Matters have gone from bad to worse for Sen. Barack Obama’s Catholic National Advisory Council. In the last issue of Catalyst, we detailed our objections to this advisory group; most of the Catholic politicians advising Obama are pro-abortion. When the group responded with a spirited defense, we hit them with an equally spirited rejoinder. Now there’s a [...]
A movie adaptation of Dan Brown’s book, Angels and Demons, is now in production; it is the prequel to the film, “The Da Vinci Code.” But the shooting won’t be taking place in Catholic churches in Rome or in the Vatican itself. The Vatican has seen to that. “Angels and Demons” stars Tom Hanks in his role as [...]
William A. Donohue In the 1960s, left-wing radicals loved to shout, “Power to the People.” They didn’t mean it then, and the aging extremists sure don’t mean it now. Laura Ingraham means it—she even wrote a splendid book by that title. Luckily for us, she’s not one of them. Indeed, she’s a proud Roman Catholic and [...]
On June 11, the online magazine Slate ran a piece by William Saletan on virginity restoration. Saletan’s piece followed articles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times about Muslim women in France who have lost their virginity and have elected to have their hymens surgically reattached; Muslim men expect their brides to be virgins and do not look kindly [...]
In the beginning of June, we noticed that any mention of Sen. Barack Obama’s Catholic National Advisory Council was gone. We searched the Internet to see if there were any signs that the Council was still active. The best we could find was Beliefnet’s report that it had spoken to one of the Council’s members, an [...]
In recent years there had been a prayer service for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Catholics at St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis prior to the Twin Cities Pride Celebration. But not this year. The prayer service, scheduled for June 25, was instead a “peace” service; there was no mention of rights for the LGBT [...]
On June 18, Pope Benedict XVI welcomed a group of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Arranged by the Pave the Way Foundation, the group personally thanked the pope for the Catholic Church’s intervention in saving their lives in Italy during World War II. During their audience, the group also announced that they would be arranging a symposium in [...]
At the end of May, Pastor John Hagee pulled his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate John McCain; McCain subsequently renounced Hagee’s endorsement. This came a week after Pastor John Hagee met with Bill Donohue at the Catholic League headquarters in New York, ending their dispute. After Pastor Hagee withdrew his endorsement of McCain, we said that [...]
Two evangelical leaders, Rev. Jim Wallis and Rev. Tony Campolo, have pledged to reach out to Catholics and evangelicals by pushing the Democratic Party to change its Party Platform on abortion. Wallis told ABC News that “Abortion reduction should be a central Democratic Party plank in this election.” But he also stressed that no legal restrictions [...]
n November, Floridians are slated to vote on two amendments to their state’s constitution that would, if approved, allow for school vouchers. But on June 13, an array of groups filed suit asking the Second Circuit to block the vote. Following the suit we noted that if the Second Circuit answered the calls of these groups, [...]
