Catholic malcontents who demand the church be more liberal on sex are "termites" who should "get out" if they don't like its teachings, says Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
"These are the people who are unhappy because the Catholic Church didn't turn major left," Donohue said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"You can leave. This is not a dictatorship. If you're unhappy with the Catholic Church, get out. Join someplace else. Join your own organization.
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"But don't stay like termites or claim to be Catholic and then eat away at the very foundation [of the church]. I have nothing but disrespect and contempt for these so-called Catholics."
Donohue's comments come amid a demand by more than 100 Catholics that Pope Francis oust San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for allegedly fostering "an atmosphere of division and intolerance."
They accuse Cordileone of coercing "educators and staff in our Catholic high schools to accept a morality code which violates consciences as well as California labor laws,"
The Christian Times reports.
Proposed language for the 2015-16 faculty handbook warns that gay sex and other carnal activities outside marriage are "gravely evil." Such activities also include "adultery, masturbation, fornication, [and] the viewing of pornography."
Donohue — author of
"The Catholic Advantage: Why Health, Happiness, and Heaven Await the Faithful," published by Image — said he told Cordileone he has the full support of the Catholic League.
"All he wants to do is to make sure that the Catholic teachers in the four high schools are faithful to Catholic teachings. It's not a whole lot to ask for," Donohue told Steve Malzberg.
"But San Francisco being San Francisco, you've got a lot of malcontent Catholics, dissidents and outsiders who are coming in with their money, and they're trying to crack them.
"Archbishop Cordileone is a great man, he's the prince of the Catholic Church. He's a tough guy, and if he needs a heavy hand in the Catholic League, we're there for him … These people out there who are trying to crash the Catholic Church on this, they don't understand what they're up against."
A 2012 Gallup poll found San Francisco has the nation’s highest concentration of men and women who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Donohue said the rebel San Francisco Catholics have already complained to the pope's staff in Rome, but not surprisingly received no answer.
"They were blown right off by the Vatican," he said.
Donohue's group, the New York-based Catholic League, describes itself as the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization, the goal of which is to defend "the right of Catholics — lay and clergy alike — to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination."
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