“Here is a newspaper article–front page (‘Saintly Assistance: Burying miniature statue of St. Joseph in yard said to be helpful when selling a home,’ New Castle News, April 5, 2001)–and the plastic St. Joseph’s kit used to bless and sell homes here in New Castle during the year 2001!” writes Pennsylvania Foundation member Dale Anderson.

Dale kindly mailed the Foundation office a sample of the “graven images” apparently buried in many New Castle backyards.

“We expect this type of gross superstition to flourish in places such as Mexico, South America, Spain, etc., but this archaic cancer still haunts ‘modern families.’ ” he writes.

“Robert Ingersoll said it well when referring to ‘poison from the mother’s milk’ given in love to the innocent child. Thus is the torch of human reason polluted.” 

Setting the Record Straight

At the National Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance at the U.S. Capitol on April 19, President Bush said:

“Tyrants and dictators will accept no other gods before them. They require disobedience to the First Commandment. They seek absolute control and are threatened by faith in God. They fear only the power they cannot possess–the power of truth. So they resent the living example of the devout, especially the devotion of a unique people chosen by God.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote Bush documenting the Christian origins of anti-Semitism.

“The very week of your statements on the Holocaust we see continued examples of breathtakingly insensitive Christian anti-Semitism in this country:

Johnny Hart’s ‘B.C.’ Easter Day cartoon and Easter commentary by the darling of the Christian right, Paul Weyrich, declaring that “Christ was crucified by the Jews.’ “