CBS Outdoor, a division of the CBS Corporation, recently posted anti-Catholic billboards paid for by the Eternal Gospel Church, a breakaway sect of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, along Interstate 65 in Jeffersonville, Indiana. The town is located on the Indiana-Kentucky border across the river from Louisville. Our response caught them off-guard and ultimately led to a victory.

For years we have been battling the Eternal Gospel Church. It is an old-fashioned anti-Catholic group that accuses the pope of being the Antichrist, among other things. While not nearly as upsetting as what employees for John Edwards have said about Catholicism, it is disturbing enough.

Instead of launching a formal protest, we decided we’d beat CBS at its own game. We told CBS Outdoor we wanted to post a billboard in the same area saying, “CBS Sponsors Anti-Catholicism.” All of a sudden we touched a nerve.

Their initial response was bewilderment. Then came their answer—we were denied. Fine, we said, now we’ll tell the whole world. We then posted the e-mail address of Wally Kelly, the CEO of CBS Outdoor in our news release. He was quickly bombarded with letters of protest. So guess what happened? They reversed course and said the offensive billboards would come down.

The people on our side are great. A week after we won, CBS Outdoor called to say they were still getting hit with angry letters. But it was too late to call off the dogs. (More on page 7.)

On February 6, the Catholic League demanded that presidential hopeful John Edwards fire two recently hired anti-Catholics who had joined his team: Amanda Marcotte as Blogmaster and Melissa McEwan as the Netroots Coordinator. He chose to fire them, then rehire them. After we exposed another anti-Christian screed by Marcotte—written only three days after Edwards had assured everyone that this would not happen again—she was forced to quit. She blamed Bill Donohue as she waltzed out the door. The next day, McEwan also resigned.

Writing on the Pandagon blogsite on December 26, 2006, Amanda Marcotte wrote that “the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.”

On October 9, 2006, she said that “the Pope’s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are cast into Satan’s maw.” On the same day she wrote that “it’s going to be bad PR for the church, so you can sort of see why the Pope is dragging ass.” And on June 14, 2006, Marcotte offered the following Q&A: “What if Mary had taken Plan B after [here she described the Virgin Birth with vulgar sexual terms],” to which she offered the reply, “You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.”

On November 21, 2006, Melissa McEwan wrote on the website AlterNet that “some of Christianity’s most prominent leaders—including the Pope—regularly speak out against gay tolerance.” On November 1, 2006, on her blog Shakespeare’s Sister, she referred to President Bush’s “wingnut Christofascist base” when lashing out against religious conservatives.

On February 21, 2006, she attacked religious conservatives again, this time saying, “What don’t you lousy [expletive] understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?” Currently, the very first entry under “Greatest Hits” on her website (where she brags about being appointed to Edwards’ campaign) is titled something so filthy we cannot in good conscience reprint it here.

Our initial news release was easy on Edwards: “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots. He has no choice but to fire them immediately.”

 After Marcotte resigned, we issued a news release demanding that McEwan either quit or be forced out. It didn’t take long.

William A. Donohue

The cultural elite reek of hypocrisy so bad it’s nauseous. In this issue of Catalyst alone, there are three huge examples of just how bad this duplicity is; they involve Hollywood, CBS and the New York Times. In each instance, there was a confrontation with the Catholic League, and in each case we won.

On January 22, the movie “Hounddog” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. There was nothing anti-Catholic about the movie, but it was troubling on several fronts nonetheless. Here was a film starring a 12-year-old girl, Dakota Fanning, playing a 9-year-old who gets raped. Moreover, her father gets into bed with her naked, and she dances around in a suggestive fashion in her underwear.

This is sick. What is even sicker is that the same Hollywood gang that loves to beat up on Catholics, and is quick to damn the few priests who have molested minors, is celebrating child rape as entertainment. That’s why I unloaded.

The reaction of the Hollywood gang to the Catholic League’s criticism of the movie was astounding. It was as if we had no right to comment. What really drove them nuts was our decision to contact the Feds. I wrote to the Justice Department division that deals with these matters asking for an investigation. Specifically, I wanted to know if the federal child pornography laws had been violated. The Justice Department turned the case over to the FBI.

