Secular Sabotage

by William A. Donohue

  Ironically, I have often been accused by right-wing Catholics of being too pro-Jewish! Within weeks of starting as president of the Catholic League in 1993, I received a phone call from someone claiming to represent a Catholic defense organization warning that Catholics were wary of me because of my Jewish ties. Today, I get the same treatment. For example, in the same year that Rabbi Boteach and I had it out, the question was raised, “Is Bill Donohue a neocon plant inside the Catholic right?” Cited as a concern was my oft-cited thanks to three Jewish intellectuals who helped me get my first book on the ACLU published: Irving Kristol, Aaron Wildavsky, and Irving Louis Horowitz. 17 In any event, by 2006, it was no longer an open question. I was condemned as a “lackey” for my “neocon masters,” simply because I defended Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz against the vicious rants of Norman Finkelstein. 18

  I speak as someone who is sensitive to all of the issues surrounding this matter. I have a long history of fighting anti-Semitism, both at Jewish conferences and at street rallies, and I have been especially outspoken in my condemnation of Islamic terrorists bent on destroying Israel. But I also have no stomach for those who make false accusations. On two occasions, I hired a lawyer to threaten a lawsuit against persons who tried to rig what I said and then pass if off as if it were anti-Semitic. Patrick Foye, the Catholic League’s general counsel at the time, and left-wing activist Ron Kuby both successfully represented me and had the offenders withdraw the charge. By the way, in both cases the guilty party was Catholic; one was a priest.

  What follows is a selection of some of the most salient examples of Catholic bashing, Hollywood style.

  Priest

  In the spring of 1995, the Catholic League became the first organization in the nation to call for a boycott of Disney. What drove the decision was Disney’s connection with Miramax: Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the executives in charge of Miramax, had released a movie that was arguably the most anti-Catholic film ever made (that was how Michael Medved put it); Miramax was a Disney subsidiary. The film, Priest, was produced by the BBC, directed by Antonia Bird, and written by Jimmy McGovern. Bird told the Los Angeles Times that the movie was “against a hierarchy adhering to old-fashioned rules without looking at the way the world’s changed.” Though she is not Catholic, she admitted that she was “seething with rage” when she learned that the pope was opposed to condoms. McGovern, another one of those angry ex-Catholics, was fond of discussing the priests of his youth, dubbing them “reactionary bastards.” It was not surprising to learn, then, that their anti-Catholicism would be displayed on the screen.

  If the movie had been about one lousy priest, few would have cared. It certainly wouldn’t have been branded anti-Catholic: lousy priests exist and no one doubts it. The problem with Priest, however, was that the audience met only five priests, all of whom were positively dysfunctional. More damning, their maladies were a function of Catholicism. It was this diabolical cause and effect that made the film so hateful. And it was this combination of morally destitute priests acting on their morally destitute religion that sustains the thesis of this book: we are not dealing with Christianity’s critics, we are dealing with cultural nihilists. Their goal is to tear down, not induce change.

  The priests in the movie were portrayed as either living a life that directly contravenes Church teachings or they were mean, even psychotic, individuals. Two of them had affairs, one with his female housekeeper and the other with his newly acquired male friend. Another priest was a drunk, the country pastor was obviously a madman, and the bishop was simply wicked. In short, there was not a single priest who was well-adjusted and faithful to his vows.

  It wasn’t just religious conservatives who saw this as anti-Catholic. The Los Angeles Times, for instance, noted that Priest was “an angry piece of invective directed at the Catholic church’s hierarchy.” Premiere said that director Antonia Bird “is basking in her blasphemy.” Gossip columnist Liz Smith wrote that “Miramax is obviously looking to push Catholic sensibilities—bruised already—to the breaking point.” She was referring not simply to the movie’s content but to the fact that it was slated to open nationwide on Good Friday. 19

  I had a chance to preview the film on March 9; it was scheduled to open March 24 in New York and on April 14, Good Friday, around the nation. As a sociologist, I was most offended by the attempt to portray the Catholic Church as the causative agent accounting for the priests’ tortured existence. As a Catholic, I saw the decision to open nationwide on one of the most sacred days of the year as the final straw.

