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By Mike Stechschulte / Catholic News Service — Standing in the sanctuary of Mother of God Chaldean Cathedral, flanked by an empty cross and two ominous red symbols, Chaldean Bishop Francis Kalabat led more than 1,000 people Aug. 1 in an earnest prayer for peace and a plea for help.

The bright red symbols were the Arabic letter that stands for “Nassara” or “Nazarene” — meaning Christian, and they were ominous because Islamic militants have used the symbol to identify some 200,000 Iraqis singled out for an ultimatum: Convert to Islam, pay a tax or be killed.

Painted on the targets’ houses, the symbol is intended by the militants to be a derogatory term. But Bishop Kalabat said he wears it with honor.

“This is the latest image today of what has been endured for us as the cross,” he said, pointing to the wooden crucifix behind him. “This is just a new manifestation. A new way of attacking us, a new way of persecuting us.”

Bishop Kalabat, who in June was ordained the second bishop of the Southfield-based Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle, urged those in attendance to keep their focus on Jesus, and to unite their sufferings with him.

“That’s the suffering that we Christians have endured for 2,000 years, and will continue to endure until the end of time,” he said. “We Christians will be persecuted and crucified. Why? Because our beloved Jesus, the one we are anointed in, was crucified.”

The prayer vigil at Mother of God Cathedral followed a rally and march earlier in the day in downtown Detroit, which was attended by about 150 mostly young Chaldean Christians. After the prayer vigil at the cathedral, Bishop Kalabat led a eucharistic procession and rosary outside the church.

In a powerful address to the overflowing congregation, which included several local media outlets, Bishop Kalabat acknowledged the difficulty in forgiving those who unjustly persecute and kill Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere.

“I know I cannot forgive these people who keep hurting us,” he said. “But I know what Jesus said on the cross: ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they have done.’ And I know that he can give me that grace, but we need to ask.”

But the bishop said forgiveness does not mean Christians should not also pray and ask for justice, including from elected leaders. He called on the United Nations and international community to condemn the violence as genocide and said humanitarian aid was badly needed for Iraqi refugees, many of whom have found temporary protection from the Kurdish army after fleeing their homes in northern and central Iraqi cities such as Mosul.

Bishop Kalabat had especially pointed words for President Barack Obama, whom he said has not done much to address the problem.

“I don’t understand President Obama’s words, ‘The situation is an Iraqi problem.’ Since when? How many thousands of American soldiers were sacrificed? Bloodied, lost limbs, lost their souls, lost their lives. How is this not an American problem?” Bishop Kalabat said.

He said the inaction by the White House has prompted the Chaldean community to pursue direct humanitarian aid instead, including via bills currently before Congress.

“This community, you have responded in the most beautiful way,” he said, referring to a $60,000 collection taken up by local Chaldean parishioners about a month ago. “It was a drop in the bucket [compared to what’s needed], but it did help.”

He thanked the senators and representatives who traveled to Iraq to visit with refugees, especially from Michigan and San Diego, where the two largest concentrations of Chaldeans exist in the United States.

The bishop said advocacy groups were in the works, and a website will be created at www.HelpIraq.net to keep the community informed about ways to help, donate and get involved.

“We’re trying to bring the community together to be one voice. Not different organizations doing different things, but one voice, one community, one action,” he said.

Stechschulte is managing editor of The Michigan Catholic, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Detroit.

By Dale Gavlak / Catholic News Service — A top Catholic charity official described Gaza as a “complete catastrophe” after nearly four weeks of fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant Hamas.

“Gaza is on the brink of collapse at this point,” said Matthew McGarry, who directs the Catholic Relief Services’ operations in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem. He spoke to Catholic News Service in a phone interview from Jerusalem, describing the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, a coastal strip subject to Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire.

Despite the “extremely dangerous and challenging situation” in Gaza, CRS humanitarian aid is being still delivered to thousands, McGarry said Aug. 4.

Several calls for humanitarian cease-fires have largely gone unheeded by both sides, while at least six U.N. facilities sheltering Palestinians were shelled.

More than 1,800 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed and more than a quarter of the impoverished enclave’s 1.8 million residents displaced, according to Gazan officials. More than 60 Israeli soldiers have been in the Israeli operation, dubbed “Protective Edge,” seeking to destroy underground tunnels built by Hamas to carry out terrorist attacks in the Jewish state.

“Humanitarian workers are at risk. We had to limit our movements quite a bit,” McGarry said of the bombardments. Despite the constraints on movement, he said, “our teams have been able to move a good deal of humanitarian assistance.”