The movie’s producer went bonkers. In typical Hollywood form, she lashed out at me making anti-Catholic remarks. With her back to the wall, she tried to spin the issue by saying the film was a good educational tonic on the subject of sexual abuse. But as I said on TV, the movie was never billed as “Health 101.” In any event, we won: no distributor picked up the movie. So as it stands now, it will never make it to be big screen.

On another issue, when we learned that the Eternal Gospel Church was marketing more of its anti-Catholic junk, we immediately inquired into which company owned the billboards (we have known the sect was anti-Catholic for years). What a surprise it was to learn that CBS Outdoor, a division of CBS, was the owner. The strategy we outlined proved successful.

I asked Kiera McCaffrey, our director of communications, to call CBS Outdoor and let them know of our interest in placing an ad on one of their billboards along I-65 in Indiana (near Kentucky) where the anti-Catholic messages were posted. The agent was very happy to get our business and said he would mail us pictures of some billboards in the area so as to facilitate our decision where we wanted our statement to appear. He said the cost was $4,000 for one month, and $6,000 for two months. He even said he would get his graphic designer to work up our ad for us. Kiera expressed delight. He then asked, “What do you want the billboard to say?” Kiera replied, “CBS Sponsors Anti-Catholicism.”

The poor agent was aghast. He said he’d have to get back with us. The next day he told us that our request had been denied: CBS has a policy that does not allow anything defamatory to be said about CBS on its billboards. How convenient. But, as we reasoned, they obviously don’t have a problem regarding statements that are defamatory about Catholicism.

In the news release on this subject, we listed the e-mail address of Wally Kelly, the CEO of CBS Outdoor in Phoenix, Arizona. He was inundated with letters of protest, so much so that only a few hours later the agent called to say the anti-Catholic signs were coming down.

We had planned to run an ad in the New York Times about the John Edwards matter, but just as we were about to go to press we had to pull it: that’s because the two offensive employees had just resigned. You can see the ad we planned on p. 5. Interestingly, it was originally rejected because it allegedly violated the newspaper’s policy on obscenity. So I rewrote the first part and resubmitted it. Here is what it said.

“This ad was to begin with two vile anti-Christian quotes penned by two women who work for John Edwards. Though neither contained obscene words spelled in full, the New York Times said it violated their policy and therefore rejected them. The first quote was a reference to the Virgin Mary being injected with semen by the Lord. The second used a patently vulgar term to describe religious conservatives. The first part of the word is ‘mother.’ To read what was actually said, please see the Catholic League website.”

Guess what happened? A few minutes later we got a call back saying the New York Times had reconsidered its objections and decided that our original submission was okay. What obviously entered their minds was the prospect of having the big free speech guys look rather prudish when compared to the Catholics over at the Catholic League.

By Ronald J. Rychlak

Eugenio Pacelli became Pope Pius XII in 1939, after having spent nine years as Cardinal Secretary of State. Prior to that, he had been the Vatican’s representative in Germany. During his lifetime, Pius XII’s opposition to Hitler was well known. Nazis condemned him, Jews thanked him, and rescuers identified him as their inspiration. More recently, however, some writers have raised questions about how actively he opposed the Nazis. One even dubbed him “Hitler’s Pope.”

Critics often claim that the Vatican is hiding evidence of the Pope’s activities during the Holocaust because, like most nations, the Holy See keeps diplomatic records sealed for a number of years. This respects the confidentiality of people who are still living, protects state secrets, and gives archivists time to index and catalog documents. The Vatican has, however, tried to accommodate the researchers.

In the 1960s, Pope Paul VI appointed a team of four Jesuits to cull through the archives for relevant documents from the Holocaust era. By 1980, they had produced and made public 11 thick volumes of documents. This did not satisfy the critics, because the actual archives containing post-1922 documents remained closed to outsiders.

In 2003, some archives from the years 1922-1939 were opened, and in 2006 more were opened. These archives cover the years during which the Nazis came to power and during which the future Pope Pius XII was very involved in German-Vatican diplomacy. Even though these archives (not to mention the 11 volumes prepared by the Jesuits) have not been fully mined, many researches, some with personal agendas, continue to clamor for more access.

