I am just amazed at the antics of the President of the Catholic League, Mr. William Donohue. The more I read and watch the more I am convinced that the Catholic Court Jester has hijacked the press podium for the Catholic Church in the United States. In addition to his latest rants on Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the all-out assault on Nuns who made the mistake of thinking and seeing the world through a lens not necessarily endorsed by a bunch of old men at the Vatican, this guy seems to be declaring war on the survivor community at large (Remember, we are not all card-carrying members of SNAP).
I am sure he is going to say that I am a godless, liberal, money seeking, “alleged” victim. He is a bully, and that is what bullies do. But for the record, I generally a conservative who was brought up in an Irish Catholic family in New York and Pennsylvania. The difference, well one of many, between Billy and me is that I don’t blindly support the Catholic Hierarchy. I also don’t make a living kissing the ass of the Archbishop of New York, amongst others.
Bill has a habit of running his mouth without verifying content beforehand. His rant on the front page of the Catholic League (which, surprisingly, not the governing body for Diocesan secondary school athletic teams) about SNAP is an excellent point in case. The YouTube Video and the accompanying “paper” on his undercover expose of the SNAP convention last year struck me.
If you read his epistle, you will notice this article lacks any definitive substance to back up his assertions. He relies on character assassination and belittling individuals instead of engaging in thoughtful discourse. All his attacks are meant to divert attention from silly little annoyances like nuns with brains, trials in Philadelphia, Bishops who lie and protect predators, vast numbers of Catholics leaving the church.
Why don’t we take a stroll through the epistle of St. Billy to the world concerning the SNAP Convention. It is about 9 pages of ranting and raving, but I recommend you take a look to get a glimpse into this guy’s mind. In a nutshell, everyone is at war with the Catholic Church. EVERYONE! My contention, based on my 16 years of Catholic confinement education, is that the war is not being waged on the Catholic Church, it is being waged on the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church. You know, the people who have been covering up and deflecting attention away from the sexual abuse crisis that has been going on for decades, centuries even!
Bill sent undercover Catholic League operatives to the convention to infiltrate the organization. He did so because there is “nothing so salient than the precarious state of the due process for priests.” He calls these undercover operatives who have impeccable credentials who were there. Who were they? He can’t reveal his sources, just wink and go along with their “impeccable credentials.”
Bill then delves into the meat of his “treatise,” character assassination. Since Bill’s arguments tend to be emotional and unsubstantiated, he resorts to the tactic in the debate that is a clear indication of a weak position argument, attack the individual. (I was Jesuit trained, that is what I was taught).
His targets were William Spade, a former District attorney from Philadelphia. He dismisses Mr. Spade because he has an “eclectic” relationship with the Catholic Church. Let’s not discuss the ongoing criminal case, and Grand Jury reports about organized Roman Collar Crime and the cover-up of criminal activity in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Let’s not confuse evidence of criminal activity and conspiracy because the person speaking has an “eclectic” relationship with the Catholic church. Despite the veracity of the message, the person delivering it is just not to Bill’s tastes.
His next target is Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota attorney who has been involved in litigation on behalf of victims. (In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you that I am not a client of Mr. Anderson.) He was raised a Lutheran! MY GOD! He became a Catholic! SAY IT AIN’T SO! Then he became an atheist! (Seems like a natural progression to me.) Bill then goes on to call Mr. Anderson a “Hippie” (page 3) and makes a comment about his “diminutive 5’4″ ” stature. BILL DONOHUE HATES SHORT PEOPLE! Bill also makes mention that Mr. Anderson is a recovering alcoholic. BILL DONOHUE HATES RECOVERING ALCOHOLICS! So what we have learned here is that short recovering alcoholics are not to be believed. Of course, Mr. Anderson is only in this racket for the money. I understand completely. Just like the law firms and public relations firms on retainer with American Dioceses who have made billions defending the indefensible on behalf of the Catholic Hierarchy. Ask your Diocese about the amount of your donations that goes to lawyers, public relations firms and mouthpieces to attack, humiliate and demean victims of predator priests. (I will wait while you email your Bishop, Chancellor, Diocesian Comptroller…)
You can also take a moment here and understand his underlying theme that all victims of sexual assault at the hands of Catholic religious are out for only one thing… a big fat payday! (time to reach for the sarcasm meter key, it is right next to the “any” key on your keyboard) Yes, I plan on getting rich off of the fact that a Catholic Priest took a shine to my hot 13-year-old ass. As he was slapping me around, threatening me, telling me the lie that my mother approved of my “visits” and that God thought this activity was alright, I was thinking that 40 years down the line I would be getting a big ass payday! Keep drinking Bill, you may actually see this post as proof of concept.
