People often ask me what’s hopping at the Catholic League, and what issue we will be tackling next. After I bring them up to date, they’re usually perplexed to learn that I really don’t know what’s sitting in the dock. That’s because we typically react to events—we don’t generate them—and this means we often have no idea of what’s coming down the pike. Unfortunately, this indicates that an anti-Catholic outburst can occur at any time and at any place. Fortunately, we’re up for the fight.
Indeed, that’s where the fun comes in. While it is never pleasant to see unprovoked attacks on Catholicism, it’s invigorating to quickly develop a strategy to combat them. No two instances are identical: every situation demands its own unique response.
Those who work at the Catholic League intuitively know what I’ve said is true. After all, they experience the challenges before us. Vice President Bernadette Brady, our veteran officer who straddles both the policy and processing departments, directs most of the business traffic. Jeff Field, Don Lauer and Marcus Plieninger bring their verve to policy issues; Alex Mejia, Tom Arkin, Mary Ellen Kiely, Suzon Loreto, Dolores Varley and Michael O’Halloran ably cover the processing department. We may have different roles, but we are one team.
This annual report is not exhaustive of everything we did in 2012, but it does offer an accurate overview of the most pressing matters we faced. Because it is hard to quantify what are essentially qualitative incidents, there is room for disagreement on how serious the entries in this volume are. To be sure, they are not uniform. On the other hand, no fair-minded observer is likely to conclude that anti-Catholic bigotry is a myth.
William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President
