The attack on Christianity stemming from the corporate world is relatively new, but it is picking up speed. In this issue alone, we detail our response to Cigna, Disney and Major League Baseball (MLB).

Cigna’s employment policy reads like something that was penned by some fanatical dean on a college campus. Asking employees if they are Christian is troubling, and what makes it seriously obnoxious is that it is being done for malicious reasons. Instructing Christian staffers that they are unjustly benefiting from what Cigna calls “religious privilege” is obscene. Being white and male are two other problematic categories.

Cigna has one “diversity” standard for its corporate leaders and another for everyone else. Those who run the insurance company are mostly white men, and no doubt many are Christian. Yet they do not see themselves as unfairly occupying a mantle of privilege. No matter, when we listed the email contact for the head media staffer, our subscribers jumped on it and registered their outrage.

Disney is apologizing for offending everyone from Indians to Pacific Islanders, but it has not said a word about the one demographic group it has offended the most, namely Catholics. There is a racist element at work here as well—it is not just a religious bias that it is exhibiting. Catholics are still largely white and white people carry baggage.

The assaults on Catholics that Disney has launched over the years has come by way of the big screen (e.g., its incestuous relationship with the Weinstein brothers in the movie distribution company, Miramax), and television (its takeover of ABC is a case in point). It has used these platforms to bash Catholics; the few times it crossed the line with others it apologized.

MLB should stick to bringing fans back to the ballpark—attendance is way down. But it gets a large portion of its money from the big sports TV companies, which is why they don’t mind alienating the fans. That explains why the corporate boys—not the players—decided to get involved in politics and move the All-Star game from mostly black Georgia to overwhelmingly white Colorado. Perversely, it did so in the name of racial justice.

The Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, got belted by our email base. We know this because it got back to us that he was furious with being deluged by angry emails. He was particularly incensed with Bill Donohue and sought reprisals, but his appeal went nowhere.

We are delighted with the vigorous response of Catholics to our requests for action. It is the only way we can win, or at least stop matters from getting worse.

When an Oklahoma lawmaker compared the evil of abortion to the evil of slavery, he was immediately condemned by left-wing activists. After we got involved, his critics were put on their heels and retreated. It turned out to be a happy ending.

In April, during the course of debating pro-life legislation in Oklahoma, state Rep. Jim Olsen made an apt analogy. “None of us would like to be a slave. If I had my choice, I guess I’d be a slave. At least the slave has his life. Once your life is gone, it’s gone. And I’m not minimizing slavery.”

Pro-abortion activists and politicians exploded. Olsen was accused of using “racist terms” in a “cavalier” fashion. His “insensitive” comments were right out of the “Dark Ages.”

Olsen stood his ground. “In the context of history in general, I did compare one evil to another and very frankly I make no apology for it.” No matter, some Democrats initially weighed proposals to censure the Republican state lawmaker.

“I never spoke positively of slavery,” Olsen said. “One evil at one time was acceptable in our society, and now it’s not. I look forward to the time when we stop killing babies.”

After we listed Olsen’s email address in our news release, our side flooded his office with letters of encouragement. He called Bill Donohue to thank him, saying the scale of his support totally outdid the response of his critics. Thus did he emerge unscathed.

William A. Donohue

Mohammad Anwar, 66, was recently driving his Uber Eats car in Washington, D.C. when two young black girls, 13 and 15, took out a stun gun and tased him. The carjackers took command and drove away, leaving the immigrant from Pakistan hanging on, wedged between the door and the driver’s seat. After he was flung from the car, the automobile rolled over and crashed into two other cars. CNN called it an “accident.” The cops called it murder. They copped a plea.

This story is bad enough without adding anything to it, but my reason for mentioning it has to do with something less important, though nonetheless disturbing. After the car crashed, one of the girls was upset, but not about what she and her friend just did. She was upset because she thought she lost her phone. There are pictures of her literally walking nonchalantly past the victim’s body looking for her phone.