Recently, 35 such researchers petitioned the Vatican to open all Holocaust-era archives. One of the petitioners, Seymour Reich, wrote toJewish Week complaining that the beatification of Pius XII before all archives were open would cause “serious problems with the Jewish community’s attitude toward the Vatican.”

One wonders whether these petitioners are aware of the new archival evidence. One piece of recently discovered evidence is a letter written in 1923, when Hitler was just emerging as a force within Germany, in which papal representative Pacelli reports that “followers of Hitler” are persecuting Jews and Catholics. The future Pope refers negatively to this group (not yet known as Nazis) as “right-wing radicals.” He also praises the “learned and zealous” Cardinal Archbishop Michael Faulhaber of Munich whom the radicals attacked because he “had denounced the persecutions against the Jews.”

It had long been known that philosopher Edith Stein (recently canonized as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) wrote to Pope Pius XI in 1933 concerning the Nazis and their treatment of Jews. The precise words she used, however, were not known. It had been assumed that she asked for an encyclical—a formal papal document—condemning Naziism. It turns out there was no such request.

The reply letter to Stein, which was not seen until the new archives were opened, came from Secretary of State Pacelli. The future Pius XII assured Stein that the Vatican shared her concerns and that the Church would ultimately score a “final victory” over Nazism. The newly opened archives also show that even before Stein sent her letter to Rome, the Vatican had instructed its representative in Berlin to intervene with the German government on behalf of the Jews. Upon reviewing these documents, CNN’s Vatican correspondent concluded that its release “resolves a historical debate in favor of the Vatican’s position.”

An event that took place in 2003 shows why the Vatican is so concerned about archiving and indexing the documents. Shortly after new archives were opened, an Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, claimed that a 1934 letter had been found in which a Jesuit priest named Friederich Muckermann accused Secretary of State Pacelli of collaboration with the Nazis. The paper reprinted what it claimed was the actual letter.

After reading the article, officials from the Congregation For the Causes of Saints called the reporter to find out where he got his information. The reporter had not seen the letter; it had been read to him over the phone by a researcher who had been given access to the archives. Vatican officials pulled the files that the researcher had been using. Not long thereafter, they found the original letter.

As printed in the newspaper the letter was about 550 words long. The letter Fr. Muckermann wrote, however, was almost three times that long. The newspaper had changed words (“unjust” charges against the Holy See were published as “just” charges) and omitted entire passages (“The whole world knows that the German Bishops have done much” against Hitler) without any indication that the letter had been edited. Obviously, someone wanted to cast the Church in a bad light, and sloppy reporting let that happen. Fortunately, the Vatican was able to issue a correction not long after the story was first published precisely because of the care it had taken with the archives.

A similar mistranslation hit the press in 2005, when the New York Times ran an article based on an unsigned document, not on Vatican letterhead and in the wrong language, that reportedly had been found in a Paris archive. According to the Times, this was a directive from Pius XII instructing Catholics who had taken Jewish children into their households during the Nazi occupation. Supposedly, the Pope told these rescuers not to return the children to their parents if the youngsters had been baptized.

Within a week, thanks again to careful archiving, the Pope’s original instruction was found, and it was quite different from the news reports. The Pope actually said that Catholic parents had an on-going duty to the Jewish families. They were instructed not to dump these children on the first charity group that approached them. They should, of course, return the children to their parents.

The current charge is that Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, was critical of Pius XII because he did not assist Roncalli’s efforts on behalf of Turkish Jews. This is not new. As early as 1968, there were several false charges that John was a critic of Pius. Archbishop Loris Capovilla, John’s private secretary, has expressly answered this claim:

With regard to the actions in favor of the Jews, affected particularly in Istanbul in the years 1935-1944, which was recognized and praised by Hebrew communities in Jerusalem, Istanbul, and the United States, it is obligatory to recognize that Roncalli was and declared himself the executor of the thought and the directives of Pius XII. He repeated, in fact “The papal representative is the eye, the ear, the mouth, the heart and the effective hand of the Pope.”

