This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Bill Donohue

“Witness to War: World Trade Center Bombing.” That was the title of the lead story in the October 2001 edition of Catalyst. I made a personal statement about what we witnessed that day: we saw the Twin Towers crumble before us.

Once again, I am taking the occasion to address war, only this time the war is against Israel. I am writing this at home on the “Day of Rage,” Friday, October 13. I closed the office today because of the huge anti-Jewish rally in Times Square, just blocks from our office. I have seen enough of the New York crazies to know what to expect.

Catholics are fortunate to have a long history of Church teachings on war. Thanks to St. Augustine and St. Aquinas, it is helpful to recall what “Just War” theory is.

For a war to be just, it must abide by several criteria. There must be a just cause; it should meet the standard of comparative justice; a legitimate authority must execute it; the right intention must be evident; the probability of success should be operative; the means used should be proportionate to the situation; and it should be done as a last resort.

Israel has met these criteria. The vicious attack on Israeli citizens, including the beheading of children, was unprovoked. Even more vile, its leaders pledged to kill all the Jews. That’s what Hamas has said over and over again. Ergo, Israel had a just cause.

It also met the definition of comparative justice, meaning the injustice suffered by Israelis justifies the damage done to Hamas. The decision to defend Israel was made by its elected leader. The prime minister’s intent was noble—to defend his people. Given the Israelis past success in combat situations, the probability they will prevail is realistic.

Israel alerted residents of Gaza to leave their neighborhood—giving them ample time to clear out—before their soldiers entered, thus was their response proportionate to current conditions. Despite decades of diplomacy, and the total withdrawal of soldiers from Gaza in 2005—giving the Palestinians what they wanted—it was not enough to satisfy Hamas, which is why they attacked Israel two years later. Thus, the decision to fight back was the last resort.

The left-wing indoctrinated American students who hate Israel also hate America. As a Catholic leader, a veteran, and a professor, I know what motivates these maniacs. Israel had no other choice but to defend itself and seek to defeat Hamas, once and for all.

Pray for Israel, but also pray for Catholics in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as those innocent Palestinians who have long suffered under Hamas.

This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

On September 29, the Arizona Diamondbacks hosted a “Catholic Night” at Chase Field. This was the first of its kind in Arizona, or in any other baseball park.

Last year, Catholics, and those from other faith communities, turned out in big numbers to attend the first “Faith and Family Night” game; another one was held in August. But the “Catholic Night” event was different: it was a joint effort by the Diamondbacks and the Diocese of Phoenix.

There were four levels of tickets, ranging from $24 to $46. The Diamondbacks pledged $5 of each ticket will go to the diocese’s “Catholic School Support 365” program. It provided funding for Catholic families who need assistance to pay tuition due to a hardship situation—medical emergencies, lost jobs, death of a parent or sibling—allowing them to grow in their Catholic faith.

In June, we led a culture war against the Los Angeles Dodgers for honoring a vile anti-Catholic gay group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The message was delivered to Major League Baseball—Catholics are fed up being insulted by the elites. That is why events like “Catholic Night” are welcomed. It is a stark rebuke to religious bigots.

We were delighted to have our email subscribers congratulate the Arizona Diamondbacks and Bishop John Dolan of the Diocese of Phoenix; we received media coverage and much chatter on social media. The diocese declared “Catholic Night” a huge success.

This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

William A. Donohue

On October 17, Pope Francis welcomed Catholic dissidents who have previously been condemned by U.S. cardinals and bishops. He met for almost an hour with Sister Jeannine Gramick, who, along with Fr. Robert Nugent, founded New Ways Ministry (NWM) in 1977; it is a radical pro-homosexual group. She was wearing a habit for the photo-op, something she rarely does.

After the meeting, Gramick praised the pope for his “openness” to same-sex blessings.

Sr. Gramick was best friends with the most notorious serial child rapist priest in American history, Fr. Paul Shanley. She credited him with having “motivated her to activism.” More telling, after Shanley’s predatory behavior was made public, she said she “grieved for the man I had not seen in almost 20 years, but whose principles and whose advocacy for the downtrodden I had applauded for three decades.” That he molested the downtrodden didn’t seem to matter.

Journalist Maureen Orth (who was married to “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert) ripped Gramick for never once speaking to any of Shanley’s victims.

Fr. James Martin, who was given a prominent position at the Synod on Synodality in Rome—at the request of the pope—said in 2017 that he would like to “canonize” Gramick.

Gramick has long been a thorn in the side of the Catholic Church. After the publication of a book by her and Nugent, Building Bridges: Gay and Lesbian Reality and the Catholic Church, they were investigated by the Vatican in 1998. It was determined that there were “serious deficiencies in their writings and pastoral activities, which were incompatible with the fullness of Christian morality.”

Pope Francis did not meet with Gramick out of the blue. In fact, he commended this rogue entity at the end of 2021. At that time, I said he had been manipulated. It is now clear that I was wrong.

