Bill Donohue says Halloween remains fodder for anti-Catholics:
Halloween is not quite over, at least for some of those who use the day to take shots at Catholics. There is nothing obscene about dressing up dogs in clerical and nun garb, but it is still meant to ridicule Catholics. When the pictures are still up on Facebook several days after Halloween, on the page of a Lutheran bishop, it makes us wonder whether there is more than ridicule at work. Note: We have subsequently learned that Bishop Rinehart did not post the offensive photo himself: it was shared to his Facebook Timeline by a third person without his knowledge. Why it took us to bring this to his attention before he took it down we do not know.
One dog is dressed as Pope Phinneas, and the three nuns are named Sister Phoebe Josette, Sister Coco Chanel, and Sister Cookie Rose. The pictures were up as late as November 4 on the page of Rev. Michael Rinehart, bishop of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in America.
While Bishop Rinehart merits attention because of his status, some really vile anti-Catholic statements deserve to be mentioned. Jinny Neiswanger and her husband own Cattlemen’s Saloon in Rogue River, Oregon, and last Saturday they came to a Halloween party dressed as a pregnant nun and a priest. Regarding the latter, a photo showed the priest with a child dummy pressing his face against his groin.
According to one news account, outside a home in Parma, Ohio the owners featured “a bloody corpse hanging from a tree, a body impaled on a stake and a body crucified upside down.” Outside a home in Somerset, Massachusetts the owners depicted Christ on the Cross, substituting a pumpkin for his head and straw for his body.
On the website spirithalloween, a costume was sold featuring a pregnant nun and a priest with an erection. I asked an official who works there, Trisha Lombardo, about this matter. “In particular,” I said in an email, “I was interested in purchasing an Imam costume that features him with an erection. You know, one very much like your ‘Happy Priest Adult Men’s Costume.’ Please advise. Many thanks.” For some unexplained reason, she never replied.
