Kamala Harris Has a Catholic Problem

Kamala Harris is the first Democrat presidential nominee in 40 years to refuse an invitation to the traditional Al Smith dinner hosted by the Archbishop of New York.

October 9, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae and Bill Donohue, PhD

[In the image above, the 2016 Al Smith Dinner featuring nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump making peace with Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Credit: Evan Vucci/AP]

Pope Francis recently described the looming 2024 Presidential Election in the United States as a choice between two morally objectionable major candidates. He has urged U.S. Catholics to vote with a well-informed conscience for the candidate and party that represents “the lesser of evils.” The Holy Father did not indicate which of the major candidates he considers to be the least morally compromised and that is as it should be.

However, he did address the matter with news reporters on a flight to Singapore, and he did give a hint. He said that one nominee has an un-Christian position on illegal immigration. Pope Francis added that “not welcoming the migrant is a sin.” Pope Francis thenbadded bluntly that the other nominee “kills children,” which he characterized as an “assassination.” The Catholic Church regards the latter position to be “intrinsically evil.” He then reiterated his advice that Catholics should use their own conscience as their guide when voting.

I am also informed in this matter by a fellow priest, writer and highly respected theologian, The Reverend Peter M.J. Stravinskas of the Priestly Society of St. John Henry Newman. Fr Stravinskas is also Publisher of the fine Catholic theological and pastoral quarterly, The Catholic Response which I highly recommend. In the September/October 2024 edition, he addresses the subject of clergy having a voice in political matters. I cite him here:

“A cleric is never to engage in partisan politics. He is, however, to assist his people in bringing Gospel values to bear on the formation of public policy. In fact, failure to do so would be a gross abdication of his priestly office... . For the moment, I shall deal with only the most pressings issues. Although the GOP platform no longer calls for a constitutional ban on abortion, it does proclaim, ‘We proudly stand for families and life. We believe that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without due process, and that the States are free to pass laws protecting those rights.’ ”

The GOP Pro-Life platform continues: “After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose late term abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to birth control, and IVF.”

Father Stravinskas states that those last two examples are what he earlier referred to as unfortunate, unnecessary compromises by the GOP, but ... “On the other hand, the [2024] Democrat platform is the most radical in history at every level. Most distressing is its commitment to press for a constitutional amendment to revive Roe v. Wade and enshrine it in perpetuity.” [And] “On a matter promoted by the Church for over a century, the Republican program supports parental freedom of choice in education, as well as religious freedom rights, while the Democrat goal calls for the suppression of both, as has been their consistent policy for decades.”

Father Stravinskas defers to St. John Paul II and his encyclical Evangelium Vitae in which he noted that when neither political party is ideal, one can vote for the one which inflicts the lesser harm. That position is echoed in the U.S. bishops’ 1998 document, Living the Gospel of Life. While no Catholic can support in good conscience the Democrat proposal for abortion on demand at any stage, one could, in good conscience, support the Republican platform which at least opposes late-term abortion and supports the right of a State to legislate in this matter.

The bishops of the United States have been unwavering in their support of the sanctity of life, the dignity of the family, parental rights in education, and the centrality of religious freedom. These are topics we also championed here at Beyond These Stone Walls, most especially in “Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul.”

Kamala’s Catholic Conundrum

A few of my recent postings have raised questions about past anti-Catholic remarks and public positions of one of the two nominees for president representing the two major parties. Given that nearly thirty-percent of the U.S. voting public identifies as Catholic, a significant number of voters are potentially disenfranchised from their democracy in such a situation, forced to set aside their morally informed conscience to adhere to the demands of a secular platform. The post in which I raised this matter was “Kamala Harris, Knights of Columbus and Anti-Catholicism.”

There is much more to be said on the subject, but the latest manifestation of Kamala’s Catholic problem is a traditional political event hosted by the Archbishop of New York called, simply, the Al Smith Dinner. Al Smith was a native New Yorker and statesman who was prominent in both New York and national politics as a Democrat in the l920’s.

He served four terms as Governor of New York State from 1919 to 1929, and was noted for his strong advocacy for social reform, for equal pay for men and women in public school positions, and for ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which provided for women’s suffrage.

Al Smith was highly influential in the U.S. Democratic Party when he ran unsuccessfully for President in 1920 and again in 1928, but won the electoral vote in only eight states. Analysts attributed his poor showing in the voting polls to the fact that he was openly committed to both Democratic ideals and his Roman Catholic Faith. It would be another four decades before the United States would elect its first Roman Catholic president, John F. Kennedy in 1960.

