Bill Donohue

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-nine

The Catholic League's Bill Donohue has truly outdone himself.

The Catholic Right ideologue who mocked evolution (even though it is embraced by the Vatican); attacked reason (although it forms the foundation of Catholic theology) and criticized as anti-Catholic a PBS documentary on the Inquisition (which was made in cooperation with the Vatican!), now he says we have to watch out for witchcraft!

In a September 25, 2008 Catholic League press release, Donohue proclaimed:

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

Two seemingly unrelated recent events have something important in common. The dust-up between the University of Minnesota's P.Z. Myers and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue and the terrible shooting at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee each surface the dangers of highly charged rhetoric.

First, the Myers-Donohue flap.

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-four

On July 16, 2008 Catholics United sent the McCain campaign a a letter calling on the Arizona senator to remove the controversial Catholic Right mover and shaker Deal Hudson from the Catholics for McCain National Steering Committee. Hudson, a Catholic Right activist who was forced to resign from a similar position in President Bush's 2004 presidential campaign when The National Catholic Reporter broke a story about sexual harassment on Hudson's part while teaching at Fordham University.

So, who would be brazen enough to defend such a man from a similar firing?  The Catholic League's Bill Donohue, of course.

Bill Donohue has described Deal Hudson as "the ultimate networker," adding: "If you wanted to get something to the top inner circles of the [Bush] White House from a Catholic perspective, you could contact Deal Hudson and it was delivered."

As many readers who follow my ongoing series on the Catholic Right know I have no tolerance for a demagogue such as the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue. He is nothing short of a boorish buffoon who uses the cloak of Catholicism to further a political agenda that often runs contrary to the common good. And in doing so, he uses destructive, false language that constantly debases the public discourse.

But the question I have been wrestling with over the last few days is how do I react to a fellow Catholic who shares many, (though not all) of my political views but who also uses the cloak of Catholicism to say heinous, untrue things? How must I react when I see a religious liberal baselessly accuse a presidential candidate of racism in a not-so-thinly-veiled sexist tone?

For me the answer is simple: I renounce such a messenger.

This originally was posted at Talk to Action.

A few posts ago I said of the Catholic League's Bill Donohue:

As the saying goes, even a broken watch is correct twice a day. Well, with the Catholic League's Bill Donohue's condemnation of Senator John McCain endorsement by Evangelical John Hagee, ole Bill is at least half right.

Well folks, I take back my conditional praise of Bloviating Bill: The hands have now completely come off the tempestuous Timex.

In light of Bruce Wilson's exposé on Pastor Hagee's outrageous comments about the Holocaust, comes a press release from the Catholic League's Bill Donohue that incredibly praises Hagee as "sincere" as well as describing him as "a genuine friend to Jews."

Originally posted at Talk to Action

The Catholic Right, Part Fifty-five

Bill Donohue heand of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is on a mission -- not so much to defend the Church as to defend the powerful from efforts to hold them accountable.  Witness what happened during Pope Benedict XVI's recent US visit when Bloviating Bill employed the prejudicial to obscure the probative in defending Bishop William Murphy, head of the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

Murphy was a top aide in the Boston Archdiocese, where the pedophilia scandal broke in 2002, and who played a pivotal role in the cover-up. As Newsday reported:  

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic League's Bill Donohue never ceases to amaze me - and not in a good way. Time and again, he has found ways to defend the indefensible -- and new ways to embarrass many fellow Catholics.

Now he is at it again: this time maligning a Catholic who has nothing but an inspiration for a better Church.

James Carroll is an extraordinary man. Ordained to the priesthood in 1969, he immediately became a Catholic chaplain at Boston University. During his five years there, he studied poetry and published books on religion as well as a book of poems. From 1972-1975 he wrote for the National Catholic Reporter.

As Carroll's web site describes his work:

This was originally was posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, a Series

As the saying goes, even a broken watch is correct twice a day. Well, with the Catholic League's Bill Donohue's condemnation of Senator John McCain endorsement by Evangelical John Hagee, ole Bill is at least half right.

Yet though this watch may seem broken, it is still wound up to start ticking again in 2012.

In that regard it is worth reminding ourselves about Donohue's thinly-veiled anti-Semitism, his defense of the Inquisition, and most relevant to this post, his past soft-peddling of John Hagee and his very real anti-Catholicism.