Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League, has a history of saying remarks that are not well thought out. Donohue’s remarks about Charlie Hebdo, which he made within a few hours after the murder of 12 employees of at satirical French magazine, put the blame on the victims of the massacre.
Stephane Charbonnier, the paper’s publisher, was killed today in the slaughter. It is too bad that he didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death. In 2012, when asked why he insults Muslims, he said, “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me.” Had he not been so narcissistic, he may still be alive. Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him.
Bill Donohue was quoted in the USA Today as saying, “We should not continue to tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction.”
On Jan 14’s “Hannity,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue, Fox News Contributor Catholic Priest Jonathan Morris, USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers, and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity clashed over comments made by Bill Donohue regarding the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo.
Donohue stood behind his Charlie Hebdo comments, stating “had he not insulted, had they not gone out of their way to insult Muslims, they would still be alive.” Donohue insisted that he meant this as an “explanation” of the attacks and not a “justification” of the attacks. He also blasted
Donohue also called the USA Today “lunatics” for thinking he would be for anti-blasphemy laws. He also claimed that he did not author the article in the USA Today, saying they took the comments from his website.
Catholic Priest Jonathan Morris supported Donohue’s position, stating “I think the point, which is a valid one, that Bill’s trying to make, is the fact that you have a legal right to do something, like for example, Charlie Hebdo had a legal right that I would defend to death to be able to publish something that’s offensive…doesn’t mean it’s morally right.”
USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers disagreed, arguing that “first of all, we not only can, we should criticize religions. Religions are extremely powerful, theologies, often ideologies, that have enormous influence over culture. People should and must criticize them and hold them accountable.” After struggling to re-gain the floor from Donohue, she stated “what the Muslims think, and frankly what a lot of Christians think when they get criticized is that they are being insulted. I think it is the same thing, that criticism is taken as an insult and people have to be able to take it. I can take it.”
Catholic Priest Jonathan Morris attempted to distinguish between criticism and provocation, saying “if somebody takes a valid, true criticism, truth, as provocation. That’s their fault. Another thing is, for example, to take a cross, turn it upside down, stick it in urine, that’s provocation.”
The show went on to discuss the Pope Francis and whether he said one should not criticize religion or that one cannot criticize religion.
Fox News is mostly an entertainment show for dumb people. Since I do not really care for the Fox type of patriotic broadcast, I never watch Fox news. Nevertheless, it is said that one’s enemies’ enemies are your friends. In this case, I’m more against the Catholics than I am Fox. The Catholics stance on this issue, one cannot criticize religion and you get what is coming to you if you provoke religion, is so repulsive, I am willing to watch this outtake of Hannity.