Over the past month, the Catholic League has been engaged in a campaign to persuade the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to drop its support for an anti-Catholic organization, Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC); the DNC website lists CFFC on its links page.
The league’s campaign has consisted of a series of ads placed in national Catholic weekly newspapers, the purpose of which is to implore Catholics to register their objections with the DNC. The first two ads appeared in the National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor, and the latest installment is in the current edition of the Wanderer. There will be more ads in upcoming weeks but they will appear in secular publications. League president William Donohue explained as follows:
“The Catholic League’s campaign aimed at getting the DNC to sever its ties with an anti-Catholic organization has forced the DNC to adopt a new strategy. Today, for the first time, the DNC has added two new organizations to its ‘Catholic’ listing on the links page of its website: Call to Action and Network. The DNC’s strategy is a failure.
“This is nothing more than a shell game. When columnist Mark Shields protested the listing of Catholics for a Free Choice on the DNC webpage last July, its response was to add a legitimate Catholic umbrella webpage, Catholic-USA.com. This resolved nothing. Now the DNC is once again playing its inclusive card. It thinks that by padding its ‘Catholic’ listing with two new organizations that this will legitimate CFFC.
“The two new groups, Call to Action and Network, are known for their lack of support for the Church’s teaching on abortion. But they are not anti-Catholic. Since our campaign began, the Catholic League has said that the DNC has every right to list pro-abortion organizations on its website. What we object to is its association with anti-Catholic organizations. Hence, our protest against the DNC-CFFC nexus.
“We will not be deterred by the DNC’s shell game. Our focus remains fixed on getting the DNC to dump CFFC.”