Distribution of 2,500 household emergency kits were underway to 15,000 people around the Gaza City area, including the heavily bombarded Gaza district of Shijaiyah, less than a mile from the Israeli border, and other northern cities, such as Beit Lahiya.

In addition, CRS has distributed “household kits, hygiene items, kitchen sets and some water storage containers to 500 households, a little over 1,000 people at this point,” McGarry said.

CRS, the U.S. bishops’ international relief and development agency, also helped facilitate the delivery of three truckloads of medical supplies, equipment and some medicines to the Anglican Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.

McGarry said plans included distributing additional medical supplies and equipment to the Caritas clinics and to Al-Ahli hospital.

Often, reaching out to assist people has been at enormous risk to the CRS staff, he said.

“It’s truly difficult. We have 15 Gazan staff. Half had to flee their homes because of damage and the high volume of airstrikes,” McGarry said.

“It’s extremely dangerous. It’s very stressful. It’s a very hard time. We have great, heroic staff but the situation has placed tremendous demands on them — on their personal and professional lives,” he added. “We have staff whose relatives have died from debris and shrapnel from airstrikes.”

Often the teams work under extremely difficult conditions with little access to drinking water or power in Gaza. The only electric power plant in the strip was disabled in late July.

McGarry said once a calmer environment settles on Gaza and people start to move, CRS plans to assist with badly needed water and sanitation work at centers for displaced families.

“If the conditions in Gaza become slightly favorable, we will scale up accordingly,” he said.

“In the last weeks, there were expectations that things would get better but those expectations have been consistently disappointed with the situation getting worse, to the point that Gaza is on the brink of collapse,” he said.

Gaza has been subject to a seven-year economic blockade, which Israel imposed after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Fatah party.

Catholic News Agency/EWTN News—The Congregation for Divine Worship, in a recent circular letter, announced that the placement of the sign of peace within Mass will not change, though it suggested several ways the rite could be performed with greater dignity.

“The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments ... pronounced in favor of maintaining the ‘rite’ and ‘sign’ of peace in the place it has now in the Ordinary of the Mass,” Father Jose Maria Gil Tamayo, secretary general of the Spanish bishops’ conference, related in a July 28 memo.

The sign of peace is exchanged at a Mass said at Holywell, Wales, on July 6. Credit: Joseph Shaw via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

He noted that this was done out of consideration of the placement of the rite of peace as “a characteristic of the Roman rite,” and “not believing it to be suitable for the faithful to introduce structural changes in the Eucharistic Celebration, at this time.”

The sign of peace is made after the consecration and just prior to the reception of Communion; it had been suggested that it be moved so that it would precede the presentation of the gifts.

Father Gil’s memo was sent to the Spanish bishops and prefaced the Congregation for Divine Worship’s circular letter, which was signed June 8 by Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, its prefect, and its secretary, Archbishop Arthur Roche. The circular had been approved and confirmed the previous day by Pope Francis.

The letter made four concrete suggestions about how the dignity of the sign of peace could be maintained against abuses.

Father Gil explained that the circular letter is a fruit of the 2005 synod of bishops on the Eucharist, in which the possibility of moving the rite was discussed.

“During the Synod of Bishops there was discussion about the appropriateness of greater restraint in this gesture, which can be exaggerated and cause a certain distraction in the assembly just before the reception of Communion,” Benedict XVI wrote in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Sacramentum caritatis.”

He added, “I have asked the competent curial offices to study the possibility of moving the sign of peace to another place, such as before the presentation of the gifts at the altar ... taking into account ancient and venerable customs and the wishes expressed by the Synod Fathers.”

An inspiration for the suggested change was Christ’s exhortation, in Matthew 5:23, that “if you remember that your brother has anything against you, leave your offering before the altar, and go be reconciled first.” It would also have brought the Roman rite into conformity, in that respect, with the Ambrosian rite, celebrated in Milan.

The Neo-Catechumenal Way, a lay movement in the church, has already displaced the sign of peace in its celebration of the Roman rite to before the presentation of the gifts.

The Vatican congregation’s decision to maintain the placement of the sign of peace was the fruit of dialogue with the world’s bishops, which began in 2008, and in consultation with both Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

The Congregation for Divine Worship said it would “offer some practical measures to better express the meaning of the sign of peace and to moderate excesses, which create confusion in the liturgical assembly just prior to Communion.”

“If the faithful do not understand and do not show, in their ritual gestures, the true significance of the rite of peace, they are weakened in the Christian concept of peace, and their fruitful participation in the Eucharist is negatively affected.”