We are a nation obsessed with our phones. This is especially true of young people. When I was a kid, phones served one purpose: they were vehicles of conversation. Now they are used for entertainment as well. This is a desire that can never be satisfied.

It’s a mania. What else can we call it?

There are news stories of people walking into trains because they are staring at their phone. They have fallen off of cliffs because of this plague. Many more have caused car accidents.

When exiting an elevator, it often happens that some phone maniac walks directly into me. This also happens when I walk across the street in New York City. I’m not a small guy—I’m 6’2″ with broad shoulders. Yet people keep walking into me. Most of the time they’re young women looking down at their phone. Many are also wearing earphones, compounding their distraction. They just have to be entertained.

I even saved some fool’s life a few years ago. He was walking across a busy intersection, looking down at his phone, when a car came right at him. Lucky for him, I have a loud voice and he heard me scream. He stopped on a dime. Think he thanked me? Not a chance. He just kept on walking (with phone in hand, of course).

When I go to Washington, D.C., I take the train. Our office is across the street from Penn Station so it makes sense to take Amtrak instead of flying out of La Guardia. I always get there early so I can get a seat in the “Quiet Car”; no phones or loud talking are allowed. Otherwise I would go mad.

The same is true of the Long Island Rail Road. I take it to and from work every day. However, there is only one “Quiet Car,” and unlike Amtrak, it is always the last car, making it a less attractive alternative. At least once a week, I have to get up and move to another car because of someone speaking loudly. On more than one occasion I have resorted to yelling at them. Others on the train are appreciative.

I like pubs and restaurants. Pubs are short for “public houses,” or places where people congregate to enjoy alcoholic beverages. Ideally, they are places where people go to laugh and partake in conversation. In short, they are forums where sociability excels. Back in the day, that is.

Now it is commonplace to see young men and women sit at the bar, or at a table, and never speak. They are on their phone. It never ceases to amaze me. They make a point of meeting their friends at a specific pub at a specific time, and as soon as they get there they start talking to someone on their phone who isn’t there. And when they meet with that person, he or she gets the same treatment. The game is ongoing.

Seeing family members sitting at a table in a restaurant and not speaking to each other is also commonplace. Father, mother and children are all on their phone, oblivious to one another. What was the point of going out for dinner? Just to eat? The only time they speak is when they need the salt and pepper.

As a sociologist, I find this to be troubling. We are so self-absorbed that we have lost what it means to be a social animal. Social animals interact, they engage, they dialogue—they don’t ignore their family and friends.

As noted, the self-absorption often takes the form of being entertained. Phones feed this desire—it functions as a need for many—making us more and more dependent on technology to fill our emptiness. In extreme cases, this qualifies as an addiction, leaving the individual socially retarded.

Social media and video games only make our insularity worse. The anonymity they afford is a national problem, one that can only be cured by insisting on something novel: We need to start talking to each other. And we need to do it live and without dependence on contraptions of any kind.

Bill Donohue

Introduction

Disney is apologizing left and right for what it says are its bigoted portrayals of many groups. It is also scrubbing its inventory clean of stereotypical depictions, offering disclaimers at the beginning of its movies. Yet its newly found sensitivity does not include Catholics, even though they have unquestionably been the most maligned of any demographic group.

Disney’s concessions to the cancel culture began in 2016 when activists complained about a Halloween costume. They objected to the depiction of Maui, a well respected figure in Polynesian oral tradition; he was a character in the movie, “Moana.” His costume was labeled akin to blackface. Disney immediately apologized and pulled this “offensive” costume, saying it wanted to “respect the culture of Pacific Islanders.”

Last year, Disney put disclaimers on several of its movies. “The Jungle Book” was said to perpetuate a stereotype of African Americans; “Peter Pan” was branded offensive to Indians; “Swiss Family Robinson” was criticized for depicting pirates as a “stereotypical foreign menace”; “Dumbo” was cast as racist; “Aladdin” was condemned for being anti-Arab; “The Aristocats” were deemed anti-Asian because a cat played the piano with chopsticks; and “Lady and the Tramp” was pulled by Disney Plus for offering a “culturally insensitive portrayal of Italian-American chefs.”