Capovilla said that Roncalli’s rescue efforts on behalf of Jews make sense “only if they are referred above everything else to Pius XII, of whom Roncalli was the careful and most faithful interpreter. Any strictly personal action, even though it be heroic, of Roncalli himself, would otherwise be inconceivable.”

Throughout his life, John praised Pius. Before he was made Pope, John was offered thanks for his wartime efforts to save Jewish refugees. He replied: “In all these painful matters I have referred to the Holy See and simply carried out [Pius XII’s] orders—first and foremost to save human lives.” When Pius died, the future John XXIII said that Pius had been like a “public fountain” pouring forth good waters at which all the world, great and lowly, could profitably drink. As one reporter of the times wrote: “In the autumn of 1958 the world showed little doubt that one of its great ones had departed, and none showed less doubt than Angelo Roncalli.”

As Pope, John prayed monthly before Pius XII’s tomb and even considered taking the name “Pius XIII.” One of the first things he did upon becoming Pope was to place a photo of Pius XII on his desk. He also had his predecessor’s photograph published with a prayer on the back asking for his canonization. The prayer called Pius “a fearless defender of the Faith, a courageous struggler for justice and peace… a shining model of charity and of every virtue.” A million of these cards were soon in circulation.

In his first Christmas broadcast, Pope John said that Pius XII’s doctrinal and pastoral teaching “assure a place in posterity for the name of Pius XII. Even apart from any official declaration, which would be premature, the triple title of ‘Most excellent Doctor, Light of Holy Church, Lover of the divine law’ evokes the sacred memory of this pontiff in whom our times were blessed indeed.” It should be noted that only a saint can be declared a Doctor of the Church.

It is true that some archives remains sealed, and historians do not have all of the evidence. At the same time, the evidence that we already have shows conclusively that Pope Pius XII intervened frequently; encouraged rescue efforts; and tried to comfort all victims, including persecuted Jews. During and after the war Pius XII’s efforts were recognized by virtually everyone. As more archives are opened, after they have been properly cataloged and indexed, we can be confident that the reputation that he once enjoyed—as a firm opponent of the Nazis—will be reconfirmed. Catholics should all take pride in knowing that Pope Pius XII stood tall in a time of great difficulty.

Ronald J. Rychlak is the MDLA Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope (Our Sunday Visitor Press) and Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis (Spence Publishing).

On January 18, Bill Donohue explained why he wants a federal investigation into the movie “Hounddog.” His goal, he said, is to see if federal child pornography laws were violated during filming.

On January 22, the Sundance Film Festival featured the debut of a movie starring 12-year-old actress Dakota Fanning. Premiere magazine described the movie, “Hounddog,” as featuring “a devastating rape by an older boy.” Before it opened, others had also noted how coarse it was.

On January 16, Alan Colmes on “Hannity and Colmes” said, “In the film, 12-year-old Fanning plays a sexually promiscuous character who’s physically abused by her father and eventually raped on screen in a violently graphic scene.” Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper said Fanning’s character “is violently raped and appears, at different times, either naked or in underpants.” Other sources said it was uncertain whether a mutual masturbation scene featuring other minors would be shown.

“It is unclear whether federal child pornography statutes have been broken in the course of filming this movie,” said Donohue. He added, “It matters not a whit whether Fanning’s mother, along with Fanning’s teacher/child welfare worker, gave their consent. What matters is whether they are an accessory to a crime.”

Accordingly, Donohue asked Andrew Oosterbaan, Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section within the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, to investigate the matter. Federal statutes on child pornography define a minor as anyone younger than 18. Fanning is a pre-teen. Donohue also wrote to First Lady Laura Bush requesting her assistance in this endeavor. That’s because she was cited in the New York Times, along with the First Ladies from France, Russia and Egypt, as having recently met “to discuss the fight against child pornography and pedophilia.”

“For the past five years,” Donohue said, “there has been a steady drumbeat of criticism aimed at the Catholic Church for allowing sexual abuse of minors to continue with impunity.” He continued by saying, “Much of that criticism was right on target. Let’s see now whether Hollywood will be held to the same level of scrutiny for promoting simulated child rape movies.”