On this basis, the congregation offered four suggestions which are to form the “nucleus” of catechesis on the sign of peace.

First, while confirming the importance of the rite, it emphasized that “it is completely legitimate to affirm that it is not necessary to invite ‘mechanistically’ to exchange (the sign of) peace.” The rite is optional, the congregation reminded, and there certainly are times and places where it is not fitting.

Its second recommendation was that as translations are made of the third typical edition of the Roman Missal, bishops’ conference should consider “changing the way in which the exchange of peace is made.” It suggested in particular that “familiar and worldly gestures of greeting” should be substituted with “other, more appropriate gestures.”

The congregation for worship also noted that there are several abuses of the rite which are to be stopped: the introduction of a “song of peace,” which does not exist in the Roman rite; the faithful moving from their place to exchange the sign; the priest leaving the altar to exchange the sign with the faithful; and when, at occasions such as weddings or funerals, it becomes an occasion for congratulations or condolences.

The Congregation for Divine Worship’s final exhortation was that episcopal conferences prepare liturgical catechesis on the significance of the rite of peace and its correct observation.

“The intimate relation between ‘lex orandi’ and ‘lex credendi’ should obviously be extended to ‘lex vivendi,’” the congregation’s letter concluded.

“That Catholics are today faced with the grave commitment to build a more just and peaceful world, implies a more profound understanding of the Christian meaning of peace and of its expression in liturgical celebration.”

The bishop-Chairmen of two USCCB Committees responded with great concern to President Obama’s July 21 executive order to prohibit federal government contractors from what the Administration deems “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” discrimination and to forbid “gender identity” discrimination in the employment of federal employees. The problems the bishops identify in the order relate both to the flaws in its core prohibitions, and to its lack of religious freedom protection. (USCCB) Read more >>

By Carl Bunderson / Catholic News Agency-EWTN News—Archbishop of Oklahoma City Paul Coakley called a black mass scheduled to take place in the city’s civic center an “obviously horrendous” act meant to offend much of the state’s community.

“There are common standards of decency that civic-minded people uphold that are necessary for constructive public discourse, and this violates all of those standards,” he told CNA July 16. “This is a mockery of one faith, a hostile act toward a significant faith community, the Catholic community.”

It would be “truly offensive to a significant segment of their population, that is the Catholic, and the Christian community at large,” the archbishop said.

“Oklahoma is a very church-minded community; there are not many Catholics here, but a great majority are Christian, and this is really an affront to all Christian believers, and I think the more people are recognizing that, the more they’re willing to speak up.”

The occult group Dakhma of Angra Mainyu has scheduled to hold a black mass at the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall Sept. 21. A black mass is a sacrilegious ceremony that invokes Satan and mocks the Mass, involving the desecration of the Eucharist, generally by stealing a consecrated host from a Catholic church and using it in a profane, sexual ritual.

“I give the benefit of the doubt to those who allowed this civic center to be booked by a satanic group for the purpose of a black mass, because my suspicion is that whoever booked it had no idea what a black mass is, how offensive such a thing is,” Archbishop Coakley said. “Initially there was ignorance, I think, about what they were getting into.”

When CNA spoke on July 3 with Jennifer Lindsey-McClintock – the music hall’s public information manager – about the nature of the event, she cited the hall’s neutrality policy saying it’s “not for us to judge ... whether it is appropriate or not.”

Archbishop Coakley said that “my hope is that through prayer, and through continued communication with the civic officials here, they will come to recognize this is not a prudent course, not a good course, for the city.”

He said that he supposes “that if someone desired to rent the civic center to have a public burning of a Quran, or a blatantly anti-semitic sort of program, that the city would rightly find some way to prevent that from happening. And they should. That would be very clear.”

“My question is why can’t they recognize that this is equally offensive to the Catholic community, and act accordingly to prevent such a black eye on the community, such an affront to the Catholic and to the Christian community?”

Lindsey-McClintock, however, said that as a city-funded facility, they must “operate in a position of neutrality.” She said that this policy would mean the center would host racist or anti-Jewish events “as long as it was not hosting something specifically illegal in nature, or that during the production they were taking part in illegal activities .... We do not discriminate against any group based on the content of their message.”

“I think the more people here in Oklahoma, as well as around the country, have heard about this, and reflected upon what exactly it entails, the more outraged, and upset, people have become,” Archbishop Coakley said.

Black masses, he said, are a “grievous sacrilege and blasphemy of the first order, ... taking what is most sacred to us as as Catholics and mocking it, desecrating it, in vile, often violent and sexually explicit ways.”

