In its July 1 editorial, the Houston Chronicle lectures the bishops about matters that they should leave alone. Not to be misunderstood, when the Catholic Church takes a public policy stand on any issue, it is fair game for criticism. But when it comes to internal matters, such as the sacraments, it is no more the business of a newspaper than it would be the business of the bishops to opine on the hiring practices of a newspaper.

The editorial tells the bishops they are wrong to even consider denying President Biden Holy Communion. “Biden, who attends Mass and says he personally opposes abortion,” the editorial says, “has nevertheless throughout his political career supported the legal right for women to decide for themselves to have one.”

If a Catholic president attended Mass and was personally opposed to racial discrimination, but nonetheless felt it was good public policy to support it, would the Houston Chronicle consider that acceptable? Of course not. The difference is that the paper is opposed to racial discrimination but not abortion. The Catholic Church opposes both.

The paper is factually wrong to say that Biden has been a champion of abortion rights “throughout his political career.” In 1974, a year after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, Biden said the ruling went “too far” and that a woman seeking an abortion should not have the “sole right to say what should happen to her body.”

In 1976, Biden voted for the “Hyde Amendment” which bans federal funding of abortions. In 1981, he introduced the “Biden Amendment” which prohibits foreign-aid funding of biomedical research involving abortion. In 1982, he voted for a constitutional amendment allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade. In other words, in the decade following Roe, he had a mostly pro-life record.

In 1983, however, he reversed himself and voted against a constitutional amendment allowing states to overturn Roe. That was the beginning of his pro-abortion stance.

After telling the bishops they are wrong to consider denying Biden the Eucharist, the editorial then contradicts itself when it admits that “what the bishops decide about who may take part in sacraments is their decision. If lay Catholics don’t like it, they can leave the church or press the bishops to reconsider.” Well said. Why, then, did it violate these precepts in the remarks that preceded this concession?

Even more baffling, why did the newspaper then pivot and start lecturing the bishops again? It immediately said that “we’d like to remind the bishops of the words of Pope Francis.” Next, they opine that if the bishops are going “to begin excluding politicians from communion on the basis of just one of those morale crusades,” it is guilty of “cherry-picking.”

What happened to the dictum that “what the bishops decide about who may take part in sacraments is their business”?

The editorial is a mess, from top to bottom.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lied again on July 22 when she described herself as “a devout Catholic.”

Addressing the subject of abortion, she said, “As a devout Catholic and mother of five in six years, I feel that God blessed my husband and me with our beautiful family—five children in six years almost to the day. But that may not be what we should—and it’s not up to me to dictate that that’s what other people should do, and it’s an issue of fairness and justice for poorer women in our country.”

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines “devout” as meaning “believing strongly in a religion and obeying all its rules or principles.” Pelosi does not obey the teachings of the Catholic Church on many key public policy issues.

Her enthusiasm for abortion is off-the-charts. She opposes laws that ban the killing of babies who are 80 percent born (partial birth abortion), and she even won Planned Parenthood’s highest award in 2014. In 2008, she stunned Tom Brokaw on “Meet the Press” when she falsely claimed that the Catholic Church has not taken a position on when life begins; the bishops unloaded on her for lying. That is not how “devout Catholics” act.

Pelosi not only rejects the Church’s teaching on marriage, she lied in 2015 when she said that her support for same-sex marriage is “consistent” with Catholic teaching. Last year she declared war on Catholic schools when she sought to rescind funding for Catholic schools that were granted money by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. That is not how “devout Catholics” act.

Pelosi also lied when she said she does not want to “dictate” to others what they should do. Last September, she sought to dictate to San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone what to do about Mass attendance during the pandemic. To be exact, she lectured him for opposing the mayor’s rule that only one person at a time was allowed inside churches to pray. That is not how “devout Catholics” act.

Pelosi’s remark that she supports abortion rights out of “fairness and justice for poorer women in our country” needs explaining.

Why didn’t she say it is an issue of “fairness and justice for all women”? Quite frankly, it sounds racist. Is that her way of “taking care of the urban problem”? After all, population control of African Americans is what galvanized Margaret Sanger to found Planned Parenthood.

Non-Catholics, never mind Catholics, know Pelosi is lying about her Catholic status. So does she.

New Mexico State Sen. Joe Cervantes, a Catholic, was recently denied Holy Communion because he is pro-abortion. Now he is playing his constituents, as well as the general public. He wants everyone to think that he is the victim of Catholic persecution, when, in fact, he deliberately sought to place himself in a position so that he could make this false claim.

The teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion is very clear: it opposes the killing of innocent human life. In modern times, science has ratified what the Church has long taught, namely that life begins at conception. Cervantes knows this to be true, and he also knows that his pro-abortion stance is not in keeping with the teachings of the Catholic Church. More important, his recent bid to receive the Eucharist was done to create a stir.

There is a 1969 law in New Mexico that criminalizes abortion. It has never been enforced. That’s because Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973, made it moot. For grandstanding purposes, two years ago pro-abortion politicians like Cervantes sought to repeal this law. They failed.

It is common practice in the Catholic Church in the United States for priests and bishops who live in an area where pro-abortion Catholics live to reach out to them in dialogue. The goal of this outreach effort is to persuade the office holder of the seriousness of abortion and the need to respect the Church’s teachings on this subject. In other words, contrary to what some in the media say, the clergy do not take cheap public shots at wayward Catholic politicians. Regrettably, the obverse is frequently not true.

According to the Diocese of Las Cruces, both the pastor at Cervantes’ church, and the local bishop, Peter Baldacchino, “reached out to him [Cervantes] multiple times in order to convey to him the teaching of the Catholic Church.” And what did he do? He blew them off. “Cervantes never answered or responded to diocesan communications.”

This was not the end of the outreach effort. The pastor of Cervantes’ church “advised him [Cervantes] that a vote in favor of this particular Senate bill would constitute a grave moral evil and that he should not present himself for Communion.” In other words, Cervantes sought to receive Communion on July 16th, knowing full well he would be denied. He did so purposefully.

Those who are not Catholic should know that it would have been perfectly legitimate for Cervantes to join the Communion line and then, instead of receiving the Eucharist, he could have elected to put his hands across his torso (one arm crossed over the other) and bow his head. At that point the priest would have blessed him. But this is not what Cervantes did. He wanted to be denied so he could claim victim status.

Phony Catholics have always been with us. But today we have an abundance of them, especially in political circles. Sadly, they are even found at the national level.

In the last issue of Catalyst, just before we went to press, we mentioned that California Democrat Jared Huffman threatened to revoke the Catholic Church’s tax-exempt status; he accused the bishops of being partisan because many of them registered their concerns over our pro-abortion Catholic president.

Huffman subsequently cooled his jets. He issued a statement complaining about the “colorful feedback from anti-abortion activists all over the country.” He also cited evangelical leader Tony Perkins for helping to foment the backlash. He pointedly did not make the same threat again.

Huffman did not mention that the “colorful feedback” came as a direct result of our notifying our email subscribers to contact him—that’s why he got pounded. Nor did he mention that the guest on Perkins’ radio show who blasted him was Bill Donohue.

Thanks to everyone for making this happen. Huffman got the message.

The time has come to defund National Public Radio (NPR). Its latest policy directive to employees removes any pretense of its objectivity.

In July, NPR rolled out its revised ethics policy. Its public editor, Kelly McBride, said it “eliminates the blanket prohibition from participating in ‘marches, rallies and public events,’ as well as vague language that directed NPR journalists to avoid personally advocating for ‘controversial’ or ‘polarizing’ issues.”

What changed? The riots of 2020.

Kelly cites several examples of the kind of activism that fuels NPR. Black Lives Matter is mentioned, along with other references to racially charged news events. Indeed, in anticipation of questions from NPR reporters, she rhetorically asks, “Is it OK to march in a demonstration and say, ‘Black lives matter?’ What about a Pride parade? In theory, the answer today is, ‘Yes.'” [Notice she did not choose a pro-life rally as an example.]

“Protests organized with the purpose of demanding equal and fair treatment of people are now permitted,” Kelly says, “as long as the journalist asking is not covering the event.”

In practice, however, this is untenable. Even if a journalist who joins a Black Lives Matter or Antifa protest does not write about it, who is going to stop this person from writing about counterprotesters? Moreover, if an employee has had an abortion, would that stop her from covering the subject?

To show how utterly void of professional journalistic ethics NPR is, consider what its chief diversity officer, Keith Woods, had to say about conflicting opinions held by NPR employees about this issue. He says the views range from “people who would go so far as to use the word ‘objectivity,'” to those who are the “burn-it-all-down kinds of folks.”

Those who would “go so far as to use the word ‘objectivity'”? Wow. That’s really pushing it. Apparently, there are still some dinosaurs at NPR who believe it is their professional duty to be as objective as they can! They have obviously been crowded out by the “burn, baby, burn” folks.