In February 2021, “The Muppet Show” was slammed for being racist. A warning was given to prospective viewers: the Muppet characters were designed to offer stereotypes of Native Americans, Arabs and East Asians. The disclaimer was a classic example of political correctness. “The program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now.”

If Disney really objected to “negative depictions” and “stereotypes,” it would say something about the long list of “negative depictions” and stereotypical portrayals of priests that its movies and TV shows have featured for decades.

Movies

In 1993, The Walt Disney Company bought Miramax, a leading movie distribution and production company, from Bob and Harvey Weinstein. The first attack on Catholics came that same year when Disney/Miramax released “Priest.” It had so many negative depictions that not one of the five priests who starred in the movie was featured in a positive way. Every one of them was dysfunctional.

One of the priests had an affair with his housekeeper; another had sex with a male friend; one was a drunkard; the country priest was a madman; and the bishop was wicked. Disney wanted to open the movie on Good Friday but I stopped them. I took out an ad in the New York Times on April 10, 1995 asking, “What’s Happening to Disney?”

In 1999, Disney and its distributor Miramax released “Dogma.” The movie, which starred Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, was an irreverent look at Catholicism. It maintained that Joseph and Mary had sexual relations; Mary gave birth to a daughter who worked at an abortion clinic; God was played by Alanis Morissette; and a foul-mouthed 13th apostle was introduced. Reviewers noted its crude and obscene depictions.

“40 Days and 40 Nights” opened in 2002. It focused on a Catholic man who gave up sex for Lent but had his will tested by his girlfriend. One reviewer noted its “vulgar sex gags” and the Fort Worth Telegram commented on its opening during Lent, saying, “Pretty sensitive of Miramax to schedule a film mocking Lent during Lent, eh?” The “Catholic” themed film was rated R for “strong sexual content, nudity and language.”

Later in 2002, “The Magdalene Sisters” was rolled out. It was a lying, vicious depiction of nuns who worked with wayward young women in Ireland. Reports issued by the Irish government found a very different picture of these nuns than what this movie afforded. The film’s director, Peter Mullan, hated the Catholic Church so much that he compared it to the murderous Taliban.

The following year, just in time for Christmas, “Bad Santa” hit the big screen. Santa was shown as a chain-smoking, drunken, foul-mouthed, suicidal, sexual predator who soils himself in Santa’s chair. He is also depicted vomiting in alleys, having sex with a woman bartender in a car, and performing anal sex on a huge woman in a dressing room.

In 2006, “Black Christmas” was released. It showed the dark side of the Weinsteins: their relentless effort to discredit this holy day was on full display. In fact, this film, which depicted a wacko who terrorizes college girls at Christmas, opened on Christmas Day.

Television

In 1995, Disney bought Capital Cities/ABC; the combined company was named The Walt Disney Company. The first attack on Catholics came two years later when ABC released “Nothing Sacred.” It featured a priest who was at war with the Catholic Church’s sexual ethics. He questioned whether God exits, refused to counsel against abortion in the confessional, and openly denounced the Church’s teachings on abortion, contraception, homosexuality and promiscuity, telling parishioners that he was tired of being a “sexual traffic cop.”

The Catholic League conducted a year-long boycott of the show’s sponsors. When “Nothing Sacred’s” ratings started going downhill, Disney/ABC kept moving the show to different time slots to see if it could jack up the audience (while cutting shows that had higher ratings). This wasn’t about money as much as it was ideology: Disney was hell bent on promoting propaganda against the Catholic Church. In the end, the Catholic League killed most of the sponsors and the show.

In 1998, the same year “Nothing Sacred” crashed, ABC aired “That’s Life” during Holy Week. It was one long assault on virtually every aspect of Catholicism.

