Catholic League For Religious And Civil Rights

Father Joseph Battaglia, communications director for the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese, Friday told Catholics in Chicago who objected to the television movie "Broken Vows," a murder mystery involving a priest who breaks his celibacy vows, that he was a consultant for the movie but that his criticism was disregarded. About 20 Catholics led by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights demonstrated outside CBS' Chicago office on Jan.

Mario Cuomo wants the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. whether he would ever allow his religious views to trump his oath to support the Constitution (Opinion, Aug. 25). This would be obnoxious even if asked of every Supreme Court nominee, but that no one -- including Cuomo -- ever broached this idea when others were being considered for the high court suggests an animus so vile as to be indecent. WILLIAM A. DONOHUE President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights New York

About 20 Roman Catholic protesters demonstrated outside CBS' Chicago office late Wednesday charging the network was "Catholic baiting" when it aired "Broken Vows" Wednesday. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights said the TV movie was a "cheap movie that smears the Catholic religion." The film, starring Tommy Lee Jones, concerns a priest who falls in love with a woman and breaks his vow of celibacy.

The fact that Steven Linan found "Sister Mary Explains It All" "satisfying" says a lot about our culture's willingness to tolerate anti-Catholicism (" 'Sister Mary' Gets Your Attention," May 26). The play on which the Showtime film is based has been called "the most virulently anti-Catholic play in American theater" (Dallas Morning News review, 1998) and a play that "goes after the Catholic Church with a vengeance" (Frank Rich, New York Times, 1981). One wonders whether a movie that attacked another faith would have ever seen the light of day on Showtime or anywhere else.

Re Lawrence Tonsick's Feb. 12 letter, "Church Tax Exemption": A Newport Beach Catholic and Presbyterian church working together so that they may both expand their facilities for worship and social services somehow prompts him to say that their tax-exempt status should be revoked. Where is the connection here? If a church can afford it, it has every right to expand. And 10% of what it raises is going to social charities. What is this "new religious clubhouse" that it is building? It is a new school to educate children because the old one is overcrowded.

Once again, someone uses the tired argument that the Catholic Church wants lax immigration because it is only interested in raising more money (letter, Nov. 27). If the new immigrants need food and shelter provided to them, where is the money they will give to the church? The bishops of the Catholic Church in the U.S. are interested in the human dignity and well-being of all people, regardless of race and nationality. Without the hospitals, schools and social programs provided by the Catholic Church in Los Angeles and all over the country, the immigrant situation would be worse still.

Paul Conrad suggests in his cartoon (Aug. 24) that Pope John Paul II, in firing Father Charles Curran of Catholic University of America, has shut the windows of the Catholic Church opened up by Pope John XXIII. Yet is is hardly clear that John XXIII wanted to open windows in order to throw out the Ten Commandments. If the Vatican permits Curran to teach in the name of the church, it puts an implicit stamp of approval on infanticide, sodomy or masturbation--activities that Curran seems to think are acceptable.

For Tim Rutten to question Mel Gibson's Catholicity is as invidious as it is laughable ("Critics Debate 'The Passion,' Gibson Evades the Debate," Feb. 4). In a day and age when it is deemed inappropriate for anyone to question the Catholicity of Gray Davis or Teddy Kennedy, it is mind-boggling that a journalist thinks he has the right -- and the credentials -- to scrutinize Gibson. In any event, all the ad hominem attacks in the world will not stop "The Passion of the Christ" from being a blockbuster hit. Thanks, in part, to people like Rutten.

Much has been written about separation of church and state. But I fail to follow the latest edicts of the Catholic Church, particularly well discussed in "In Facing Evil, the Vatican Blinks" by Jason Berry (Opinion, Nov. 10). If a Protestant minister or one of his assistants were accused of sexual abuse, he would receive the sheriff in his church or parsonage and be handcuffed, taken to police headquarters, fingerprinted and jailed. In 24 to 72 hours he would be arraigned and (probably)

A Roman Catholic civil rights group called off a boycott of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Friday after the world's largest retailer apologized for an employee's e-mail that called Christmas a mix of world religions. "This is a sweet victory for the Catholic League, Christians in general and people of all faiths," said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, in a statement on the group's website.