This Week's Rosie Award® Winner: the Entire Cast of "The View"

(Hat tip: Jimmy Akin via American Papist)

Time to bring back the Rosie Award®.

And the winner of this week's Rosie Award® for Outstanding Achievement in Anti-Catholic Commentary is:

The entire cast of Rosie's former show,
"The View"
Here's what put "The View" over the top:

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but, you know, often times when our politicians are running, you know, the Church gets a little aggravated with that because there’s quite a few of them have different pasts and sometimes the Church wants them to be more perfect.

JOY BEHAR: When you say “the Church” which church are you talking about?

GOLDBERG: Well, it’s, it’s all churches seem to have all kinds of problems with all kinds of candidates. But this particular problem comes when Archbishop Raymond Burke says no communication – [ED.: Whoopi obviously didn't pick up much knowledge of Catholicism by playing a nun in a couple of movies.]

BEHAR: No communion, communion.

GOLDBERG: No communion for Giuliani.

BEHAR: Holy communion on Sunday.

GOLDBERG: Yes, holy communion, you know what holy communion is. For the Catholic Church, you go in on Sunday, you've confessed everything on Friday or Saturday, you're clear, they give you the host, they say you're cool.

BEHAR: Then you get drunk and go out and have fun.

GOLDBERG: Yeah, you’re done. But because of Rudy's stance on abortion, he says he can not give him communion and he is persisting in a very serious sin. When asked if the Archbishop would deny those pro-death penalty, pre-emptive war, he says it's a little more complicated in that case.

BEHAR: Because they're adults and they've committed some crimes, they feel that, that's a legitimate reason to kill someone.

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: I always had an issue with priests denying communion. I remember someone in my family went through a divorce. Unless she got her marriage anulled, she wasn't allowed to receive communion. Her ex-husband wouldn't give her an anullment. He wouldn’t show up for the anullment. So, then she was shamed, in other words, for not being --

BEHAR: Ex-communicated, yeah.

HASSELBECK: -pretty much not able to walk down and receive what is to be the most intimate, you know, part of the week with God and taking Jesus into your body. [ED.: At least Elizabeth understands who the Eucharist is, even if she lacks an understanding of why that makes worthiness of reception an important matter.]

BEHAR: What about Giuliani? He's been divorced three times at least.

SHERRI SHEPHERD: Has he had communion prior to this? Have they been giving him– is this an everyday thing?

GOLDBERG: I assume in other churches he wasn't having an issue or we would have heard about it.

BEHAR: Well, they don't exactly interview you when you’re at the rail. The priest doesn't say how many times have you been divorced? They don’t do that.

GOLDBERG: But if the archbishop is making that much noise, I assume that this is not the kind of story that would disappear. We would have heard something because it happened with John Kerry, didn't it?

BEHAR: Well, you know, just, just speak to the anullment problem. I remember when the Beatles were around, that you could, that you could buy an anullment. People used to buy anullments. [ED.: Huh? What the hell do the Beatles have to do with anything, other than to reveal the dated nature of Behar's spirit-of-Vatican-II "Catholic" sentiments?]

GOLDBERG: Yes

BEHAR: You know, the Kennedys and people like that could buy anullments, so it meant really nothing.

HASSELBECK: Our family didn't come from a lot of cash, so they weren’t buying an anullment. [ED.: Funny, but my declaration of nullity didn't cost me a thing monetarily.]

BEHAR: Well, that's my point. So, I mean, it's not exactly the most moral position.

GOLDBERG: It's very strange that when, when the Catholic god, you know, because there are so many different gods. I'll refer to the Catholic god at the moment. It seems that the Catholic god always says judge lest ye be judged. And always says if I –

BEHAR: They always say that.

GOLDBERG: If you come to me, I'm the only one who can forgive you. It doesn’t matter what everyone else says. And yet a priest, the mouth piece to God, would say you can't –

BEHAR: There are amendments. Unless you do this. Unless you do that. (hand gesturing)

SHEPHERD: The priest has absolute say, because I don't know about Catholicism –

BEHAR: No the Pope does.

SHEPHERD: The Pope, okay.

HASSELBECK: No, the Pope does. The bishops are an extension of his, his abilities to say yeah or nay to certain things. There are a lot of rules in the Catholic, you know, Church.

SHEPHERD: So if he says I don't believe in abortion anymore, then he can take communion?

BEHAR: Well, the thing about is that Rudy Giuliani hasn't necessarily had an abortion himself. His wi- you know what I mean? His wife hasn't had one. I don't know if she has or not. He's not saying I'm going to get it or you should get it or you shouldn't get it. He's saying people should have the right to choose whether they want this or not. And that's his position is. The Church doesn't have that position.

[Applause]

SHEPHERD: But did they deny him for leaving his wife or cheating on his wife and marrying another woman?

