Orthodox Catholics have cause for great celebration—the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on April 19 as our new Holy Father sends an unmistakable message: the College of Cardinals wants a man who will continue the theological legacy of Pope John Paul II. There can be no greater tribute to John Paul the Great than this.

In 1986, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a letter to an insubordinate priest, Charles Curran, saying, “The authorities of the Church cannot allow the present situation to continue in which…one who is to teach in the name of the Church in fact denies her teaching.” In 1998, as John Paul II’s enforcer of orthodoxy, he said that the Church’s prohibition against “priestly ordination of women” had “been set forth infallibly.”

The day before he was elected the new pope, Ratzinger said in his homily before the College of Cardinals, “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” This is straight out of John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor, one of the most powerful statements on morality ever written.

In other words, Ratzinger understands that a society that refuses to acknowledge that morality is a social attribute—not an individual one—is bound to culturally implode. This message may be resisted by some, but it is nonetheless true.

The Catholic League is delighted. Those who are not need to do some real soul searching.

On April 2, God called home the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II. The Catholic Church lost its leader and the world lost its most prominent role model.

Never before has any public figure, from any quarter of society, captured the love of so many people as John Paul II. For the most part, even his biggest critics found it almost impossible to dislike the man, so genuinely charismatic was he. He had an ability to reach young and old, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. He was truly a saintly person.

The complete text of the Catholic League’s news release on the death of Pope John Paul II appears below.

“Karol Wojtyla was an intellectual, actor, philosopher, athlete and human-rights advocate, but above all, he was a priest. That is what defined him more than anything else—he was a priest in service to the Lord.

“Having traveled to over 100 nations, and having reached out to the members of all the world’s religions, he managed to touch people in a way very few have. It is only fitting that someday he will be known as John Paul the Great, making him only the third pontiff in history to be bestowed this honorific title.

“Pope John Paul II will be remembered for many things, but at this time it is important to recall his signature statement, ‘Be Not Afraid.’ It was in his first homily as pope in 1978 that John Paul broached this phrase, and it is one that he restated thousands of times over during his papacy. That these were not empty words can be disputed by no one: consider what happened after he told millions of his fellow countrymen in Poland one year later, ‘Do not be afraid to tell the truth.’

“John Paul II’s unyielding commitment to speaking the truth will surely prove to be one of his most enduring legacies. In a world where moral relativism runs rampant, and the lies of postmodernist thought are trumpeted, nothing could be more countercultural than the pope’s speeches and writings on the existence of an objective moral order. His courage, along with his intellectual acumen, was astounding.

 “It is only just that we remember Pope John Paul II for what he was, and will always be—a role model for the world.”

William A. Donohue

On Thursday, March 31, I addressed some of the law students at Notre Dame University on the subject of media objectivity. But I was distracted all day, listening to reports on how the pope was doing. That night, I was interviewed by Aaron Brown of CNN at the local NBC affiliate, a studio conveniently located on the campus. The next morning, I was interviewed by Don Imus, the national radio-talk show host whose program is simulcast on MSNBC-TV. The questioning of John Paul II’s legacy had commenced in earnest.

When I got back to New York on Friday, the pace quickened: I had 15 calls from the media at my home; two dozen more on my cell phone; and at least 50 more at the office. Kiera McCaffrey, our new director of communications, stepped up to the plate with authority, speaking to reporters and granting TV interviews; her youth made her all the more impressive. Meanwhile, I was running from studio to studio.

It so happened that on Saturday, April 2, I was scheduled for a 3:20 pm hit on the Fox News Channel (I had been on “Fox and Friends” that morning). When I left for the studio, the pope was still alive, but when I got to Fox just before 3:00, things had changed. While waiting for security to let me in, John Moody, senior vice president at Fox News (and a great Catholic), walked by saying that AP (Associated Press) was reporting the pope had died. He then said, “look,” pointing to the TV monitors located right above us—Fox was reporting that Pope John Paul II had died. John then raced me to the studio where I was interviewed live by Shepard Smith, who was in Rome.

The media have been, for the most part, overwhelmingly fair. So fair that it has angered the bigots, many of whom came out of the woodwork. One of whom was Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens is an Englishman, a socialist, an intellectual, an atheist, a contrarian and a bigot. His bigotry is visceral—towards the Catholic Church, in particular. I’ve debated him live on the subject of Mother Teresa, and many times on TV on various issues. Besides Mother Teresa, Hitchens hates Reagan and Clinton, and just about everyone else. Including John Paul II.

