The summer no sooner began when the Catholic League learned that two anti-Catholic lectures were scheduled to take place at Pierce Community College in Los Angeles. The lectures, given as part of the Encore/Oasis continuing education program, were titled "The Sex Lives of the Popes" and "Crime and Immorality in the Catholic Church." Both lectures were [...]
No date in American history is known by its month and date in numerical form except 9-11; the closest rival is the Fourth of July. No war is known by its date of origin; the War of 1812 expresses a year but lacks the specificity and timeless nature of 9-11. And that is how it should [...]
William A. Donohue Before the horror of September 11 a year ago, only those branded intolerant would dare use the word evil to describe evil. Now every airhead from the Hamptons to Hollywood uses it. What's going on? Fear did it. It was fear that led the nonjudgmental types to rediscover the meaning of evil. Prior [...]
By Joseph A. Varacalli, Ph.D. Today, institutions of higher education are major generators of socially dominant ideas, images, and fashions. As sociologists might say, they are major "agents of socialization." Empirically speaking, public higher education is almost exclusively—at least in the humanities and social sciences—an agent for the promotion of politically left-wing secular thought. It should [...]
On the home page of the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) website, democrats.org, there is a link to organizations of interest. Until late July, the "Catholic" heading listed only one group, Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). But when syndicated columnist Mark Shields mentioned this as his "Outrage of the Week" on the CNN show "The Capital [...]
Last year when we learned that an anti-Catholic billboard had been posted along Interstate 5 in southern Oregon, we decided to target the sign's owners instead of the person who penned it. "The Pope is the Anti-Christ" is what the sign said. Our first step was to ask the company, Outdoor Media Dimen-sions, to remove the [...]
No one realistically believed that the sex abuse scandal which has rocked the Catholic Church would be resolved in Dallas. The charter that was produced is a workable document but much remains on the table. It is vitally important that during this mending process we do not allow emotions to dictate outcomes. The media may sometimes [...]
In the aftermath of the Dallas meeting of U.S. bishops, there has been a mad rush on the part of lawmakers to treat clergy the same way non-clergy are treated in cases involving the sexual molestation of minors. Some oddities have appeared, and it is worth noting who the players are. Over the summer there were [...]
The French playwright Jean Genet penned "Saintete" in the 1950s and over the summer it made its way to New York as "Elle." The play opened at an off-Broadway site for a short stint in July. "Elle" thrashes the papacy in particular and Catholicism in general. William Donohue's thoughts on the play were considered so jazzy [...]
Toronto police estimated that 800,000 young people turned out in the rain to see Pope John Paul II when he visited in July. It was the largest gathering of people in the history of Canada. Though nothing spoiled the events of World Youth Day, the lunatic fringe mounted a protest. We are delighted that the media [...]
