ST. LOUIS PRIEST EXONERATED

A jury in a civil trial in Lincoln County, Missouri has exonerated Father Joseph Jiang of allegations that he had inappropriate contact with a high school girl back in 2012. The jury cleared the Archdiocese of St. Louis, which was also targeted in the lawsuit, of any wrongdoing as well.

Hopefully, this will finally bring an end to the persecution of Father Jiang that has gone on for far too long.

He was first charged criminally, but those charges were dropped back in 2013.  He was hounded by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)—until the judge in the case reprimanded SNAP’s then-executive director, David Clohessy, for defaming Father Jiang and for defying the court’s order to turn over information it claimed to have against the priest.  SNAP, of course, is now itself imploding, its leadership having resigned in disgrace amid allegations of rampant corruption.

Then, when all else failed, came the civil suit against Father Jiang and the Archdiocese of St. Louis. They both stood strong: “The archdiocese and Father Jiang have steadfastly denied these allegations since they were first raised,” the archdiocesan communications office said in a statement. Now they have been vindicated.

As we noted last summer, one of the reasons Father Jiang has been able to endure is his no-nonsense boss, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson—a courageous leader of the Catholic Church. They are both to be congratulated for standing together against injustice.

The archdiocese said Father Jiang will now enter a process for return to active ministry. It is long past time he was able to do so.




NETFLIX FEATURES ATHEIST O’HAIR

Recently, Netflix released a docudrama on the founder of American Atheists, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, titled “The Most Hated Woman in America.” It could very well have been called “The Most Wicked Woman in America.”

In 1963, O’Hair founded American Atheists; she succeeded in getting prayer thrown out of the public schools the same year. “Religion is the most monstrous idea in the world,” she once said, saving her pathological hatred for Christianity. When she was 12 or 13, she breezed through the Bible in a weekend and decided that none of it was true.

One of her sons, William J. Murray, was so taken aback by her maniacal revulsion of Christianity that it backfired: he went on to found an organization, the Religious Freedom Coalition; it defends Christianity from people like his mom. Interestingly, he was considered too critical of his mother to be included in this film. Indeed, he was even denied the right to view the script during production.

To say that O’Hair despised her son William for his conversion to Christianity would be an understatement. “I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times. One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother.” It takes a special kind of mother to say that about her son.

O’Hair loathed everything America stood for, but loved everything that the genocidal Communist regime in the Soviet Union stood for. She even tried to defect to the USSR in 1960, but was stopped by the Soviet embassy in Paris. Too bad they didn’t welcome her—she never would have filed a lawsuit to censor prayer in the schools.

American Atheists loves this flick about her life but objects to casting her as a thief. “To be clear,” her comrades say, “we have seen no credible evidence that there was financial impropriety on the part of the O’Hairs as was implied in the film.”

Not only is that a joke, it seriously understates her crime: she didn’t rob a bank—she ripped off American Atheists to the tune of over $600,000 in the 1990s! Then, in 2001, after she had been kidnapped, the FBI found the bones of her mutilated body.

She was also not too bright. She got through law school but couldn’t pass the bar. Maybe that’s because she was too busy having children with two different men.

O’Hair’s moral standards were about as low as one could go. From Bill Donohue’s own research on her, he found the following chestnut. “I will defecate and urinate when I damn well please and as the spirit—and the physical necessity—moves me.” Here’s another beauty. “I will engage in sexual activity with a consenting male any time and any place I damn well please.”

Alan Wolfe is a left-wing atheist who saw right through O’Hair. He recalls her as being “dictatorial, irresponsible, racist, overbearing, corrupt, anti-Semitic, homophobic, anti-Catholic and at times criminal.” She was all that and more.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair was living proof that Dostoyevsky was right: “If God does not exist, everything is permissible.” Even defecating and fornicating in the street.




IRISH CENTRAL ATTACKS ORPHAN

On March 27, we posted an article written by an orphan who grew up in a Mother and Baby Home in Ireland. It is a well-written and researched account of conditions in Ireland in the twentieth century, and the care provided by nuns. It also debunks the myths about those “evil” nuns, the kind of propaganda promoted by Irish Central and others.

Predictably, Irish Central was upset. Good news about the Catholic Church’s contribution to society is generally not welcomed by Niall O’Dowd and his staff. So he unleashed Cahir O’Doherty to offer a response to the orphan’s piece. That was a mistake.

