Maybe he was drunk at the time.
"Jews Had Better Not Make Enemies Of Their Catholic Friends Since They Have So Few Of Them"
One pope shedding tears at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem did nothing to eradicate anti-Semitism in staunch pro-Catholic circles: the latest exchange of emails between Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League and Philadelphia Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center indicate an animosity worthy of Mel Gibson.*
Called " The Rottweiler's Rottweiler " (in reference
to his defense of Benedict XVI and his own problems due to scandal and
cover-ups), the orthodox apologist Donohue has always had a reputation for goading
people and groups into a fight. In fact, Donohue is such a staunch defender of the
Catholic Church, he has turned offense into an art form: he has taken on
progressive Catholic nuns ("totally lost their moorings"), the
pay-away-the-lay controversy ("a severance package"), President Obama
( "He is
now taking the culture war to the boiling point and he will pay.") and gay
marriage (" I want the law to
discriminate against all alternative lifestyles, against gays and
unions."). While protecting the Catholic Church against defamation,
he has been known to use the same tactic against other groups.
Now he has taken on Jews as enemies of Catholicism.
It all started when Waskow, a Reformed
Jewish rabbi, criticized the Vatican in a Huffington Post op-ed piece entitled Bishops
Attack Religious Freedom; Vatican Attacks Nuns. Hitting primarily on the
subject of contraception, Waskow accused the Catholic Church
of "attacking the religious freedom of millions of American women and
the religious freedom of American nuns" on the matter of
contraception. A rough email exchange ensued, with the indignant Donohue
stating that "Jews had better not make enemies of their Catholic
friends since they have so few of them." He then attributed the statement
to former New York mayor Ed Koch.
Koch has denied saying anything of the sort. Donohue then attacked the
character of Waskow:
"Waskow is a man full of hate," he said,
calling Waskow's op-ed "the kind of thing I'd expect from Bill Maher, not
from a rabbi."
The
exchange brought about a bit of irony as well: Donohue portrayed the recent
Hasidic (ultra Orthodox) scandal
of child abuse as an "epidemic" that Waskow (a Reformed rabbi,
not Hasidic) should take care of by "following the Catholic
Church's reforms in dealing with clerical abuse." Rabbi Waskow obviously
restrained himself from correcting Donohue on his generalization of rabbis and
- most notably - any comeback about cover-ups and pay-offs, the latter being a
subject which Donohue has yet to fully address (see When
Sex With Altar Boys Was Profitable )
The odd connection to Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic
sentiments comes in Donohue's defense of the Gibson's movie, "The Passion
of the Christ":
[ wikipedia ] Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews
who hate
Christianity
in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I"m not
afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and
it's about truth. It's about the Messiah .
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).