In early July, the deposition of Cardinal Timothy Dolan was released regarding his tenure as the Archbishop of Milwaukee; the deposition was taken earlier this year in February:

Under questioning by Jeffrey Anderson, an activist lawyer who has tried on many occasions to sue the Holy See (all of them unsuccessful), Cardinal Dolan gravely disappointed the enemies of the Catholic Church: they were denied their “gotcha” moment. No incendiary evidence was to be found anywhere in sight. Indeed, pint-sized Anderson didn’t even lay a glove on the big guy. His plans fell flat.

One word sums up the entire proceeding: boring. That is the most accurate word to describe the deposition. Here is a list of the topics that Anderson pursued: the statute of limitations; a public list of accused priests; deceased and elderly priests; laicization; false and substantiated allegations; compensation for priests who have been let go from ministry; cemetery funds; parish finances; the scope of an archbishop’s authority; the effect of the scandal on Catholics in Milwaukee as well as everywhere.

In short, there was nothing new—it was another fishing expedition conducted by a man who believes there should be one standard for the Catholic Church, and another for the rest of the world. Fortunately he got nowhere.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan was, as always, honest and courageous. One wishes that Jeffrey Anderson could be billed for the agony of having to read his boring pursuit.

Many bishops have made public the names of suspected sexual offenders. By contrast, not a single institution, secular or religious, has done likewise. To be sure, this brazen honesty has persuaded fair-minded people to applaud such efforts, but others seek to exploit. For example, in July the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel featured pictures of 45 priests who at one time or another had substantiated allegations made against them. This is pure hype: Archbishop Dolan posted their names 9 years ago. Where are the pictures of alleged sex offenders in non-Catholic communities? Where is the same level of scrutiny?

The Journal Sentinel said the bishops’ conference adopted a charter in 2002 addressing the sexual abuse of minors. “How effective that charter has been is a matter of some debate.” Nonsense. In the past six years, the average number of credible allegations made against over 40,000 priests is exactly 7.0. If the Journal Sentinel knows of any institution with a comparable record, it should say so. Its comment about a 2011 grand jury report in Philadelphia failed to mention the 20-plus errors that have been found, to say nothing about the veracity of the principal accuser: he is a congenital liar, school dropout, thief and drug addict.

No one disputes the timeline of the scandal—the mid-60s to the mid-80s—so it makes one wonder whether those who continue to harp on this issue are motivated by something other than the well- being of minors. Not only are current cases of such abuse being ignored in non-Catholic communities, few are touting the reforms made by the Catholic community as a model for others.

Cardinal Dolan did not create this problem; on the contrary, he is among those who sought to fix it.

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down a street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery—then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” According to those who have slammed George Zimmerman for racial profiling, those words would qualify as the penultimate expression of racial profiling. Those are the words of Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has led the charge accusing Zimmerman of racial profiling.

Jackson is not alone in his selective interest in combating profiling. Just as bad are those who protested alleged racial profiling in the Zimmerman case, but who have a long record of actively promoting religious profiling. To be specific, those who have made sweeping condemnations of priests, because of the actions of a small minority of offenders, include Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Maher, Kathy Griffin, and Alec Baldwin. All of them accused Zimmerman of racially profiling Trayvon Martin.

Doing a Google search of “religious profiling” turns up stories that are mostly about Muslims. Searching for “imams and” elicits stories about “caliphs,” “rabbis,” “rabbis and peace,” and “mosques council UK.” Searching for “Catholic priests and” garners stories on “marriage,” “celibacy,” “child molestation,” and “science”; the articles are mostly disparaging. When searching for “religious profiling and Catholic priests,” the first story is one that endorses sweeping attacks on priests! Later the New York Post ran a story titled, “Brooklyn DA Releases Names of 46 Convicted Child Sex-Abusers Who Terrorized the Orthodox Jewish Community From Within”; this covered a four-year period. This alarming story was not reported in the New York Times. Take note: there haven’t been 46 credible accusations made against 40,000 priests in the United States in the last four years.

The bias is nauseating. Priests, when compared to African Americans, Muslims, and Jews, are fair game. All should be treated with equal justice.

