Bill Donohue comments on how the Library of Congress has handled complaints about the flyer for its presentation on the Reformation scheduled for July 31:
The first reaction to our earlier news release on this subject was defensive and sophomoric. We received a phone call from the chief of the Rare Books Division saying he has been “inundated” with criticism by people who are upset with a “600-year-old image” that he says is not anti-Catholic. He failed to say why a drawing of the pope as Satan might not be seen as offensive. If I were to draw a picture of his loved ones depicting them as Satan, perhaps a light bulb would go off in his head. Perhaps.
The second reaction was more mature: the bigoted depiction of the pope as Satan has been deleted. Click here to see the revised flyer. They could have saved themselves a lot of angst had they acted more responsibly in the first place.
One more thing: Mr. Rare Books who called our office ended his conversation by asking, “Is the Catholic League connected to Bill Donohue?” When he found out the answer, he replied, “That explains a lot.” And it explains a lot about him that he has to be told how to do his job.
