January Washington, DC—Richard Sternberg, a prominent researcher at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History (and a practicing Catholic), was punished by the Smithsonian for publishing a scholarly article by a prominent biologist, Stephen Meyer. Meyer, who holds a doctorate in the philosophy of biology from Cambridge, is a leading proponent of Intelligent Design. Sternberg, [...]
January Valhalla, NY—Westchester County Executive Andrew J. Spano and other officials attacked New York Medical College (which has been affiliated with the Archdiocese of New York for more than 25 years) for refusing to sanction homosexual activist groups. The Westchester Human Rights Commission launched an investigation in spite of the fact that no formal complaint was [...]
Internet | Magazines | Movies | Radio | Newspapers |Television INTERNET January 13 Syndicated radio host Rabbi Shmuley Boteach accused Pope Pius XII of "mass kidnapping" of baptized Jewish children who were saved from the Nazis by the Catholic Church. He based his charge on an unsigned 1946 memo by an unknown writer that was found in a French church archive. The memo was soon [...]
Pope John Paul II May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005 Christopher Hitchens made an accusation on Slate.com that is totally without evidence: "And it has been conclusively established that the Vatican itself—including his holiness—was part of the cover-up and obstruction of justice that allowed the child-rape scandal to continue" Jack Miles, the senior advisor to the president [...]
MSNBC "The Situation with Tucker Carlson," July 19; Rachel Maddow: "I think the abortion stuff is going to be a big deal. I think the fact that he said we want to get rid of Roe v. Wade, the fact that his wife is the executive vice president of Feminists for Life. I mean, that stuff is [...]
October 26 New York, NY—In 2005, the Children's Museum of Manhattan honored holidays for Hispanics, Jews, Muslims and African Americans, but not for Christians. In October the museum featured Hispanic Heritage Month, as well as a Ramadan in New York City Festival; the latter event meant that children were read stories about Islamic traditions. There were [...]
January 10 Detroit, MI—A decades-old tabernacle containing the Blessed Sacrament was ripped from the back altar of St. Augustine-St. Monica Church. After the parish posted a $1,750 reward, the tabernacle, along with a ciborium and a lunette inside, was returned by a man who claimed he was approached by the thieves who thought they were stealing [...]
The year began with the release of three major statements by the Catholic League: a) a report on the Long Island dailyNewsday, b) a comparative study of sexual abuse among professionals, and c) an open letter to the Jewish community. In last year's annual report, I wrote that "Newsdayis by far the most anti-Catholic" newspaper in [...]
January 8 Des Moines, IA—The local ACLU complained that only one version of the Ten Commandments (the King James version) was posted in the Iowa Statehouse. What made the ACLU's complaint so bogus was the fact that this was a privately-funded display commemorating the moral and legal underpinnings of the U.S. January 23 New York, NY—ADL [...]
January 24 Los Angeles, CA— "A Comfortable Truth: The Story of a Boy and His Priest" opened in the West Hollywood Lee Strasberg Creative Center. The play's website said the work addresses "the controversial subject of juvenile molestation in the Church." It was written and directed by Mark Kemble, and produced by David Lee Strasberg. Kemble said [...]