To honor Al Smith’s steadfast dedication to his country, his party, and his faith, the Archdiocese of New York established and hosts an annual event in his honor. The Al Smith Dinner, as it came to be called, has been for decades one of the most prominent and popular political events in this nation. It is a “roast” in the sense that other speakers get to present the two major party nominees in a more positive light than the usual political fare. All enmity is set aside for this one black-tie event hosted by the Archbishop of New York in deference to Al Smith’s faith. Its entire proceeds go to support social welfare programs for women and children under the auspices of Catholic Charities.

The Al Smith dinner has been recently described as the most important and sought out political event of the presidential election cycle. The last nominee to decline its invitation was former Vice President Walter Mondale who became the Democrat nominee in 1984, losing in a landslide vote to Ronald Reagan. The 2024 event is slated to be held in New York City on October 17, and will be the 39th event in this tradition, a tradition that began in 1960 when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon called for unity as Americans despite their political differences.

But without explanation or discussion, Kamala Harris is now the first nominee in forty years to decline to attend the Al Smith Dinner. This has been described by other politicians as a near terminal political mistake. It was described by Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, as “a slap in the face of American Catholics.”

In 2020, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump were present for this event and both observed the tradition of unity of purpose. Despite the intensity of their respective campaigns, neither spoke a negative word about the other. The last Presidential nominee to address the Al Smith Dinner alone was Ronald Reagan in 1984. This year, as it now stands, GOP Nominee Donald Trump will do the same.

Others have made “off the record” remarks connecting Ms. Harris’s refusal to participate in this Al Smith event with her apparent disdain for “on the record” interviews to explain her policy positions. At worst, it was suggested “off the record” that she simply does not want to appear “before a room full of prolife Catholics.”

Credit: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Bill Donohue: Harris Is Blowing It with Catholics

Vice President Kamala Harris wants to be president, but her utter lack of engagement with the media has led even her biggest supporters to criticize her public invisibility. This explains why she went on “60 Minutes.” That was a mistake — she could not answer pointed questions. She is better suited to attending what are really TV parties, which is why she is scheduled to go on “The View” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Today she will do an interview with Howard Stern on his radio show.  This is another mistake.  In doing so, she is granting legitimacy to a foul-mouthed anti-Catholic bigot.

We have been tracking Stern for decades.  He has a long history of mocking Jesus, bashing popes, slandering priests and attacking nuns.  Make no mistake, if the object of Stern’s “comedy” were blacks or Asians (Harris’ ancestry), it’s a sure bet she wouldn’t do his show.

A recent Pew Research Center survey has Harris losing to Trump among Catholics by a margin of 52-47.  Moreover, she blew off an invitation to the Al Smith Dinner, the big Catholic event held weeks before the election.  Now she is going on with the obscene Catholic basher, Howard Stern.

What is really strange about this is that Catholics and Independents are the two swing demographics who will decide the election.

Makes us wonder — does Harris realize what she is doing?  We know her boss has checked out, but now it seems she is doing the same, if only for different reasons.

Catholic League Press Release, October 8, 2024

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Here Kamala Harris single-handedly carved the Right to Life out of the Declaration of Independence.

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Note From Father Gordon MacRae: Beyond These Stone Walls has had an ever-increasing presence in the work of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. In the July/August, 2024, issue of Catalyst the “In the News” feature included two commendations for Bill Donohue and the Catholic League “for standing by Father Gordon MacRae when many others in the Church abandoned him.” In the September 2024 issue of Catalyst, Catholic League President Bill Donohue and the organization itself are cited by numerous media venues. Two of these citations were, surprisingly, for “the Catholic League’s role in helping Pornchai Moontri be released from ICE custody and returned to his home country of Thailand.” Our readers were deeply moved by these citations.

Also in the September issue of Catalyst Bill Donohue published an editorial which I have invited him to repeat here and he was very much in agreement. It is part two of this week’s post and is published at our Voices from Beyond entitled

“Catholic Assessment of Kamala Harris.”

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Disney’s Disenchanted Kingdom Versus Parental Rights

Courtesy: the Catholic League

A Catholic League documentary film exposes the radical Disney descent into woke politics and child indoctrination and a flagrant disregard for parental rights.

January 18, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Beyond These Stone Walls merited two citations in the “In the News” section of the December 2022 issue of Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Seeing this blog cited as a news source among venues like Catholic News Service, Catholic World Report, and Newsmax did little to bolster my New Year’s resolution to foster humility.

Also in that same issue of Catalyst, President Bill Donohue wrote about a documentary film produced by the Catholic League entitled, “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom: How Disney is Losing its Way.” In a brief but important article, “Why We Did the Disney Movie,” Bill Donohue laid out a compelling case for its necessity:

“Over the years, beginning in the 1990s, Disney turned against its family-friendly image, making and distributing fare that sharply broke with its moorings. I know this because one of the first big victories I had was in 1995 when I confronted Disney senior officials, ordering them out of the headquarters of the New York Archdiocese where we were located at that time. The occasion was the movie, “Priest,” a diabolical film that featured totally dysfunctional priests, all of whose problems were a function of their priesthood.”