On April 5, I was asked to debate Hitchens on MSNBC; he was in D.C. and I was in New York. The show, “Scarborough Country,” airs at 10:00 pm on the east coast, and is usually done live. But this time they wanted to tape our debate a few hours earlier and show it later that night.

Hitchens started bashing the pope, blaming him for the sexual abuse scandal, obstruction of justice, etc. As he is wont to do, he provided no evidence for his absurd charges, just arguments. When asked by Joe Scarborough whether I agreed with Hitchens, I said only a madman or a bigot would. At that, Hitchens started screaming bloody murder and stormed off the set. I continued to make my points, unfazed, much to the delight of Joe and Pat Buchanan.

I went home that night anxiously awaiting the show (when you do TV by satellite, you are asked to talk into a blank camera and cannot actually see what is going on). Our segment never aired. Though disappointed, I understood the reasoning of MSNBC officials: out of respect, they thought it imprudent to air this segment the week of the pope’s burial. They were certainly not mad at me—it was Hitchens who angered them. Imus made a quick mention of this a day or two later on his show.

Hitchens may have been among the worst offenders, but he was not alone. From punks like Bill Maher, to ethically challenged persons like Arianna Huffington, the Catholic bashers were in full swing. They hit on all the usual topics: celibacy, women priests, abortion, birth control, stem cell research, homosexuality, euthanasia, and dissent.

And then, of course, we heard from Catholics, or at least those raised Catholic. Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, ripped the pope from end to end, saying John Paul II “may, in time to come, be credited with destroying his church.” But if the Church has managed to survive dissidents like Cahill and his ilk, it’s a sure bet it’ll be here for time immemorial.

It never ceases to amaze me why those who hate Catholicism find it impossible to move on. After all, those who don’t like being Catholic are free to leave, and those who aren’t Catholic have no logical reason to fret. If they really believed in diversity, they wouldn’t try to bully the Catholic Church into adopting their radical agenda; they’d simply herald the diversity the Church represents and join a religion that shares their secular fantasies.

But this aside, Catholics have rarely had such positive coverage. As I said on more than one TV show, there is no religion on the planet that could capture the attention of the media the way the Roman Catholic Church can. As I said on Fox, we Catholics are “going to own the month of April.” And we did it with style.

by Ronald J. Rychlak

During World War II and for years after it ended, Pope Pius XII was heralded as a staunch opponent of the Nazis and a champion of their victims. Then in 1963, as the result of a piece of fiction written by German playwright Rolf Hochhuth, a controversy arose about whether the Pope had been sufficiently outspoken about Nazi atrocities. One of the earliest papal critics of this era was Robert Katz. In his 1967 Death in Romeand in his 1969 Black Sabbath, Katz severely criticized Pope Pius XII for failing to take a firmer stand in opposition to the Nazis.

After the controversy re-erupted in the past few years, with the publication of several new books, authors like John Cornwell and Susan Zuccotti were justifiably criticized for relying on Katz’s work, which pre-dated the extensive release of Vatican documents on this subject.

Now, in The Battle for Rome: The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope (Simon and Schuster: New York 2003) Katz re-asserts his old charges. Not only does he cite his out-dated books for authority, but coming full circle, he relies upon Zuccotti and Cornwell who had relied upon him! In fact, at one point (p. 54), Katz refers to a charge made by “one historian.” Flipping to the endnotes, one finds an abbreviation. Only by further flipping to Katz’s key does the reader learn that Katz’s “historian” is journalist (not historian) John Cornwell and his discredited book, Hitler’s Pope.

One of the reasons why serious scholars have avoided Katz’s earlier books is because of a lawsuit that was filed by Pope Pius XII’s niece, Elena Rossignani. The Italian Supreme Court ruled that: “Robert Katz wished to defame Pius XII, attributing to him actions, decisions and sentiments which no objective fact and no witness authorized him to do.” Katz was fined 400,000 Lire and given a 13-month suspended prison sentence.

In his new book, Katz discounts that lawsuit, noting that because of an amnesty, the litigation was ruled moot. That may be a legal defense, but it does not negate the two separate findings on the merits against Katz, and those findings should be sufficient to warn readers about the legitimacy of (and motivation behind) Katz’s work.

