vigorously active and aggressive, esp. in support of a cause: militant reformers.
Now being vigorously active and aggressive in support of a cause is not always a negative. Surely a less militant Martin Luther King would not have been desirable. You could say the same about a militant peace activist. And yet that combination of words in today's context seem like an oxymoron. In a very strict language sense it, of course, is not contradictory. But in the hear and now, and particularly in the last 7 years militant translates to Islamic militant. Donahue is keenly aware of this. Which brings us to the second definition of the word:
engaged in warfare; fighting.
The atheist authors and thinkers Donahue mentions in his screed probably don't even own a single firearm between them. And they are certainly not engaged in an armed conflict. They are simply making arguments and speaking out. But Donahue knows that using the word militant will create a correlation between the pictures of the Islamic militants that your average Catholic sees on TV and a handful of atheist authors. The fact that these authors ideas and philosophies are as far from that of an Islamic militant as conceivably possible is of no consequence. Donahue has to know this and yet he uses the term dishonestly anyway. Now on to the substance (or lack thereof) of "From the President's Desk".
Donahue begins by recounting the four incidents of Eucharist no-nos over the summer that got him so riled up. He first related a Sally Quinn article in which she related that she would take communion in order to honor Tim Russert. This is how he described it:
The first incident occurred when Washington Post religion editor Sally Quinn decided she would show how much she cared about the late Tim Russert by doing something she hated to do—receive Communion; Quinn is not Catholic.
Of course Quinn never said in her article she "hated" taking communion. In fact here is the relevant passage:
Last Wednesday at Tim's funeral mass at Trinity Church in Georgetown (Jack Kennedy's church), communion was offered. I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started "On Faith" and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Last Wednesday I was determined to take it for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding. I'm so glad I did. It made me feel closer to him. And it was worth it just to imagine how he would have loved it. After I began "On Faith," Tim started calling me "Sister Sal" instead of "Miss Sal."
Notice no mention of hate. It clearly provided some comfort to her over the loss of a good friend and respected colleague. Also notice Donahue's last notation "Quinn is not Catholic". In this we see the tribal nature of religion. Quinn is not a part of Donahue's tribe. Thus, even respectfully partaking of their custom becomes an offense. It is unlikely that Quinn was even aware that she would be offending the likes of Donahue and his ilk. Ignorance of weird ritualistic hangups provide no excuse for her crime.
Donahue goes on to the militant atheist authors:
What’s going on is that militant atheism is all the rage. Books by Richard Dawkins (a personal friend of Myers who lies about me the same way Myers does), Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens have all sold well, and what they are selling is hate. Hatred of religion in general, and Christianity in particular. The bulls-eye, of course, is Roman Catholicism. I’ll give them this much: At least the religion bashers are smart enough to know who’s on top.
It is almost amazing to count the number of fallacies contained in that paragraph. Unsupported assertions, demagoguery, selective reading all make the list with a heaping dollop of smug arrogance adorning the top of it all. All of the books by these men spend copious amounts of time on religions outside Christianity. Dawkins, who understandably spends more time on evolution than the other authors, spends less time on the generally pro-evolution Catholic church than the more evangelical creationist sects. Donahue can't help but once again puff out his tribal feathers by declaring that Roman Catholicism is "on top". Isn't there a deadly sin associated with such declarations?
Donahue goes on to play the victim card alongside the tribal appeals already made by declaring:
The sick climate that these zealots have created could not have succeeded without a little help from their friends. In the case of Myers, that means the administrators at the University. They had several options available to them, and they passed on every one of them. Predictably, they hid behind academic freedom, claiming they were impotent to do anything about Myers’ off-campus behavior.
This is utter nonsense, and I will prove it right now: Does anyone believe that the University of Minnesota would do absolutely nothing about a white professor who packed them in at a local comedy club on weekends doing his racist rendition of “Little Black Sambo”? Would the very same administrators plead helplessness about a professor who spoke to community groups off-campus about the mythology of the Holocaust?
Academic freedom is not something to hide behind. It's a guiding principle of Western thought that traces back to the Enlightenment. Donahue's "proof" is of course nonsense but displays perfectly the obvious failures of Catholic philosophy and logic that strech back to the unfortunate and undue respect given to Aristotlian logic. He makes an informal syllogistic comparison between criticism of religion and overt racism. This is a gross category error but it is not uncommon in religious thought. There is of course no "proof" of the supposed nonsense of UMN's position. The hypothetic situations Donahue pulls from thin air aren't even of the same category as Dr. Myers actions not to mention the fact that he is claiming something he cannot know. Indeed, the administration of UMN may be powerless to remove a tenured professor in the situations he gives. But such thoughts don't entertain his mind as he is so focued on the travails and offenses to the tribe. Donahue goes on to cite Larry Summers exit from Harvard. But of course summer was a University President (category error #1) who wasn't fired by a superior (category error #2). He resigned his position after the controversy after a vote of no confidence from his own staff. Logic. Fail.
Donahue goes on to bellow:
Academic freedom was instituted to protect contrarian professors from being hounded out of the academy for challenging the conventional wisdom on a particular academic subject. It was not instituted to protect hate speech. Myers is free to say whatever he wants about his specialty, which is zebrafish, but he has no moral right to assault the sensibilities of any religious group. So what should the administrators have done?
Stick to zebrafish Dr. Myers! Notice the falback on the Orwellian "hate speech" crutch. Of course in Donahue's context this means "anything that criticizes Catholics or challenges Catholic dogma". This is a convenient refuge for the ridiculous to harbor in while trying to avoid scrutiny. The doctorine of transubstantiation lies quite clearly outside of objective material reality. A simple chemical analysis of the wafer and wine before and after the blessing would in all probability reveal them to be identical. So clearly the only way to defend it is to put the issue completely off limits. Any discussion of its validity is so offensive it is off limits.
Donahue finishes off his screed by issuing not so thinly veiled threats:
As I said to Ray Arroyo, this may not be over yet. Over the summer, Myers’ personnel file ballooned: everything that happened regarding this issue is in it. Which means that he’d better be careful about bringing his religious bigotry to bear in the classroom. If just one Catholic student complains that he is being treated unfairly because of his religion, Myers will have to answer.
Unfair treatement of a student because of his religion would clearly be inappropriate for any teacher. But what Donahue means by "unfair" belies his true intentions. Would it be unfair to give a student a poor grade solely on the account of his religious faith. Absolutely. Would it be unfair to give him a poor grade because the student uses his faith to improperly distort what is being taught in the classroom? Not at all. The trend for those that cry religious persecution in classrooms has been pretty evident in recent times. The strategy is to make wild claims about biology and claim persecution when the teacher hands out a giant F for not fulfilling the class requirements. This is Donahue's ham-handed, bullying way to plant a bad seed.
Donahue closes the post out with more self-centered puffery (his arrogance is even more striking in this letter than I have witnessed in him during other media appearances and written statements). You get the feeling that this is not so much about how Catholics feel as how he feels. Which I suppose is appropriate given that the Catholic League has no affiliation with the Catholic Church and anything relating to the Catholic League always seems to be about Bill Donahue.
