I still cringe when I see Catholic League President Bill Donahue’s infamous quote: “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.”
Now he has a fresh new slur to add to his Anti-Semitic highlight reel. According to The Freethinker:
Philadelphia Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s words, in a Huffington Post op-ed piece, sent Catholic League President Bill Donohue apeshit. He immediately fired off an email to the rabbi, warning him that:
“Jews had better not make enemies of their Catholic friends since they have so few of them.”
Donohue added:
“When is it the business of any religious leader to condemn the strictures of another religion? You are not only clueless about the situation concerning nuns, you have stuck your nose in where you don’t belong.”
Donohue must surely have realised that any reference to noses and Jews is blatantly racist, and would not go down well. And it didn’t: Waskow retorted:
“Would you also suggest I keep my long Jewish nose out of some Catholic priests’ rape of Catholic children and some Catholic bishops’ protection of those priests from the law, because I’m not a Catholic? Perhaps you would.”
The best part was Donahue’s lame excuse for his ugly warning to the Jews. He disingenuously claimed that, in saying “Jews had better not make enemies of their Catholic friends since they have so few of them”, he was echoing the words of Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York. To which Koch replied, “While I do have a high regard for Bill, his references to me and my remarks were inappropriate and different in substance and tone than what I said on an earlier occasion.”
My question is why Koch has a “high regard” for a nasty, hyperbolic, homophobe and Anti-Semite like Donahue? His kind words about Rome’s greatest defender of pedophile priests has lowered my regard for Ed Koch.
I have no regard for any of the characters in the story. They are all fuckwits with little regard for any human rights.
Since Donahue is divorced, he should be regarded as an ex-communicated Catholic.
Catholics always find a way to circumvent the rules with their labyrinthine & arcane religious judicial system. I’m sure Bill Donahue will not be made to suffer for violating the holey roman church’s divinely inspired laws.
He didn’t violate Roman Catholic rules if *she* divorced *him* — which is what I’ve heard is the case, and really, doesn’t that seem plausible? It doesn’t even keep him from receiving the sacraments — only if he remarries while his ex-wife is alive would he be excommunicated. There are plenty of valid grounds on which to attack Bill Donohue for hypocrisy and all manner of flaws and lies — but his divorce really isn’t one. Other than that observation, I’m with Michael Barber — Koch and Donohue deserve each other. Not sure if he meant Rabbi Waskow too, but I wouldn’t lump him in with the other too — he’s right about child abuse, and I’ve got to respect anyone who can so neatly skewer the likes of Bill Donohue with repartee.