Some of the highlights of 1999 are recounted here, drawn from the various thematic sections that make up this report. There are many activist organizations in the nation which pursue goals that are in opposition to the teachings of the Catholic Church. This is clearly the case with pro-abortion groups. Unfortunately, when a conflict arises between [...]
January 21 Staten Island, NY – American Atheists announced plans to greet Pope John Paul II with a protest when he arrived in St. Louis the following week. Charging that "the Vatican’s Political Agenda for America" is a "pro-absolutist, pro-submissive agenda," the group called the pope "a very real threat" to separation of church and state, and [...]
January Chicago, IL – "The Madonna In Spite of Herself," billed as a spoof on the Nativity, continued its Christmas season run at the Sweet Corn Playhouse. According to a review in the Chicago Tribune, the play depicted Mary as "a big-haired, gum-chomping resident of Berwyn, Joseph (a.k.a. Joey)" as "a genial sexual predator, and the angel [...]
1999 Off The Wall, a greeting card subsidiary of West Graphics, featured a Christmas card with a parody of the Nativity scene transposed onto a modern-day talk show. Joseph is seated next to Mary, who is holding the baby Jesus, as an audience member says to Joseph: "You never slept with her, she gets pregnant and [...]
January 28 - February 20 New Haven, CT – The program for the Yale Repertory Theatre’s presentation of Shakespeare’s "Measure for Measure" was filled with Scriptural references and Catholic imagery, juxtaposed with lewd images and what appeared to be commentary about the impeachment of President Clinton. February New York, NY – A band called Tammy Faye Starlight sang [...]
January 22 Washington, DC – A Catholic priest entering the Library of Congress was ordered by a security guard to remove a sweatshirt he was wearing that read: "St. Jerome Church Marches for Right to Life." The guard told Father Thomas Haren of Cleveland that the sweatshirt was "political" and therefore could not be worn in the [...]
Movies January "The Ogre," a film about a naïve Catholic man in the Paris suburbs who is seduced into the pagan lifestyle of Nazi Germany, contained "minor attacks on the Catholic clergy," according to a review in Human Events. March The film "Relax…It’s Just Sex" featured the following line: "You know how lesbians are. They’re like [...]
January Watchtower, the official website of Jehovah’s Witnesses, published an article falsely accusing Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church of "silence" during the Holocaust. The article sought to contrast this "silence" with the suffering of Jehovah’s Witnesses who were persecuted for denouncing Nazi brutality. The article pointedly ignored the millions of Catholics who suffered imprisonment [...]