After the pope spoke kindly about NWM in a note to Gramick, I learned that the Vatican listed it on its resource page for the upcoming Synod.

Consequently, on December 15, 2021 I wrote to Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, about the propriety of providing a link to the NWM webinar on synodality.

In my letter, I recounted that in 1999 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a document detailing how Sr. Gramick and Fr. Nugent of NWM had been sanctioned by two major Church bodies for their public misrepresentations of Church teachings on sexuality.

Ratzinger wrote that in 1984, “James Cardinal Hickey, the Archbishop of Washington, following the failure of a number of attempts at clarification, informed them [NWM] that they could no longer undertake their activities in that Archdiocese. At the same time, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life ordered them to separate themselves totally and completely from New Ways Ministry, adding that they were not to exercise any apostolate without faithfully presenting the Church’s teaching regarding the evil of homosexual acts.”

He then offered evidence of the many attempts by Church officials to persuade Gramick and Nugent to abide by Church teachings on this subject. He concluded that they “are permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons and are ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes.”

Three years later, the new head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, wrote that “New Ways Ministry does not promote the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church.”

Also in 2002, Archbishop Thomas Kelly of Louisville told organizers of the group’s conference that they should not celebrate the Eucharist at a NWM event. Following suit in 2007 was St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop Harry Flynn: he barred NWM’s national conference from celebrating the Eucharist.

In 2010, Cardinal Francis George, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated that he can assure Catholics that “in no manner is the position proposed by New Ways Ministry in conformity with Catholic teaching and in no manner is this organization authorized to speak on behalf of the Catholic Church or to identify itself as a Catholic organization.”

In 2011, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of the Washington Archdiocese, and chairman of the Committee on Doctrine, joined with Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, and chairman of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on the Defense of Marriage, issuing an affirmation of Cardinal George’s denunciation of NWM.

This prompted me to ask Grech, “Were all the senior members of the Catholic Church wrong about NWM? Or is the decision to welcome them to the synodal process wrong? They can’t both be right.”

He never replied. We now know why.

There is much confusion in the Catholic Church today. Catholics are looking for clarity, but the Synod on Synodality, which took place in October (it will offer its final report next October) is not expected to rectify this problem. Some say it will only make matters worse. We’ll see.

This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Bill Donohue

In the 1980s, Jeane Kirkpatrick, foreign policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was fond of saying that the critics of the United States always blame the U.S. for whatever was going wrong in the world. Similarly, I can say that in the over three decades of doing this job, I continue to be impressed by the number of critics of the Catholic Church who always blame the Church for whatever is going wrong in the world.

There is much more than gullibility going on here. To be gullible is to be easily persuaded. The most consistent and severe critics of the U.S. and the Catholic Church are not naïve: they are hateful and vindictive. They are willing to believe the worst because, from the get-go, they have been seriously ill-disposed to these two titans.

Regarding Catholicism, the latest proof that critics of the Church have gone off the rails took place in Canada. Accusations that the Church’s handling of indigenous peoples in Canada made big news in 2015. It was accused of “cultural genocide,” if not wholesale genocide. Suffice it to say that a number of scholars, including myself, mounted a strong challenge to this rendition.

Then in 2021, the Church was accused of creating “mass graves” for indigenous children in the residential schools. That was debunked in 2022. But in 2023, new accusations of “mass graves” surfaced. More recently, that, too, has been debunked. As it turned out, both stories turned out to be a hoax. However, like vicious rumors that turn out to be false, it is hard to erase the initial perception that wrongdoing was committed.

The Report

In 2008, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was established. It was mandated to report on the history and the ongoing legacy of the Canadian government’s residential schools for indigenous peoples, many of which were run by Catholic and Protestant churches. In 2015, its findings were published. Titled “Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future,” it will be referred to as the Report.

The Report found that 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their homes and forced to attend schools that would assimilate them into the dominant culture. It was the Canadian government that made this decision.

The most serious charges that initially surfaced said that the residential school system was guilty of “cultural genocide.” In due course, commentators shortened this to “genocide.”

As I pointed out in my 2022 analysis of the Report, neither genocide nor cultural genocide occurred. It’s all a cruel myth.

The Report cites not a single person who was killed in the residential schools. There are two testimonials of killings in the Report, and one was made by an indigenous woman who said she witnessed her older brother kill one of her other brothers when she was nine. The other cites a 2014 document that claims that “1,017 Aboriginal women and girls were killed and 164 were missing.” But these killings took place between 1980 and 2012. The residential schools were closed in 1969.

There were no instances of torture listed in the Report. The one instance of whipping was committed by a government teacher in 1895. Corporal punishment did exist—disobedient boys had their hair cut off—but this was common throughout the world at this time in both secular and religious schools. No doubt there were cases of abuse, but it trivializes what has happened to true victims of genocide to pin this label on conditions in the residential schools.

The Report claims that “cultural genocide” was committed against the indigenous population. Yet on p. 6 it offers evidence that contradicts this claim. “Although Aboriginal peoples and cultures have been badly damaged,” it says, “they continue to exist.” By definition, cultures that continue to exist have not been wiped out.