BEHAR: No, no, no.

SHEPHERD: Why don't they deny him for that? Is that not a sin any more to leave your wife? Excuse my anger, but is that not a, not a --

BEHAR: It is a sin. But he wasn't running for president at the time, so there wasn't an issue.

HASSELBECK: I seems this archbishop needs a little pub. You know what I mean? He wanted a little publicity. He thought slamming Giuliani would get him into the limelight. [ED.: Which goes to show you know absolutely nothing about Archbishop Burke.]

BEHAR: You think that’s it?

HASSELBECK: Yeah, they’re all about it.

BEHAR: What about the vows of modesty? Don't they take that also?

HASSELBECK: Some don’t. You should see the jewelry they wear. They’re, you know.

SHEPHERD: Blinging! Bling, bling!

GOLDBERG: I just find it very interesting that, that, you know, it's like closing churches. I don't understand people who close churches because there’s so many, you know, folks that go to church. You know, it’s really a big deal for a lot of people. How can you live at the Vatican and say we have to close these churches because there's not enough money when we could, like, sell some stuff?

BEHAR: Well, the Catholic Church is, is in debt now for paying off a lot of the pedophile cases and they have to close all these churches. [ED.: And with that, you lose the debate.]

GOLDBERG: There's a lot of stuff they could be selling.

HASSELBECK: And they were handing out communion to all those men who were molesting all the boys out there and they didn’t have a problem giving them communion. [ED.: And with that, you lose the debate.]

BEHAR: We were all raised Catholic here, so this is not some anti-Catholic rant that we're on. This is just factual information. [ED.: Uhhhh, right. Just the "facts", ma'am. No misinformation about the Church or agendas from these folks who were "raised Catholic" whatsoever. And John Kerry was an altar boy.]

GOLDBERG: No, I’m a little bit on a rant. No you’re right.

BEHAR: You can rant. But I was raised -- I had communion every Sunday. I received my communion, my confirmation, all nine yards. My daughter’s been baptized, just in case, you know?

GOLDBERG: You are so funny.

BEHAR: And so this is just- these are facts about the Church right now that people have to either live with or reject.

HASSELBECK: That's one area. That's the Catholic Church. There are many other divisions of Christianity.

SHEPHERD: If you’re a Christian, you can do communion if you sin.

GOLDBERG: Not in the Catholic Church.

At best, this laughable commentary is a complete hodgepodge of ignorance, if not outright stupidity. At worst, it's anti-Catholic know-nothingism writ large. The transcript speaks for itself.

For all you do, cast of "The View", this Rosie's® for you.

"Aarrrrgh! I hates Catholics!"

UPDATE
And yet another anti-Catholic moment on "The View" just wouldn't be complete if we didn't hear from one of the show's biggest fans, Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

“THE VIEW” PANELISTS FLASH THEIR IGNORANCE

October 5, 2007

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on yesterday’s episode of the ABC show, “The View”:

“Whoopi Goldberg began by saying that because of Rudy Giuliani’s position on abortion, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke ‘cannot give him Communion.’ To our knowledge, Giuliani has never been refused Communion by any priest (though Burke could deny him if he wanted to). Moreover, it is not likely that Giuliani is going to be faced with this issue anyway: he knows that he is not supposed to present himself for Communion given the fact that his previous marriage was not annulled.

“Elisabeth Hasselbeck put her arrogance on display by exclaiming, ‘I always have an issue with a priest denying Communion.’ Again, denying someone Communion rarely occurs, but in any event, what business is it of someone who is no longer a Catholic to offer her two cents about Catholic teachings? Compounding her foolishness, she said that someone in her family who had gotten divorced was not allowed Communion until she received an annulment. This is ludicrous: a divorced Catholic who has not remarried is never denied Communion.

“Joy Behar and Hasselback then opined how annulments can be bought. This is one of the great smears that often goes unchallenged. If they had to enumerate them, they couldn’t. Certainly there are old allegations regarding a few prominent Catholics, but it is simply wrong to make sweeping generalizations. There is a modest administrative fee for annulments, but it can be waived if the cost is deemed prohibitive.

“Perhaps the most brilliant line was the one by Behar who announced that ‘Rudy Giuliani hasn’t necessarily had an abortion himself.’ We particularly like the qualifier, ‘necessarily.’ And, of course, they all chimed in about the scandal, thus dragging gays through the mud.”

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
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This Week's Rosie Award Winner: Rosie O'Donnell

This Week's Rosie Award Winner: Catholic Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives

Belated Rosie Award Winner for Last Week: Sen. Patrick Leahy

This Week's Rosie Award Winner: "Comedian" Billy Crystal

This Week's Rosie Award Winner: Federal District Judge Marilyn Patel

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