>> you were a customer. did you like me, you to go at lunchtime? >> yes. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> exposed as a daytime drinker in my last question. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. thank you so much, rachel maddow. thank you. [cheers and applause] ..

>> >> we are most honored to have bill donohue joining us this evening for this event, presenting his new book.ing hi he is a teacher that goes back quite a ways, he began hisgain teaching career working at st. lucie's college in spanishge harlem. in 1977, he took a professor position at rhodes college in pittsburgh. .. he is a president and ceo of the catholic league for religious andof civil rights, the nationso largest catholic right civil rights organization. the publisher of the catholic league journal, he served for two decades of on the board of the national association of scholars come and continues to guest lecture at for phd's are

on the road. he is also a on the board of advisors for the washington legal solvation in the educational freedom foundation, the society of catholicuessed lr scientists, the jewish actione alliance, the christian film and television commission, catholic citizens of illinois, thee georgetown academy, catholics come home from the coalition to save iraqi cchristians, and thet advisory committee for inside catholicia life.ancient he's also a member of the catholic war veterans and an honorary member of catholic social workers national association. he serves also on the editorial advisory board oalf the family f the journey of public policy.rps he has won many catholic awards, speaking for civil liberties and social issues. he asks, -- we ask our how does

this man have a chance to sit down right a book? liberti [laughter] i was mentioning couple of things and then i will let bill donohue takeover and let us know what he is really thinkingte a o about. in recent years from the catholic church has gone throug terriblyth turbulent times. horribleering of the abuse 10 years ago.couldha the beast that persisted thatent could'veed been prevented. the catholic church teaching ano practices are not just being overlooked by the media, the people in the pews. there is a change in this, and the new hhs mandate have given us the opportunity to speak about these things. the church's teachings remain the best guide to good living ever adopted. we are at a catholic moment in america.

enturies of the experience of living according to the principle antipolitics grid the human coalescence. teachings define today's ideological categories. the church is involved in social and economic affairs. it really is all things to all w pn. always willing to speak his mind to put up a good fight, bill donohue as president of the catholic league, and reminds readers of his book, of thek the great charity and wisdom that it exists in the catholic religion. explores prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance in this book and shows how the church's attributes should be applied to solve many of the problems that societies confronted with in the

future. the good society lies in waiting, he writes. but the right recipe has been around for 2000 years. the more we learn about the inspiring record of catholic social teaching, and thel applicationsi, the more likely y is that all of us will see how negative wrong the stereotypes of catholicismreally is. we are happy to have you with us. [applause] >> thank you, father. i appreciate to speak to you about the book. a couple of years ago, i wasitys working with an editor, trace murphy, out of the doubleday random house group. and i had an idea about a book.

and he said very politely, i think we could think of another book. sometimes we get a lot of negative press, sometimespressol unfairly.we are get we are being targeted these days. he said somebody needs to bowrie a book about the good things that have been done. there have been a few books in the past, some of them are very good, but the kind i wanted to do brings more my sociologicalt training to the table, and i'mmy trying to look at this historically come as, as well ar today. it is wrapped around the i forefront.at the argument is simple.the throughout the ages, all the great philosophers have talked about the goodo society. what is the good society? what constitutes the good society? can we achieve the good society? the argument i am making is that the answer has been there for a long time. if you were to follow the teachings of the catholic church, you would have the good society. that is the answer, and that is a pretty tall law to clear.

the catholic church teachings te are very demanding. i happen to be of the opinion that it is better to try and massage the runner and the highe jumper and try to get him to hio clear the bar as opposed tot in sropping the bar down.hi in this country, from the bedroom to the boardroom, and in many other examples, we have seen inflation, the dumbing down, we have seen a feeling oft the worst common denominator. the catholic church, with its high demands, it should be roomr in turn remaining.own who are you to talk about thosek don't you have some problems in oner own religion? >> one woman says i can't answer the question. you have had a scandal in your own church. if every priest who failed us had followed his vows, asoman

