It takes some practice to get used to reading the Catholic League’s nauseatingly self-promoting, whiny press releases, but once repetition vaccinates you against the obnoxious professional victimhood of its patriarch Bill Donohue, you see that certain patterns start to emerge. One thing you notice is that even though the League’s mission statement identifies it as a “civil rights organization,” the League does not appear to have ever done anything that could even be mistaken for “civil rights” work at any point in its history. That document also explicitly informs us that the League is by Catholics, for Catholics, but none of its seven volunteer offices are in the most densely Catholic part of the nation: New England.

Another motif: the Catholic League really, really likes the Republican Party, and really, really, really, really does not like the Democratic party. Even its famous campaign against virulently anti-Catholic pastor John Hagee’s endorsement of John McCain, which successfully shamed that particular pulpiteer into changing his own theology in favor of looking good to the public, was all spent criticizing Hagee, without so much as a peep about McCain himself. Contrast this with its “coverage” of Obama’s Catholic National Advisory Council, or Obama’s own endorsement by a suspect clergyman, which extended into talking about Obama’s “pro-infanticide” record (a charge that has been proven untrue, but the League has issued no correction) to general harassment of the Democratic National Convention (without a syllable uttered about the GOP’s habitual endorsement by the routinely anti-Catholic Evangelicals). They attack all kinds of Democratic politicians, but also outspoken media figures who endorse certain Democratic platform positions, like Bill Maher and then-moderate Lou Dobbs. Reading through just the 2008 third quarter’s press releases from the Catholic League, there are about twenty that in some way attack Democrats or Democrat-leaning media commentators or defend Republican stooges like Deal Hudson, there are zero that directly criticize Republican politicians, and exactly one compliments a Democrat: Hillary Clinton.

Their “About Us” section also provides a helpful list of endorsements by prominent Catholic clergy, mostly bishops and archbishops. Some of the League’s supporters are on the level (for example Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley), but then, the only criterion for being an “on the level” Catholic clergyman these days is not being involved in a sex crime or in otherwise bankrupting the Church morally or financially. For people like you and me, this is a pretty easy qualification to meet, but it seems notoriously difficult for frocked Catholics. Lets have a closer look at some of the Catholic League’s clergy supporters:

• Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York, says that “[t]he Catholic League performs an invaluable service in defending the Faith.” Egan is also himself so incompetent a leader that he personally had to preside over the closing of numerous Catholic properties just to keep the cash flow in the black, closing ten and melting eleven into other parishes (a considerable net loss against the six new parishes opened under his jurisdiction). Of course, we would be lucky if this were at all his worst offense; he is also on record as being an accessory to child molestation by permitting several known child rapists to keep working for him and the Church.
• Roger Cardinal Mahony, Archbishop of LA, gushes that everyone should join the League on behalf of not just Catholics but “all victims of anti-religious bigotry.” Mahony fought against having to release Church files on pedophiles all the way to the Supreme Court (and lost), and is currently a defendant in a lawsuit by a Mexican parishioner for his involvement in playing pass-the-pedophile with Mexican priest Nicolas Aguilar, among other crimes.
• “Most Reverend” Charles Chaput commends the Catholic League’s “courage” in fighting the “good fight,” but Chaput’s own “good fight” has involved buying forgiveness from the victims of sex crimes to the tune of over $5 million so far. This certainly helps explain Chaput’s own personal crusade against making it easier for victims to seek their just reward from the seemingly insatiable lust of the Catholic clergy.
• Edwin O’Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore, may say he is “privileged to support the Catholic League,” but the League might not be so privileged to have him: he is a known, vocal opponent of sexual abuse victims’ rights, going so far as to fire a priest who had the audacity to believe that the Church needs to come clean on its sins against abused children.
• Perhaps saving the best for last, Benedict Groeschel says that “membership in the Catholic League is a must.” Groeschel’s theological beliefs are most interesting here: he says that reporters who help expose the Church’s brutality against children are “doing the work of Satan” and are all liars who hate the Church itself. This fanatical whacko’s interesting perspective on the Problem of Evil is rivaled perhaps only by his interpretation of doctor-patient accountability: in his own words, priests he “counsels” (he counsels priests who have been placed on “administrative leave” for, you know whatever reason) have a “right of confidentiality,” which has absolutely no parallel in the medical community; for real mental health workers, if you suspect that a crime is taking place involving a patient, you tell the police.

The League’s president, whiny professional victim William A. Donohue (you can sample his eloquence here and here) is himself a crude parody of the activist archetype: an overweight, loud-mouthed, homophobic, vaguely anti-Semitic wingnut who has made a career out of slandering the ACLU, John Kerry, and others, he flaunts the Vatican’s condemnation of “excessive wealth” by taking a salary of more than $300,000 every year from the Catholic League (the League itself took in more than $16 million in 2006). He refers to homosexuality as the “gay death style” and to Hollywood as being “controlled by secular Jews” who “hate Christianity.” Mere days before Mel Gibson was observed pontificating on Israeli foreign policy from behind his disfigured steering wheel, Donohue launched a defense of Gibson’s “the Passion of the Christ,” a Christian BDSM snuff flick about nailing Jesus (or something like that, I fell asleep halfway through this boring zombie movie).

And lets not forget the League’s war on PZ Myers and Webster Cook. The League has already been excoriated elsewhere on Edger for its refusal to meet even the same decency standards as the numerous American Muslim organizations that condemned 9/11, so I will not go into this issue too much in depth just now. All I will say is this: it has been 16 days of silence from the League since PZ Myers blogged about our efforts to get the League to take responsibility for the revolting behavior of its surrogates. It is clear that Donohue values the metaphysics of the Eucharist far more than the moral value of living, breathing human beings.

Suffice it to say, in moral terms, the League has quite a bit of catching up to do. The next time Donohue goes into some shameless tirade against someone’s endorsement of a political campaign, remember that the League’s endorsements mostly come from accessories to pedophilia. The next time the League wails and whines about some media figure’s comments on Catholics, remember Donohue’s comments about Jews, homosexuals, atheists, and even the Democratic party. The next time Donohue wags his chubby finger at someone else’s misbehavior, ask him his opinion of the death threats against Webster Cook’s family. But, be careful, you might just end up in a press release somewhere.