On March 7, Bill Donohue wrote a news release, “The Dunces at Irish Central.” He cited O’Doherty as Exhibit A. Why? Because in his attempt to validate the Tuam “mass grave” hoax sponsored by Catherine Corless, he said she “never spoke of” a mass grave. In fact, she has, as Donohue demonstrated.

O’Doherty quoted the following from the orphan’s article.

“Perhaps was there more to the behavior of their daughters who may have been uncontrollable, wild, even loose women, we don’t know. We can only assume by today’s standards that if a young girl got pregnant and she came from a good family that her family might support her. But even by today’s standards if the young women were wild and uncontrollable and came home expecting a baby she too would be expelled from the family….” (Our italics.)

“So there you have it, loose, wild and uncontrollable young women had no one to blame but themselves,” O’Doherty wrote. (Our emphasis.)

As anyone who is not a dunce can see, the orphan put the blame on the family, not the women. This explains why O’Doherty screwed it up.

Then, after floating the idea that maybe Donohue wrote the article, O’Doherty pivoted, saying, “there’s no difficulty finding elderly reactionaries to write poison pen missives in defense of the indefensible in Ireland.”

This is a new low, even for Irish Central. Without a scintilla of evidence to the contrary, it viciously attacked the orphan. To say this is morally reprehensible is an understatement.




TREVOR NOAH ABUSES CHILD AND POPE

During a recent episode of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” the host abused a little girl and Pope Francis. It was the dirtiest assault on TV in some time. Even the audience winced at Noah’s filthy attack.

The show ran a video clip of a 3-year-old girl who was introduced to the pope. She grabbed his hat, leaving the pope in stitches. He kissed the girl as a sign of his affection. The clip was so cute that the media played it over and over, much to the applause of viewers.

But Noah is different. He took the opportunity to abuse the child and the pope by sexually exploiting the two of them. He commented, “I can see why this made the news—a child undressing a priest for a change.”

We urged everyone to demand that Noah apologize for his obscene remark.




JUSTICE FOR MSGR. LYNN DELAYED AGAIN

Judge Gwendolyn Bright has denied a motion to dismiss the case against Msgr. William Lynn. A retrial is expected in May.

Lynn, twice convicted of child endangerment, had both convictions  overturned. The Philadelphia D.A. pressing the case, Seth Williams, was arrested the same week as Judge Bright’s ruling, charged with bribery, extortion, and fraud. Yet he remains in office.

Williams’ war on Msgr. Lynn is the most unethical assault ever conducted by a D.A. against a high-ranking member of the Catholic clergy in American history. Worse, the corruption extends beyond Williams.

In 2001, two grand juries were convened “to investigate the sexual abuse of minors by individuals associated with religious organizations and denominations.” We wrote to D.A. Lynne Abraham asking which religious organizations and denominations she had pursued, other than the Catholic Church. She never answered. That’s because she gave all other religions a pass.

In 2005, Abraham gave up: not a single priest was prosecuted. But in 2010,  new D.A. Williams—unable to nail a bishop—set his sights on Msgr. Lynn, a top archdiocesan aide.

Judge Bright added to this classic case of jurisprudential corruption. She said that while prosecutors were wrong not to tell Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, about a detective’s doubt concerning the credibility of one of their key witnesses, it was “not intentional prosecutorial misconduct.”

Really? Detective Joseph Walsh,  at the behest of the D.A.’s office,  investigated the incredulous claims made by Danny Gallagher [a.k.a. “Billy Doe”], the prosecution’s star witness. According to journalist Ralph Cipriano, Walsh found that “every witness statement he took, including the ones from Gallagher’s own family members, contradicted Danny Gallagher’s wild and crazy stories.”

When Walsh told A.D.A. Mariana Sorenson about Gallagher’s lies, she accused him of “killing my case.”

So, no, Judge Bright, there was nothing unintentional about what happened.




SCIENCE CHANNEL RESURRECTS JESUS’ TOMB HOAX

The Science Channel had an Easter gift for Christians: It resurrected the Jesus tomb hoax first perpetrated ten years ago. “Biblical Conspiracies: Jesus Family Tomb?” aired on April 15 at 10:00 p.m.