opposed to his head, we would not have had the problem. the fact of the matter is we are all sinners. that is why the pope goes to confession, that is why we have problems with the apostles. we know this.m but wel people are failed human beings, catholics have an un understanding of redemption and we have an understanding of dempti forgiveness. the question is this, are the teachings corroded reign know, the teachings are excellent. if you can follow the teachings in the catholic church, and inl tth fact of dealing with the scandal, the catholic boardto bm .oesn't need teo be amended.or y what needs to be amended is the behavior of some of the clergy. we are talking a very small number, by thesm way. mber let's t this straight. you are talking about 149 14 priests out of 149,000, that are responsible for 20% of the cases. factor in all the cases that are false accusations. i don't want to belabor this to the problem. the teachings are sound. if the teachings were a problem,

then i wouldn't be here today trying to sell you the idea that we have the right recipe for the good society. the fact that some people fail should not come as a breaking he news.th but the be, when i am saying is that if rou look at this thingb historically, where do you thine the idea of the university came from? it did not come from the greeks for the romans. certainly, they gave us aristotle and cicero.rch. what university system did they give us? nothing. that was the work of the catholic church. where did the idea of freedom come from?bout it did not originate in the east. theoriginated in the west. and matter of fact, the chinese and japanese didn't have a word for freedom until the 19thn't century.n ha we have to look at the rich traditions of art, music, the rich traditions, which is what

reason and put -- pursuit of truth will get you there. the natural teleology or purpos. is to focus on ourselves, but that egocentrism is not veryut helpful in society. the catatholic church tries to combat that by trying to inculcate a set of values and to young people and into adults. at the time attention should nt be to yourself, it should be to others. we have the two great commandments, love of god, love our neighbor, that is the heart and soul of the natural law.h yes, natural law was thereatu before with arirstotle. but it was our church. our church to give us the grounding of natural law. people say that it's kind of a

antiquated notion, but they are wrong. everybody knows in her heart what is wrong. th what is really true is what the government decrees, some people say. the government tells us what is right is -- and what is wrong.is a you know that there is a higher law that you can answer to reedit and guess when we discovered this? some people say, if you take these ideas which are entertained in a broad sense by marx and freud and darwin, allt of these materialists, the idea that there is no such thing as truth and moral absolute, the only thing that exists is a law in which the government decrees come you can't prosecute people when it comes to the law telling

you what to do. they were good, loyal soldiers. the only way we could prosecute these people is in regards to catholic teaching. they all said you had to know it your heart of hearts that these jewsod w were innocent human bes and you put them into ovens. i look at the situation, and i remember at carnegie mellon and number of years ago, gave a talk about -- i don't know i wasave talking about, something -- all of these phd students were there. and they said you had some very strongly held opinions.e. i said yes, i do. i give great thought to things and i'm very passionate. let's talk about it.of -- soetis they said you actually think there is some society that is better than our civilization. and i said yes, i do. i believe it is our own. you have a problem with the idea of western civilization. i said let me make sure i get

this straight. you say that all cultures are basically equal and we shouldn't be prejudged or make any judgments about wanting secured from the other. and i said is that we believe?a and they said i said of course, that's what i believe.i thi now,n something i don't want tow leave out of this discussion, because i said to them directly i think i got what you're saying, in germany, they took jews like you and put you into ovens in this country puts pizzas into ovens. that is just a matter of different strokes for different folks, right? >> they got very nervous and to were very upset.ulture that is the conclusion that he logically come to when there is no such thing as truth. when all cultures are basically evil. putut pizza into ovens may jews like you into ovens and that is a matter of different strokes for different folks because you have no basis on which you can condemn these people. i have a moral basis, i have

natural law. natural rights don't come from government. we have inalienable rights, that is a very catholic idea. that the rights here and in us, that they come from god. if we are pushed to it and we are told that we have to do things that are against our conscience, that we result to bk horribly projectable, that we will in fact practice moral disobedience. how often do you see that?today. these are not ancient concepts. from are very irrelevant toe today. what i am saying is that so maybe things have catholic links to them. that is where they come from. and you take a look at, for l example, slavery. what institution was the first to speak up against slavery? admittedly, the catholic church did not initially condemn slavery, even though pius the first and the second, and in the

fourth century the first pope had condemned it, we didn't come out right out of the box -- but that is because we have assisteh with the slave had certain rights. we were the first to do that until we were eventually able tn collapse the system. without the natural law tradition, how do you make thea argument? it is easy for us to say that this man is a creature of god. he is a person who is ordained by god and has the same rights as everybody else, and you cannot make that fiction that somehow you are the master andrt he is the slave and he has no rights. the catholic church rejected that and it took centuries before it came out. i recounted the book about the causes and what he did -- this dominican priest that stood up against everybody else, and

