Greene, Again; McCarthy, Again

In my last post, I lamented that I had no choice but to defend US Representative Ilhan Omar, the famous Democrat from Minnesota. It gets worse. Now it's Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, who a year ago was credibly accused of

doing more to push people away from and out of the Catholic Church than any prominent atheist ever could,. We always look forward to Donohue’s statements. Time and time again, he proves our point: Religious denial of reality, whether it be about the existence of Christian nationalism or child abuse, is causing immense harm to our country.”

Now, it's difficult to disagree with Donohue because

During an April 21 interview with far-right Catholic news organization Church Militant, activist Michael Voris alleged that bishops receive "enormous sums of money from the federal government, federal taxpayers, to assist in illegal immigration," prompting Greene to take aim at Catholic charities that provide funding for causes related to undocumented immigrants." The Catholic League's Bill Donohue accused me of slandering Catholics and Catholicism in an interview I gave to Michael Voris at Church Militant. Nothing could be further from the truth, and he must apologize promptly and publicly for these words," she said.

"It's the church leadership I was referring to when I invoked the devil. The bishops know that but had their loyal lapdog pretend I was being disrespectful about the faith. Just so we're clear, bishops, when I said 'controlled by Satan,' I wasn't talking about the Catholic Church. I was talking about you."

"What it is is ... Satan's controlling the church. The church is not doing its job. It's not adhering to the teachings of Christ. It's not adhering to what the word of God says we're supposed to do and how we're supposed to live," she said.

"And what they're doing by saying, ‘Oh, we have to love these people and take care of these migrants and love one another. This is loving one another' — yes, we are supposed to love one another, but their definition of what ‘love one another' means means destroying our laws. It means completely perverting what our Constitution says. It means taking unreal advantage of the American taxpayer."

Her inflammatory comments sparked Catholic League President Bill Donahue to condemn her remarks, asserting that he would be reaching out to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy regarding the matter.

"Satan is controlling the Catholic Church? She needs to apologize to Catholics immediately. She is a disgrace," he said in a statement. "We are contacting House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy about this matter. He's got a loose cannon on his hands."

She remarked additionally

If the bishops were reading the Bible and truly preaching the word of God to their flock and not covering up child sex abuse and pedophilia, loving one another would have the true meaning and not the perversion and the twisted lie that they’re making it to be..."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says that Christian organizations are working to resettle undocumented immigrants and refugees in the U.S. because "Satan's controlling the church." https://t.co/cbnTrbOjuY pic.twitter.com/3N3X72ZLgc

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) April 27, 2022

Donahue demanded an apology, after which Greene demanded one from him.

.That's how it's done these days. Not the apology but the demand for an apology, which brings no apology, aside from possibly a statement of regret that the subject of the comment was offended. And that's no apology at all.

Initially, the Georgia congresswoman had criticized Catholic Charities for aiding immigrants and, as Donohue charged, "had plenty of opportunities to make rational criticisms of the agency, but instead she slandered the entire Catholic Church." 

She could have acknowledged that the Church has made some amends for past pedophilia of its clergy or suggested a means, such as an end to priestly celibacy, to purge the behavior.  She could have made a distinction between legal and illegal immigration, arguing that the Church has not. She could have explained what biblical book, chapter, or verse the Catholic prelate is ignoring.

In a normal environment, one in which Republicans are occasionally held accountable, the congresswoman's incendiary remarks would be a problem for House Republicans. Promising to contact Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Bill Donahue- at least for now- is properly assigning responsibility to House leadership. Marjorie Greene traffics in hatred, bigotry, and dishonesty, otherwise being an upstanding citizen. Somebody has to put the pressure on the House GOP and, if it has to be someone who himself has exhibited limited tolerance for differing viewpoints, we'll take it.

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