Katz focuses on the period when German troops occupied Rome. The first important Vatican-related event took place in October 1943, when the Nazis rounded up about 1,200 Roman Jews for deportation. Katz concludes that the Allies had advance notice of the planned roundup and that Pope Pius had at least an unsubstantiated warning of it.

Katz reports that a copy of a German telegram revealing the Nazi order for the roundup of Jews was passed on to President Franklin Roosevelt. Only by consulting the notes at the back of the book, however, does one learn that the telegram reached Roosevelt nearly three months after the roundup
Katz’s case against Pope Pius XII, who had offered gold to pay a ransom to the Germans to prevent deportations, is even weaker. (Katz even faults Pius for making this offer, because it may have dissuaded some Jews from going into hiding!)

Katz claims that the German Ambassador to the Holy See, Ernst von Weizsaecker urged the Pope to make “an official protest” on the day that the Jewish people were arrested. In support of this claim, Katz cites a telegram sent by the Consul at the German embassy to the Quirinal [seat of the Italian government] to the Foreign Office in Berlin. This telegram, however, was sent nine days before the roundup and said nothing about any plan urged on the Vatican.

In a conversation that Weizsaecker had with the Vatican Secretary of State on the day of the arrests, the ambassador expressly urged the Pope not to openly protest, since a protest would only make things worse. In fact, thanks in part to Vatican intervention, about 200 prisoners were freed. Moreover, there were no further mass arrests of Roman Jews (thousands of whom—with papal support—went into hiding in Church properties). Obviously, Pius acted with the best interest of the victims in mind.

The second event on which Katz focuses took place on March 23, 1944 after Italian partisans set off a bomb which killed 33 members of the German police. Hitler ordered the immediate execution of ten prisoners for every soldier killed. Within hours, 335 prisoners (most of whom were not Jewish; one was a priest) were led to the catacombs on the outskirts of Rome and shot. The massacre took place in complete secrecy.

Katz argues that the Pope knew of the retaliation in advance but that he did nothing to help. He cites as “proof” a memorandum that was received at the Vatican on March 24, about five hours before the prisoners were killed. That memo, which was published by the Vatican in 1980, said that “it is however foreseen that for every German killed 10 Italians will be executed.”

First of all, this memo probably did not make it all the way to the Pope prior to the executions. More importantly, Pope Pius XII certainly was well aware of the likelihood of brutal Nazi retaliation before he got this memo, which provided no specific details or new information. In fact, historian Owen Chadwick cited the document as proof that Pius XII obviously did not know details of the reprisal.
When the memorandum made its way to him, Pius sent a priest to obtain more information and release of the prisoners. The Gestapo chief of police, however, would not receive the Pope’s messenger. The executions were already underway. That officer (Herbert Kappler) testified during his post-war trial that “Pope Pius XII was not aware of the Nazis’ plans before the massacre.”

Katz’s efforts to defame Pius XII are evident from the very beginning of this book. The text starts with a report from the Roman police chief on the activity of the clergy and Catholic Organizations. It says, “The clergy continues to maintain an attitude of cooperation with the Government.” Since the book is about the era of Nazi occupation, one might think that the Church was in cahoots with the Germans. The date of the report, however, is prior to the Nazi occupation.

Katz suggests that Pius should have approved of rebel efforts to murder Nazis. At the same time, he suggests that the Pope should have participated in a funeral for murdered Nazis. He also criticizes Pius for his efforts to bring about peace. Additionally, Katz seems to think that the Pope should have behaved differently when the victims were Italian Catholics as opposed to Jews. Can you imagine the justifiable criticism if the Pope had done that?

Katz would have the reader believe that Sir Francis D’Arcy Osborne, British Minister to the Holy See from 1936 to 1947, was a critic of Pius. In fact, following the war Osborne wrote that “Pius XII was the most warmly humane, kindly, generous, sympathetic (and, incidentally, saintly) character that it has been my privilege to meet in the course of a long life.” Similarly, Katz wants us to believe that the U.S. representative in the Vatican, Harold Tittman, was a papal critic. Tittman’s son, however, is working on his father’s memoirs, and he reports that the U.S. representative held a very favorable opinion of Pius XII’s policies. Most preposterous of all is the attempt to suggest that Domenico Cardinal Tardini held Pius in low regard. One only need consult Tardini’s loving tribute,Memories of Pius XII, to see the falseness of that charge.

