I thought it was pretty darned, well, catholic of Bill Donohue to take out after
Rev. Robert Jeffress for deriding Mitt Romney’s Mormonism as a cult and
denouncing Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as “false religions,”
alongside denigrating Catholicism as corrupted by “cult-like pagan
religion” under the tutelage of Satan. Declared the head of the Catholic
League, “When theological differences are demonized by the faithful of
any
religion–never mind by a clergyman–it makes a mockery of their own
religion.”

Then, on Thursday, Donohue called
in no uncertain terms for Rick Perry, Jeffress’ guy for president, to
treat the minister just the way John McCain treated that other Texas
pastor, John Hagee:

Perry should follow the lead of McCain and make an explicit statement
renouncing any ties he has to Jeffress. Any man of the cloth who
entertains the despicable views Jeffress does about Catholicism, as well
as many other religions, should be shunned by candidates for the
presidency.

This guy’s a tiger, thought I.

So imagine my shock on Friday to find Michael Sean Winters up in arms that Donohue had gotten all kissy-face with Perry without getting his demands met. Say it ain’t so, Bill!

Encouragingly, the headline on the Catholic League press release
read, “Gov. Perry Rebukes Pastor Jeffress.” But then followed an
account of how, thanks to the ministrations of evangelical-Catholic
matchmaker Deal Hudson, Perry phoned Donohue to assure him that “nothing
that Jeffress said about Catholicism represents his views.” Whereupon:
“I very much appreciate Gov. Perry’s interest in getting this issue
behind him in a responsible manner. He succeeded. Case closed.”

Case
closed? What about Mormonism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism? What about
the renouncing of ties? Where was the rebuke? That’s it?