A cartoon in today’s edition of The State News, the student newspaper of Michigan State University, shows two priests interacting. One priest asks, “Why are you so happy?” and the other is shown walking away with a newspaper that reads, “Supreme Court Strikes Down Part of Child Pornography Act.”
Catholic League president William Donohue responded as follows:
“Anyone who thinks that the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church gives them the right to exploit this issue by actively bashing Catholicism is mindless. There is dirt in every institution and in every demographic segment of the population. Yet we see few sucker punches thrown at these groupings. But when it comes to Catholics, that’s different: bigots use the Church’s dirty laundry to throw mud at all Catholics.
“There have been scores of cartoons lambasting the Church over the scandal. Here’s what our rule of thumb is in responding. If the cartoon is targeted at an individual culprit, that’s one thing. If it’s targeted at all bishops, or clergy, or the entire Church, that’s quite another. By analogy, it is one thing to mock Sharon or Arafat, quite another to mock all Jews or all Palestinians. The problem with this cartoon is that it unfairly labels all priests as child porn users.
“The Catholic League will continue to fight anti-Catholicism even in this climate. Indeed, we will fight it all the harder precisely because the bigots think they’ve gotten the green light. We’re prepared to throw up as many speed bumps and stop signs as necessary to derail them.
“We are blanketing the media in Lansing over this outrageous cartoon.”
