Jesus Wept

It is time to speak of William Donahue. Bill is a ubiquitous presence on the tube whenever the far right of Catholicism finds a movement, person or unpleasant fact of life to be in conflict with Catholic Teachings. To Bill and his organization, the Catholic League For Religious And Civil Rights, a stance in opposition to the Pope is an attack on the Church.

More to the point, the organization has adopted a victim stance that would make most minority groups jealous, if they could get past being wildly offended. Never mind that there are 60 million Catholics, more than any other Christian Denomination (the word majority might be used here) and that that kind of power brings with it criticism.

Bill, firmly in bed now with traditional Catholic Baiters on the Protestant Evangelical Right (and I read their blogs. The Catholic Church is still The Whore Of Babylon to most of these people), is a curious example of my new Authoritarian Understanding. If questioning the murderous way in which our administration has handled the safety of our troops and of our own citizens is ‘traitorous’, the Catholic League’s corollary is “Disagreeing with Catholic Dogma is an attack on the civil rights of Catholics”. To Bill, the most heinous examples of Warriors against the Church are ex-Catholics, who have no right to ever say another thing about the church.

Actually, the problem is that he’s on the screen whenever Catholic issues are discussed.

Yesterday, he was on Colbert, so I know that maybe my readers have now actually experienced Bill in a way that they might remember him. This timeless quote from the beginning of one of his rants:

"Liberals shouldn't feel guilty about what happened to the Indians. That happened hundreds of years ago and they weren't responsible...Talk about "Native Americans" I was born in New York, Indians were born in Asia, they're Asian not American."

His opinions, expressed with a good ol fashioned East Coast Catholic Working Class accent are astonishingly ill informed other than by the deep-seated predjudices and xeno-phobia that his years in the academe could obviously not wipe away.

I can’t imagine that any Jesuit who trained me would be anything other than aghast at Bill’s thoughts and shamed that their faith is represented by such an, well, anti-intellectual idiot.

Some of us remember these quotes:

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The fact of the matter is the media elite has an aversion to religion. Some of them even have a phobia and some of them are obviously anti-religion. ... They want Tom, Dick, and Harry to get married. They want "under God" out of the pledge of allegiance. They don't want anybody to see The Passion of the Christ. It's all tied together. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 2/24/04]

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After all, 15-year-olds, they go to abortionists. They get their babies killed without parental consent. The new Puritans [those criticizing The Passion of the Christ] don't seem to worry about that. They like gay sex. They like [the film] The Dreamers, a brother and sister who bathe together and stuff like that. The same people in The New York Times who say this movie, I don't think it's not really right for kids; they have no problems when it comes to sodomy. It's smoking they don't like and Catholicism. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 2/25/04]

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Well, first they said it [The Passion of the Christ] was anti-Semitic. That didn't work. Then they said it was too violent. That didn't work. Then they said it was S & M. That didn't work. Then they said it was pornography. That didn't work. Now they're saying it's fascistic queer bashing. That kind of language would ordinarily get somebody taken away in a straitjacket and -- put you in the asylum. I don't know what about -- the queer bashing is all about. I'm pretty good about picking out who queers are and I didn't see any in the movie. I'm usually pretty good at that. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 3/12/04]
[ I think we call that 'Gaydar'..... GT12]

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There's nobody in the United States Senate who has a more radical voting record on abortion than John Kerry. He's never found an abortion that he couldn't justify. ... Well, first of all, the guy [Kerry] is an idiot. He doesn't even know there never was a [Pope] Pius XXIII in the first place. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 4/12/04

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We've already won. Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex. [I have Got to see more movies... GT12] They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 12/8/04]

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On Joan Osborne and her song “One Of Us”(written by the Very Really Christian guys from the Hooters): "It is no wonder that Joan Osborne instructs her fans to donate their time and money to Planned Parenthood. It is of a piece with her politics and her prejudices. Her songs and videos offer a curious mix of both, the effect of which is to dance awfully close to the line of Catholic baiting. If even her admirers see something of the sacrilegious in her work, it is hard to maintain that Osborne doesn't have an agenda. It is our hope that she doesn't let her sentiments regarding Catholicism get in the way of whatever artistic abilities she has."

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Dogma. The year 1999 saw the release of Kevin Smith's controversial film Dogma. Despite the fact that Smith is a practicing Catholic, several religious groups (especially the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights led by William Donohue) claimed that the film was anti-Catholic and blasphemous, and organized protests, including one that took place at the November 12 premiere of the film at Lincoln Center in New York City.
Smith noted that several of the protests occurred before the film was even finished, suggesting that the protests were more about media attention for the groups than for whatever was controversial about the film.


(thanks to Media Matters, Wikipedia)