The Last Acceptable Prejudice

On April 3, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints compound was raided. Its founder, Warren Jeffs, was convicted last year of being an accessory in the rape of a teenage girl. This past Friday, April 11, Bill Maher made the following comments on his HBO show, "Real Time with Bill Maher":

"I'd like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult..Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That's right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he's single."

"If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you 'Pope.' It's like, if you can't pay your mortgage, you're a deadbeat. But if you can't pay a million mortgages, you're Bear Stearns and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia -- too big, too fat."

"When the current Pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul's Dick Cheney, he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the Statute of Limitations ran out. And that's the Church's attitude: 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it,' which is fine, far be it from me to criticize religion. But just remember one thing: If the Pope was -- instead of a religious figure -- merely the CEO of a nationwide chain of day care centers, where thousands of employees had been caught molesting kids and then covering it up, he'd be arrested faster than you can say 'who wants to touch Mr. Wiggle?'"

Can you imagine if Maher, or anyone else, made similar comments about a Muslim leader, or a Jewish leader, or any other leader? The outcry would be deafening. Consider Don Imus' comments about a black women's basketball team. He insulted a few women and was fired. During Rush LImbaugh's short-lived stint as a color man for ESPN, he comment that Philadelphia quarterback Donovan McNabb was over-rated because the media wanted to see a successful black quarterback. He was fired almost immediately.

So, what will happen to Maher? If the past is any indication, nothing will happen to him. The Catholic Church is an acceptable target. You can attack it with virtual immunity. If that doesn't make you angry, then I'd say the Church faces more danger from within, than from without. Our failure to demand that this Catholic-bashing stop makes us just as culpable as the brain-dead commentators who make the inflammatory statements.

Here are some facts that Maher conveniently ignores.

Pope Benedict was never a Nazi. In pre-war Germany, every young man was forced to join a Nazi-sponsored youth group. The young Ratzinger got out as soon as possible. If he were, in fact, a Nazi, Jewish groups would be screaming for his head. In fact, the Pope has been exonerated by virtually every important Jewish group.

Cardinal Ratzinger had nothing to do with the child abuse crisis. It just wasn't his job. There was never a letter written by anyone in the Vatican instructing Bishops to cover up abuse cases. In fact, Pope John Paul II, was firm in his condemnation of priests who abused children.

If you aren't outraged by this idiot's calling your Church a "child-abusing religious cult" and " the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia" then you need a reality check. This isn't an isolated incident. Maher has made similar comments in the past, and he's not the only one doing it. The longer we remain silent, the worse it's going to get. If we don't stand up for our faith, and for our leaders, we are facing a future of more intense persecution, perhaps the worst in history. It's only a matter of time before some psychopath is motivated by the likes of Maher to assassinate a priest or bishop.

In preparing this post, I searched Google News for the terms "Bill Maher" and "Catholic". There wasn't one single reference to a major news outlet. Only Catholic News Service has covered the story online. Conservative talk radio has publicized Maher's comments, but NBC, CBS, and ABC are conspicuous by their absence.

According to Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, HBO's response to two earlier cases of Catholic-bashing by Maher was that "it's a free country" and that Maher's remarks are "a matter of creative freedom." Since when does libel equal "creative freedom"?

It IS a free country and you have the freedom as a subscriber to cancel HBO.

You can contact HBO's CEO, Bill Nelson, at bill.nelson@hbo.com