This is not to say that ethnocentrism didn’t exist. Of course it did. The lifestyle of the indigenous population was clearly perceived to be culturally inferior to Europeans. Missionaries being missionaries, they were obviously convinced that converting these peoples was in their best interest. Looking back at this from today’s perspective, there is room for criticism. But to judge the past by contemporary standards is not a mature way of understanding history. To indict everyone is to indict no one.

The Report cites several instances that demonstrate the noble intent of the Catholic-run schools. Catholic officials insisted that they were better able to deal with Aboriginal students than those who ran the public schools. Their Christian training afforded them a better understanding of how to deal with these students. They also criticized the public schools for their racist attitudes. Given their impoverished condition, these students were also more likely to feel inferior to public school students than they would in a Catholic-run school.

There were other advantages to these children being served by Catholics, as opposed to Protestant and government-run schools. “The Roman Catholic schools could draw staff from a number of Catholic religious orders,” the Report notes, “whose members had made explicit vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. In the spirit of those vows, they would be obliged to go where they were sent, would not expect payment, and would have no families to support.”

The Report even says that “Former staff and the children of former staff members have expressed the view that much of the discussion of the history of residential schools has overlooked both the positive intent with which many staff members approached their work, and the positive accomplishments of the school system.” Indeed, many of these Catholic staff members continued “teaching, cooking, cleaning, farming, and supervising children” long after they completed their assignment (which lasted a year or two).

The Report is replete with criticism about the “Doctrine of Discovery” that provided legal justification for granting rights to land discovered by European colonizers. What it doesn’t say is that idea was never a doctrine or a part of the teaching of the Catholic Church. It also doesn’t say that the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery” was officially repudiated by the Catholic Church in 1537.

“The Mass Grave Hoaxes”

The Report said nothing about “mass graves” being erected on Catholic property. That accusation surfaced in May 2021.

Who was responsible for spreading the hoax? Scholars, Indian activists and the American media.

In May 2021, a young anthropologist, Sarah Beaulieu, after assessing the land near a former Catholic residential school with radar, hypothesized that there was a “mass grave” there. This position was shared by Chief Rosanne Casimir, who maintained that “ground-penetrating radar” discovered the remains of 215 children in a mass grave on the grounds of the school in British Columbia.

As Canada’s National Post reported in September 2023, “One of the first mentions of the term ‘mass grave’ came from the New York Times.” In fact, this is where Chief Casimir’s claim was made public; it appeared in the May 28, 2021 edition of the paper.

The Associated Press (AP) issued a similar story the next day, claiming up to 6,000 indigenous peoples died during the residential school years. No source was given. This was strange given that in the same news story, it said the Report put the number who died at 3,200. More important, AP did not say why there were so many deaths. But as the National Post reported, they were “mostly due to disease.” And as the Report documents, it was tuberculosis that claimed the lives of more children than any other disease.

Authoritative articles debunking the “mass grave” thesis began appearing in January 2022. Jacques Rouillard, professor emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Montreal, questioned, “After seven months of recrimination and denunciation, where are the remains of the children buried at the Kamloops Indian Residential School?”

“In the wake of unsubstantiated claims by Aboriginal Indians,” he wrote, “several media outlets amplified and hyped the story by alleging that the bodies of 215 children had been found, adding ‘thousands’ of children had ‘gone missing’ from residential schools and that parents had not been informed (his italic).”

John Daniel Davison, senior editor at The Federalist, wrote that “In the seven months since this shocking news broke, not one body has been found, and not a single shovel-full of dirt has been excavated from the site in question.”

Tom Flanagan and Brian Giesbrecht in the Dorchester Review slammed the initial reports for the “lies” that were told. They also wrote that much of the criticism reflects the “anti-Christian sentiment [that] has been largely directed at the Catholic Church and the Catholic religious orders which operated and staffed many residential schools,” despite the fact that “Catholic-run institutions comprised only 43% of all Indian residential schools in Canada.”

While the hoax was exposed, the damage done to the Catholic Church’s reputation was severe. It also led to violence.

In retaliation to the bogus story, 68 Catholic churches were desecrated, damaged or destroyed. This includes ten churches that suffered significant damage from arson. Some, like St. Ann’s on the Chuchuwayha reserve in British Columbia, were set on fire and burned to the ground. The worst of the violence took place between June 21 and July 9, 2021.

A second round of accusations emerged in the summer of 2023 when excavations of the “mass grave” began. In August, the National Post reported that “No evidence of human remains has been found during the excavation of a Catholic church basement on the site of a former Manitoba residential school.” Again, the body count was zero.

Neither the New York Times nor AP has run a news story about the two hoaxes. One of the sources cited by the Times, Chief Casimir, was briefly mentioned in January 2023, but this was before the second hoax was exposed. In essence, both media outlets have shamelessly allowed their false stories to go unchecked.