Katz contends that Pius was prejudiced not only against Jews but also against blacks. He cites a British memorandum indicating that after the liberation of Rome, the Pope requested that “colored troops” not be used to garrison the Vatican. This canard stems from a report the Pope received about French Moroccan troops. They were particularly brutal, raping and looting whereever they went. The Pope did not want these specific soldiers stationed in Rome (or anywhere else). He expressed his concerns about these men to British Ambassador Osborne, who broadened the statement in his cable back to London, saying that the Pope did not want “colored troops” stationed at the Vatican.

The Pope’s concern about these specific French Moroccan troops is made clear in a declassified confidential memorandum from the OSS, an article that appeared in the Vatican newspaper, and a message sent from the Vatican to its representative in France. None of these documents make reference to race, just the Pope’s concern over these specific French Moroccan troops. (Although Katz did not know how they played into this story, even he noted the outrageous brutality of these soldiers.)

Katz assails Pope Pius IX as an anti-Semite; incorrectly asserts that Pius XII favored the Germans over the Soviets in World War II; calls Pius XII pompous; mocks the Chief Rabbi of Rome (who praised Pius XII); accepts self-serving testimony from Nazi officers over Jewish and Catholic witnesses; repeats stories that have been shown to be false; gives inaccurate interpretations to papal statements; cites rumors that suggest the Pope was prepared to flee Rome; and takes every cheap shot that he can.

Of those who support Pius XII, Katz writes: “The Pope’s defenders can do no better than cite decades-old research of deflated credibility….” That, of course, is preposterous. All kinds of new evidence has come to light in the past year with the opening of new archives. Every bit of it supports the view that Pius XII and the Vatican leadership were opposed to the Nazis and did what they could to help all victims, Jewish or otherwise.

One final error made by Katz: He reports at the end of the book that Ronald J. Rychlak is a “non-Catholic lawyer and professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law, now Pius’s staunchest supporter.” I am and always have been Catholic.

Ron Rychlak is a Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Mississippi School of Law. His is the author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope (Our Sunday Visitor, 2000).

The tragic case of Terri Schiavo will stain this country for years to come. There are so many permutations to this case—moral, religious, medicinal, legal, and political—that the books to be written on it will fill a town library.

Many so-called progressive Christians and feminists flinched at the mere mention of Terri’s name. That’s because they found it impossible to think about euthanasia without first thinking about abortion. And anything that might jeopardize their precious right to abort a child, they reasoned, must be resisted at all cost. Unfortunately, as this case revealed, even when the specter of domestic violence was raised, it was not enough to get the “pro-women” advocates to take Terri’s side. Consider the following.

The most left-wing Catholic publications in the nation are the National Catholic Reporterand Commonweal. Neither was on Terri’s side, and both took positions on euthanasia that were directly contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Similarly, Pax Christi, the nation’s leading Catholic pacifist organization, is forever outraged over the condition of health care in America, but it had nothing to say about the condition of Terri’s health.

Those who looked for wisdom about this issue from the Catholic Theological Society of America were out of luck: it was too busy defending the non-Catholic teachings of a so-called Catholic theologian whom the Vatican recently disciplined. Catholics Speak Out and Catholics for a Free Choice, a dissident group and an anti-Catholic group, respectively, had plenty of time to muse about women’s ordination while the Schiavo case was all over the news, but neither had time to come to Terri’s side. Among Protestants, the National Council of Churches was predictably silent on this issue, preferring to opine on the “immorality” of the federal budget.

The Feminist Majority showed no curiosity wondering why the police didn’t pursue a homicide investigation against Michael Schiavo—even though a police report listed homicide the night they found Terri. That’s because they were too busy telling young girls that abstinence doesn’t work. Meanwhile, the National Organization for Women was so busy celebrating gay marriage that it had no time to spare worrying about a woman whose cheating husband allegedly asked Terri’s nurses, “When is that bitch gonna die?”