people in the catholic church, i must say about that. there is a very proud record in that regard. this question of prudence, which is one of the virtues that i talked about, it is the cardinal of all the cardinal virtues.prue eventually speaking, you don't get rid of slavery overnight. it is written in the constitution in 1808, he basically understood this. that is what it is easy for us to say that well, everybody kne this was wrong throughout history, why didn't somebody do something about it?the wa clearly, the catholic church had a role in leading the way in the fight against slavery. we have been fighting today about this other fiction that some people consider a right, which is the right to kill a baby in utero. i think this is a civil rightsie issue. i object to people who say this is a matter of religion. this biology 101.

the color of my skin, the color of my eyes, the color of my hair, all of my dna, it did not come two months after my mother had me. it was fair at consumption. it was not a week later. those calculations are there. that is biology 101. i find it entertaining when people like hillary clinton say abortion is sad anordti tragic. what is sad about it? why is abortion a tragedy? if there is no other human life there, why are we saying go foru it? you don't say getting a root canal is a sad thing or aerybody tragedy. whoever said that -- may be unfortunate, something you don't want to go through, my point is everybody knows. you just take a look at theth pictures. a baby. by the way, i am very much encouraged on this. the gallup poll came out last week and they have been tracking this stuff or decades. the so-called pro-choice

population is down to lowest in history. down to 41% of the population identifying with pro-choice, and that has more to do with the that sonogram than anything else. i think we are on the right track with that. the a catholic church -- getting off to the next virtue of justice -- the nuns, yes, priests and the laymen as well,7 but without the work of the nuns hospit who founded the first hospitals and schools the asylum is the founding homes the hospitals ths hospices -- we have so many mother teresa's inner church's history that we don't discuss - they found her and she didn't want to be known for the work that she f did. we did find her. we did need heroes. she certainly has to be one of the greatest heroes of our age.

mr. christopher hitchens said she would take money from rich people -- and i said christopher, did you expect her po take it from the poor? on the middle class that battle wouldn't make sense to taketo money from the rich and give it to the poor? i don't quite understand that. what are we back to this again? we are going to play mr. clean? is everybody snow white at the table? mother theresa knew what she was doing. she founded the first hospicey. for aids patients in new york city. 27% of the entire world's funding for aids comes from one institution in the catholic church. we dohe many of the private soue cared of those stricken with aids.y lecre

phobias and whatnot, you have a phobia cure spending money doing that kind of thing. the immigrants -- welcoming the stranger. look at the great work that has been done by catholic ethnics. e that is why it is despicable in our country today to see some people making their anti-latino comments. it is one thing about protecting our borders, but stop with jumping on the latinos. people are welcome here. you're not going to tell a priest, let me see whether or is not you were here legally, whee is your card if you are in need. i see if i see someone in need, not when asking for proof or whether he is a document with him.or c the catholic church is very liberal on that side of the issue, and i applaud the catholic church for that and its fortitude in standing up against other things.

look at what the jewish community said about pope pius 12, during the war and average the border.revionis why did the world jewish s congress gives him the millions of the catholic church? golden meyer say that we never saw a greater person tosee reach out to jews. why did you see every jewish organization -- that albert einstein said he was shocked cecause he didn't think too muc of the catholic church, but no, it was the catholic church that did more for the resistance. no, this idea, it was hitler's t pope -- it was not -- how could it be hitler's pope when hitler had assassination plans against the pope and yet plans to kidnap the pope and kill the pope and the catholic church because it stood as a resistance? i'm very proud of the record.