In fairness, there were some Indian activists, such as First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme, who were cautious about making wild generalizations from the beginning. He said that the “mass graves” were actually plots within a larger Catholic cemetery whose headstones had been removed by Catholic authorities. “This is not a mass grave site. These are unmarked graves.” Too bad the American media weren’t as honest.

Conclusion

Smearing the Catholic Church is commonplace, especially among elites in Western nations. What is particularly galling is the rank hypocrisy of the ruling class.

In 2017, in the wake of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s appeal to Pope Francis to apologize for the mistreatment of indigenous peoples, I wrote him a letter, which I made public, that requested an apology from him for “the Canadian government’s oppression of Indians, Africans, Asians, Jews, Protestants, and Catholics.” The victimization of Catholics continues to this day in Canada, making my plea all the more urgent.

In 2022, I accused Trudeau of “cultural genocide” by shoving his radical LGBTQ agenda down the throat of Third World nations. There are many such examples.

If the truth were told, the world would come to realize the great good that Catholic missionaries have done. They would also conclude that the Church’s biggest critics don’t have a moral leg to stand on.

This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The Biden administration is seeking to limit the rights of foster parents who currently care for LGBT children. It also wants to limit the rights of all future foster parents, making sure they respect the wants and desires of adopted children who may elect to switch their sex.

The public has until November 27 to respond to the proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Information will be provided at the end of this article.
Before examining the proposal, we need to understand what is driving this issue. It’s not hard to figure out.

No queer organization has been more prominent in affecting policy in this administration than the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

Lavishly funded by the corporate world, it was ready to hit the ground running if Biden won the presidential election. On November 11, 2020, eight days after he won, it rolled out its 22-page “Blueprint for Positive Change.” It detailed a list of policy recommendations for the administration to follow.

HRC officials have not been disappointed. On June 8, 2023, they issued a press release applauding the administration for its “continued support.” They had previously decided, in 2019, that “Adoption is a Trans Issue.”

The proposed policy, which appeared in the “Federal Register” on September 28, makes it clear that foster parents of trans children do not call the shots—the kids do. And by kids, we mean those who are fourteen years of age; in some cases, even children under fourteen can overrule their foster parents.

For example, what if the child of foster parents decides she is unhappy being a girl and wants to identify as a boy (80 percent of the time it’s the girl who wants to transition), and the parents object. According to this proposal, the foster parents are “expected to utilize the child’s identified pronouns, chosen name, and allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression.” In other words, the state is eclipsing the rights of parents.

What if the child of foster parents wants to finish the job, accessing “Clinically appropriate services” based on “accepted medical standards of care”? In other words, submitting to irreversible puberty blockers and chemical castration. Can the parents overrule their child? Not on your life.

Ordinarily, as even HHS admits, the age that most states say is the legal age of adulthood is eighteen. There are rare instances, such as consenting to certain medical treatments, where a child of sixteen is permitted to consent. But fourteen and below? This is novel, and precarious, territory.

Worse, the issue is not overruling one’s parents in electing to take aspirin—we are talking about physically altering a young person for the rest of his or her life, changes that also have dramatic psychological effects.

When they talk about “Clinically appropriate services” based on “accepted medical standards of care,” they are talking about “age appropriate services that support their [the child’s] needs related to their sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.” That obviously includes sex-reassignment surgery.

The term “age-appropriate” is used in this section of the proposal on p. 66760, but it is not specific. The first time this term is used is on p. 66757. It is never defined. But we do know that fourteen-year-olds can override their parents’ counsel, and if there are some serious problems at home (e.g., the child was removed due to familial conflict), even those who are younger than fourteen can overrule their parents. This is unprecedented in Western law.

What if the foster parents of a young girl who identifies as a boy refuse to accommodate her? Can the government take the child away from them? You bet. It says that “LGBTQI+ children can be transferred from any entity that will not provide a safe and appropriate placement,” as described in the proposal. It defines as unsafe attempts by the parents to dissuade the child from transitioning.

What if the parents object to their child’s transitioning plans on religious grounds? Too bad. The proposal ostensibly recognizes the validity of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which protects religious liberty, but nonetheless concludes that no religious exemption should be afforded if the burden on the religious rights of parents “is necessary to the advancement of a compelling government interest through the least restrictive means possible.” Thus does the proposal stand RFRA on its head—it’s the government that has to have a compelling interest to override religious liberty!

Of course, the proposal says that allowing sexually confused kids to transition to the opposite sex meets this test. In other words, it is not a “compelling government interest” to defend parental rights, and this extends even to parents who have sincerely held religious convictions. To be exact, this proposal undermines parental rights and eviscerates RFRA.

Please register your objections to this proposal by emailing your response to the address below.

CBComments@acf.hhs.gov
Be sure to put the Regulatory Information Number (RIN) in the subject line: RIN 0970-AD03.