During his July 23 monologue, David Letterman mentioned Pope Francis’ appearance at World Youth Day in Brazil: “And I’m telling you if there’s anything the kids can’t get enough of, it’s a 76-year-old virgin. Come on! World Youth Day. Or as the Vatican calls it, salute to altar boys.”

Some people can’t be shamed. David Letterman is certainly high on that particular list. One might think that a man known for sexually harassing his staff and for serial adultery might be cautious about such statements. But he is not by any means cautious in that regard.

Letterman, who admits seeing a psychiatrist once a week, may want to discuss his latest outburst with his shrink. This guy has some deep issues to be addressed, sooner rather than later.

One more thing: His cheap shots did not go over well with his audience. Hopefully, Letterman and his Catholic-bashing writers will get the message.

While pro-life protesters were singing “Amazing Grace” recently in Austin, pro-abortion fans were screaming “Hail Satan!” (A video of this scene is available on TheBlaze.)

It would be unfair to say that all pro-abortion supporters would support this obscenity, and indeed most would not. Among hardcore activists, though, there are no doubt more than just a few who feel comfortable with invoking Satan’s name in behalf of their cause.

There are writers and activists who support more than abortion rights—they hail it as a positive good. For example, the book by women’s studies professor Patricia Lunneborg, Abortion: A Positive Decision, boasts how abortion liberates women. The volume, Abortion is a Blessing, by militant atheist Anne Nicol Gaylor, sees abortion as a sacred right. So does French author Ginette Paris: her book, The Sacrament of Abortion, tells us exactly where she is coming from.

Catholics reach out to young pregnant women who have made the wrong decision, and indeed the Catholic Church has a program, “Project Rachel,” that serves them in many ways. Moreover, when someone in the pro-life community acts in an offensive way, he is quickly condemned. By contrast, there are pro-abortion fanatics who draw their inspiration from Satanic forces. Worse, many of those in the pro-abortion community are quite content to stay silent about such offenses.

Perhaps the time has come for a mass exorcism.

On a recent episode of Conan O’Brien’s TBS show, the host took a cheap shot at the pope and the Church. Unlike Jay Leno and David Letterman, the Catholic League has rarely had a problem with Conan O’Brien. But recently he took several shots at the Catholic Church, one of which was clearly below the belt.

In a monologue on Pope Francis, light fun was made of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Baptism. It was the one-liner subtitle about children being molested by priests that was a low blow: “Kids can opt out of fondling by texting #nothanks to the Vatican.”

Religious profiling—portraying all priests as molesters—is not out-of-bounds with late-night hosts. Now if Conan had said, “Kids can opt out of fondling by texting #nothanks to gay priests,” he may have been fired. But just smearing all priests is considered perfectly acceptable. These are the rules in liberal land.

At the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, a new study has recently been released by the school’s Center for the Study of Global Christianity, titled “Christianity in its Global Context, 1970-2020.”

What are the study’s conclusions? Well, it looks as if the best days for agnostics and atheists are long past. In 1970, for example, agnostics were 14.7 percent of the world’s population, while atheists were 4.5 percent. However, by 2010, the figures had dropped to 9.8 and 2.0 percent, respectively; by 2020, it is estimated that agnostics will constitute 8.9 percent, and atheists will make up 1.8 percent.

Much of the decrease is attributable to the demise of that atheistic genocidal wonderland called Communism: the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a spike in religious affiliation, both in Russia and in Eastern Europe; China is also in the throes of a religious revival. Russia was 38 percent Christian in 1970, and in 2010 the number jumped to 71 percent. The world’s first officially atheistic state, Albania, is now 63 percent Muslim and 32 percent Christian. Clearly, religion is on the rise worldwide.

It is expected that by 2020, the percentage of the world’s population that is Christian will have witnessed a slight uptick; the increase will be far greater for Muslims. Asia, as a whole, is witnessing a sharp drop in agnostics and atheists, as are those who live in the Caribbean. Even in Europe it is expected that atheists will decrease markedly: they were 8.2 percent in 1970, and are projected to be 2.1 percent in 2020; agnostics are expected to stay steady at 13.1 percent. It is in places such as Northern America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand where non-believers will realize some gains.