when the final vatican archives come out from our site will be vindicated. those people who make the arguments against this priest and john cornwell among johnat a cromwell, in this and that, trying to smear the pastth and discredit the voice of the catholic church come if from if you look at what the jewish community said about pius 12, -- now, if you think that is anan 0 exaggeration comes to, summoning you to explain to me why did 800,000 trees in israel in southeast israel in the 1940s, one for every jew that was saved by the catholic church? they did not deny it. you have to read through the

stuff and take a look, not at just pius 12, gorbachev and himself said [inaudible]iets an ronald reagan was key.urch ron the people in the soviet union j who were resistant wiki. john paul to, he set the record straight. he knew what everyone was talking about. what just listen to the way that they speak. t this message was not lost on the soviets. eventually, he did what he did at the time. by the way, this chapter on fortitude, the myths about the crusades. the myths about the spanish inquisition. i take them head on. the catholic church had almost nothing to do with the

inquisition. the inquisition was conducted mostly by secular authorities bh people like the kings and royalty who decided that these people may not be loyal to the crown. they were critical of the catholicti church. grou the crusades were basically a retion defensive reaction against the moslem oppression, in fact, the muslim word didn't even use the word crusade until the 19th century. it was skirmishes they had against the people and what they regarded as the infidel. i want to set the record straight on that as well. finally, the section onnt temperance deals with marriage, family, sexuality, the necessity of restraint. t this is a serious question, because i believe in the he sociology, that the single biggest social problem that we have in society today is this o runaway idea of defining freedom as autonomy. radical autonomy. i am my own moral arbiter, i make up my own moral compass. i don't need any external

authority. i can make up my own ideas of right and wrong that i have my conscience. jeffrey dahmer had a consciencea and he killed his victims and si ate them for supper, hitler had it contents, stalin had a conscience, and every thug in history has had a conscience. it is not good enough to have ay conscience. you have to have a well formed conscience, which means you have to be embedded in the rich traditions of the catholic church. you can follow the 10 commandments, you can follow the teachings of the catholic church, that will set you free. this idea of libertarianism is c false notion of freedom. it is not an easy sell. the catholic church is that freedom is the right to do what we want to do. hard that is a hard sell in a country which teaches that freedom is the right to do whatever you want to do. that is a very hard sell. it is the focus on the other. the teleological in point, so to speak.

the other that i should not ring my eyes inward, but outward onto others. the great catholic from francea who came here in the 1830s, camf up with is, you get the focus off of yourself and onto others. if we continue to define him as the unencumbered self, i need no moral directives or ini authority, you're going to wind up like [inaudible name]. i have a discussion of him in this book. the french intellectual -- t everything that he did to his body, the sex that he had with young boys, and was proud of ite even justified rate, this is a man who is regarded in the 1980s, as perhaps, the most powerful intellectual of his day. he died of what he considered to be a social construct. he didn't leave like the others

that there were some idea of truth and moral absolute. he believed that they were just interpretations. so you have your interpretation and i have my interpretation.tr. there is no idea of aids, he thought it was made up. he died of aids.don there is such a thing as truth. when you abandon common sense for that matter, and you treat the body as if it was a vessel d to be thrown everything into it -- he uses body for drugs and we are supposed to revere him and looked at him?zes the he was -- i'd use him as an example because he epitomizes the very counter distinction of what the cat content catholic church teaches. he rejected natural law, natural rights, human dignity, and heo said there is no such thing as truth and a moral absolute, everyone interweaves his own ideas and morality. that has certain consequences. well, catholicism matters because it has consequences. if we could all follow it -- i'm

not holding myself up as a beacon, i am saying that the right recipe for the good society has been around for 2000 ueeq years.tholic neis have to stop with this d puppetry of catcalls. we don't want to impose anything. we want to propose -- we have things to say.we my job as president of the catholic league is to say this, i want to hold up a big stop sign and let the catholic voice be heard. we do so respectfully and simply, but what we see going on in our society today, and i've seen on the right is a seat on the leftn people are out there and acting od an irresponsible way. they know what is right andtion they're going to shut you up. this is not a good situation in our society today. intolerance seems to rain withig the supremacy, the likes of which i've never seen. i do think the catholic church

is the answer. i don't want you to be trample is somewhere some word on your sleeve. i don't want someone wearing it and walking around like that also. we have a whole generation ofth people, they don't know abouttha the good things the catholic church has done in the creation of the univ oersity and contribution to the scientific revolution and the poor, fighting, to some, fascism, and all the other good things that we have done. we should be proud of what we have done, and i think in the third millennium, we shut up the catholic voice, not only will catholics lose, it will society will lose. i sincerely believe that. anyway, you know, [inaudible]ien i can't write these books unless i believe in him. that doesn't mean that i'm not up to their criticism like everyone else. and rea i want to thank you for this opportunity to discuss the book, and i'm certainly open to any q&a that you may have about any aspect. >> when president obama was invited to notre dame to speak