The Church was condemned for its treatment of women [odd given that more women go to church and work for the Church than men], and for its teachings on abortion and homosexuality. Priests, of course, were depicted as molesters. Worst of all was a vicious mockery of the suffering and death of Jesus. “Imagine the blood comes spurting out of [his vein] like a hose. I mean, whack, whack, whack….”

Bill Maher was the star of “Politically Incorrect,” a show that bashed the Catholic Church on a regular basis beginning in 1999. Maher, and his guests, became patently obscene in 2002, relentlessly assaulting Catholic sensibilities. Confession was mocked, the Immaculate Conception was the subject of vile remarks, Jesus was trashed, the Eucharist was demeaned, and priests were depicted as rapists.

In 2002, ABC ran the season preniere of “The Job.” It depicted a detective dressed as a priest and a stripper dressed as a nun. The nun stripped in front of one of the male detectives as the other three watched. The nun also put her foot on the crotch of one of the male detectives while being interrogated; she did the same to a female detective. The confessional was denigrated in another scene.

“Pope Joan” never existed, but that didn’t stop ABC Primetime in 2005 from pretending she might have. “On the Trail of Pope Joan,” narrated by Diane Sawyer, focused on the alleged female pope from the 8th century. Sawyer relied on two discredited sources to float this lie. No serious scholar has ever validated this tale, but feminists pressing for female priests love to promote this myth.

We could fill a book with all the anti-Catholic comments made on “The View” over the years. The worst episodes took place in the 2000s, all with the blessings of Barbara Walters; she was both a co-producer and a panelist. Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck—all raised Catholic before they turned against the Church—offered non-stop attacks.

These mean-spirited women not only slandered priests with abandon, they ridiculed the Eucharist, subjected Baptism to scorn, mocked the Crucifixion, and said anti-Catholicism was justified. Had such invective been targeted at any one of the protected classes, they would have been run off the air. But because they concentrated exclusively on Catholics, they were received with open arms by Disney.

On June 12, 2007, I published an op-ed page ad in the New York Times, “What’s Happened to Barbara Walters?” I took particular exception to Walter’s tolerance for Rosie O’Donnell’s incredibly bigoted remarks. The good news is that after this ad ran, the panelists began to cool their jets.

“The Real O’Neals,” which debuted in 2016, featured a stereotypical Irish-Catholic family that was inspired by veteran anti-Catholic bigot, Dan Savage. In the first two episodes, an overzealous mother is shown abusing statues of the Virgin Mary: one was used to stop her son from having sex; the other was placed above the toilet as a reminder to put down the seat. Regarding the latter, one of the sons, who comes out as gay, flushed his girlfriend’s unused condoms down the toilet under the watchful eye of the Virgin Mary.

On February 29, 2016, I published an op-ed page ad in the New York Times, “Shame on Disney-ABC,” that questioned its decision to loosely base the show on Dan Savage, one of the producers. Savage, I pointed out, has made many filthy remarks about Jesus, Our Blessed Mother, and two popes. As I said in the ad, Savage’s “maniacal hatred of Catholicism is so strong that it would be as though David Duke were hired to produce a show about African Americans.” The show bombed after a few seasons.

In 2017, ABC aired its miniseries on the gay rights movement, “When We Rise.” Its opening episode was an all-out assault on Catholics. Stereotypes about prudish nuns and equally prudish Catholic parents were featured.

The most vicious attack centered on a women’s march in Boston. “We get beat up by the very cops that refuse to protect us,” one character said, “in a city run by Catholic cops.” So typical. There were no negative comments about “Jewish bankers” or “gay hairdressers” or “black criminals.” Just corrupt Catholic cops.

“The Kids Are Alright” was aired on ABC in 2018. It depicted kids putting a microphone in the purse of their mother so they could hear what she said when going to confession. The skit proceeded to mock the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Disney owns 20th Century Fox and “Family Guy” is one of its shows. One portrayed priests as molesters, one trashed the Eucharist, and the other mocked both the Eucharist and Baptism.