This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The Biden administration’s foster care proposal, which seeks to limit the rights of foster parents with trans children, says not a word about a very serious issue, namely the propriety of allowing transgender couples to adopt children. Quite frankly, the history of violence within this segment of the population—assaulting each other—is so serious that it makes no sense not to address this issue. Indeed, it is delinquent not to do so.

Throughout the proposal, there are several references to safety in the home, as in, “each child must receive a placement that is safe.” It says quite clearly that “hostility, mistreatment, or abuse” will not be tolerated.

Surely the administration must know about the legacy of violence that plagues the trans community, but if it doesn’t, it should. The evidence is startling, and it is mounting.

It’s not always easy to find data on this issue, but there are a number of studies on “intimate partner violence” (IPV) that are enlightening. IPV refers to violence committed by someone who is intimately involved with his or her partner, regardless of marital, sexual orientation or gender status.

Let’s look at some early data and make our way forward.
“The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey,” published by the National Center for Transgender Equality, found that with regard to trans adults, “More than half (54%) of respondents have experienced some form of intimate partner violence. More than one-third (35%) experienced physical violence by an intimate partner, compared to 30% of the U.S. adult population. Nearly a quarter (24%) experienced severe physical violence by a current or former partner, compared with 18% of the U.S. population.”

Also in 2015, the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA Law, published a report that reviewed 42 studies on IPV among LGBT people. The one study that “directly compared the lifetime prevalence of IPV among transgender and cisgender people” [those who accept their biologically determined sex] found that “31.1% of transgender people and 20.4% of cisgender people had ever experienced IPV or dating violence.” Of the three studies on lifetime violence among trans persons, between “25.0% to 47.0%” report being victimized.

In 2019, researchers from Syracuse University and the University of Maryland, College Park, published their findings on sexual and gender minority youth and found that they “disproportionately experience intimate partner violence,” as well as higher rates of drug use as compared with “cisgender heterosexual youth.”

A study by seven experts published in 2020 in the American Journal of Public Health on this subject found that “Transgender individuals experience dramatically higher prevalence of IPV victimization compared with cisgender individuals, regardless of sex assigned at birth.” In fact, “Transgender people are 1.7 times more likely to experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime compared to cisgender people,” and are “2.2 times more likely to experience physical IPV.” Worse, “Sexual intimate partner violence is even more prevalent, as trans people experience it about 2.5 times more than cis people.”

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reviewed the literature on domestic violence in the LGBT community, and in 2018 it published its results. It found that the prevalence of IPV was comparatively higher for this community than it is among heterosexuals who accept their status as a male or female. Regarding trans persons, the situation is worse. They suffer “an even greater burden of intimate partner violence than gay or lesbian individuals.”

The Portland Monthly did a story on this issue in 2020, and after consulting the work of several experts, it concluded that “statistically speaking, the most common perpetrators of violence against trans women are domestic partners.”

In 2021, another study by the Williams Institute concluded that “Transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault.”

In 2023, four authors of a study on IPV among transgender and gender diverse people found that “between 42 and 62 percent” of them experience some type of IPV. The prevalence of IPV is considerably higher with this sector of the population than it is with others.

The Biden administration appears to be oblivious to these alarming statistics. Indeed, whenever it addresses violence in the trans community, it leads the public to think that it is those who are not part of this group—which means everyone else—are responsible for the violence against them.

The raw truth of the matter is that trans persons who are intimately involved with their partner are victimizing each other. It is not frat boys roaming the streets of trans neighborhoods who are committing the violence against trans persons—they are doing it to themselves.

Those in government, the health profession, education, and the media are not telling the public the truth. Indeed, they are involved in a cover-up; their deceit is appalling.

If the Biden administration is truly interested in the safety and wellbeing of trans children in foster care homes, it should be wary of placing them in settings where the parents are trans adults.

This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

There is a violent streak among trans activists that is underreported in the media. The following events all took place this year.

February 2023—National Public Radio (NPR) ran a story on Rainbow Reload, a group of trans activists training with firearms in New Hampshire. While NPR usually opposes the 2nd Amendment, in this particular story, NPR frames these activists in a heroic light noting that LGBT people are under attack across America. One member of Rainbow Reload said he joined the group because “there’s been an uptick in groups that have been protesting drag story times and drag shows. And it felt like I needed to learn how to protect myself.” NPR concludes the piece with the line “the guns over their shoulders a source of security in a world that feels full of threats,” further highlighting the sense that trans activists are in an armed conflict for their survival.

February 2023—Approximately 150 trans activists stormed the Oklahoma Capitol. Sporting trans flags, these radical protestors occupied the atrium of the Capitol building to oppose legislation aimed at protecting young people from medical procedures for “gender reassignment.” The trans activists then broke into the balconies chanting “This is our house!”

March 2023—When three King County Sheriff’s Deputies served an eviction notice on Nathan Stolsig, a man pretending to be a woman, he opened fire on the deputies and a shootout ensued. One of the deputies was shot when a bullet struck him above his body armor. Stolsig, who went by the name Eucytus, was a trans activist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He was affiliated with Antifa and had been preparing to be evicted by barricading his apartment. Surrounded by the deputies with no way out, Stolsig took his own life. The local NPR social justice reporter presented this story as a tragic suicide of a trans individual and left out that Stolsig injured a deputy in the shoot out and his ties to Antifa.

