Catholic League President Bill Donohue AWOL on Anti-Catholicism — Again.

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

Rachel Tabachnick’s recent discussion of conspiracy narratives in her two part series about God TV host Wendy Alec’s series of novels Chronicle of Brothers (Part One, Part Two raises issues of anti-Catholicism that have gone either undetected, or more likely ignored, by Bill Donohue’s Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Like the Left Behind series Chronicle of Brothers is set in the end times. Also like the Left Behind series and related video game (set in post-Rapture New York City, Roman Catholics are among those “left behind”), you don’t need to be Catholic to recognize the inherent anti-Catholicism: Chronicle of Brothers portrays the 9/11 terrorist attacks as having been coordinated by a council of Illuminati led by a Jesuit priest.

But first, what is God TV and who exactly is Wendy Alec? Rachel explains:

God TV was founded in the U.K. in 1995 by Rory and Wendy Alec, a couple from South Africa. The network is broadcast in North America, Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia, claiming a “divine mandate to win one billion souls.” Many Religious Right events are now broadcast on God TV including: Lou Engle’s The Call, an “Election Special” in 2008 which featured James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, and John Hagee, along with Apostles Cindy Jacobs and Lou Engle, the May Day Prayer Rally, and more. Right Wing Watch has done an excellent job following these broadcasts, but unfortunately the video posted has been removed from YouTube at the request of God TV.

God TV network regularly features Dispensational evangelists and authors like John Hagee and Tim LaHaye who teach that believers will be Raptured or snatched from the earth before the horrors of the end times. However, God TV is the network of choice for the “apostles and prophets” who have rejected the pre-Tribulation Rapture of Dispensationalism and are training youth to be “end times warriors” with a mandate to purge the earth of evil themselves in preparation for Jesus’ return.

When Dan Brown’s books The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons were made into films, Bill Donohue attacked both films as anti-Catholic.

But when movement conservatives may be viewed as anti-Catholic Bill Donohue turns a blind eye. Which is what he did in response to the vile hatred of the video game Left Behind: Eternal Forces. He also gave John Hagee a quick absolution after Hagee’s characterization of the Catholic Church as the “whore of Babylon” threatened to cause problems for 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain.

Donohue also defended New Apostolic Reformation Bishop Thomas Muthee for his 2005 blessing of Sarah Palin in which Muthee prayed that the future GOP veep nominee would be “…free from ‘every form of witchcraft.” In fact, NAR’s anti-Catholic demagoguery is open and notorious and Donohue remains silent.

Donohue’s silence about Chronicle of Brothers is but the latest instance in which the self-appointed defender of all things Catholic goes AWOL when anti-Catholicism comes from movement conservatives.

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