The Catholic-bashing Disney film was distributed by Miramax, a company owned by Harvey Weinstein, now in prison for a series of sexual offenses. Then, according to Dr. Donohue, “Disney/Miramax did one anti-Catholic film after another.”

In March of 2022, Disney released a statement condemning a Florida bill that barred teaching students about sexual and gender identity issues from kindergarten to grade three. Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law recognizing that parental rights are being disregarded when a media company takes on the parental role of sex education, especially when such content targets children ages five to eight. Who could possibly have objected to such a bill?

The Disney franchise did. At first its then-CEO, Bob Chapek, decided to steer clear of the controversy, but then he caved in under a barrage of pressure from Disney’s “woke” employees who dubbed Florida’s effort to protect parental rights as the “don’t say gay” bill. I wrote a multi-faceted post with a segment about this story that many also found shocking. Here are excerpts:

“Disney world has been in the news lately, but not for anything that contributes anything to the common good. In early 2022, following waves of parental anxiety over “woke” trends in education, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill restricting schools from teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten to the third grade. In a bizarre twist for a corporation counting on Florida for success, Disney CEO Bob Chapek launched a corporate protest of the law.

“Supporters of the law said it was aimed at asserting more parental control over content in the classroom, a trend that swept the nation after a former Governor of Virginia declared last year that parents should have no say in what is taught in schools. The loudest reaction from parents has been revealed at the voting polls. Some of the most liberal school board members in some of the most liberal Democrat-led cities across the nation have since been voted out of office.”

Disney in La La Land

If you think the Florida law squashes legitimate debate about public policy, it does nothing of the kind. It simply limits classroom indoctrination about sexual and gender identity issues from kindergarten to grade three. This should need no defense. The law also requires that curriculum on these topics in subsequent grades must be age-appropriate. Governor DeSantis defended the new law amid an onslaught of “woke” protests:

“You’ve seen a lot of sloganeering and fake narratives by leftist politicians, by activists, and by corporate media. We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, healthcare and well-being of their children.”

I wrote in another post that the Disney franchise was not always on board with its current woke agenda. Walt Disney himself went to an opposite extreme. One of my favorite movies as a child was the Disney production of Old Yeller which left an entire generation of children and teens in tears around 1960. Disney star, Tommy Kirk played a frontier teen forced to euthanize his beloved dog. Tommy Kirk went on to play the starring role in another Disney box office blockbuster, The Shaggy Dog, and again in Swiss Family Robinson.

On sets, Walt Disney introduced Tommy as “our moneymaker.” Then, at age 21, Kirk was seen holding hands at poolside with another teen boy. Walt Disney personally had him escorted off the set and his career with Disney came to an end. In his 20s, Kirk tried to revive his career with a few unmemorable productions, and then he read the writing on the wall. After recovering from addiction, he ran a small business in obscurity for most of his life and died in his 70s in 2020.

Walt Disney did not necessarily harbor prejudice. He simply knew that the public face of Disney’s entertainment empire should not also be the face of controversial social issues. So how would Walt Disney respond today to the spectacle that unfolded earlier last year in Florida?

A half century after Tommy Kirk was expelled from Disney, a reader sent me a message in 2022 suggesting that I should watch a made-for-TV Disney Film called “Under Wraps 2.” I did so with reluctance. The plot was both simple and simple-minded. A group of three middle school students discovered a pair of Egyptian mummies in a museum, assisted in bringing them back to life, attended a party with them, and then the movie ended with the kids jubilantly in the front row at a same-sex wedding which had nothing to do with the rest of the ridiculous plot.

It was clearly meant for indoctrination, and its message was also clear. If Corporate Disney could not foster such indoctrination in schools, it would do so on television, the next largest arena where impressionable children gather, often without parental awareness. In Disney’s contemporary films, the kids are portrayed as the only people who know what is going on while adults — especially parents — are portrayed as disconnected and generally clueless.

Tolerance, respect for human rights, and justice for all people are desirable goals for every society, but there is a gaping chasm between such a noble effort and the sweeping woke demands for schools to teach and promote LGBTQ and gender identity issues as a natural, even preferable evolution in human development that contributes to the common good. The “common good” is the most abused and debatable part of this discussion. I once wrote a post on the special handling of presenting this subject as normative. It was an eye-opener for many entitled, “Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix.”