in a protest and what is going on with georgetown and stuff, i tend to -- i don't really -- iso disagree with their positions, but i tend to be that guy thate. likes the other voice in the room, at least. what do you think about that? would you not invite them to the catholic institution are not? >> i get questions on that and i debated, i won't mention his name, but a priest in washington. i like him and i think he is a good guy.ma i spent 20 years in education.e me.ook the position of that president obama had every right to speak at the university ofhe notre dame and any other in the country.lace to weber strongly it is preposterous that president would be allowed to speak anypl3 it is preposterous that president would be allowed to speak anyplace. i was strongly opposed to him getting an award. why would they give --ogi whethr the catholic university give an award to a man who come all when he was in the illinois state senate, took the position -- and he led the fight -- that once a

baby is born, as a result of a a botched abortion -- it is aedica woman's body, that baby was allowed to die. i have never in myen life seen b president more on enthusiast for abortion rights. in 2000 sometime he told planned parenthood of the first thing hf would do as president is signed into law the freedom of choice act. that was the most radical, sweeping, pro- abortion legislation ever proposed by anybody because of our -- because of our bishops, [inaudible] should he be speaking at the my university? yes. should he have gotten an award?t no. i asked the priest i was debating, he couldn't say an answer. i said you would be okay opposed

to an anti-semite or a race is getting an award from the catholic university, and i would join you. the difference between me and fu, father, is the fact thattht you don't have problem with this meant getting an award from the university.nk na she was asked point-blank by one of them, can you name from a to single law that you have ever supported him which would create any restriction on abortion and she said no. a she wasn't just a friend of il george tiller and the partial birth abortion, she raised money for it. it is hardho how youw can get y further out there in left field than kathleen sebelius. you have to give joe biden credit and catholics aren't going to put up with us.

this is a first amendment issue. telling nonprofit catholics want to do. unfortunately, they were vetoed, weren't they. there are a lot of people like kathleen sibelius who have left the church in a practical way wd and they are clueless.and mahe u he may have been true than in the past you might have found a lot of bureaucratic bishops.e a lot of them are very passive, you would've found others tainted by the scandal. that scandal occurred between the 60s and the 80s. let's look at the timeline. my point is that we have a newnl crop of bishops today, and when you have men like [inaudible vame], archbishop, [inaudible o name], and cardinal [inaudible name], these men are brilliant, they are tough, and there is a lot of them out there. they don't understand this is not about contraception. this is about the first amendment to the constitution.

if it was about contraception, every poor woman can get it for free from planned parenthood. all you have to do in new york city is walk down the block.dme. mayor bloomberg is giving condoms away. stds are climbing up -- i can look up the logic on that. that is how i would answer that. >> yes, sir? >> how you approach a parochialism, among secular people to not think about their values and, you know, they also expect catholics to criticize and critique what we believe. what they do it for themselves? >> they live in an intellectual ghetto. i have never seen a more insolent community. you have to look at college professors. who do they associate with? who they associate with but

other collegein professors? whether they think about? is a really hard for me to debate a liberal on tv? they are the easiest people in the world.ey associa they are utterly predictable. remember in 1972, a literaryand critic for the new yorkertand hw magazine, and she said, in mc regards to nixon being elected, how could that happen when everybody voted for george mcgovern. of course people do. the problem with the left todayt is that there are always exceptions.en i'm not speaking the honestis t liberals, i am speaking about thehe left. it is a minority, but they run the show. liberals are basically afraid to confront him on the campus, okay? they don't believe that they have to worry about such things as empirical evidence, they

don't have to worry about rationality of the truth. you look at that, i look back, we can change her mind on things, they just know that they are right. they just know that they arethit right.ow they these are the high priest of secularism. the idea that you entertain an idea which is contrary to theirs -- i mean, i was saying to cindy, i sometimes wonder if people have -- if everyone has their full bearings or what. elephaody knows when a pregnant woman -- what she's doing. ahe's not carrying an elephant e or seal for it popcorn or aonog bowling ball. when you look at the sonogram,in everybody knows that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life. everybody knows that. everybody knows that two menil can't get married and have children. they can love each other, but they can'tdothe get married in y real sense because marriage is never about individuals who are adults, it is always about children. the only way to get children is their man and woman. that is what it's all about,the

