TRANSCRIPT
A few days ago, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League took a swipe at Church Militant on EWTN’s World Over program with Raymond Arroyo.
To spare you having to listen to any extra of his grating, Biden-like voice unnecessarily, we’ll set the context for you. Their discussion was about sex abuse of minors by Catholic clergy and what the latest numbers reveal. Donohue correctly asserted that the numbers have declined precipitously.
For the record, that isn’t because the bishops got all holy. It’s because they got caught and exposed by secular media — and have had to pay billions of dollars because of it. None of them, of course, have gone to prison or had to pay any personal cost. They just took your money and, after lying and trying to cover it all up, finally paid victims (and, of course, attorneys) more than $4 billion.
The bishops, in short, stopped for no other reason except that it was bad for business — nothing else. Which, of course, raises the question that Donohue and Arroyo never asked: What do we suppose would be the case now had they not been caught or if the Church establishment had been successful in the cover-up?
All that said, nonetheless, they have declined. Donohue is right on that — right in about the most limited sex-abuse-excusing way you can be, but still correct.
He went on to say the secular media wants to keep bringing all this up because they are anti-Catholic and want to keep the narrative going, even though it’s largely in the past. He correctly pointed out that sex abuse of minors is far greater, and gets little media attention in other institutions (like education, for example). Sure.
But this is where the old blowhard goes off the rails (because he always goes off the rails — it’s his nature). He then accuses Church Militant of doing the same thing (constantly talking about child sex abuse because it “increases our donations”). Donohue is toting the EWTN line and the media empire that that Church of Nice outfit has constructed since Mother Angelica left the scene.
It’s not so much what EWTN says (and this includes Arroyo), but what the outfit doesn’t say. For example (since Donohue opened the door here, Church Militant is going to walk through it), first, he questions our integrity by saying we do what we do to get donations. Careful, Bill.
Take a look at the latest financials publicly available from his lucrative Catholic League outfit — essentially a one-man band. Catholic League took in around $3.5 million in 2019. Of that $3.5 million, Donohue paid himself a cool $1 million. That’s great work — if you can get it.
But there’s more. The Catholic League itself has $50 million in total net assets — doing absolutely nothing except incurring interest. For what? Is there some grand plan to unleash the hounds on the culture once they reach a certain critical mass of cash? Forty million–plus dollars is a pretty tidy nest egg. And who says nonprofits don’t make a profit?
What Catholic League actually does is not really that impressive — even though their financials are. Donohue sits behind his desk, finds some topic of interest related to the Faith in the culture, then writes a roughly one-page statement that is a call to action and then sends it out to his impressive email list and instructs people to sign a petition or call their senator. That’s pretty much it.
For that, he pays himself a million dollars. He makes a few media appearances as well, to put on the braggadocio about how awesome he is and his “work,” and that’s about it.
So it’s kind of a wonder, when you look at all that, why Raymond Arroyo and EWTN would have him on. Okay, every now and then, he may accomplish some movement on some issue. Good for him. But Church Militant, for example, just 60 days ago, won a precedent-setting legal case against the city of Baltimore for trampling our First Amendment rights.
We won that case in a convincing manner — one step below the U.S. Supreme Court, at the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (after winning decisively at the district court level). A Catholic apostolate, reported on far and wide for years now in the secular media, wins a resounding victory in federal court, and Raymond and the gang don’t even feel it’s worth a mention?
See — it’s what EWTN doesn’t tell you that you have to be very suspicious of.
For example, in journalism, it’s standard practice to reveal to the audience if you have any ties whatsoever to a story you might be covering or someone you might be interviewing. It’s okay to do such stories or interviews, but it’s seen as unethical not to tell your audience.
What Raymond failed to disclose to his audience and what is problematic (to say the least) about having Donohue on is Raymond is on the board of directors of Donohue’s Catholic League.
It’s right there on their Catholic League financials as well as on Catholic League’s homepage. That’s unethical. And it really crosses the line when he lets the president of an outfit he’s on the board of trash someone else without giving that “someone else” equal time to respond.
EWTN is a shill operation for the bishops. It has been since Mother’s departure. The leadership is “in like Flynn” with the U.S. hierarchy. That’s how the network gets so much access to them and, conversely, why Church Militant doesn’t have the same access. And before everyone starts saying, “Oh, but look at all the work the network and Arroyo do on Pope Francis” — in short, big deal.
They started doing it when it became popular to pile on Francis. Church Militant went for the jugular going on four years ago, in a Vortex calling for Pope Francis’ resignation over his violation of his own protocols regarding sex abuse.
And regarding the recent veiled attack by the Vatican against EWTN — again, so what? Church Militant was actually named in a 2017 article written by Jesuit Antonio Spadaro and personally approved by the pope and the Vatican secretary of state.
The article was entitled “Ecumenism of Hate” and specifically named Church Militant as some source of “evil” for trying to restore Catholic values in the otherwise arid waste of the political world. The pope has personally, publicly recommended that specific article on at least two occasions.
So please forgive us if we are unimpressed by EWTN’s self-positioning that they are some “champions” for enduring such blows. Church Militant has been taking these blows since almost the day we were founded.
And no, we aren’t sounding our own horn. We are setting the record straight.
And (in that vein) no, Bill, we don’t go on about child sex abuse. What we go on about is something you and Raymond barely ever breathe a word about because your bottom line would be immediately impacted: homosexuality within the hierarchy.
Sex abuse of minors is just one (albeit a big one) effect of all that.
But Donohue can’t really talk freely about that because that would tick off the bishops who allow him to present himself as a “Catholic” organization.
