Yesterday, the editorial board of the New York Times, in an online blog, criticized Ave Maria Mutual Funds for a radio ad featuring its work. The editorial notes that on the website of Ave Maria it pledges “smart investingand Catholic values.” It then got specific: “Ave Maria, whose logo is a cross and open book within a Gothic window, conveys the implicit certainty that its vision of Catholic teaching is the correct one, that it has not misstepped in trading between God and Mammon.” It then faults the company for its “unmistakably conservative Catholic outlook,” one which it brands as “narrow.”
Responding is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:
“One might think that in a time when the American people are being routinely fleeced by unethical investors that everyone would applaud an investment house that stresses its commitment to religious values. But not the secularists at the New York Times: they are deathly afraid that Catholics like Tom Monaghan and Phyllis Schlafly, both of whom are fingered for being associated with Ave Maria Mutual Funds, might benefit from the financial crisis. A crisis caused, by the way, by irreligious investors.
“It should not matter to anyone if a private company has a cross, or a Star of David, or a crescent and star, as its logo. But to those who harbor an animus against religion, it does. It also matters to liberal Catholics who hate those ‘narrow’ conservative Catholics. Indeed, the editorial is not so much a Catholic-bashing piece as it is a conservative Catholic-bashing screed. This would be a disgraceful editorial in any newspaper—it is doubly disturbing that it should occur in the New York Times, blog or no.”
Contact Public Editor Clark Hoyt: public@nytimes.com
