Tag Archives: Bill Donahue

Obama Nominee Tried to Take Away Catholic Church Tax Exemption

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Dawn Johnson, Nominated to head Justice Dept. Office of Legal Counsel

As the St. Michael Society continues with our petition drive urging the resignation of Obama’s faith based initiatives advisor Harry Knox for his attacks on Pope  Benedict XVI, there is yet another Obama friend and nominee that has a record of hostility against Catholics. Dawn Johnson, nominated by the President to head the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, in the 1980s tried to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church over the church’s position in defense of the unborn. 

Bill Donahue, President of The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, fired back at a recent New York Times editorial encouraging her nomination.

“BASELESS CONCERNS” OVER DAWN JOHNSEN?
February 4, 2010
 
 

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue directs his comments at an editorial in today’s New York Times:

If someone were nominated to serve in a major legal position in a Republican administration who previously tried to take away the tax exempt status of Islamic mosques and institutions—for purely political reasons—everyone knows that he or she would never be given a hearing. 

So why is Dawn Johnsen’s nomination to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel still being considered? She tried in the late 1980s to take away the tax exempt status of the Roman Catholic Church, all because she wanted to silence the Church’s voice on abortion. Yet the New York Times audaciously asserts today that the “baseless objections” and “baseless concerns” of her critics should be ignored.

Since when are objections to proven instances of bigotry considered “baseless”? Would it be “baseless” to object to someone who wants to deny Muslims the same tax exempt status afforded Catholics, Protestants, Jews and others? Would not such a person be branded a bigot who is unfit to serve in any administration, especially in a high post in the Justice Department? If the answer is obvious, then why is her nomination even alive?

Between the appointment of Harry Knox, and the nomination of Ms. Johnson, Catholics are growing increasingly concerned about a trending disdain for Catholics by the President and his Administration.  This is why it is so important for Catholics to speak out and take action in every way we can to defend our faith.  Please remember to sign our petition urging the resignation of Harry Knox.

 
 

 

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Catholics Need Not Apply In Massachusetts Hospitals; Coakley Says Catholics Should Not Work In ER Rooms

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Students of American history remember that in the beginning, this country did not have a very tolerant approach to different religious beliefs.  Things got so bad that for many years it was illegal in many colonies to practice Catholicism and it was pretty commonplace to see signs such as the one above on many businesses.  In fact, Massachusetts was probably the least tolerant of all the colonies, even making the death penalty available for priests who dared to say Mass.

Though the country has obviously come a long way in this regard, it is also obvious that we have not shed such anti-Catholic sentiment completely.  This became clear a couple of days ago when Martha Coakley – Democrat candidate in next week’s senatorial election in Massachusetts – gave this response to a question about Catholic hospitals and doctors that would want conscience protections in any health care initiatives so that they can practice medicine without having to participate in things like abortion.

 

Transcript:

Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. ah you don’t want to do that.

Martha Coakley: No we have a separation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.

Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.

Martha Coakley: (…stammering) The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.

There is so much wrong with this exchange – including a misunderstanding of the Church’s position on what is available to rape victims and what Catholic hospitals can do for them.  But, I’ll save that for another time.  Right now, with Tuesday’s election in MA rapidly approaching, it is important to just focus on the Democrat’s  ridiculous idea that doctors who have reasonable objections to participating in things like abortion should find other work – that there is simply no room in American hospitals for Catholic doctors.  And I assume that this also means that Catholic hospitals in general should close if they can’t provide abortions. 

Bill Donahue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights says that Ms. Coakley is not only attacking Catholics, she is trampling on religious freedom.  Statement here. 

Please make sure your Catholic family and friends living in Massachusetts know where Ms. Coakley stands on Catholicism and religious freedom. 

Full radio interview with Ms. Coakley can  be heard here.

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DC City Council Playing Politics with the Poor and Trampling on Religion

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by Patrick Looby

 

Suppose Governor George Wallace of Alabama had told the Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile that as a condition of receiving state aid for social services it had to stop performing interracial marriages – compelling it to accept his view that blacks and whites should remain segregated.  Then, suppose that the Archdiocese responded by stating that since such an imposition would violate their beliefs about marriage that they would be forced to stop receiving state aid and would then have to close down some of its services to the poor. 

