Oregon – Throughout the campaign on Oregon’s assisted suicide referendum, supporters of assisted suicide targeted the Catholic Church for vicious attack. Among the more heinous examples: Barbara Coombs Lee, the state’s chief petitioner in favor of assisted suicide, charged that the Oregon state legislature had been “taken hostage” by “the raw political power of the Catholic Church.Auxiliary [...]
January Manalapan, FL – Florida Stage featured Michael Hollinger’s play, "Incorruptible," a farce which promotes the most negative stereotypes about the medieval Church. For example, Catholic monks are depicted digging up dead bodies, cutting up the bones and selling them as relics—even, in one instance, passing off the bones of a dog as those of St. James [...]
1998 Santa Rosa, CA – Northern Exposure, a greeting card company, featured a birthday card with a smiling, elderly nun on the front cover. Inside, the card declared, "39? That’s what I call the Immaculate Deception!" 1998 Hoboken, NJ – NobleWorks, a greeting card company whose president, Christopher Noble, had previously informed the league that his cards are [...]
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January Medford, NJ – The parents of Zachary Hood, now eight, filed an appealafter a federal court upheld a teacher’s decision to bar their son from reading aBible story in his public school class. Two years earlier, when he was six, Zachary’sfirst grade class had been instructed by their teacher to bring one of their favoritestories to [...]
January Washington, DC – Members of Congress received a letter from the leagueopposing the nomination of James Hormel as U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg. Theleague’s objections were based on Mr. Hormel’s tacit endorsement, during the1996 San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade, of the Sisters ofPerpetual Indulgence—a group of gay men in nuns’ habits who have been [...]
Movies April 3 New York, NY – Neil Jordan’s "The Butcher Boy" opened in select theaters, complete with Sinead O’Connor playing a foul-mouthed Virgin Mary uttering the F-word. In defending the scene, O’Connor opined that "if Mary was around right now she might say something like fuck!" For his part, Jordan believed that his portrayal of the [...]
1998 Lodi, CA – Is the Virgin Mary Dead or Alive? published by Modern Manna Ministries, accuses the Catholic Church of leading people "to regard Mary as the most important being there is, greater than Jesus himself." Deploring Pope John Paul II’s popularity with young people, the book declares, "Obviously, the pope of Rome is a major player [...]
Offenses against Catholicism tend to emanate from activist organizations, the artistic community, commercial establishments, government and the media. Here’s a sample drawn from each quarter. In 1997, Oregon was home to one of the most unashamedly anti-Catholic campaigns in recent history. The battle over assisted suicide raged in Oregon with a fury, bringing the anti-Catholic bigots [...]
January Edison, NJ – More than 20 Jewish families in Edison and neighboring towns received anonymous mailings of "Smokescreens," a notorious anti-Catholic book from Chick Publications which claims that the Vatican financed Hitler’s extermination of Jews. Chick Publications is the publishing arm of anti-Catholic activist Jack Chick. "This mail is clearly motivated by bias, hatred, ignorance and [...]