  On March 23, I held a press conference at the headquarters of the New York Archdiocese. The room was jammed with reporters and television cameras. Posted all over the wall that formed a backdrop to my presentation were familiar Disney characters: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Snow White, the Dalmatians, and various stars from The Lion King. On the podium was a large stuffed version of the Lion King himself.

  Just before the press conference began, I was told that executives from Miramax were in the room (one of them frantically called her office noting that the room was loaded with Disney paraphernalia). That didn’t bother me, but what I found offensive was the audacity that Miramax showed by telling the press that this was a joint press conference between them and the Catholic League. So after I finished my remarks, but before I opened the floor to questions, I made a statement. I told the press corps that this was not a joint press conference and that the Miramax officials were “in my house.” I then instructed them to leave and if they wanted to hold a press conference they should “do it in the street.” Startled, about a half-dozen men and women got up, put their coats on, and headed to the door. It didn’t take long before Miramax announced that the movie would not open on Good Friday; it opened five days later.

  Turning up the heat even more, I placed an ad on the op-ed page of the New York Times on April 10 blasting Disney. “What’s Happening to Disney?” cut right to the quick: “Think of it this way. How do you think Jews would react if a movie called ‘Rabbi’ portrayed five rabbis in a depraved condition? Would gays tolerate a movie that showed them to be morally destitute? What about a cruel caricature of African Americans? To top it off, what if it were the cultural heritage or lifestyle of these groups that best explained their behavior? And just think what would happen if those movies had been scheduled to open on Yom Kippur, Gay Pride Day or Martin Luther King Day.” 20

  The response by Catholic leaders was impressive. John Cardinal O’Connor did what he always did—spoke with clarity. Referring to Disney and Miramax, he said, “Your movie is little more than the kind of thing kids used to take delight in scrawling on the walls in men’s rooms. Call it art, go into ecstasy over its sophistication, exult in exposing the ‘horrors’ of Catholicism, ladies and gentlemen of Disneymax, if you will, but what you have done is cheap and odorous.” 21 On nationwide TV, Mother Angelica and Father Benedict Groeschel encouraged the faithful to become mobilized against Disney, netting spectacular results. But it was the response from those outside the Catholic community that meant the most.

  Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, one of the greatest friends that Catholics have ever had, labeled Priest an exercise in “Catholic bashing.” Other Jews, such as Don Feder, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Rabbi Abraham Hecht of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of the New York Board of Rabbis, voiced their support for the Catholic League campaign. 22 It was heartening to see so many good people denounce this vicious movie.

  Dogma

  The Weinstein brothers no sooner angered Catholics with Priest when they teamed up with writer and director Kevin Smith to make Dogma.

  Everyone knew there would be another Catholic League showdown with Disney over Dogma. In December 1998, Playboy said, “If members of the Catholic League don’t picket this one, they’re comatose.” What proved to be decisive was a story in Premiere magazine and a piece in the New York Post. Independent Film Channel
host John Pierson was quoted as saying, “The Catholic League will have a problem.” That was it. I wrote a Catholic League news release on April 5, 1999, titled “Disney/Miramax Poised to Anger Catholics Again.” Two days later, Miramax faxed a letter to me saying that the Disney/Miramax label would not appear in Dogma. Disney CEO Michael Eisner had told the Weinsteins that he had had enough. 23 The brothers decided to personally buy the film rights to the movie.

