Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights,
criticized both the religious and secular left on the Glenn Beck
Program Tuesday for “grossly” misinterpreting some of the statements
made by Pope Francis in order to “get us in line with their (agenda).”
“I’ve been told many times by a number
of people in the Catholic left that ‘we have to listen.’ Since when did
the Catholic left have any interest in fidelity to what the holy father
has ever said?” Donohue asked. “They certainly asked us to be in
rebellion against Benedict and John Paul II.”
Donohue said that there is actually very little difference between the religious and secular left in such matters.
“They’re basically one in the same,” he
remarked. “It’s just that some people have their foot in the Catholic
camp or the Mormon camp or the Jewish camp … and it doesn’t matter at
the end of the day. In terms of the Catholic left, which I know best,
there’s an attempt to cherry-pick this pope’s words…and then they’re
using it as a sledgehammer to tell people like me to shut up.”
Donohue said that what Pope Francis is
truly concerned about is “secularization,” and that if “we continue to
go down the road of ripping up our Christian heritage and becoming
increasingly secular – that’s the idea of progressivism – we’re done in this country.”
“The public square is going to be
filled with something. Traditionally it’s been filled with the
Judeo-Christian ethos in this country,” Donohue said. “In the 20th
century when Christianity was stamped out, you had totalitarianism. You
saw it with Pol Pot; you saw it with Mao; you saw it with Hitler; you
saw it with Stalin.”
Donohue concluded his message with a stiff rebuke of those who “lecture” about “social justice.”
“It has to be said – the people who give the least
amount of money and of their time and voluntary activities are the
people on the left,” he declared. “Religious left, and the secular left.
We don’t need to be lectured to by the left telling us
conservatives and people of faith how to help the poor. We’re the ones
who write the checks, not them.”