Data like these undercut the superstition that the world is becoming increasingly secular. In the U.S., for instance, we hear a lot about the growth of the “nones,” those who are not affiliated with any religion. But even among this segment of the population, only 2.6 percent of Americans are agnostic, and a mere 1.9 percent are atheist.

In the United States, as well as globally, the belief in nothingness is mostly confined to white people who stayed in school for a long time. Too bad they didn’t learn to think independently.

In June, both Israel and B’nai B’rith International blasted a totally politicized report by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child that condemned Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. The disgraced Committee then attacked the Holy See: it demanded that the Vatican turn over every document it has on priestly sexual abuse, and wants to know what the Catholic Church has done about discrimination between boys and girls; it is concerned about sexual stereotypes in school textbooks.

The Committee should be dissolved—its moral authority is shot. Of the 18 nations that comprise this entity, Freedom House rates half of them either “not free” or “partly free.” In other words, at least half of these nations have a record of oppressing its own people, many in ways that are positively shocking. And they have the audacity to point fingers at the Holy See?

If discrimination in school textbooks is a serious issue for this Committee, perhaps it can demand that one of its members, Saudi Arabia, stop depicting Jews as pigs and Christians as the enemy. When Muslims can freely convert to another religion without fear of being legally killed for doing so, then reasonable people may listen to what this body says. These member states have a lot of house cleaning to do, and the sooner they attend to their own human rights abuses, the better.

Family Research Council (FRC) president Tony Perkins and allies have urged support for Rep. John Fleming’s military religious freedom amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, to secure religious liberty for members of the armed forces.

The Catholic League joined with them, noting how Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has repeatedly smeared Evangelicals.

An FRC report detailed Weinstein’s irresponsible comments. His crusade rests on the premise that Evangelicals are victimizing Catholics. This is bunk. The Catholic League would know if Catholics were being badgered by Evangelicals, but not one Catholic in the nation has ever called the Catholic League’s office to register a complaint.

In 2005, following complaints by Weinstein, a report was released on religious liberty at the United States Air Force Academy. It found no “overt religious discrimination.” Weinstein was not happy. After reading the report, Bill Donohue noted that if Weinstein were correct, it would logically mean that Catholics, who are 30 percent of the student body, should have been feeling the pinch of “heavy-handed proselytizing efforts.” Yet the report did not cite a single Catholic who ever complained about this.

On June 10, 2013, Donohue sent Weinstein a letter asking him to provide evidence for his remark that he represents “over 33,000 members of the U.S. military,” and that “96 percent” are Catholics. It is simply not true. If 96 percent of his “clients” are Catholics, and if they are blasting Evangelicals for discriminatory behavior, then the Catholic League would have known something about it.

Mikey Weinstein is smearing Evangelicals, fabricating a “crisis” in the military, seeking to divide people on the basis of religion, and threatening the religious liberty of men and women in the armed forces and in the military academies.

A proposed amendment to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act would add atheist “chaplains” to the armed forces. The principal organization pushing this idea is the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, whose president, Jason Torpy, claims it’s unfair for Christians et al. to have chaplains, but not atheists.

Nationwide, atheists have no chaplains; vegetarians also have no butchers. No matter, Torpy says chaplains are needed to serve the 40,000 atheists in the armed forces. His figure is wrong: the Department of Defense says there are 9,400 atheists or agnostics among the 1.4 million active-duty personnel. Given that there are five times as many agnostics as atheists, nationally that means there are less than 2,000 atheists in the military. Torpy’s figure is 20 times the actual number.

The ploy is familiar. The main goal of atheist activists is to censor public expression of religion, especially Christianity. If this doesn’t work, they settle for contrived competition, thus hoping to neuter its effects. That’s why atheist organizations seek to censor Christmas displays on public property. When that fails, they erect anti-Christian statements next to nativity scenes.

Torpy’s group is on record opposing Christmas concerts on bases, Christian war memorials, and nativity scenes on public property (his organization brags about ending the “stranglehold” crèches have). His group also supports anti-Christian billboards comparing Christianity to slavery.

Ninety-five percent of all Americans who are affiliated with a religion are Christian. To be sure, atheists have rights, but not among them is the right to war on Christianity, even in a backdoor manner.