Conclusion

Disney gets good press by giving millions to “social justice” organizations that represent black, gay, and Asian interests. It has never contributed to, or consulted with, the Catholic League.

We are submitting this synopsis of Disney’s anti-Catholic history to the Walt Disney Company Board of Directors, along with a note from me. If they can apologize to the Polynesians about “Moana,” perhaps they can apologize to Catholics for decades of abuse.

It is all the rage among elites in many quarters to sanction sex transitioning for minors. It is time to call this madness for what it is—child abuse. The damage that is being done is incalculable. Consider what this process involves.

Puberty blockers are used to facilitate the sex transition process. These medications stop the normal estrogen or testosterone progression in girls and boys during puberty, affecting vocal chord changes, the development of breast tissue, brain development and the like. So little is known about the long-term effects of puberty blockers that some doctors say we are dealing with a “blank slate.”

Children who want to continue physically transitioning by taking hormones create a real challenge for doctors, never mind the child. The physical changes are irreversible. Minors who transition are at risk later in life for heart disease, diabetes and blood clots. Taking the hormones of the opposite sex can also reduce fertility. Are adolescents really capable of making these permanent life-altering decisions?

The mental problems associated with sex reassignment are multiple, and they are so serious as to make one wonder what kind of health professional would countenance it. Adults who undergo the transitioning are at risk not only for depression, but suicide. It will not due to say that these maladies are a function of the lack of support these people receive. If that were the case, why do transgender people suffer from high rates of suicide in places like Sweden where they are totally accepted?

If adults are at risk mentally following sex reassignment, we can only guess what minors are likely to be faced with down the line. Do those who profit from their “services” even care?

Dr. Rachel Levine is a man who now identifies as a woman. He was chosen by President Biden to be his new assistant health secretary. Given his status, both physical and professional, it is important to know what his position on sex transitioning is. [Note: Many insist that a biological man who transitions to a woman should be called “she” or “her,” and that the correct term is gender transitioning, not sex transitioning. But they don’t count. Truth counts.]

When Roger Severino was director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Trump administration, he asked Levine a question that even an elementary student could answer. “What does it mean to be male or female?” The good doctor couldn’t answer.

At the Senate hearing for Levine, Sen. Rand Paul asked him a pointed question. “Dr. Levine, do you believe that minors are capable of making a life-long changing decision as changing one’s sex?” Levine dodged the question saying, “Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field.”

Paul followed up with another question. “Do you support the government intervening to override the parent’s consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and/or amputation surgery for breasts and genitalia?” Levine dodged the question again saying, “Senator, transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field.”

Levine is not alone in refusing to answer such basic questions. At the Senate Finance Committee hearing on Xavier Becerra, Biden’s nominee to head HHS (he has since been confirmed), Sen. James Lankford said, “The vast majority of Americans do not believe that a nine-year-old child can consent to puberty blockers or that a thirteen-year-old girl can consent to a double mastectomy.” When asked about this, Becerra simply said he would follow the law.

Is President Biden aware that these men think it is okay for minors to switch their sex? Absolutely. He himself says that little kids should be afforded the chance.

Last October, during a town hall conversation, Biden was asked by a mother of a transgender child what he would do to help people like her and her child. “The idea that an 8-year-old child, a 10-year-old child decides, you know, ‘I want to be transgender, that’s what I think I’d like to be, it’d make my life a lot easier’—there should be no discrimination.”

Does Biden believe that parental consent should be required before a minor can elect to have sex reassignment? We do not know, but we do know that parental consent is already being ignored in some places, leading to lawsuits.

Most children who seek to transition, if given time, will change their minds. What they are experiencing is not normal.

