{"id":106,"date":"2008-05-03T12:23:01","date_gmt":"2008-05-03T12:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/benedictions\/2008\/05\/bill-donohue-over-the-line.html"},"modified":"2008-05-03T12:23:01","modified_gmt":"2008-05-03T12:23:01","slug":"bill-donohue-over-the-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/2008\/05\/bill-donohue-over-the-line.html","title":{"rendered":"Bill Donohue: Over the line?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights<\/a>–basically a Catholic version of the Anti-Defamation League, or a wannabe, some would say–is often over the top in denunciations of anti-Catholicism, real or perceived, and of other Cathoilics who Donohue sees as not toeing the proper Catholic line. But even Bill Donohue may have outdone himself, and done in his own organization, if his latest press release prompts an IRS investigation.
\nThe May 2 release is “Catholic Dissidents Advise Obama<\/a>,” and it draws down on Obama’s Catholic National Advisory Council<\/a>, made up of Catholics in public and religious life, ranging from Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania to the Sister of St. Joseph, Sr. Catherine Pinkerton. Also included are a few Catholic writers and theologians and others who I know well, and others whose work I have long admired. Point of disclosure: I have also known Bill Donohue for years, and while I think he is completely wrongheaded many times, and inimical to the church’s well-being other times, he can also be a good guy to have a beer with, as well as someone who does not run from an argument, and an advocate who can point out indisputable cases of anti-Catholicism that still persist.
\nThat said, this latest blast is way outta line. Donohue not only labels these Catholics as “dissidents” but he says “Practicing Catholics have every right to be insulted by Obama\u2019s advisory group”–setting up Catholics who back Obama as bad Catholics and opponents of Obama, by implication, as good Catholics. Donohue employs his favorite trick of the invidious–and distorting–comparison, saying he wouldn’t have gay advisors who “don’t reflect the sentiment of the gay community”–as if these Obama-backers don’t reflect Catholic opinion. (In fact, they largely do. Not that this should be about public opinion, no?)
\nIn his closing, Donohue takes a real potshot, saying that “If these are the best \u2018committed Catholic leaders, scholars and advocates\u2019 Obama can find, then it is evident that he has a \u2018Wright\u2019 problem when it comes to picking Catholic advisors.” As if these Catholics–check out the list–are the equivalent of Jeremiah Wright…!
\nBut let me dissect this a bit more analytically. I see four chief problems.
\nOne is that Donohue bases his criticism of these dozens of advisors principally on the “scores” that the abortion rights group NARAL gives some of the political figures on the committee (conveniently not mentioning the presence of Democrats Bob Casey and Tim Roemer, also on Obama’s committee, who have taken stands against abortion rights in many cases). Donohue also states that Obama’s pol pals do not agree with the church’s “three major public policy issues: abortion, embryonic stem cell research and school vouchers.” That is a rather selective list, in that the bishops’ own statement on political participation, titled “Faithful Citizenship<\/a>,” lists seven principal policy areas, and they include “Option for the Poor and Vulnerable,” “Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers,” and “Caring for God\u2019s Creation.” Not to mention the church’s opposition to the Iraq War, which John McCain wants to continue.
\nIndeed, while Donohue has criticized McCain’s alliance with the rock-ribbed televangelist and preacher of standard anti-Catholic rhetoric, John Hagee, he has not brought similar scrutiny to McCain’s own Catholic advisory board<\/a>.
\nAnd that raises the second problem, which was noted by the liberal group, Catholics United<\/a>, namely that Donohue’s apparent partisanship could jeopardize the League’s 501c3 non-profit status. Catholics United also cites passages from “Onward Christian Solders,” a new book by Deal Hudson–a longtime GOP advisor and guest blogger at Casting Stones–that show how Donohue has been active in helping the Bush White House and the Republican Party woo the Catholic vote.
\nThis adds up to a big potential problem for Donohue. Yet it also adds up to a big payday for him. As the League’s publicly-available financial forms show, Donohue takes in a whopping $343,000 a year in salary and compensation. He can rightly claim that he has turned the League from a penny-ante mom-and-pop shop into the $20-million-dollar a year culture war machine that it is. But while few would disagree with fighting anti-Catholicism, I wonder how many will see Donohue as getting rich off anti-Catholicism.
\nA final point: Pope Benedict XVI, who Donohue spares no effort to defend, even when the pontiff is not under attack, made an explicit call during last month’s visit for Catholics to seek unity, not division. I’m not sure how Donohue’s internecine and potentially partisan sniping achieves that end, or even how attacking other Catholics connects with fighting anti-Catholicism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights–basically a Catholic version of the Anti-Defamation League, or a wannabe, some would say–is often over the top in denunciations of anti-Catholicism, real or perceived, and of other Cathoilics who Donohue sees as not toeing the proper Catholic line. But even Bill Donohue may have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBill Donohue: Over the line? - Benedictions: The Pope in America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/2008\/05\/bill-donohue-over-the-line.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bill Donohue: Over the line? - Benedictions: The Pope in America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights–basically a Catholic version of the Anti-Defamation League, or a wannabe, some would say–is often over the top in denunciations of anti-Catholicism, real or perceived, and of other Cathoilics who Donohue sees as not toeing the proper Catholic line. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/benedictions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}