Book Giveaway #2

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Bill Donohue, book giveaway, book review, Catholic League, Catholicism, culture, liberals, nihilism, religion, right wing activists, secularism

Today we have a new offering in our book giveaways. I think it behooves me to explain this event a bit. The Hatchette Book Group wrote offering me the opportunity to do book giveaways. They supply me with a short list of available titles. I’ve chosen three over a two month period.

That being said, it should be clear that these are not necessarily books I would choose to ask for or otherwise read. I neither endorse nor otherwise the selections presented. My “review” is intended to enlighten you, the reader, as to the general content of the book. It is not therefore, the usual review you would expect here.

This selection is from Bill Donohue, and is called Secular Sabotage: How Liberals are Destroying Religion and Culture in America.

Mr. Donohue is a “traditional” Catholic and is head of the right wing organization, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. He sees it as his job to ferret out anti-Catholic sentiment and protect the faithful in their pursuit of Catholic ideals.

Mr. Donohue’s book is an attempt to show how secularists and others are destroying all faith and culture in America, at least the faith he subscribes to and the culture he envisions as appropriate.

Two terms are bandied around and require definition.  The first is nihilism which Donohue calls all those who oppose his views. Nihilists deny or believe that all existing moral and religious beliefs are worthless and need to be destroyed. It can mean as well the destruction of all political and social norms.  The other term, from the title itself is “secularism.” This means quite simply that religious matters needs be excluded from civil affairs and public education.

Mr. Donohue spits out the word secularism as if it is equal to atheism. And he nowhere provides any case other than blatant assertions that nihilists are afoot trying to destroy religion. He makes an assertion that somehow the far left was distraught over the fall of the Berlin Wall, and thus they gave up and just now try to destroy everything. He gives no proof of this claim.

Mr. Donohue claims that Christianity is being destroyed by these groups, yet, in every case, he lauds the fact that through his efforts and the poor quality of their message, nobody cares anyway. This does belie his message a bit I would say.

All the usual suspects are assailed. Sometimes we go back forty and fifty years to find examples of the efforts various groups make to destroy religion. And, before long, Protestantism and other non-Christian faiths are left behind, and Donohue concentrates on the real point of his book: how Catholics are as ever, being discriminated against and mistreated.

The list of offending groups is as I say the usual. Anyone who believes in pluralism is wrong since in Bill’s view this is a Christian nation which he takes to mean that most everyone wants only Christian views expressed. Then we move to the sexual libertines, which includes just about everybody who is opposed to his agenda. We all want to have sex with everyone, everywhere, everyway and as often as possible.

Next are the gays, then Hollywood with their liberal Jewish bias. Then the lawyers, then the Democrats, and unbelievably, then the “other” Catholics who Bill claims are not really Catholics at all, but pretend ones whose agenda is to destroy the Church. Then, last but not least, the Protestants who are “lefties.” We don’t really matter, of course, because like all the rest, we are so minor and disappearing so fast that we are barely visible.

Which all goes to make one wonder what the point of the book is, since all are failing so badly. But there is a constant and never ending refrain from Bill about his own efforts. The book is just chock full of “my involvement, my interview, I threatened to sue, when I sued, I sent a letter, I criticized, I launched, I complained. No one can not notice that Bill is always in the forefront of never letting any possible slight to his Church go unchallenged.

What is perhaps the strangest part of the book, is where he discusses movies and art. He finds plenty of anti-Catholic material around and describes in utterly step by step detail the contents that he finds so hideous. I’m not sure why. At the end of each, he then assures the reader that in fact each art piece or movie offering was rejected by the public and hardly viewed. It begs the question why he is willing to give so much advertising.

If you are a fan of Bill’s by all means drop a comment. If you want to get inside the head of someone from the far right, by all means drop a comment. There are five available, under the same terms as the last. Leave an e-mail address in your comment.