According to Dr. Paul McHugh and Dr. Lawrence S. Mayer, two prominent psychiatrists who are experts in this field, the idea that “a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’—is not supported by scientific evidence.” We need to help young people who suffer from this disorder to get better, not get deeper into trouble.

Once the boys and girls are subjected to the treatments, it is too late. Unfortunately, Biden is stacking his administration with those who are ratifying his twisted vision of the sexes.

It’s time we put an end to this child abuse.

The top officials at Cigna should resign immediately. They have willfully violated their own employment tenets and have adopted patently bigoted employment policies.

Cigna has a “Societal Norms” checklist that asks employees to “Check Your Privilege.” Among the choices are “Christian,” “White,” and “Cis-Male” (meaning biological males). This would suggest that Oprah is not a member of the “privileged class,” even though she is rich enough to buy Guatemala.

Telling Christians they are the beneficiaries of “religious privilege,” and that they need to admit this, is outrageously false and demeaning. Are those Hispanic Christians who work in housekeeping at Cigna “privileged”? What about the African American Christians who work in security? And why would atheist executives who are filthy rich not be considered “privileged”?

White males are demonized the most. Indeed, when making hiring decisions, employees at Cigna are asked to abandon their much-vaunted virtue of inclusivity: No white males need apply. According to the Washington Examiner, white males who apply for a job are sidelined, blocked from getting the post. This is obviously racist and sexist, and worthy of a massive lawsuit.

To make matters worse, Cigna lies about its discriminatory policies. One of its diversity officials recently said, “Our inclusive culture at Cigna means that we’re working hard to ensure everyone feels respected, welcome, and like they belong.” Really? Tell that to the white male Christians who are denied jobs because of their status. And how welcoming do Cigna staffers with this profile feel about working for a company that sees them as the enemy?

Senator Marco Rubio calls Cigna’s employment policy “grotesque and un-American.” He’s right. It is morally and legally indefensible.

Even worse is Cigna’s hypocrisy. “Cigna takes great pride in our diverse and talented workforce,” says its 2019 statement on “Diversity and Inclusion.” What they do not admit is how they blatantly discriminate against women and minorities.

Women comprise 77% of the workforce yet they hold only 31% of the Executive/Senior Officials and Manager jobs. Ethnic minorities comprise 34% of the workforce yet hold only 10% of these top jobs. So much for diversity and inclusion. Looks like it’s great to have women and minorities working at Cigna, as long as they know their place.

To top things off, of the 13 members of Cigna’s board of directors, 77% are white, 15% are black and 8% are Asian; there are no Hispanics. Males make up 77% of these positions; women are 23% of the board’s membership.

Cigna’s executive and management team also has 13 members. Whites are 85% of the total, while blacks make up 15%; there are no Asians or Hispanics. And just as the case with the board, 77% of these jobs are held by men and 23% by women.

Given the enormous gap between what Cigna preaches about how welcoming and inclusive it is, and what its workplace composition is—to say nothing of its highest paying jobs—fairness dictates that those on the board of directors and its executive and management team resign immediately. They need to set an example. They also need to junk their racist, sexist, and anti-Christian policies.

Longtime NBC “Tonight Show” comedian Jay Leno has come out of retirement to apologize to Asian Americans for the bigoted jokes he told about them while hosting the late-night show. But there was none for Catholics.

From 1997 to 2015, Bill Donohue wrote well over a dozen news releases taking Leno to task for insulting Catholics; he only addressed Leno’s most offensive remarks. For example, our files show that in one time period alone, from April 1996 to January 2012, we recorded 37 jokes Leno told about Catholics, some of which were inoffensive and some of which were not (only the latter merited a news release).

Whenever we received a complaint,” Leno recently said, “there would be two sides to the discussion: Either ‘We need to deal with this’ or ‘Screw ’em if they can’t take a joke.'” Regarding his anti-Asian jokes, he now recalls, “Too many times I sided with the latter even when in my heart I knew it was wrong.”

