More braying from Jackass Donahue

Bill Donahue, leader of the Catholic League, is no stranger to spouting off incongruous nonsense and bold-faced lies to try and paint his beloved Catholicism as persecuted and stepped-on by a tiny minority, particularly atheists. I suppose he was never quite good at math, because to me, 70% Christians vs. 15% atheists (or something like that) doesn't sound like that 15% is about to overthrow the 7/10 of Americans who do follow Christianity, anytime soon. But then, you can't expect kooks who Lie for Jezus to actually use the truth to attain their goals, right?

But I digress. Donahue has recently written a small pamphlet – which you can obtain by sending his League five poor little dollars – titled "Angels & Demons: More Demonic Than Angelic" – which, as the name so subtly implies, claims that the upcoming film (which, having read the fantastic book, I am dying to see) and its director "do not hide their animus against all things Catholic". The pamphlet basically up and smears Ron Howard and the film as Anti-Catholic – which, while more of a compliment to folks like me than an insult, is really quite offensive to regular religious people. And if its used as an insult, then its taken as an insult, regardless of whether its implications are actually positive or negative to the insultee.

Howard has written up a juicy comeback opinion piece at the Huffington Post, and while he does seem to pander a bit to the Catholic Church in my opinion, he definitely slams Jackass Bill right out of the ballpark and into his own windshield.

He's been making these assertions for years, going back to the theatrical release of The Da Vinci Code. He stepped up his campaign more than a month ago with a series of press releases. And there he goes again, in a Daily News op-ed last Friday, saying that Dan Brown and I "have collaborated in smearing the Catholic Church...."

Let me be clear: neither I nor Angels & Demons are anti-Catholic. And let me be a little controversial: I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church, will enjoy the movie for what it is: an exciting mystery, set in the awe-inspiring beauty of Rome. After all, in Angels & Demons, Professor Robert Langdon teams up with the Catholic Church to thwart a vicious attack against the Vatican. What, exactly, is anti-Catholic about that?

It's always fun to see that hideous moron get kicked in the ass now and again. Donahue'd been oddly quiet these last few months – by his standards anyway, as I hadn't seen any news articles concerning him flash by my news ticker – which I suppose was a nice reprieve, despite it cheating my out of plenty of opportunities to befoul one of the looniest kooks and downright stupidest morons that even the Catholic Church has ever had on its side.