Kermit Gosnell is serving three consecutive life sentences for murdering three infants born alive during an abortion, and for committing involuntary manslaughter; in the latter instance, a woman died during a botched abortion. Phelim McAleer and Ann McIhenny are independent filmmakers who wrote a book on Gosnell, and then turned their work into a movie, “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer.”

The movie did well on its opening weekend, finishing first among indie films, and 10th overall. But it was shunned by liberals.

Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee are states that are pro-life friendly; not so would be New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. It is therefore not surprising to learn that “Gosnell” played in many more theaters in pro-life states than in pro-abortion states.

Texas has a population of 28.7 million and New York is close to 20 million. It played in 15 theaters in New York State (one in Manhattan), while Texas hosted the movie in 80 theaters.

Georgia and North Carolina are a little bigger than New Jersey, but in terms of theaters that showed the film, there was a big difference: it opened in 38 theaters in Georgia, 25 in North Carolina, and just 9 in New Jersey.

Tennessee and Massachusetts are roughly the same size, but “Gosnell” only played in 7 theaters in Massachusetts compared to 19 in Tennessee.

With the exception of the Los Angeles Times, no major newspaper reviewed the movie. The New York Times and the Washington Post review virtually every new movie, but found no interest in writing about “Gosnell.”

The reviews curiously noted how liberals would not appreciate this film. The Los Angeles Times said the movie “never loses sight of the choir to which it is plainly preaching.” Forbes called the movie “A Feature-Length ‘Law & Order’ for Conservative Christians.” NBCNews.com called it a “conservative-backed dramatization of the story of Dr. Kermit Gosnell.”

Why are liberals not interested in a movie about a man who exploits—even kills—women? Why are secular liberals not as interested in this movie as conservative Christians are? If this is a “conservative-backed dramatization,” what would a “liberal-backed” one look like? After all, a dramatization about a serial killer shouldn’t turn on ideology.

Of course, Gosnell was not a Las Vegas-type shooter, nor was he a Columbine High School one: He was an abortionist, a man who made his living by going beyond the call of duty, killing babies after birth as well as before. They don’t like that in Manhattan.

It’s not as though liberals abhor violence—many applaud Antifa. It’s violence that is integral to a cause they champion that they prefer to ignore.

The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times ran editorials opposing Brett Kavanaugh to be the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice. This is hardly surprising. What is most disturbing about them is their dishonesty: they fail to mention their real reason for opposing him—abortion.

The Los Angeles Times said that “We oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination not because of his judicial philosophy,” but because of “lingering doubts” about the allegations and his “evasive and intemperate testimony.”

The Washington Post said that when Kavanaugh was chosen by President Trump, he “seemed to be…an accomplished judge whom any conservative president might have picked,” but “given Republicans’ refusal to properly vet Mr. Kavanaugh, and given what we have learned about him during the process, we now believe it would be a serious blow to the court and the nation if he were confirmed.”

The New York Times said that “President Trump has no shortage of highly qualified very conservative candidates to choose from, if he will look beyond this first, deeply compromised choice.”

None of the editorials mentioned a word about Roe v. Wade, “reproductive rights,” a “woman’s right to choose,” or abortion. Yet it was this issue that galvanized them to oppose Kavanaugh on July 10, the day after Trump chose him to be his nominee. Here is what they said.

“We worry about the future of reproductive freedom” is how the Los Angeles Times put it. The editorial in the Washington Post objected to Kavanaugh’s “narrow view of what constitutes an undue burden on a woman’s right to end her pregnancy.” The New York Times left no one wondering what it thought: it ran four op-ed articles bemoaning Kavanaugh’s views on abortion.

What makes this so nauseating is the fact that these same papers insist that the Catholic Church is hung up on sex. Nonsense. It is not the Church that is obsessed with sex—it’s the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and, most especially, the New York Times. Their refusal to admit why they really oppose Kavanaugh only adds to their deceitfulness.

Archbishop Charles Chaput possesses both the brilliance to astutely analyze the content of the dominant culture, and the courage to challenge us to think more clearly about it. His recent remarks before the Youth Synod in Rome, which were refreshingly countercultural, are a case in point.

Chaput takes issue with Chapter IV, paragraphs 51-63, of the Vatican Youth Synod document. For example, the document refers to young people as the “watchmen and seismographs of every age,” something which Chaput rightly labels as “false flattery.” Young people, he says, are “too often products of the age” and today this means they are strongly affected “by a culture that is both deeply appealing and essentially atheist.”

Chaput’s observation makes eminently good sense. Young people need to be tutored in the wisdom of Catholic teachings, not left to themselves to negotiate a morally debased culture. Furthermore, there is no virtue in sentimentalism: young people deserve an honest response. They are not now, and never were, the “watchmen and seismographs” of the culture. It would be more accurate to say they are a barometer of the culture, a reflection of its norms and values.

Leaders in and out of the Church have too often failed young people, Chaput says, abdicating their responsibilities “out of a combination of ignorance, cowardice and laziness in forming young people to carry the faith into the future.” Those three attributes—ignorance, cowardice, and laziness—have sadly taken the place of wisdom, fortitude, and diligence, virtues that have served the Catholic community well in the past.