March 2023—Audrey Hale, a woman pretending to be a man, entered the Covenant Christian School in Nashville, Tennessee, and proceeded to go on a shooting spree. In the span of approximately 15 minutes she fired over 200 rounds and killed six people, including three nine-year-old students. Immediately following this tragedy, local police reported that Hale had written a lengthy manifesto. Local police also confirmed the attack was targeted, and there was strong reason to believe Hale’s transgender identity played a part in attacking the Christian school. At the time of writing, Hale’s manifesto has not been released. Many LGBT groups have been calling for the manifesto to be withheld from the public.

March 2023—Several hours after the shooting at Covenant Christian school, Josselyn Berry, press secretary to Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D), posted on Twitter a GIF from the movie “Gloria” showing a woman holding two pistols with the caption “Us when we see transphobes.” While Berry would resign in disgrace several days later, her GIF appears to justify using violence against people who disagree with transgenderism.

March 2023—Hundreds of trans activists took over the Texas Capitol to protest legislation that would protect children from puberty blockers and genital mutilation. The radical protestors began chanting and then staged a die in “to symbolize how many trans lives that could be lost if the legislation became law.”

March 2023—When the Kentucky State Legislature overrode Governor Andy Beshear’s (D) veto of legislation to protect minors from transgender procedures, hundreds of trans activists stormed the Kentucky Capitol building. Capitol security and the Kentucky State Police struggled to remove protesters from the gallery. Nineteen people were arrested.

March 2023—In response to the Covenant Christian School shooting, approximately 400 radical leftists stormed the Tennessee Capitol building. Supported by Democrats in the State Legislature, the protesters attempted to shift the focus of the tragedy at Covenant Christian School to focus on gun control rather than the targeted attack by a trans radical.

March 2023—William Whitworth, a man pretending to be a woman who goes by the name Lily, was arrested by police in Colorado Springs. Whitworth began behaving violently and threatened to go on a shooting spree at local schools when his family called the police. When police arrived, they found Whitworth drunk in his room and arrested him charging him with two counts of “attempted first-degree murder.” The local district attorney’s office confirmed that “Whitworth is in the process of transitioning to female.”

April 2023—Wyoming Minority Whip Karlee Provenza (D) posted a meme of an elderly woman shooting an AK-47 with the caption “Auntie Fa Says, Protect Trans Folks Against Fascists and Bigots.” Auntie Fa is a reference to Antifa. Further the meme implies anyone opposed to transgenderism is either a fascist or a bigot and should be resisted with physical violence.

April 2023—Etsy, the popular e-commerce site dedicated to the buying and selling of handmade and vintage items, has a slew of merchandise that promotes violent transgender rhetoric. One such item is a “Progress Pride” flag with an AK-47 assault rifle superimposed on it and the caption “ARMED QUEERS BASH BACK.” A sweatshirt reads, “Respect my pronouns or yours will be was/were.” Meanwhile, there is a t-shirt with the picture of three daggers and the words “Protect Trans Kids.” A sticker of a cat holding a knife reads “Respect my gender pronouns or I will identify as a problem.” Another sticker of a sword features the phrase, “Respect my pronouns or die by my sword.”

April 2023—After San Francisco State University students could not shout down former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, a mob of radical transgender activists stormed the stage. Turning out the lights, they used the chaos to rush past her security. Police eventually got her out of the room, but not before a man in a dress punched her several times in the head. Gaines was then trapped for three hours in an empty classroom surrounded by the transgender activists. One of the mob demanded cash to ensure Gaines’ safe passage off campus.

April 2023—A male teacher, who pretends to be a woman, threatened to shoot his students at Fox Chapel Middle School in Spring Hill, Florida. The teacher was upset about students making fun of him on social media. When school administrators recommended he talk to the school guidance counselor about his “bad thoughts,” the teacher admitted that he “wanted to shoot some students….”
April 2023—Hundreds of pro-transgender protesters tried to disrupt a debate at the University of Pittsburgh featuring Michael Knowles. Knowles had previously raised the ire of transgender activists when he declared that transgenderism needed to be eradicated from public life. When the debate began, a few radicals that got past security tried to shout down Knowles; however, they were unsuccessful. Outside of the event the protestors set off fireworks and other explosives. They burnt Knowles in effigy. Police had to lockdown parts of the campus for nearly two hours. Order was not restored until 90 minutes after Knowles finished his remarks.