 

No one would have seen this as the Church playing politics with the poor, but rather as Governor Wallace using the poor in order to push an agenda of segregation onto the Church.  No one in their right mind would have said something inane like “the message that the Church is sending with its action is wrong, and has left me and countless other Catholics heartbroken.”  Rather, the Church would have been praised for sticking to its fundamental beliefs in the face of government pressure to redefine its creed. 

 

This is the hypothetical example that Bill Donahue of the Catholic League gives in his response to those who object to the decision of the Archdiocese of Washington to close some of its social services if the city attempts to compel them to accept the idea of same-sex marriage as a result of receiving state aid for those services.  And despite the ramblings of the left-leaning media, this is a clear case of the DC City Council playing politics with the poor and trampling on the free practice of religion. 

 

Yet, this doesn’t stop people like Petula Dvorak  of the Washington Post from accusing the Church of unjust discrimination and being on the ’wrong side of history.’  In typical liberal fashion, Dvorak’s revisionist history ignores the fact that the Catholic Church was a lone voice for the proper treatment of homosexuals back in the 1980′s at the height of the AIDS crisis.

 

Writing an instruction to Bishops in 1986, Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) pleaded with Americans to remember that “it is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.”

 

 

So,while Catholics may disagree with Dvorak’s conclusions about same-sex marriage, it is very nice to see that she and her friends in the liberal media have finally caught up to the Catholic Church’s 25 year plea for an end to the maltreatment of homosexuals in society – even if it’s only because it is now fashionable for them to do so.

 

Though she appears to care only for the poor and is not interested in making “an argument in favor of same-sex marriage,” Dvorak’s feigned emotional plea for the poor is nothing more than spin and an obvious tone-deafness in regard to Catholic theology.mother theresa

 

 The bottom line is that the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization because it believes in certain truths – truths that come directly from the teaching of Christ. And those truths are intimately wrapped up into seven simple, yet profound, acts called the Sacraments. It is from the grace received in these sacraments that the Church is driven to build more hospitals, staff more homeless shelters, provide more crisis pregnancy centers, and run more schools than any other organization in the history of the world.

 

And so it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that if the state ever attempted to force the Church to change how She views or defines one of these seven sacraments, that the Church would have no choice but to object and possibly close operations. In fact, what secularists don’t understand is that if the Church allowed such a change the operations would eventually close anyway.

 

Why? Because making such a change would force the Church to behave as a secular organization.  And when was the last time you went to a non-profit hospital that was established by a secular humanist organization? When was the last time you saw a group of secular humanists volunteering at a secular humanist soup kitchen that they set up with donations from secular humanists? When was the last time you saw a secular humanist charity run a food drive, or provide volunteer counseling to unwed mothers?  When was the last time that you saw a bunch of secular humanists take a vow of lifelong poverty and celibacy in order to free themselves to serve in the poorest parts of the world?

 

The point is that the government and all of these well-meaning secularists miss a crucial point about the human spirit. Yes, we all have an altruistic streak. We all know that something has to be done to help the poor and those less-fortunate.  But, it is one thing to know this, and something entirely different to actually do something about it. And when it comes to the latter, it is the people of faith who do it much more frequently and much more efficiently.  That is exactly why the Church has the overwhelming charitable presence in the world.

 

The fatal error of people like Petula Dvorak – whose depth of Catholic experience she summarizes as ‘bike rides with Fr. Joe’ – is the false pelagian notion that the Church can still be the Church if She is forced to let go of Her most basic teachings. That somehow the selfless giving that has built hospitals and homeless shelters for 2000 years will continue if it is divorced from its source of grace in the seven sacraments.

 

But the Church knows better. She knows that allowing the state to dictate what the Church must support in the way of marriage or any other sacrament, would effectively reduce the Church to a secular humanist insititution. 

 

So, the Church is fighting for the poor when She stands up to the state in these matters. For if the state is allowed to strip religious organizations of their creed which drives them to service in the first place, then that will effectively eliminate their service to the poor altogether.  If the DC City Council wants to defund these charities because the Church doesn’t support same-sex marriage that is their choice.  But the Church will not change Her beliefs.

 

-  Mr. Looby is a graduate of Wadhams Hall Seminary and has been teaching Theology and Philosophy for 13 years.  In addition, he is a freelance writer and speaker on issues pertaining to the Catholic faith.

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