The program probed the “potentially explosive” finding regarding the “Jesus family tomb.” If the claims were validated, it would mean that Christians must rethink the Resurrection. As it turns out, there is nothing to rethink. But the Science Channel needs to rethink its reputation lest it be dubbed the Superstition Channel.

The show was produced by Associated Producers for the Science Channel. Conveniently, Simcha Jacobovici is the executive producer for Associated Producers. He was described in the Science Channel press release as a “biblical historian”; he narrated the film.

Jacobovici is not a historian, nor does he have any credentials as an archeologist. He is a filmmaker who dabbles in areas where he has no expertise. Worse, his previous work has been discredited by experts in Israel, Europe, and the United States.

In 2007, Jacobovici co-authored a book with Charles Pellegrino, The Jesus Family Tomb, that claimed the Jesus family tomb had been found. The Foreword to the book was written by James Cameron, of “Titanic” fame. He said the authors succeeded in their efforts “beyond any reasonable doubt.” On CNN, Bill Donohue told him he was promoting a “Titanic” fraud.

When Donohue debated Pelle-grino on the “Today” show, he told him “there’s not one citation in the book, there’s not one footnote, there’s not one endnote. Both of us have doctorates. We know the way science proceeds. You go through a peer review or you present your findings in a scientific journal. James Cameron was right—he said this reads like a detective novel because it is a novel.”

Donohue was wrong about one thing. He later found out that Pellegrino does not have a doctorate: Victoria University said he was never awarded a Ph.D.

The Jacobovici-Pellegrino-Cameron claim extends back to 1980 when Israeli archeologist Amos Kloner led a probe of the tomb that they seized on 27 years later. “The claim that the burial site has been found is not based on any proof,” he said, “and is only an attempt to sell. I refute all claims and efforts to waken a renewed interest in the findings. With all due respect, they are not archeologists.”

Many experts ripped apart their thesis in 2007. David Mevorah, curator of the Israel Museum, said, the chances of the filmmaker’s claim being true “are more than remote…They are closer to fantasy.” William Dever, archeologist and professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, said that “It looks more like a publicity stunt than any kind of real discovery…They’re not scholars. They are not experts.”

“It’s what I would call ‘archeo-porn'” commented Jonathan Reed, professor of religion at the University of La Verne. Garrett G. Fagan at Penn State said, “Modern architects of fantastic finds try to provide an air of legitimacy by invoking scientific jargon. They’re not scientists but they need to dress themselves in the clothes of science to pass muster.”

Alan Segal, professor of religion at Barnard College, raised some indisputable points. “The New Testament is very clear on this. Jesus was put in a tomb that didn’t belong to him and then he rose and there was nothing left. Why would Jesus’ family have a tomb outside of Jerusalem if they were from Nazareth? Why would they have a tomb if they were poor?”

In 2008, Princeton professor James Charlesworth held a Jerusalem conference that brought together over 50 scientists to discuss this issue. No one was persuaded that there was any breakthrough. Charlesworth questioned, if this really were Jesus’ ossuary, would the followers of the person they believed was the Son of God leave an inscription of Jesus’ name that was merely “graffiti, just scratching”? Why was there “no ornamentation”? And why would the followers of the Son of God choose such a “lousy” looking tomb?

The only veneer of authenticity about this program was Simcha Jacobovici’s hat: he wore that stupid same flat cap he wore when Donohue debated him a decade ago. Time to move on, Simcha, in more ways than one.




GOOD FRIDAY CENSORED IN BLOOMINGTON

The mayor of Bloomington, Indiana, John Hamilton, announ-ced last year that he was censoring Good Friday by renaming it “Spring Holiday.” So last month government workers were paid for celebrating the spring. He cloaked his intolerance in the name of inclusion.

Mayor Hamilton’s edict makes it clear that when multiculturalists employ the term inclusion, it is often used as a club to destroy diversity—it certainly was used as a pretext to nix Good Friday, a day of special significance in the Christian calendar. Yet we noticed that Bloomington recognizes the “Day After Thanksgiving” as an official city holiday, and it celebrates nothing.

On Good Friday, Blooming-ton’s multicultural calendar listed “Hola Bloomington,” a Latino radio show that runs on Friday evenings. It would have been fitting if the hosts read the Stations of the Cross in recognition of Good Friday, and see what Comrade Hamilton did.