In the late 1990s, Leno concluded he needed “to deal with” a complaint Donohue lodged. He called Donohue in February 1997 to discuss his concerns; Donohue posted a news release following the discussion. He explained to Leno “why jokes about the Eucharist are not synonymous with jokes about Catholic school traditions.” Leno said he understood the distinction. He added that he tells 11,000 jokes a year and may sometimes go over the line. Fair enough. The conversation ended amicably.

Unfortunately, a few years later Leno started in again. Most of his favorite “jokes” portrayed all priests as molesters. Evidently, he took the “Screw ’em if they can’t take a joke” approach; he never reached out to Donohue again.

All we have ever sought at the Catholic League is parity. We don’t ask for preferential treatment vis-a-vis other groups. We simply want a level playing field. Regrettably, that remains an elusive goal.

We are getting close to the point where if a white person says he prefers vanilla ice cream to chocolate, he risks being labeled a racist. The ruling class, in particular, is obsessed with this issue, seeing racism lurking behind every decision that adversely affects people of color.

We need to grow up. The first thing we need to do is get rid of the term “people of color.” It is meaningless. Asians have little in common with African Americans or Hispanics. Indeed, Asians have little in common with each other: The Chinese do not share a common history or culture with the Japanese, never mind with the Nigerians or Argentineans. The same is true of Hispanics—they vary considerably by their country of origin.

If the goal is to find racism, it is a sure bet it will be found. So when a self-confessed sex addict killed six Asian women in a massage parlor in Atlanta, the account he offered was immediately dismissed. He did not kill because he is a wacko, the ruling class said, but because he hates Asians. But if the massage parlor women had been Irish, what would they have said about that?

On March 20, a 66-year-old Asian man was punched in the face in Manhattan. Without missing a beat, the media said this was one more example of anti-Asian sentiment. But was it? The offender was a homeless man who walked the streets with a blanket. The assault happened in Chinatown, so the ruling class smelled racism. However, had it happened a few blocks away in the Bowery, no one would have suspected racism.

Last year, Catholic churches were burned and Catholic statues were destroyed—all by left-wing mobs—yet the ruling class never condemned these acts for being anti-Catholic. They are only interested in assaults on “people of color.” But even there, their select interest in anti-Asian crime is more politically motivated than it is a sincere expression of concern. Consider how it is being addressed.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki blamed President Trump for the recent attacks on Asians. Katelyn Beaty, former managing editor of Christianity Today, blamed Christianity: the shooter came from a “purity culture.” Similarly, Freedom From Religion Foundation noted that since the shooter was a Christian, the role his religion played must be considered. As usual, CNN fingered white supremacy as the major cause.

As it turns out, blacks, not white supremacists or white Christians, are disproportionately responsible for violence against Asians. But even here we need to be careful about putting too much stock in race-based theories. After all, most of the crime committed against blacks is done by blacks.

No doubt there are many reasons why Asians are being targeted these days. There is one factor, however, that doesn’t command the attention of the ruling class: the extent to which they themselves are responsible.

Everyone knows that Asians, on the whole, excel in school. They succeed so much that they have angered the white ruling class. Indeed, the elites resent the fact that African Americans and Hispanics don’t do as well in school, and it is this attitude that accounts for racial quotas in prestigious schools. More important, the ruling class has nurtured a culture of resentment, one that portrays Asians as unfairly getting ahead.

Last year, Asians in California worked hard to defeat Proposition 16, an initiative to reinstate affirmative action. Had it passed, it would have granted preferential treatment based on race, benefiting blacks and Hispanics, but at the expense of Asians. White liberals outspent their Asian opponents by a ratio of more than 20-1, yet they still lost.

The president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, Yukong Zhao, sent a message to white liberals. “Asian Americans will fight fiercely and defeat your racist policies wherever and whenever tried.”

This was an accurate observation—the quotas are racist. It does not matter that Harvard’s anti-Asian admissions policy was upheld by the courts. Of course, Harvard has a right to say that it can consider such personality traits as courage and leadership when making determinations for admission. But every honest person knows this is a ruse: such attributes have nothing to do with academic performance; they were chosen to limit Asian attendance.

