlando killings says absolutely nothing about Muslims, Islam, or ISIS, but it has plenty to say about the pope, and, of course, sex.

Pope Francis decried the killings but didn’t single out homosexuals. For Brenkert, this signifies “the Church’s lack of care of the whole gay person, including the identification of the gay victims when it matters most: in their martyrdom.” For me, at least, this really is breaking news—I had no idea that the victims gave themselves up for a noble cause.

Following Katz and Stern, Brenkert exploits the Orlando killings to advance his sexual politics. He is not interested in pressing the authorities to do a better job screening for prospective terrorists; rather, he seizes this opportunity to register a complaint with the Catholic Church. His whining is hard to beat. “Sexually active gay men who are Roman Catholic cannot receive Holy Communion at Mass,” he says.

This is true. The same is true of sexually active single heterosexual men and women, as well as adulterers. But even if everyone could receive Communion, no matter the nature of the sin or the degree of contriteness, it strains credulity to assume that this has anything to do with the behavior of a Muslim maniac.

The purpose of this outburst of Christian bashing in the wake of the Orlando tragedy is to silence Christian dissent on matters sexual. Narcissistic to the bone, these gay activists will always give Islam a pass, and will always bash Christians. The issue for them is sex, not violence.

The plight of those who have been sexually abused, especially minors, is a condition eminently worthy of our compassion. Unfortunately, many of those who have professionally taken up the cause of these victims are dishonest activists who are not above lying to advance their interests.

• Recently, NY Assemblywoman Margaret Markey lied about Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, accusing him of bribery.
• In 2012, the director of SNAP, David Clohessy, admitted under oath that he has lied to the press.
• In 2011, Terence McKiernan, founder of BishopAccountability, lied when he told a conference that Cardinal Timothy Dolan was protecting 55 priests.
• Jeffrey—”I’m suing the s*** out of [the] Catholic Church” Anderson—has lied repeatedly about “smoking guns” that never seem to fire, trying to implicate the Vatican in U.S. abuse cases.
• In May, Yeshiva University lawyer Marci Hamilton lied to the press when she said the bishops pay Bill Donohue’s salary. She knows full well that the Catholic League is not funded by the bishops.
• Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, whose role was acknowledged in “Spotlight,” twice pressed charges against a priest who was never found guilty of anything: In 2011, he blew up at Donohue for simply questioning him; he was even condemned by the Boston Globe for his recklessness.
• In 2012, author Jason Berry lied when he said that Donohue defended the disgraced priest, Father Marcial Maciel. He knew this was untrue.

In short, we are not dealing with honest champions of the abused. We are dealing with liars who exploit the very persons they claim to help.

They are crying foul. What is really foul is the basis of the complaint made by Pennsylvania Catholic lawmakers: they are upset that priests are calling them out for working against their own religion.

In Pennsylvania, as in virtually all states, if a bill to lift the statute of limitations on offenses involving the sexual abuse of minors does not specifically say that it covers the public sector, it means that kids raped by public school teachers are treated like second-class citizens. To be exact, because of the antiquated doctrine of sovereign immunity, public school students have a very short window—usually 90 days—to press charges, otherwise they are out of luck.

The bill being considered by the Pennsylvania legislature gives the public schools a pass—the reform does not affect them. Which means that kids who are sexually abused in a public school, or were abused by a public school employee in the past, have less rights than private school students; the latter, under the proposed bill, could now sue for alleged offenses that took place decades ago.

The legislation has one purpose—to stick it to Catholics. If the intent were to allow justice for the victims of sexual abuse, the venue of the offense would be irrelevant. But it is very relevant. Indeed, it explains why so many parishes have called out Catholic lawmakers who support this discriminatory bill.

What did these legislators think would happen? They are pledged to represent all of their constituents, yet they decided to throw Catholics overboard—their own people—by supporting a bill that discriminates against them. Kudos to the priests, and others, for letting everyone know who was behind this outrageous scam.

Recently, the 2015 Annual Report on clergy sexual abuse was released by the National Review Board of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015, there were seven substantiated allegations against clergy for the sexual abuse of minors that were made by current minors. Given that the data covered priests (35,987) and deacons (16,251), this means that .01 percent of the 52,238 members of the clergy had a substantiated allegation made against him; conversely, 99.99 percent did not.

Why is this not being widely reported by the media—including the Catholic media?

Reuters is so dishonest that it reported on the 838 persons who came forward with an accusation (mostly about offenses years ago), saying that is a 35 percent increase from the previous year. What it didn’t say is that last year there was a 5 percent increase in the number of false accusations made against the dioceses and eparchies, and a whopping 86 percent increase in false accusations made against religious institutes.

Some things, of course, never change. As usual, 81 percent of the victims were male, and most were postpubescent; 16 percent were under the age of 10. Which means that homosexuals accounted for the lion’s share of the problem, though no one will mention this fact. The John Jay researchers certainly will not: they said in 2011 that the high rate of male victims in the 1960s and 1970s was due to priests not having access to female altar servers. Nonsense. They have had plenty of access for years, but it is still the gay priests who are doing the molesting. This was never a crime of opportunity. That’s pure propaganda.

Similarly, psychologist Dr. Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea predicted in 2003, “You will see some kind of bubble in 2005, when the people who were abused in the 1990s come forward.” She could not have been more wrong—the bubble never surfaced, not then and not now. She’s been wrong all along.