Bill Donohue is the face of the Catholic laity. If you are a Catholic and you are not screaming for this moron’s head, you are allowing the rest of the world to believe that zealots and clowns are protecting the faith. Good men and women must be in short supply in the pews (oh, I forgot, Catholics are fleeing the church in droves) or they have stupidly clung to the lies of the Bishops that “all is well.” Bill Donohue is the personification of the Catholic faithful, whether they like it or not. This guy is proof to the world that Catholics are asleep at the switch.
If you want to have a conversation Bill, give me a call. I doubt your style of personal attack would survive very long against a Jesuit trained survivor. Bring it on Billy! Bring your buddy Dolan along. Leave the nuns alone, they are way out of your league (Catholic or otherwise). It will be a battle of the wits, and I will be fighting a half armed man.
You know what they say about grumpy Irish men who rant on and on about how horribly they or their causes are being treated! Oops, there I go rereading the Catholic League playbook.
Off My Knees - A Blog by Michael Baumann 
good luck, michael,trying to get donohue to reply to you. Over the course of the last twelve years or so — I made numerous attempts todiscuss issues with ol’ Billy, but he ain’t bitten.
I even asserted that I met him one night — at an expensive boarding house, owned by a fine local Catholic — which housed out of town business guests, visiting judges and such, when they were in Pittsburgh. The house was owned by a fine local, esteememd Catholic lady. Anyway, I was a long-haired, hippie, muscle-bound, cool ex-vet who came into the house a few times as a guest of another resident… and grooved on the guitar a tap or two. I had a discussion one evening with him and the judge one time about religious ethics, in that if a manlived a pure and beautiful sinless life, and live out in some mountains north of China or something — and never was baptised — olet alione formaally educated, or schyooled on Christianity– yet this man was not Baaprized. Wouold he dtans any better chacne of getting into heaven than a particularly evuil, vile, or deadly Baptized man. I thinjk it was a vistiting BNishop one night, or perhaps ol’ Billy himselof who blurtede out — “Well you see, then he’d be baptized by DEED, and therefore he’d get into heaven.” I asked him if there was any Cathollic canon, or litergy which explained this process formally… and there was stone-cold, styumped silence. ” You guys are just making this up as you’re going along, I said — and instantly they both [or all three… pretty sure the hjudge was in the room, too] seememd to hate my guts at once.
Anyway — Iwas hoping to debate the surviviopr/victim postitionm with ol’ Builly and kinda really njot use much more than the biblical quote, found in all three of the synoptic gospels… about that “MILLSTONE” thing.
I never did get much play back from ol’ Billy — nor from the media outlet5s thaqt carried his daangerous aqnd twiste poropagand and heresy. Sure woulda like to have a cabkle news station take my call when he’s on the air.
I’m getting old, and had open-heart surgery Michael — my wink may come to an end at any time. I sinceley wih the best, and hope you caan get him to discuss his positions with you. I suspect he won’t, thouhh — so by definhituionI gotta call him a sissified, thuncderblustering, rhetoriiciaan. I had taken to calling him “B-U-KL-L-D-OO-K-I-E” inn siome essays, then. It is not my fault when somebody so visible on the bully-pulpit — will refuse to debate me. He thibnks he is such a self-skilled orator or logician or moral man, though, but cannot bakc it up with good-old fsahioned substantive biscussion. So I have nopt been aqshamed at all to use what some might xconasider an ad hominem. It uis not an adhominem-type falacy — or reductio absurdium, either — — it is very relevent and valid to the discussion.
If you stand on the stump abnd preach, youo gottaq answer questions from the crowd, baby.
Love your work, and your straight-dope gig-line [military allegotry] brother. Keep up the great work.
I have asbolutely nlo time to spell check this, brother. Just be assured by the writing styule these are my real words. Enjoy the tyupos, man, some of them mighyt be funny. I’m srue you can follow the didactics of what I’m saying — i9n spite of not hainvg time to spell check,.
Michael:
Donohue is a self promoting airbag who the press regularly trots out as if speaking for all catholics. I ( and frankly folks with far more of a voice in the church then I) have complained to no avail. It is like “P***ing in the wind” to go on line and complain about it- since he gets called yet again to represent “us”. What you quote above from him and his style of attack is not an exception, but the rule on almost any issue related to the Church.
