CNSNews.com loves is favorite dishonest right-wing Catholic activist, Bill Donohue, and it’s embracing him like never before — in April alone, CNS has published a whopping 19 columns by him, approaching Mark Levin-like levels of sycophancy. In a few of those columns, of course, he indulges in his old shenanigans.
Donohue remains as obsessed as ever with downplaying the legacy of sexual abuse of Catholic clergy, about which he has been so tone-deaf that he has approvingly cited the defense lawyers of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein in doing so.
In his April 1 column, Donohue complained about alleged lack of media interest when “falsely accused priests” are “exonerated.” His first example of one, however, is perhaps not his best one: “A Valley County, Nebraska jury found Fr. John Kakkuzhiyil not guilty of first-degree sexual assault. He was accused of forcible sexual assault of a woman in 2018.”
But the story to which Donohue links as evidence of Kakkuzhiyil’s reports that “Both parties agreed that Kakkuzhiyil performed oral sex on the woman on Nov. 22 and 23, 2018,” meaning that the priest was not cleared of having sexual relations with a woman (which, as even Donohue would agree, Catholic priests are not supposed to do) but was merely cleared of having forcibly done so. The article also noted that Kakkuzhiyil received treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. So, not exactly “exoneration.”
Another example Donohue cited was two priests who were allowed to return to ministry after the alleged victim “refused to cooperate with the diocese.” Refusal to cooperate with the priests’ defenders is not necessarily evidence of exoneration.
On April 7, Donohue was highly exuberant that charges of sexual abuse against Australian Cardinal George Pell were overturned: “Pell has suffered greatly and has been the victim of outrageous lies. He has been smeared, spat upon, and forced to endure solitary confinement for crimes he never committed. This was a sham from the get-go and should never have made its way through the Australian courts. … Those who tried to destroy him—and there were many all over the world—will have to answer one day for what they have done.”
The next day, Donohue attacked anyone who didn’t celebrate Pell’s acquittal the way he did was “abnormal” and hated all Catholics: “Most people are normal and desire justice. Abnormal people prize revenge. A case in point is the reaction to the release of Cardinal George Pell from an Australian prison. Normal people are happy with the news, but there are always the abnormal ones. … In other words, justice doesn’t matter. Punishing the Catholic Church is what matters. They are abnormal.”
Donohue used his April 14 column to indulge in his old bogus anti-gay interpretation of a comprehensive study of Catholic clergy sexual abuse:
There is a picture of Trevor Noah on the homepage of “The Daily Show” which shows him with a photo of the Easter Bunny on one side and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the other.
Noah has a thing about homosexual priests. No, he doesn’t come right out and attack these priests by name—he’s a liberal—so he prefers innuendo as his weapon.
On the April 13 edition of “The Daily Show,” Noah commented that on Easter Sunday it was hard on many church-goers who are used to attending services, “but for the Catholic Church, this is a good thing—keeping the priest separate from the congregation might not be the worst idea.”
Now we know he was not talking about heterosexual priests: the John Jay study on clergy offenses reports that almost all the sexual misconduct committed by priests were male-on-male sex. Moreover, almost none of it involved kids—over 95 percent involved adolescents. In other words, homosexual priests are responsible for most of the sexual abuse, and almost all of those cases are from the last century.
Noah wallows in the dirt. As a black man, he would take offense if someone portrayed black men as thugs. Yet he has no problem portraying homosexual priests as abusers, even though most homosexual priests are not molesters. The man is a bigot.
As we’ve reported, the authors of the John Jay study stated that no connection was found between homosexual identity and an increased likelihood of sexual abuse and argued that the idea of sexual identity should be separated from the problem of sexual abuse, since one does not have to have a homosexual identity to commit homosexual acts.
Given how much Donohue has ranted about gays in the priesthood and portraying them as molesters by default — he is quoted in one CNS article as saying the Catholic Church has “a serious problem” with them — it’s utterly disingenuous for him to bash Noah for allegedly “portraying homosexual priests as abusers, even though most homosexual priests are not molesters.” The real bigot here is Donohue.
We know Donohue is disingenuous on the subject because two days later, Donohue was ranting that gays have more rights than gay-hating Christians:
LGBT people enjoy wide civil liberties and are rarely discriminated against in public accommodations, housing, and on the job. To be sure, there are some instances when their rights conflict with the religious rights of those who cannot in good conscience affirm their status. We need to remember that religious rights are encoded in the First Amendment and cannot be violated without a compelling reason.
To resolve this matter, we must first admit that sexual orientation and sex identity are not rationally analogous to race. The former two status groupings refer to behavior and volition; the latter is fixed by nature and has nothing to do with either behavior or choice. It is therefore removed from rational moral judgments, whereas sexual orientation and sex identity are not.
And on April 20, Donohue creatively interprets a poll to declare that “to a large extent, the LGBT community is a cultural phenomenon, not a biological one” and that “Young people have been indoctrinated into thinking that being a member of the LGBT community is at least a value-neutral attribute, and may even be cool.” He went on to assert that culture is trying to “culturally mass-produce” homosexuals.
This is who CNS wants you to think is the ideal Catholic.