April 2023—During a debate on banning transgender procedures for minors, Montana State Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D-Missoula), a man pretending to be a woman, said, “The only thing I will say is if you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there’s an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.” Because these comments appeared to be in reference to the shooting at Covenant Christian School and implied that the law would threaten the very existence of the trans community justifying their further retaliations, Zephyr was sanctioned by Montana State House and barred from debating on the legislation. When the Montana State House moved to pass the legislation, trans activists stormed the Capitol building. The radicals proceeded to take over the gallery and attempted to break the doors of the chamber when Zephyr was not permitted to speak. As part of their demonstration, the trans activists threw red gloves, symbolizing the “blood on your hands” that Zephyr had threatened earlier. Riot police were sent in to restore order. In the ensuing clash with the mob of trans activists, seven radicals were arrested.

April 2023—Trans activists vandalized the home of Utah State Senator Mike Kennedy. The radicals spray painted “FASH” (an abbreviation for fascist) and “THESE TRANNIES BASH BACK” on the front of his home in response to legislation he introduced to protect children from transgender procedures.

April 2023—Thomas Jay White, a man pretending to be a woman going by the name Tara Jay, is a prominent trans influencer on TikTok. In a recent video, White threatened to shoot anyone that prevented him from using the women’s restroom. In another video, White claims he wishes he could see several high profile figures who have spoken out against transgenderism hanging from a rope and contemplates throwing a party to celebrate their deaths.

April 2023—A group of concerned citizens from Protect Texas Kids protested an all-ages drag show held at Fort Brewer and Pizza in Fort Worth. They were met by black-clad counter-protesters from the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club. Many of the counter-protestors were equipped with tactical gear and armed with handguns and long guns. At first, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club members began screaming in the faces of the protestors while they were silently praying and proceeded to use pepper spray on the protestors. This was not the first time the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club has attempted to intimidate Protect Texas Kids with violence. The gun club has gone to at least 16 demonstrations to verbally and physically harass the protestors. The Club is affiliated with Antifa.

May 2023—Trans activists disrupted a meeting of the Westwood Regional School District in Bergen County, New Jersey when the school board voted to allow schools only to display the American and state flags. The trans activists shouted down the school board members, and police were required to remove unruly speakers from the microphone to restore decorum.

June 2023—When mostly Armenian and Hispanic parents protested the Glendale Unified School District in southern California for indoctrinating their children, trans activists, answering a call from Antifa, confronted and physically attacked the parents. Three people were arrested on various charges.

August 2023—When parents demonstrated outside of the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters urging the district to implement a policy to notify parents if their children identified as transgender, trans activists confronted the parents. The scene quickly turned violent as the trans activists attacked the parents and the police that were attempting to keep the two groups apart. Two trans activists were arrested and several more were taken into custody.

This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Hierarchy. It’s a word the Left loves to rail against, seeing in it the heart of every social injustice. This holds true for Catholic dissidents, as well as left-wing egalitarians outside the Church. But don’t believe them—the only hierarchy they hate is the one they seek to overthrow. They love the hierarchal structures they seek to create and command.

The Synod on Synodality that occupied the Church in October ignited dissidents and inspired some of its members to celebrate an end to hierarchy. Mercy Sister Angela Perez of Guam was one of them. “I’m experiencing and witnessing the dismantling of the hierarchical,” she said.

Ironically, her presence at the synod was testimony to just the opposite. She was not chosen by lottery, but because she had distinguished herself from other nuns. She was past president of her community’s Guam region; held several other leadership positions; was a former principal; and president of the Academy of Our Lady in Guam. In short, she has occupied senior positions in the hierarchy of her associations.

Sister Perez was delighted to see the 464 synod participants sitting at roundtables throughout the Paul VI Hall. The ever dissident publication, National Catholic Reporter, noted that Pope Francis was also sitting at a roundtable, just like everyone else. Not quite. The pope’s table was at the head of the room and his chair was slightly elevated. At his table were the key synod organizers. Seems like hierarchy was everywhere.

Another example of the ubiquity of inequality was the realization that not all 464 participants, which included laypeople, were permitted to vote. That prize was given to 365 of them, meaning that 99 of the participants were treated unequally.

While all the participants were permitted to express themselves, a summary of the roundtable discussions, written by theologians, was to be presented to the Secretariat of the Synod office. In other words, not everyone’s voice would be given equal treatment.

If the proceeding was to be an exercise in equality—with no hierarchal overtones—then those not in attendance should have been able to witness the event. But the pope disallowed this. Conversations took place in secret, behind closed doors, away from the media.

The fact is hierarchy is unavoidable. Moreover, there is nothing disdainful about it. God’s existence proves this verity.

Hierarchy is first evident in the family. Ineluctably, parents have more rights and authority than children. Yet to this day, left-wing thinkers, pundits and activists are angry that this is so. But they may as well bang their heads against the wall—hierarchy is what defines society.

Three European sociologists, Robert Michels, Gaetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto, understood how society works and how absurd was the idea that a true democracy was possible. Michels posited an “iron law of oligarchy,” Mosca wrote about “the ruling minority,” and Pareto discussed “the circulation of elites” that governed society.

In other words, it has been, and always will be, impossible to run a family—never mind a group or an organization—where everyone has an equal voice. It’s always a small number of people who make the key decisions. That’s just the way life is, and all the protestations to the contrary will never change this reality.