otherwise people will just fornicate, in which case you would not have to worry about anything because kids would be abandoned -- society has alwaysd understood that throughout all of history. throughout all of humanrn histod -- eastern civilization, western civilization, all world religions have regarded marriagw being between a man and woman. in historical times from theey idea that tom and dick can get married is yesterday. we have the cultural arrogance to say that if you don't agree with me -- you can't get invited to a park avenue party in new york city without being in favor of tom and dick getting married. i keep throwing harry into it because that's where it gets knots. how do you say no to that? the case recently where a man came from ireland to the united states. omnd of a complicated story. cfr

he didn't know that this was his daughter, she says she is in love with her father, it's ato true story. there is a story about a brother and sister wanted to getimpregn. married.ried there was a question on this a couple weeks ago, and they got dead silence. they were not answer. please, would you please answer the question -- do you want to discriminate inouye see, i do want to discriminate on behalf of marriage between a man and woman. it is not a hypothetical in thee courts, it is not okay for them to get married.t hnce you take away tradition and the idea of procreation as au le centralft argument, when he left with? you can't say tradition, now, tom dick and harry. i'm simply saying that either marriage between a man and woman

is an alternative lifestyle, to treat would you treat equal to everything else, or it is special. a lot of people who are wr cohabitating, they don't get ven married but they want that. marriage benefits. they say what is wrong with giving the same benefits? well, i am a veteran. i get certain benefits. if you give my benefits to all people in society who are non-vegans, would've we done tod this? we devalued it. e devalued marriage, and we have to understand thedo t consequences and have a discussion on this issue. i don't think the american people are in favor of it. in my first book i talk about the 1970s, equal rights

amendment. polls always show that women wanted equal rights. when they got a chance to vote, linda greenhouse, the legal correspondent for the times,to l wrote that record numbers turneq out overwhelmingly to defeat the have vrights amendment. pollster otthey say the same thing. we have 32 states.ties how many time out of 32 as gay marriage one?s. if you can't win in california, it's not like you can win anywhere. simply take a look at theseif it issues. there's a reason why these institutions are there. marriage is not about love. if it is about love, you can't stop anyone getting married. now it is about family and

children, an institution, not just about individuals, but social norms and consequences for the society. we don't want to have any boundaries because it goes back to the egocentrism of people. i know what is best for myself. out co i sometimes think we live in ams mad,dedthat has gotten so the three most dreaded words in the english language are thou shalt not. you don't decide what you can dd with your own body, women don't decide when demonstrate. people look at me and we have to go back to having -- back to basics grid having some reallyrg elementary understandings.by w two men can't get married. let's talk about some real life things instead of playing in this world of fiction and make-believe. i don't understand why we even do it.woad god t knows, but i have to make the proverbial statement that no, not in favor -- make it very clear in the book with gay bashing and stuff like that -- throw the book at these people. anyone who believes anybody is

acting contrary to the catholich teachings.ga just like the problem with the church here. with a tiny minority of priests. they work against their vows.ira they followed their head. not a very goodi director. gets you into trouble. teachings were sound 2000 years ago, they are sound today. if we would only follow them. >> when hijacked the language? i believe in marriage between ao man and woman, but i don'tt like to be called a homophobe. i voted for john mccain, i don't like to be called a racist. i believe in the catholic doctrine, regarding artificial contraception, but i don't like to be said that i am an award against women.

>> when you have been calling, it is a way of shutting down the debate. the reason the other side wants can'tkedown is because we make a logical o argument.thnota because they feel that they aally don't need to make logical argument. they don't need evidence, they don't need reasons. see, i need reason and i am a trained sociologist. i want to see the empirical evidence and i want to be persuaded by evidence. but i have dealt with a number of people on the left is a professor for years to know that you can argue until you're blue in the face. they have made up their minds and they know that they are right, and they don't need to argue anything. i have this one gal a number of years ago, she tried to give me a compliment.imessed me i give a talk at the college and she said wow, you really impressed me. i said thank you. she said you are a conservative with a conscience. a conservative with a conscience. i thought, i didn't want to insult her, but i thought, you are really great. you are a liberal with a mind. [laughter]

the people even realize. i then interviewed on shows, iyi said you referred to the left in wing booking institute?riod and he s aid i did not speak, i did characterize it that way, and we went back to break, and w he said there are with bill donohue used to be a right wing aired its foundation. these guys make these mistakes, but not always mistakes.phia thr [inaudible] there is a rider burning about a priest in philadelphia. she said he was brought up on charges of rape. it could have ended there, but she had a [inaudible]