The critics of Chaput’s remarks focus heavily on his contention that there is no such thing as an “LGBTQ Catholic,” or a “transgender Catholic,” or a “heterosexual Catholic.” He is adamant in his conviction that “‘LGBTQ’ and similar language should not be used in Church documents, because it suggests that these are real, autonomous groups, and the Church simply doesn’t categorize people that way.”

Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, who heads a dissident group that stands outside the Catholic Church, takes Chaput to task saying there is no difference between being an LGBTQ Catholic and an Italian Catholic. He even says that those who describe themselves as LGBTQ do not consider their sexual orientation to be “the dominant marker of themselves,” comparing them again to Italian Catholics.

Unfortunately, DeBernardo is flatly wrong. Catholics who are Italian may also be New Yorkers, Democrats, and the like. Chances are they are also heterosexual. But their sexual orientation would never be their master status, any more than their being left-handed might be. But to many of those who identify as LGBTQ—which is not a monolithic entity—their master status is their sexual orientation. It is they who tribalize their sexuality, not others.

Identity politics is perverse and un-American, to say nothing of violating every tenet of our Judeo-Christian heritage. It makes individuals invisible, reducing every human being to some ascribed group status, thus depriving them of their God-given dignity. Moreover, America treasures individual rights, not group identities.

Archbishop Chaput is one of the great princes of the Catholic Church in the United States. He proved that once again with his seminal commentary at the Youth Synod.

There is a long history of organizations that have nothing to do with the Catholic Church which nonetheless persist in sticking their noses into its internal affairs.

In the last century, the Communist party in the United States sought to infiltrate the Church with apostate homosexual priests. In more recent times, wealthy left-wing activists and foundations have attempted to derail the Church by promoting propaganda campaigns against Church teachings, typically centered on sexuality issues. For instance, the pro-abortion movement was launched by Catholic Church-hating activists who sought to destroy its moral authority.

The most recent manifestation of this invidious effort comes from a constellation of forces called Equal Future. It has taken direct aim at the Synod of Bishops on Young People, the Faith and the Discernment of Vocations, which met in Rome, October 3-28.

According to the director of Equal Future, Tiernan Brady, the purpose of his outfit is “to highlight the damage being done to children and young people” by Church teachings. Brady, who directed the referenda campaigns on gay marriage in Australia and Ireland, is using this opportunity to pressure the Church to change its teachings on sexuality.

Equal Future consists of many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups. The estimates range from 29 to more than 100 such entities. It includes some of the most prominent LGBT organizations, such as the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

More important, it is comprised of gay groups which claim to be Catholic: New Ways Ministry, DignityUSA, and We Are Church are among the best known. They are all dissident groups in rebellion against the Catholic Church, and have practically zero support among Catholics. They wouldn’t exist were it not for funding from anti-Catholic organizations such as the Arcus Foundation, an institution that works closely with atheist billionaire and Church hater, George Soros.

In the last ten years, DignityUSA has received well over $700,000 from the Arcus Foundation. Last year, it gave New Ways Ministry a grant of $35,000 “to connect the work of pro-LGBT Catholic organizations in every region of the world.” In 2009, it gave them almost $100,000.

It also funds the Women’s Alliance for Theology Ethics and Ritual (WATER). Arcus gave it a boatload of cash to “create a cadre of Catholic, lesbian, bisexual and transgender women and their allies that would assume a leadership role within the Catholic community.” Earlier in this decade it gave WATER $70,000. Naturally, Arcus provides grants to Catholics for Choice, the pro-abortion and anti-Catholic entity that receives the bulk of its money from the Ford Foundation.

Arcus has made inroads in Catholic universities as well. It receives its most cooperation from Jesuit institutions such as Fordham University and Fairfield University. For example, Arcus funded a conference series, “More Than a Monologue,” that deliberately promoted dissident voices seeking to undermine Catholic teachings on sexuality. Pledges to area bishops that they would not do so were not honored.

According to a report by the Cardinal Newman Society, this conference sponsored several speakers who questioned Catholic teaching on homosexuality. They argued that the Vatican’s “official repression” of gay priests needs to end, and that “the Catholic Church would be much better off if all its priests were having sex with each other.” To top things off, they “disputed the necessity of priests for consecration of the Eucharist at Catholic Mass.”

The idea that gay priests are repressed is nonsense. Just the opposite is true: Gay-active seminarians and priests have driven more heterosexual men out of the seminaries and the priesthood than anyone can fathom. Moreover, it is diabolical to assert that priests would be better off if they practiced sodomy with each other. Even more pernicious is the assault on the Eucharist. That is what these activists want—a total annihilation of the Catholic Church. It was not always this way.

When Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the famed abortionist who co-founded the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), started his effort to legalize abortion in 1969, he devised a plan to attack the Catholic Church. Why? He had to. The Church, he readily conceded, was the greatest defender of life. This meant that his pro-abortion agenda could not be realized without discrediting its voice.

Nathanson quickly embarked on a lengthy propaganda campaign that was riddled with lies about Catholicism. We know this to be true because of his conversion: after witnessing pictures of unborn babies—the sonogram had just been invented—he became pro-life. Then he converted to Catholicism. The key point is this: even in his most radical days, Nathanson never sought to assault the Church’s sacraments. That’s what we are faced with today. It is just that vicious.

There is no justification for any outside organization seeking to subvert the teachings and practices of any world religion. That some of these busy-bodies are tax-exempt foundations, which purport to serve the common good, makes it all the more perverse.