  In its Cannes review of Dogma, Variety described how the movie begins: “Numerous early cheap jokes, including a nun abandoning her calling in order to pursue the pleasures of the flesh and a man reading Hustler magazine in the church, don’t bode well for what’s to come.” What was to come was Bethany, “a Catholic abortion clinic worker” who is a descendant of Jesus (the movie insinuates that Joseph and Mary had sex); she meets Jay “who’s obscenely rude and tells Bethany he likes to hang at abortion clinics because it’s a good place to meet chicks.” No wonder London’s Daily Telegraph said, “The film is punctuated with four-letter words and toilet humor.” All targeted at Roman Catholics. 24

  Cheap nun jokes are not proof of cultural nihilism. But when Jesus and his mother are sexually exploited, and when those who are not offended by a Catholic-bashing movie admit that Catholicism is trashed from beginning to end, it suggests that more is going on than just critical commentary. This isn’t a matter of conjecture. Consider that when Howard Stern said to Kevin Smith that the movie “has some Jesus Christ thing in it so all the religious folks are already hating it,” Smith replied, “Then we must be doing something right.” 25

  It is nothing short of amazing to see how unethical some in Hollywood are. They can sure dish it out, but they can’t take it. For example, after actor Ben Affleck admitted that “The movie is definitely meant to push buttons,” I shot back with, “The Catholic League has a few buttons of its own to push, and we won’t hold back.” This was a fairly innocuous remark, but then I received an Overnight Priority Federal Express letter from Dan Petrocelli, lawyer for the Weinsteins (he was the Los Angeles attorney who beat O.J. Simpson in the civil suit). His missive was meant to intimidate: “Statements like these may be interpreted to announce or imply an intention by the League to go beyond the bounds of legitimate and peaceful dissent or protest, and to stimulate, motivate, or incite danger or violence.” He then promised to hold the Catholic League responsible for any violence that might occur when the film opened. 26

  Petrocelli’s bullying was a monumental failure. I had only one response. I sent him a memo indicating that I had received his “threatening letter,” and even took the time to tell him that our correct address (at the time) was 1011 First Avenue, not 101 First Avenue. “Please make a note of it,” I instructed. 27

  I wasn’t finished with Petrocelli. On September 12, in another New York Times op-ed page ad, I raised the question “Will the Real Censors Please Stand Up!” In it, I recounted the Petrocelli threat and included one by Kevin Smith as well. Smith had said that “If anyone… ANYONE… gets hurt in the process of their protest, we’re holding Bill Donohue and the League responsible.” 28 They were really looking like thugs at this point.

  When the movie opened, John Podhoretz of the New York Post branded it “virulently, even obsessively anti-Catholic.” Even John Pierson, a friend and collaborator of Smith’s, said the Catholic League’s attacks “are accurate on a surface level.” 29 More important, the Catholic League petition requesting Disney to dump Miramax garnered 300,000 signatures. Once again, evangelical Protestants and Orthodox Jews rallied to our side. 30

  Podhoretz’s comment about the film being “obsessively anti-Catholic” is more than just correct—it is the reason why movies like this are a testimony to the agenda of moral nihilists. Only in recent decades has Hollywood really turned on Catholics, but the cultural knives they are using penetrate deep. By constantly slicing and dicing, their goal of eating away at the house of Catholicism is accomplished.

  Disney and Miramax have since gone their own ways, and that is a good thing. But the Weinsteins never stop bashing Catholics. Besides Priest and Dogma, they have served up such anti-Catholic fare as Butcher Boy, 40 Days and 40 Nights, and The Magdalene Sisters. They returned on Christmas Day 2006, delivering Black Christmas. The only saving grace is that most of these films have flopped at the box office. The fact that they still make them, however, suggests that profit is not their exclusive motive.

  The Passion of the Christ

  The Passion of the Christ was one of the most powerful religious movies to come out of Hollywood in decades, bringing together Catholics and Protestants in a way that made them proud to be Christians. Unfortunately, the Hollywood establishment not only had nothing to do with the film, it did everything it could to undermine it. As for Catholics and Protestants, their pride was undercut by constant attempts to put them on the defensive: the critics wanted to know why they would rally to such a violently anti-Semitic movie.

  Almost a year before the movie opened on February 25, 2004, a 3,000-word article by Christopher Noxon appeared in the New York Times Magazine that raised serious questions about Mel Gibson’s religion, his relationship with his father, and the movie he was completing about the death of Jesus. 31 Gibson was a traditionalist, one who belonged to a pre–Vatican II church, and his father, Hutton Gibson, was known for his searing criticisms of the contemporary Catholic Church and his outright diminishing of the horrors of the Holocaust.