We were delighted to learn that the Justice Department turned the case over to the FBI. Whether the law was broken is not known, but it will surely make others think twice the next time they seek to exploit children under the guise of entertainment.

After we pressed the issue, the media coverage exploded. In what is typical fashion, Donohue was attacked personally. The anti-Catholic messages and calls that we received were as voluminous as they were vicious.

Fortunately, the reviews of “Hounddog” were almost uniformly lousy. This, coupled with our protest, left the film’s producer without a distributor. It was sickening nonetheless to read how dishonest those associated with the film became. They tried to pitch the movie as a good way to educate the public about child rape. But their motive was never therapeutic. They hoped to make a profit at the expense of the young girl.

The Sundance Film Festival brought out some real sickos. It even showed a film about a man having sex with a horse (a true-life story about a Seattle man a few years ago). The film, “Zoo,” was deemed by Sundance judges as a “humanizing look at the life and bizarre death of a seemingly normal Seattle family man who met his untimely death after an unusual encounter with a horse.” Donohue responded by saying, “To be blunt about it, the movie tries to sanitize the sick death of an obviously deranged Seattle pervert who perforated his colon after he molested a horse.”

The hypocrisy surrounding this story was truly amazing. Consider Kenneth Turin of the Los Angeles Times. He was unhappy with Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” because of its “almost sadistic violence,” but he loved the bestiality in “Zoo,” calling it “an elegant, eerily lyrical film.” What he liked best was that it was “a poetic film about a forbidden subject.” But as we pointed out, it’s forbidden no more.

Donohue ended his remarks by offering the following: “I have only a few questions. Whatever happened to the horse? Did he survive this ordeal? Has PETA filed suit alleging his animal rights have been violated? And because the horse was an Arabian stallion, does this constitute a bias crime?”

CNN’s “Showbiz Tonight,” January 22:

A.J. Hammer: “But Bill, you have not seen the movie and you don’t have the context for it. On the other hand, contextually, they are saying it actually calls attention to something that goes on every day.”

Bill Donohue: “Why don’t we show it in health classes then? Is that what they’re doing now, as they’re running from the argument? Look, this is all about making a fast buck. They are exploiting this kid, and I think most Americans are on my side. You know, it’s like time out, enough is enough, leave the kids alone.”

This is the ad that was to run on February 16 on the op-ed page of the New York Times. But since Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan quit the Edwards campaign just as we were about to deliver it to the Times, we pulled it.

The same judge, John G. Heyburn II, who ruled on October 7, 2005 that the Holy See is a foreign state that enjoys certain immunities now says that the same lawsuit can go forward. That’s because a few technicalities that stopped him from initially dismissing the suit altogether are no longer relevant. “There’s an odor to this and it stinks,” we told the press.

The lawyer, William McMurry, won a $25.7 million settlement against the Archdiocese of Louisville in 2003 and managed to cream $10.3 million off the top for himself and his legal team. What motivated him to continue his pursuit was the revelation in 2003 that a 1962 Vatican document, leaked to the press, allegedly shows how the Vatican planned to cover up cases of sexual abuse.

But the document, as we’ve pointed out many times before, not only does not implicate the Vatican—it proves how serious it took cases of alleged abuse. For example, it prescribed penalties for any priest who “whether by words or signs or nods of the head” might convey a sexual advance in the confessional (our italics). It also prescribed penalties for the penitent if he or she didn’t report such conduct. In other words, the 1962 document is a model of excellence.

Besides, accusing the Vatican is bogus. “I have reviewed thousands of pages of documents surrendered by the Archdiocese of Boston,” said victims’ attorney Roderick MacLeish Jr., “but haven’t seen a scintilla of evidence showing the Vatican knew what was going on.” None of this matters to McMurry, whose anger at the Vatican involves his once being denied entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica because he was wearing shorts. (We couldn’t make this stuff up even if we wanted to.)

McMurry’s clients are Michael Turner, James H. O’Bryan and Donald E. Poppe. Turner alleges that over three decades ago he was molested by a priest; last year he said he “thought” the local bishop was following Vatican orders dealing with his case. O’Bryan says a priest touched him through his pants pocket in 1928, and Poppe’s alleged molester died in 1983.

