On April 18, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the congressional ban on partial-birth abortion by a margin of 5-4; all five Catholics on the high court affirmed the ban. We predicted—accurately as it turned out—that the bigots would seize on the outcome. "The pushback from conservative Catholics was immediate—even pre-emptive," the New York Times said on its website. [...]
On April 25, Rosie O'Donnell said on the ABC show, "The View," that she was not coming back next season; she is quitting in June. We are proud that the New York Times credited the Catholic League for playing a major role in taking her down; it cited all the protesting e-mails we triggered. In the week prior [...]
William A. Donohue How many times have we been lectured by elites that the U.S. needs to get its laws in line with the Europeans on everything from welfare to the environment? Well, on April 18 our laws moved in a European direction, but the elites weren't applauding. That's because the U.S. Supreme Court moved the [...]
by Dan Kurzman As soon as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was ousted from power on July 25, 1943, Adolf Hitler began hatching a plan to kidnap Pope Pius XII and plunder the Vatican. Clearly, the Fuehrer thought, the "Jew-loving" pope had encouraged King Victor Emanuel II and some rival fascist leaders to overthrow his Italian puppet. [...]
In 1960, Catholic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy went to Houston to clarify his position on church and state. On May 11, Catholic presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani spoke in Houston to clarify his position on abortion. Kennedy succeeded in assuaging the fears of his skeptics. Giuliani failed. From the Associated Press report on Giuliani's speech, it [...]
Pop singer Sheryl Crow performed in St. Louis at an April 28 benefit concert for the Bob Costas Cancer Center at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center. St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, chairman of the board of governors of the Cardinal Glennon Children's Foundation (which raises money for the Medical Center), resigned from the board to protest [...]
There is a game being played in this presidential campaign about religion, but the players are not the candidates—the culprits are the pundits and activists. It started on May 3, when Chris Matthews asked Governor Mitt Romney during MSNBC's Republican presidential debate, "What do you say to Roman Catholic bishops who would deny communion to elected [...]
On May 7, Rev. Al Sharpton debated noted atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, at the New York Public Library on the question of God's existence. In the course of the debate, Hitchens made a snide reference to a Mormon candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Governor Mitt Romney. When [...]
On its May 10 front page, the New York Times offered the headline "In Large Immigrant Family, Religion Guided 3 Held in Fort Dix Plot" for an article about the men arrested for plotting a terror attack against soldiers based in New Jersey. Inside the paper, another headline read, "Suspects Are Described as Working People for Whom Religion [...]
In a May 14 story on Pope Benedict XVI's address to bishops in Brazil, the Associated Press reported that the pope "defended the church's often bloody campaign to Christianize indigenous people…." The same day, a story by McClatchy newspapers said that the pope "defended the Roman Catholic Church's often bloody campaign to Christianize indigenous people." There [...]