, which is not at all unusual for priests. you will know the demographic r ats in this country and everyone has their sterno type. you know what the dirty laundrya is.u know, the d do youem ogwant me to write it n for you? could you actually say that about anybody else? by the way, this was not an editorial.rie i still would have been objection as an editorial. there are over 40,000 priests in this country. you know how many have accusations of any credible sort? less than 10 in the last 10 years. "the new york times" has finally published -- there are 85 to 90 in the last two years, people in the orthodox jewish community i one bureau in new york city, who have been accused, many of them rabbis and many non-guilty ofmol the sexual pulsation of minors, "the new york times" never published a single word into ai" the weeks ago.

this is going on now, not back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. and the da, who is simply protecting everybody. if this went on in the catholic community, many times have youou ig heard the jay leno's of thisng . world or the gals on the view or any other shows that we deal with? the bill maher's end and john stewart's. do they make fun of muslims andm jews? and i'm not asking them to start doing so to make me feel better. i am not that way. i'm just simply saying, that if we have a problem in our u don'ity, it becomes right from the script at night. geeral it was when everybody just dnges because -- whenever you generalize from the individual to the collector, you are in dangerous territory, people. we never hear about the priest was who does great work and then he that is the way they all are. you never hear anyone say that? they don't sit about cops orsay

fireman either. it is a constant battle that we have to point out. i do believe that there is -- there is a hard-core and segment of the left that is impervious to reason. reason is something that we give primacy to the catholic church. >> yes, sir. >> the president of notre dame came out with his book, the dark side, and one of the questionsdf he asked wasam eddo you think tu your beliefs apply only to you or to the university applicabley the great majority of those he asked that question to did not understand the question. my question to you is, where there is such a dictatorship ofo relativism in the academy, where young people have a document that says they spent four years in the institution of higher learning, getting an education, how do we get back to that reason and bringing reason, logic, if you will, back so that

we can have a rational discussion of these things? >> i try to give examples like i did before about how do weof hie successfully prosecute the about nazi's. we make people think about these kinds of things in theextensive classroom.skng s christina hoff sommers did a survey a number of years ago that wrote extensively on the holocaust. they take a look at the nationag association of scholars. a lot of students to this day have a real problem of trying to be judgmental. was it wrong what the germans did. what i don't quite understand is when you make a judgment, not to this be judgmental, that is a judgment. it is a judgment call that nothing matters. honestly, it must matter, because if you have innocent people that are dead -- and the

holocaust -- if we can't convince young people that there are certain acts, like the intentional killing, the killing of human beings, if that is thef an way that has come down to -- tha only way i can explain it is that i didn't see this with students when i was in a class of sociology and i was talking about these films were cars rann over a woman and pick up theit brains and whatnot -- and some students thought it was funny. i said let me ask you somethingt i said you are not entitled to human rights are not even human. second-in-command hitler said,pr he was in [inaudible name]did nt prison, they asked him in 1971, how could you do h this to he sd i didn't hate them. and he didn't hate them. i depersonalize them. that is what many things do.

as they point out in the book, you know, if you get angry at somebody, you validate their e humanness.alidate thr if you depersonalize them, if you dehumanize -- then it is like walking along the street. you don't feel sorry if you walk on ants. you keep on walking.t th there are consequences to society from and it surely happens to the weakest among us. it always gets around to rest at some point. it's bound to lose when someone. says i think stealing is wrong and you think it is not wrong -- somebody's going to lose at some point. you have to have a moral consensus. consensus means general agreement and not unanimity.said i think we have to explain some very basic things. thomas wolfe set at 25 years ago, too. we have to explain why we have laws and family and prostitution and white is a threat to the why