If all this was predictable, so was the way the Schiavo case was discussed in some quarters. The public conversation about Terri Schiavo got so debased that Steve Otto of the Tampa Tribune noted that one side speaks of “an already dead” woman. Indeed, consider James Kutkowski, Jordan Ross and Jim Seeber of the University of Mississippi, Oklahoma State University and Northern State University, respectively: they were confident that Terri was already dead. But no one was more cock-sure than Christopher Hitchens, a man whose comments are so obscene as to forever discredit him as a human-rights advocate for any cause.

On the MSNBC-TV show “Hardball,” Hitchens told William Donohue that “Mrs. Schiavo is dead and has been for some time.” He also spoke of her “nonlife,” only to contradict himself by saying, “I would just give her a morphine injection.” He did not say why it would be necessary to poison a corpse. Even after the debate, and before Terri’s death, Hitchens continued to write of “the late and long-dead Terri Schiavo.”

In our news release on this subject, we drew attention to what we’ve learned, or should have learned, from history:

“History has taught that deadly consequences follow when one segment of the human population declares another segment of the human population to be less than human. At various times in history, American Indians, Jews, African Americans, Asians, the unborn and infants have been classified as subhuman. Terms like ‘parasites,’ ‘lower animals,’ ‘primitive animals,’ ‘inferior race,’ ‘inferior class of beings,’ ‘untamable, carnivorous animals,’ ‘beasts of burden,’ ‘sicklers,’ ‘transit material,’ ‘raw material,’ ‘anthropological specimens,’ ‘article of property,’ ‘rubbish,’ ‘garbage,’ ‘refuse’ and ‘nonpersons’ have frequently been employed. To this Hitchens adds, ‘nonlife.'”

When Terri died, we issued a news release titled, “Terri Schiao, R.I.P.” Here are the remarks of William Donohue:

“The let-her-starve crowd has finally seen its death wish for Terri Schiavo become a reality. But they didn’t walk away unscathed. For example, after the presidential election, many of those not associated with the pro-life community said they wanted to reach out to them. Well, they had their chance to speak up, but decided instead to run. Their silence will not be forgotten.

“The Schiavo case brought to the surface many questions that should long ago have been addressed. In this regard, the teachings of the Catholic Church on end-of-life issues is a model of clarity compared to that of all other religions. It’s time that all world religions more forthrightly tackled these issues before it’s too late. And by that I mean before the secular bioethicists rule the day, for many of them don’t know the difference between a hamster and a human.”

Finally, if the Schiavo case told us anything, it is the necessity of designating someone as our health proxy; living wills are no substitute.

Imagine an auction where someone puts a consecrated Host up for bidding. This is exactly what happened in April when eBay, the giant online auction house, decided to post this item.

After William Donohue wrote the following letter, he got a call from a top eBay official saying they are now sensitive to our concerns. He said they post four million items a day, and that the Host was sold before they could decide what to do. The conversation, though not conclusive, was productive.

On April 8, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) unveiled its new website. Gone from the site is the links page which directed users to various allied organizations. Among them was an anti-Catholic group, Catholics for a Free Choice.

For the past two years, the Catholic League has been pressing the DNC to drop its link to Catholics for a Free Choice. During this time, we inundated the DNC with protest letters and placed ads in many newspapers across the nation, including the New York Times, demanding an end to this invidious association. There was also a confrontation between William Donohue and one of the DNC’s lawyers over this matter. Now the DNC has decided to sidestep the issue by simply dumping all links from its current website.

Here’s what we told the media:

“The DNC deserves no credit for this action. It brazenly offended Catholics for years by embracing a Catholic-bashing organization. But now that its leader, Senator John Kerry, is in trouble with Catholics for a whole host of reasons, prudence dictates that the DNC distance itself from anti-Catholic bigotry.”

We also noted an AP story that mentioned how the DNC’s revised webpage “provides links to help Democrats meet other Democrats, through Meetup.com….” In re-sponse to the question, “What do people do at a Meetup?”, the following answer was given: “Chat, chew the fat, shoot the breeze, sling the bull, babble, cackle, chatter, gab, yak, yammer. No big whoop.”

We concluded that they can yak all they want—all we ask is that they keep their Catholic-bashing babble to a minimum.

The ad below appeared on the op-ed page of the New York Times on October 16, 1994.

The ad below appeared on the op-ed page of the New York Times on October 1, 1995.

The ad below appeared on the op-ed page of the New York Times on October 27, 1996.