It may say more about the sad state of cable TV and news gathering in 2012 that this bozo gets the call instead of at least 50 other lay & clergy who actually understand church law and teaching and are even humble enough to recognize when what we profess and what we do differ. But they don’t make good copy.
To suggest you would run circles around Donohue in a debate is damning you with faint praise.
Dear Joe C,
I do not fetter myself with any fancy-pants, high-fallutin’ self-smuggery because I am smarter than an idiot [for two reasons]. I like the public platform though, to denounce his “bully-ism,” “pig-headedness,” “moral vacancies,” and lack of fundamental real-world meaning in his [so-called] work. Catholic Human Rights? I think I had them, too.
First of all, Bill “Bully-Dookie” Donohue is not an idiot! He is a highly-educated and well-funded lying mouthpiece for an ongoing criminal enterprise. As such, he is a very, very dangerous man – to allow him to “Win” the discourse of this moment,” and thus frame revisionist Criminal Corporate Roman Catholic Cult propaganda in a distorted light – which in fact will change the way future generations perceive the CCRCC, as compared to: survivor/victims of clergy abuse, and victims of clergy abuse who have killed themselves—via suicide or chronic self-destructive behavior such as substance abuse. Dangerous men need a bad-mother-bleeper to put them in their place. [Such is the canonically-accepted principle in roman Catholicism of Advocatus Dei –vs- Advocatus Diablo]. Supposedly ol’ Jeebus [Yes’-u-wah’] told his adherents to “turn the other cheek.” But Jeebus himself reportedly threw tables around and got killed or somethin’ — so I think WWJD [what would Jeebus do?]: I gotta say that squarely and unequivocally Jeebus would have spoken out against such immoral folk as Billy the Bully Dook.
Secondly, I must denounce Billy the Bully Dook on the grounds that I am human. From an empirical standpoint, allowing what is considered sub-human behavior to be taught to the masses as acceptable by a conniving, guileful so-called super-human protocol smacks very exactly of, [and fits very nicely into the invisible jig-saw puzzle] of BIG BROTHERISM. Oh. Like to think like a programmed sheeple or robot? Hmnn… not me. There is dis-information, there is propaganda, there are bold-faced lies, frauds, fallacies and con-artists and such, and then there are total wretched, twisted whores of over-academia like Billy the Bull Dook. Such fancy-pantzer, book-smart tyrants must be stopped, at least that seems to be the consensus of most of the civilized world.
Nah… Billy the Bull Dook is very dangerous in both moral and social education considerations. Like I said… if he wants to hog the peach crate, at least he should answer questions form the crowd. Jeebus supposedly answered questions from the crowd [it is said]. John the Baptist supposedly answered questions from the crowd. Does Billy the Bull Dook out-rank ol’ Jeebus or John the Baptist?
As well, I do not fetter myself with any of his power-drunken psychotic delusions in this wink, my friend. His call before my eyes will come when he wants it least — and he will know me by name in that wink. Trust me, if any single word of his [so-called] religion is true — he will have a reckoning — after his days to rectify are over.
Anger, when combined with righteousness can be a very powerful thing. I have learned patience, though, too — in want of justice or revenge, even for his callous and heinous heresy and hypocrisy which promotes denial of my survivor/victim brothers and sisters, and advocates thereof.
I don’t have to make his day come. Just knowing it’s coming is good enough.
A pitiful truth for him, would be to wish he were only as evil and power-drunken as the fictional caricature of him depicted in the serial cartoon South Park. It is a shame when you are even more evil and despicable than a cartoon mockery of yourself.
Bill Donohue is a buffoon. I find the man somewhat scary, Michael, but I would love to see you take him on. You could hold your own and more with that guy. How he ever became a spokesman for the Catholic Church is a mystery to me. He is an embarrassment. This is an interesting article.
I only just found your blog and while Bill may not be as Christlike as he ought to be with regards to sex abuse victims, at least he cares for falsely accused priests. Unlike the folks at SNAP, like Barbara Blaine. I was really disgusted as to how she treated one priest who was most certainly innocent.
Wow! Thank you for finding my blog and then immediately spewing one of the Catholic Playbook answers to dismissing the issue of child rape, molestation, and abuse: “There are innocent priests”. Also kudos for throwing Barbara Blaine under the bus. Being that she died about a year ago, your pithy comment is both late and lame! Name of the Innocent Priest? Nope, not included. Mention of the thousands of children abused? Nope. Crawl back under your Australian rock, Mark.