December 2011

Dear Friends:

We’ve had quite a year, and much of it was due to you. Without your support, we cannot get the job done. Fortunately, because of your generosity, it allowed us to do what you pay us to do—defend the Catholic Church against its enemies. Now we are gearing up for 2012, and it promises to be extremely challenging: presidential years always keep us hopping.

We can get an idea of what we’re going to face in 2012 by recapping what we did in 2011. Much of our work was devoted to what I call “Scandal II.” Unlike “Scandal I,” which was largely driven by some poor judgments in our own ranks, “Scandal II” had less to do with wayward priests than it did politics: the politics of activist groups, lawyers and some in the media; they were the real scandal this time. Their interests go well beyond money—they want to take down the Catholic Church.

We valiantly fought back. The full-page ad that appeared in the New York Times last spring was a hit. In it, we placed the abuse problem in context, demonstrating how insignificant this issue is in the Church today; the ad also ran in the Chicago Tribune. In short, we were able to provide evidence that “Scandal II” is being driven by the professed adversaries of the Catholic Church: their focus on resurrecting old cases about alleged wrongdoing in the Church—while giving every other institution a pass—is nauseating. We also took on the worst of the Church-suing lawyers, Jeffrey Anderson, by taking out an ad in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

When the John Jay report was released in May, we offered an analysis that brought to light many aspects that the media underplayed; every bishop in the nation was sent a copy. Almost alone, we brought attention to the evidence—ignored even by the John Jay professors—that homosexuality was involved in almost all the abuse cases. Not to report this was sheer dishonesty, and we refused to play the game.

Over the summer, we hit a grand slam with our undercover report on the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). We showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this professional victims’ group is nothing more than a well-organized anti-Catholic front group, one that teams with unscrupulous lawyers to sue the Church. Again, every bishop was sent a copy; many expressed their heartfelt gratitude.

Some dioceses were targeted more than others, with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph absorbing most of the blows. In the fall, we took apart Rolling Stone’s vicious assault on the Philly archdiocese, and at the end of the year we struck back against all the familiar players out to get Bishop Robert Finn. Regarding the latter, we made a surprise visit to Kansas City, Missouri, holding a press conference in front of the Catholic-hating Kansas City Star.

We were also busy on a number of other fronts. The threats to religious liberty, emanating from the Obama administration, as well as from several state lawmakers and judges, triggered a vigorous response. By working with the bishops, as well as with other religious leaders, we were able to mount an offensive. But there is much more to do on this issue.

We need your support now to get us off to a strong start in 2012. Keep in mind that all those ads and reports I mentioned were written by me. I mention this only because you should know that we don’t take your money and then pass it on to “consultants” to do our job. We don’t farm our work out to anyone. 

We don’t know exactly what we’re going to be faced with in 2012, but if it is anything like this year, we had better be ready to do battle. So please click here and help us do battle in 2012 by contributing to this year-end appeal.

Sincerely,





William Donohue
President