family. because we live in this fictional world of a blackboard where the professor can create a nirvana and utopia. the mine is capable of -- theuc. mind is capable of wonderful hallucinations.atholic some people in positions of power, i do think the catholic voice is morris ended today than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, so i am not discouraged. i was discouraged, i would go to the pub and say the hell with it. [laughter] i still go to the pub. t aughter] i'm going to be at the raymond royal at the world over. the media has been very good to me, on lou dobbs yesterday -- not everybody in the media is bad. just because many people tend to be on the left or center of

politics does not mean they are all out to get us. it is a business, they do want an audience. many people will -- as i say, fair-minded liberals are not the problem. the problem is that hardo b quarter, which is increasingly h becoming part of their voice, ft is too, on the left. it is to defeat them with logic and reason. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> book tv has over 150,000 twitter followers. follow book tv on twitter today publishing news, scheduling updates, author information and talk directly with authors during her by programming. twitter.com/booktv. >> what are you reading this summer? >> there are two wonderful books about where al qaeda and the

taliban are. dave kola is working on one. seth jones from the rand corporation is working on the other one. david maraniss is working on another biography at this time. there are lots of great books that come out every year. by serious journalists and historians that are worth reading. walter isaacson's book on steve jobs is an example of that. it was an international selling phenomenon, and with good reason because of all of the things we can learn from it. >> what are you currently reading? >> i read at electrically, actually. i read a wonderful book written by a british fly fisherman about his father in world war ii called blood knots.

i'm reading about terry anderson and the book about george bush and how he decided to go to war. my wife just finished catherine the great, which was given to me and she picked it off. i have to go back and get involved in that. i read a lot of magazines.com a lot of essays. i actually opened up correspondence with donald hall over something he wrote in the new yorker about growing old and it really spoke to me in a way. that was quite gratifying to me. i don't pretend to be a great writer, i am energetic and pretty good sometimes, but a great writer moves me in ways that nothing in life does. >> for more information on this and other him are reading less, visit booktv.org. next month, award winning author david is a guest. his passions are the great

american pastime, baseball, and presidents, has resulted in several books. sunday, july 1 at noon eastern on c-span 2. >> this is not the kind of book that an author will do it a reading from, but it is a very sure maddox story. when you step back and think about the supreme court over the centuries. the supreme court today or this next week, three days of the health care case being argued. the court is more visible and

american life than it has been for quite some time. i will be happy to chat about that and answer your questions. i want to talk a little bit and frame the story of the supreme court. in writing this book, what i tried to do was put myself in the position of, i am assuming, many of you or myself, before i had the chance to attend yale law school and spend the next 30 years writing that the supreme court on a daily basis for dinner at times, and that is to say, that somebody who is interested in public affairs, interested in civic life of the country, but just doesn't happen to be an expert on this particular topic. what would a person like that, a person as i was and maybe some of you are, what would a person needs to know to really a person's handle.

what i propose to do with the framework is make a series of observations that i will elaborate on and turnover for what i expect will be a fruitful and fun conversation among us. when you step back and think about the court, one thing that jumped out at me as i was organizing the material to write this book, is the extent to which supreme court is really the author of its own story. it wasn't given very much to work with. i said i wasn't going to read, but i will read the first sentence of article three of the constitution. which says, the judicial power of the united states shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. that is kind of dead. article three goes on and talks a bit about the jurisdiction of the courts, and so on.

many, many unanswered questions, including, for instance, there is no mention of the chief justice in article three. we only inferred that they are supposed to be -- but there is supposed to be a chief justice, because in article two, the presidential article, he is to be given the right to preside -- not the right, but the duty -- to preside over the impeachment trial of the senate of the united states. remember, ray lundquist did that in the bill clinton trial. later he was asked what had amounted to and he said, i did nothing in particular and i did it very well. much about the supreme court was undefined. it had to create itself. it has done so not in a straight

line progression, but it has done so through the cases. the cases that come in the early years, it had to decide because it had very little discretion over what to hear, and the cases, these days, that it chooses to decide. even that was a choice by the supreme court. most appellate courts today in this country, they have to take what comes. they act sort of as courts overview, courts of error correction. that was the supreme court's initial fake, or so it seems, but william howard taft, after his presidency was becoming president of the united states, and he sums up from the ability to