In its public opposition to a common sense law, Corporate Disney descended into La La Land and is out of touch with the currents of parental rights and responsibilities. Disney’s dive into the culture war should raise alarms for stockholders whose concerns for Disney’s bottom line might dwarf its woke agenda. It should also raise alarms for parents whose children are lured from parental influence by sexual indoctrination made enticing to children by mixing it with heavy doses of glitter and fun.

Courtesy: the Catholic League

Waking up the Woke

Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek initiated a public dispute with Governor DeSantis over Florida's common sense measure. Mr. Chapek and Disney World were on the wrong side of public policy and parental rights in this. The Walt Disney franchise can only be harmed by this oblivious descent into suppressing parental rights. I predicted such a development in another post, “The ‘Woke’ Have Commenced Our Totalitarian Re-Education .”

Former long term Disney CEO Bob Iger, frustrated at the lack of response to the new Florida bill, tweeted, “If passed, this bill will put vulnerable young LGBTQ people in jeopardy.” Was Mr. Iger referring to LGBTQ kindergarten students? The absurdity of the statement was left dangling. According to an extended article on the Disney debacle in The Wall Street Journal (Disney Endgame Dec. 17-18, 2022) Mr. Iger had embraced Disney’s drift into progressive politics more than his successor. The tweet caused Mr. Chapek to change course and refute the Florida Bill.

The resultant public controversy took a toll on the Disney bottom line. By September 2021, the company had lost 45% of its stock value, but its corporate responsibility to shareholders became subordinate to what the WSJ described as “the company’s support of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender causes.”

In response to all this, Bill Donohue recruited the interest of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Together they sought a meeting with Disney CEO Bob Chapek who ignored them. In the Catholic League documentary, former Disney writers reveal how the modern Disney franchise sexualizes children including “a history of exposing its young actors ... to grooming with gay and transgender messaging.” Disney's latest animated film, “Strange World,” depicts “the first openly gay teen romance in a children's movie.”

Of interest, one of the global moneymakers in the Disney franchise is Disney Shanghai. With close friends in Shanghai, I have photographs of their family outing at this newest and sprawling Disney theme park. Disney is careful not to let the same woke value judgments invade Shanghai because the Chinese Communist Party would not tolerate it. As Bill Donohue points out, Disney will accommodate China while ignoring polls in the U.S. revealing that “seventy-five percent of American voters say that targeting underage minors in a transgender movement has gone too far.”

In recent developments, CEO Bob Chapek has been fired by the Disney Board of Directors while former CEO Bob Iger has returned for another stint as Disney CEO. Disney’s stock valuation had taken a major hit. A recent extended article in The Wall Street Journal explores these developments at Disney but hints that its returning CEO leans even further left than Chapek. This does not bode well for navigating the company out of the quagmire of one-sided progressive politics into which it has descended.

Check the Catholic League website for information on the release of “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” and a trailer. The documentary features prominent cultural and media commentators including Director Jason Meath, Dr. Bill Donohue, Tony Perkins, Mercedes Schlapp, Dr. Ben Carson, Miranda Devine, Brent Bozell, David Horowitz, and Washington Times Film Critic, Christian Toto.

I wonder what the late Tommy Kirk might think today about the Disney drift to the opposite extreme of LGBTQ concerns. One need not travel back more than a few decades to find a parade of young actors used, used up and discarded by Corporate Disney. Remember Bobby Driscoll? He found stardom as Jim Hawkins in the 1950s blockbuster Disney production of Treasure Island. Bobby died from drug addiction in his early thirties after spending much of his youth anonymously discarded on skid row.

“What father among you would hand his son a stone if he asks for a fish?” (Matthew 7:10). What parent among you would take a cue from Disney on the education and raising of your child?

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The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has released its 50-minute documentary film exposing “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom: How Disney Is Losing Its Way.” This film is a must-see for anyone concerned about the erosion of parental rights in the woke indoctrination of children. Watch the Catholic League documentary here.

Editor’s Note: The December 2022 issue of the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst also profiles and recommends a new book by Stephen Krason, a member of the Catholic League Board of advisors who teaches political science at Franciscan University. His book gathers a stellar group of scholars who address, Parental Rights in Peril published by Catholic University Press.

Thank you for reading and sharing this important post. You may also like these related posts from Fr. Gordon MacRae at Beyond These Stone Walls:

The “Woke” Have Commenced Our Totalitarian Re-Education

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix

After Roe v. Wade, Hope for Life and a Nation’s Soul

The Unspoken Racist Arena of Roe v. Wade

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One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. The site has a real-time live feed of its Adoration Chapel with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. We invite you to spend some some time before the Lord in a place that holds great spiritual meaning for us.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”