  My involvement with Mel Gibson began following a TV debate I had with Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center on the MSNBC TV show Scarborough Country; no one had yet seen the film, but the controversy had already started. At one point in the exchange, Hier tried to deny any Jewish involvement in Christ’s death. I said that if anyone were to blame “the Jews” for the death of Christ, I would take exception to it “because that is a collective statement which can be read by anti-Semites to include current-day Jews.” On the other hand, I said those who were calling for Christ’s crucifixion “weren’t the Aleutian Islanders. They weren’t the Pacific Islanders. It wasn’t the Puerto Ricans.” 32

  Shortly after this show aired, Mel Gibson called me at the Catholic League and said he had seen the debate. He wanted to meet me. A few weeks later, on July 6, he came to my office and offered a private viewing of the film on VHS tape. It was without doubt the most powerful presentation of the death of Jesus ever made. Indeed, I had never seen anything quite like it. While it was obvious that this was not a movie everyone would appreciate, it was just as obvious that the Catholic League would be called upon to defend it.

  From the time of Noxon’s first strike against the film to the day it opened, all the trappings of a nihilistic assault were evident. What happened was more than a series of events launched by Gibson’s critics: what happened was a serious campaign to destroy the man and his work. Put the following incidents together, and what emerges is not disagreement but a strategic effort to search and destroy everything and everyone associated with the movie.

  The script was stolen and given to those who could be counted on to slam it.

  Tapes of the film were stolen and distributed to those who could be relied upon to bash it.

  Mel’s faith was impugned.

  Charges that violence against Jews would occur after the movie was shown were commonplace.

  Accusations of anti-Semitism were thrown around with abandon.

  Attempts to bully Gibson into changing the film were ongoing.

  Demands for a postscript were made by those who sought to put Gibson on the defensive.

  Bishops were badgered to get Mel’s friends in line.

  The Vatican was lobbied to criticize the movie.

  Vatican sources were pressured into saying the pope didn’t say of the film, “It is as it was.”

  Accusations that the movie was being kept away from Jewish neighborhoods were made.

  Fears that the movie might damage youngsters who saw it were expressed.

  Demand
s that Gibson vet his script for approval by officials of the Catholic Church were constantly made.

  Attempts to discredit the film were made by those who said it wasn’t authentic, including those who had no problem with the wildly inaccurate movie The Last Temptation of Christ.

  Critics deceitfully gained admission into screenings of the film before it opened.

  Highly personal questions about Gibson’s life were raised.

  Sneering comments that the film might make a profit were voiced.

  Derisive remarks about the way the movie was marketed were made.

  Demands that the film be censored were made at public rallies (I witnessed this firsthand).

  Catholics who defended the movie were insulted by foes of the film.

  Bishops were pressured to denounce the movie as being unfaithful to Church teachings.

  Disrespect for Gibson’s artistic rights was ongoing.

  Mel’s elderly father was attacked even though he had nothing to do with the movie.

  Police detectives were ordered into theaters to assess whether the movie might promote violence against Jews.

  33

  This is the kind of thuggery that defines the nihilistic approach to Christianity. It is the signature politics of secular saboteurs.

  The principal critics of the movie were comprised of secular-leaning Catholics and Jews, as well as radical secularists. Liberal theologians, spanning the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish communities, were particularly offended. Many felt that the ADL seriously misrepresented the position of the Catholic bishops when it said that it had joined with the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to assemble Jewish and Catholic scholars to evaluate an early version of the movie’s screenplay; it never admitted that the Catholic panel was unauthorized by the USCCB. Nor did it say that the USCCB had since apologized to Gibson for reviewing a movie it hadn’t seen. To top it off, it was never admitted that both the ADL and the USCCB had returned the stolen screenplay to Gibson’s Icon Productions! 34