What’s happening at Harvard is happening at Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, the University of California and elsewhere. It’s also happening in elite public high schools throughout the nation. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has done everything he can to keep Asians from taking up too many seats in the city’s select public high schools. Perversely, he also works against blacks by trying to destroy charter schools.

The ruling class, which is dominated by white liberals, says their anti-Asian policies have nothing to do with fomenting a culture of resentment against Asians. They would rather blame Christians and white supremacists. But to anyone who has seriously studied this issue, their rationale not only lacks evidence, it lacks common sense as well.

During the presidential campaign season last year, it was obvious that candidate Joe Biden was not having an easy time with some U.S. bishops. After he won the election, that observation was validated. Now that we are in the Easter season, it is undeniably true that the president’s relationship with many bishops is rocky, if not seriously strained.

Last summer, Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin issued a tweet that was both sarcastic and pointed. “Biden-Harris. First time in awhile that the Democratic ticket hasn’t had a Catholic on it. Sad.” The dismissal of Biden’s professed Catholic status was lost on no one.

A month before the election, Cardinal Raymond Burke said that Biden should not receive Communion, adding that he was not a Catholic “in good standing.”

A few weeks after the election, Archbishop José Gomez, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, opined that President-elect Biden supported policies that “attack some fundamental values we hold dear.” Noting that it could be confusing to Catholics to see a Catholic in the White House who rejected the Church’s teachings on abortion and other matters, Gomez appointed a Working Group, chaired by Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron, to help the bishops “navigate” this “difficult and complex situation.”

In December, the recently retired archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, said that Biden’s support for gay marriage and abortion rights meant that he “should stop defining himself as a devout Catholic.” On the day he was inaugurated, Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, called the president a “devout Catholic.”

Archbishop Gomez, speaking for the bishops’ conference, also weighed in on inauguration day. “I must point out that the new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender. Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.”

A week later, Archbishop Joseph Naumann, chairman of the bishops’ Pro-Life Committee, teamed up with Bishop David Malloy, the head of the bishops’ International Justice and Peace Committee, to take Biden to task for promoting abortion overseas. “It is grievous that one of President Biden’s first official acts actively promotes the destruction of human lives in developing nations.” They said his executive order “is antithetical to reason, violates human dignity, and is incompatible with Catholic teaching.”

In February, Naumann, the archbishop of Kansas City, Kansas, said that Biden “should stop defining himself as a devout Catholic,” noting that he is “100% pro-choice on abortion.” He accused Biden of “usurping the role of the bishops and confusing people.” What should be done? “The bishops need to correct him, as the president is acting contrary to the Catholic faith.”

Within days of Naumann’s remarks, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas declared that “Biden is not a real Catholic.” In March, Bishop Richard Stika, who heads the Diocese of Knoxville, tweeted that Biden “likes to brag on his Catholic background when convenient. So very dishonest!”

At the end of March, Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki, who leads the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, said that Biden “should not present himself” for Communion. He cited Biden’s long history of supporting abortion rights, saying that if politicians are “living in a way or holding positions that are contrary to church teaching, then the Minister of Communion has to deny them the sacrament.”

Paprocki’s comments were followed by Cardinal Burke’s. Speaking of Biden, he said that “a person who claims to be Catholic and yet promotes in such an open, obdurate, and aggressive way a crime like procured abortion is in the state, at least, of apostasy.” He concluded that the penalty for the “crime of apostasy” is “excommunication.”

The bishops, as well as millions of practicing Catholics, are not going to have their concerns about Biden allayed by photos of him clinging to his rosary beads. He cannot at once declare himself to be a “devout Catholic” while at the same time supporting abortion-on-demand, gay marriage, sex transitioning for minors, and the war on religious liberty.

It’s time for President Biden to stop living a lie.