Donohue traffics freely off the word Catholic and, as we said, quite handsomely as well (to the tune of a million dollars for issuing some statement once every few weeks and blustering away in front of the camera every now and then). Again, great work if you can get it.
But neither he nor EWTN dares touch the third rail of American Catholicism — the complete complicity of the U.S. bishops with the LGBT agenda because of the acceptance of homosexuality within their own ranks.
That’s what we talk about, Bill.
Sometimes that drifts into the specific area of sex abuse of minors. Most of the time, it does not. It does drift into the area of seminarians being harassed and groomed, actively gay men being ordained, actively gay men being made bishops, bishops who covered up sex abuse of minors being sued.
That’s why Church Militant gets the cold shoulder from the establishment — including EWTN — because we expose what they refuse to.
And, for the record, yes, they know all about the corruption of the U.S. bishops. It’s just that they make their livings off sidestepping that corruption. Just look at Bill’s paycheck.
Doing a little math, and accounting for taxes at, say, 40%, in total (each month) Bill brings home — net pay — a check for $50,000.
That’s likely more than the annual pay of most of his supporters — $50,000 each month. But y’all keep contributing to Catholic League and EWTN, which support this inside-baseball garbage.
Remember, if donations drop, he’s got $50 million sitting in the bank. That ought to hold him over for a while.
To demonstrate with just one example (besides refusing to challenge gay bishops) EWTN’s in-the-tank-for-the-establishment approach, remember the excellent documentary done by Arcadia Films, Wolf in Sheep’s clothing.
Richard and Stephen Payne, a father and son documentary duo, produced that excellent film. Church Militant was happy to be consulted on it (since we had produced some of that same material a few years earlier).
The documentary was about the influence of Saul Alinsky on the culture, and so forth — a pretty big deal. Part of the original, finished version went into some good detail about how the U.S. bishops had been complicit in elevating Alinsky. It was roughly 15 minutes dealing with that aspect, which is a pretty darn important aspect.
But what insiders at EWTN revealed to us is that the leadership of EWTN (Michael Warsaw and Doug Keck) struck that 15 minutes from the film, deliberately concealing the vital information about the U.S. bishops’ involvement with Saul Alinsky.
That’s the ruling mentality at EWTN, and completely dominates what you are being told (or, rather, not being told).
And that mentality is shot right through the entire network and its subsidiaries like Catholic News Agency and National Catholic Register. They are complicit in their silence about the real horror infecting the Church, the embrace of homosexuality up and down the episcopate as well as the lower clergy and dioceses around the world.
And the people they have on, like Donohue, know never to touch that third rail (lest they fall out of favor).
Interestingly — and to underscore their duplicitous complicity in all this — notice that, first, Raymond never moved on to the elephant-in-the-living-room topic with Bill.
He just let the old blowhard go on with his half-truths, never digging deeper. Of course, why would he? He’s on Donohue’s board of directors.
But not only did Raymond deftly avoid the topic, he also completely let Donohue off the hook regarding his complicity in all the gay filth of the Church.
Remember back in 2014? Cardinal Dolan, in a supreme act of backstabbing (but I repeat myself), struck a secret deal behind the scenes with New York governor Andrew Cuomo to allow gays into the St. Patrick’s Day parade in exchange for Cuomo getting millions of dollars of taxpayer money funneled to New York archdiocesan schools — a deal with the Devil, if there ever was one.
Church Militant was at that event and isolated Dolan like a deer in the headlights for a split moment, asking him why he would do such a thing. He turned around and told his handlers to have the Church Militant crew tossed out of the media area, which happened with haste.
That was an enormous controversy. And where was Bill Donohue on that, the man in Dolan’s hip pocket? Well, he supported gays in the parade. Mister chest-pounding Catholic League came out in public support of Dolan’s decision.
He, too, was trying to strike a deal with the Devil. His support was contingent on allowing pro-life groups to march in the parade as well. Only when the parade committee (which Dolan headed up) said no, then and only then did Donohue shift into “fighting Catholic mode.”
Hey, Bill — no matter what deal you strike, those calling for legalized marriage based on sodomy should never be in a parade honoring a saint.
But, then again, the whole scene put Bill in quite the quandary. He couldn’t come out and oppose Dolan’s decision (because it would cost him and Catholic League financially), so he created a “back door” to get away from the controversy.
Hey, Raymond (“Mr. News Expert,” as Fox News calls you), why didn’t you bring any of that up will Bill? It’s all public. It’s fair game after all. Why didn’t you bring up homosexuality within the hierarchy? It’s not like it’s some earth-shattering topic.
Here’s why: Because the nepotism and “in-bed” approach that dominates the Catholic establishment is revolting; it’s disgusting. These “professional Catholics,” as Pope Benedict labeled them, make your stomach turn.
But when they come out and call us “nut jobs,” well, let’s just say old Bill isn’t the only Irishman in the room.
And speaking of nepotism — lots of people have wondered how Raymond is such a frequent guest on Fox, especially Laura Ingraham’s show. Well, easy answer: It isn’t talent. It’s because he’s the godfather to one of her children. That’s why.
Again, nothing especially wrong about that. Lots of people in the media have all sorts of connections and relationships to others. What’s wrong is to not disclose it. It’s a question of credibility and, as we see across the media landscape, there is very little of that precious commodity, including from Fox, EWTN and its hosts, as well as Bill Donohue.
Nice to see they’re all under each other’s covers. Those three outfits need to be dropped by faithful Catholics. They’re compromised through and through.
Just exactly who are the “nut jobs” here?