In our concluding comments, we said, “This is what we’ve come to—a free-for-all against the Catholic Church.”

In a recent edition of The New Republic magazine, there was an article by Damon Linker titled “A Mormon in the White House.” Appearing around the same time there was a piece in the Wall Street Journal about the execution of Saddam Hussein. The article was written by Marty Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic. The two articles read together provide great insight into the way this influential journal of opinion thinks about religion.

Damon Linker doesn’t want Mitt Romney to be president, and that’s because Romney is purportedly pro-life and opposed to gay marriage. Moreover, Romney’s religion, Mormonism, has too many certitudes for Linker to swallow. This is not surprising given Linker’s nervousness about Roman Catholicism: he recently attempted to undermine the credibility of Father Richard John Neuhaus (for whom he once worked).

What accounts for Linker’s fury? He is mad at Neuhaus because the New York priest proudly proclaims his religion to be the one, true faith. Now it is Romney who has shaken Linker. Nice to know, too, that he decided to publish his latest hit job in the pages of a magazine not known for its kindness to Catholicism. Most Americans agree to disagree about matters religious, but this is obviously virgin territory for Linker; he would rather cast aspersions.

In his newspaper article, Peretz disagreed with Vatican official Cardinal Renato Martino, who objected to the execution of Saddam. That’s fine, but what was troubling was his substitution of derision for reason. He derided Martino’s comment that we must protect life from “conception until natural death,” saying, “are we supposed to imagine that Saddam is an innocent unborn fetus in his mother’s womb?”

Does this mean that Peretz has all of a sudden become pro-life? Not a chance. He then asked, “Does Cardinal Martino have no conception of the dimension of the tyrant’s crimes?” To which it must be asked: Does Peretz have no conception of what a principled position entails? He further labeled Martino’s remarks “pabulum,” noting his 16 years working at the U.N. “Sixteen years,” Peretz said, “poor man, no wonder, he’s a little overwrought and also disingenuous.”

Poor Marty—he’s been at The New Republic twice as long as Martino’s stint at the U.N. Maybe this could be what accounts for his funk.

In a statement that we released to the media, we said “The New Republicis scared to death about religion, save, of course, for religion lite. This latest twin shot shows how unnerved it has become. Ironically, for a magazine worried about certitude, it speaks with the most infallible voice this side of the academy.”

What really got our goat was learning that CBS Outdoor had previously rejected ads from PETA, the animal rights group. The company said some of their ads were “pejorative.” No doubt they were. The real question is why they didn’t find the Eternal Gospel Church ad offensive.

In any event, we prevailed and justice was ultimately done.

Note on the billboards below: MMM is 666 on the telephone, a.k.a. “The Mark of the Beast.”

It really can’t get much worse than this: a politician inviting Catholics to a party celebrating abortion and featuring a speaker from an anti-Catholic group. But that’s exactly what happened on January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Roger Limoges, who works for Frances Kissling’s Catholics for a Free Choice, spoke at Trinity Brewhouse in Providence, Rhode Island. The event was billed as a party that “welcomes Catholics to a free choice celebration marking the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.” It was strange enough that only Catholics were invited to this event, but what was most disturbing was the fact that the owner of the pub, Joshua Miller, is a state senator. Moreover, on the Trinity website is a picture of the Last Supper with various American celebrities substituting for Christ and the apostles.

“Anyone who would throw a party celebrating the right to kill babies is bad enough,” we said in a statement to the media, “but when Catholics are invited to attend an event that features a speaker from an anti-Catholic organization, a line of decency has been crossed. That a sitting state senator would host such a party is even sicker.”

We decided it was important that everyone in the Rhode Island legislature learned of State Senator Miller’s idea of a good time, and that is why we sent them a copy of our news release. We also asked all those who accessed our web page to contact Miller at work.

Miller was furious and was forced to issue his own news release saying he was simply making his pub available to Kissling’s local group. He also complained about the “vicious” e-mails he was getting “from across the country.” Maybe next year he’ll think twice before offending Catholics again.