To top things off, NPR has an anti-Catholic history, dating back until at least 1997. It has featured Catholic-bashing songs, made fun of Jesus dying on the Cross, claimed it was “not that unusual” for a priest to be accused of raping a child, and has consistently complained about Catholic nominees for the Supreme Court.

Its most recent offense, while not expressly anti-Catholic, occurred two years ago when its new style guide instructed reporters to stop using terms such as “fetal heartbeat,” “partial-birth abortion,” “abortion doctors,” and “abortion clinics.” It even went so far as to ban the word “unborn,” claiming that “Babies are not babies until they are born.”

This is the kind of bias that NPR evinced before its new ethics policy was promulgated. We can only guess how bad things will become now that its reporters can engage in direct activism with impunity.

We have contacted all members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees asking them to defund NPR.

On the 10th of August 258, St. Lawrence was roasted to death on a gridiron for remaining loyal to the Catholic Church. Fast forward to August 10, 2021, when another Catholic, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is being roasted by the media for his disloyalties. Indeed, he’s toast.

Even in leaving, Cuomo still doesn’t get it. “In my mind,” he said, “I’ve never crossed the line with anyone. But I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn.”

He should have—he was the one who redrew it. In 2019, he bragged that New York is “the most aggressive state in the country on women’s rights. Anything I can do on sexual harassment we will do.” Thus did he unwittingly lay the trap that would eventually ensnare him.

In 2019, the “former altar boy,” as he liked to refer to himself, signed the Child Victims Act, a law which suspended the statute of limitations for sexual offenses against minors. At the time, he singled out the Catholic Church for condemnation, knowing full well that this problem was most acute in the public schools. Last year, he authorized a one-year extension of the law (the statute applied to others but rapacious lawyers focused almost exclusively on the Catholic Church).

How ironic it is to note that the Child Victims Act, which was never about justice for everyone, is set to expire on August 14, the same week Cuomo packed it in following multiple sexual misconduct allegations.

Now, at least, there may be justice for his many alleged female victims. As such, this is making for a very Catholic ending.

Six days before we issued the above news release we ran this statement.

“Mario Cuomo showed me the benefits of being an irritable, thin-skinned and dismissive person. He showed me that arrogance ultimately works.”

That is what Mario’s son, Andrew, said about him in 2002. Ironically, the arrogance that he acquired from his father was ultimately his demise.

The Cuomos will do anything to win and stay in power. When Mario ran for mayor of New York City in 1977 against Ed Koch, posters appeared all over Queens, saying, “Vote for Cuomo, not the homo.” Cuomo’s gay bashing didn’t end there. He accused Koch of endorsing the right of gays to “proselytize,” and even hired a private detective to find out who his “boyfriend” was.

Not to be outdone, Cuomo’s campaign approached a Catholic group in Greenwich Village hoping it would publish a statement saying Koch was gay. It even agreed to pay for this smear.

This kind of thuggery defined Mario, and it obviously defines his son.

The New York Attorney General’s report on Gov. Andrew Cuomo involves much more than the testimony of 11 women who say they were sexually harassed by him. In fact, 179 witnesses were interviewed by investigators. What they found is not pretty.

The investigators found that Cuomo and his aides helped enable “harassment to occur and created a hostile work environment.” That alone is a violation of federal and state civil rights law, never mind what he is accused of personally doing to women. Here are a few examples.

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, runs his hands down a woman’s spine, kisses her, and asks why she is not wearing a dress? This is not a “he said, she said” account: he did this in an elevator in front of others.

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, kisses and gropes a woman staffer and asks her to play “strip poker”?

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, asks a woman employee whether she ever had a relationship with older men? Why would he tell her he was “lonely” during the pandemic and “wanted to be touched”?

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, subjects his executive assistant to unwanted hugs and kisses, including on the lips, and grabs her butt?

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, reaches under the blouse of another executive assistant and grabs her breasts?

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, rubs the palm of his hand on a state trooper’s bellybutton while she opens the door for him?

Andrew Cuomo’s arrogance explains why he is being hoisted by his own petard. It was he who pushed for an expansive sexual harassment law in 2019. He bragged how New York is “the most aggressive state in the country on women’s rights. Anything I can do on sexual harassment we will do.”

He then got specific. “We will make it easier for claims to be brought forward and send a strong message that when it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace, time is up.”

Gov. Cuomo, your time is up. You said your father showed you that “arrogance ultimately works.” Not this time. Better get out of town before they take you out in cuffs.