We live in a society that is a republic, not a democracy. We elect our representatives. We even have an Electoral College that ultimately chooses the president. The founders distrusted giving all power to the people, knowing full well that in times of crisis the people were prone to act like a mob, not a reasoned citizenry (recall that Hitler was democratically elected chancellor). The expectation was that a carefully chosen elite might not rubber stamp the people’s choice in cataclysmic times.

Outside where the synod participants met, Catholic dissidents from around the world met. They want to turn the Church inside out and upside down. They claim to hate hierarchy, but they cannot win without forcing the faithful to accept their blueprints for change.

Karl Marx, the great hater of hierarchy, said that his utopian communist society would be an egalitarian wonderland, but before that could happen, those who would lead the communist movement would first have to establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Marx’s famous words were, “In order to establish equality, we must first establish inequality.”

There you have it. The love of hierarchy is what the Left has always wanted, as long as they are in charge. And what happens to those who resist and refuse to live in their egalitarian paradise? Sudden death. That’s what history teaches.

The penchant for radical equality inevitably comes at the expense of liberty. The most intolerant people in our society today are the ones who think they know better than the rest of us.

Catholic dissidents are no different. They have no use for the rank-and-file who love the Church. They are determined to change the Church, making sure the faithful follow their marching orders. The sooner the faithful see through these little dictators, the more likely they will resist their appeals.

This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

We learned in January that “traditional” Catholics were being investigated by the FBI for the crime of being traditional Catholics. We were assured by FBI Director Christopher Wray that only one Field Office, in Richmond, was involved. Then we learned that the FBI was also going after “mainline” Catholics, and had developed a plan to spy on them. Then we learned that it wasn’t just one Field Office—agents in Los Angeles and Portland were also involved in the probe.

Wray has repeatedly said he knew nothing about Catholics being targeted. In fact, when he testified in July he said that when he first learned about this he was “aghast.” Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, testified on September 20 saying that he, too, knew nothing about this. When he found out, he told Rep. Jeff Van Drew that he was “appalled.” Garland said the same thing when he testified last winter.

Let’s assume they are telling the truth—neither man knew anything about those in their employ involved in raping the constitutional rights of ordinary Americans. Let’s also assume they were “aghast” and “appalled” about what happened.

What exactly have they done about it?

There has been no public record, nor statement of any kind, issued by either Wray or Garland regarding steps taken to hold those accountable for this egregious violation of the First Amendment rights of practicing Catholics. Have disciplinary measures of any kind been invoked? Has there been an internal investigation of the FBI seeking to learn if other agents have also been spying on Catholics?

Bill Donohue wrote to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and to Committee member Rep. Van Drew, asking for their cooperation in finding the answers to these questions.

This is the article that appeared in the November 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

We live in a time when some politicians think it is perfectly acceptable to allow a baby who survives a botched abortion to die unattended by medical staff. All across the nation, child abuse in the schools is rampant—we are telling young kids they can switch their sex as quickly as they can turn on a light switch, offering puberty blockers and chemical castration to get the job done. Moreover, they can do so behind the backs of their parents, with the approval of the National Education Association.

We have just come off a respiratory illness that killed over one million Americans and yet we are now legalizing marijuana—while continuing an “anti-cigarette” campaign in the schools. Students are now coming to school stoned. We are allowing, even enabling, people from other countries to crash our borders, bringing untold amounts of fentanyl with them.

Our cities are run by politicians who rescue cats and dogs from extremely cold weather while allowing mentally deranged human beings to freeze to death on the sidewalks, all in the name of civil liberties. Crime is out of control and there is no accountability for even violent crimes. The homeless defecate in the streets, harass passersby, and demand that their “rights” be protected.

And these same politicians—all of whom are liberal Democrats—have the audacity to pretend that they come to the table with their hands clean, insisting we either erase Columbus from history or demonize him, all the while romanticizing so-called indigenous peoples. It’s enough to make any sane American who knows anything about history reach for the vomit bag.

Native Americans did not originate in America: they migrated here from Asia. The idea that they lived in some kind of Garden of Eden—living peacefully—until the white boys showed up is pure poppycock. The fact is there is nothing noble about the “noble savage.” Indeed, he is more savage than noble.

Harvard professor Steven Pinker, who is not a victim of political correctness, describes what life was like throughout most of history.

“Cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of conflict resolution—all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history.”

What about indigenous peoples? Pinker concludes that they “were far more violent than our own.” He cites the work of noted anthropologists who learned of “population-wide rates of death in tribal warfare that dwarf those of modern times.” Bernard Bailyn, the famous Harvard historian agreed, saying, they did not live in a “terribly peaceful world.” In fact, “They were always involved in warfare.”

None of this is to excuse any wrongdoing by Europeans—many of them were just as vicious. But it is to say that we need to get over our childlike image of Native Americans and stop with the Columbus bashing. It makes no sense morally or historically, and this is doubly so for those who come to the table today with filthy hands.