“It’s obviously horrendous, ... what they intend to do with that consecrated host is offensive beyond description.”

Archbishop Coakley called it a “terribly disturbing development in our community, and I think one of the things people need to realize is this is inviting very dark and evil forces into our community. I think I have an obligation, we have an obligation, to do what we can do to prevent that from happening — unleashing spiritual influences which are harmful and destructive.”

Noting the recently planned black mass at Harvard, another satanic group’s attempt to place a satanic monument at the Oklahoma capitol and this planned black mass, the archbishop said that “perhaps if anything, it’s a manifestation that these kinds of groups are becoming emboldened because of a certain kind of increasing tolerance for an increasingly outrageous mode of conduct in our culture.”

“I hope to be meeting in the near future with civic officials,” he added, saying “we’ll continue to explore ways of dialoguing with civic officials.”

“Obviously for us as people of faith, as Catholics, we’re praying for a change of heart, that something will shift, and that there will be a change of direction and a recognition that this cannot be allowed.”

He noted that there have been a number of petitions against the event on Facebook and other sites, not organized by the archdiocese, but “very much a grassroots thing.”

“My role in this,” Archbishop Coakley said, “is simply to provide a voice and leadership, drawing attention to it and encouraging people to pray and to voice their concern to civic officials.”

Should the black mass not be canceled, the archbishop said the Catholic community will “find a way to lift up the Eucharist in a way that shows our love for Christ in the Eucharist, our respect and honor for the gift of the Blessed Sacrament.”

Whether through Masses of reparation, holy hours or processions, “we will do what we can do to bear witness to our faith in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist.”

Catholic News Agency—After the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that a priest may have to testify about an alleged confession, the Diocese of Baton Rouge said that this demand “assaults” church teaching and is unconstitutional.

“The issue before the District Court, the First Circuit Court of Appeals and the Louisiana Supreme Court assaults the heart of a fundamental doctrine of the Catholic faith as relating to the absolute seal of sacred communications (Confession/Sacrament of Reconciliation),” said a July 7 statement from the diocese.

In May, the state Supreme Court ruled that the priest in question, Father Jeff Bayhi, may be subject to mandatory reporting laws regarding sexual abuse, and cannot invoke the privilege of confidentiality regarding an alleged confession made to him about sexual abuse by a young girl.

The diocese explained that a priest is under the gravest of obligations not to reveal the contents of a confession or if the confession even took place. He cannot do so even under threat of imprisonment or civil penalty and incurs automatic excommunication if he breaks the “seal of confession.”

“A foundational doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church for thousands of years mandates that the seal of confession is absolute and inviolable,” the diocese stressed.

“Pursuant to his oath to the Church, a priest is compelled never to break that seal. Neither is a priest allowed to admit that someone went to confession to him. If necessary, the priest would have to suffer a finding of contempt in a civil court and suffer imprisonment rather than violate his sacred duty and violate the seal of confession and his duty to the penitent.”

A state appeals court initially ruled that the alleged confession was “confidential” and thus Father Bayhi did not have to testify in court as to its alleged contents or whether it even took place.

However, the state Supreme Court reversed that decision, saying that the seal of confession did not shield Father Bayhi from mandatory reporting laws.

Louisiana law states that a “member of the clergy” must report allegations of sexual abuse, except in the case of “confidential” conversations made in private “and not intended for further disclosure except to other persons present in furtherance of the purpose of the communication.” In addition, a priest “is presumed to have the authority to claim the privilege” of confidentiality “on behalf of the person or deceased person.”

The high court ruled that Father Bayhi can only invoke confidentiality if the girl refuses to disclose their conversation, and since she waived her confidentiality privilege, he is subject to the mandatory sexual abuse reporting laws.

By saying that a civil court can determine whether or not a confession took place, the court is in “clear and unfettered violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution of the United States,” argued the diocese.

“This matter is of serious consequence to all religions, not just the Catholic faith.”

In an important ruling touching on religious liberty issues, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, which was challenging part of the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act. The court ruled 5-4 that the company cannot be forced to pay for employees' contraceptives.

Coverage of the ruling can be found at Catholic News Agency >>

Statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops >>

Statement from the Minnesota Catholic Conference >>

By Carol Zimmermann/Catholic News Service—In a June 26 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics — meant to keep demonstrators away — violates First Amendment rights.

The decision, a victory for pro-life groups, reversed an appellate court decision upholding a 2007 Massachusetts law that made it a crime for anyone other than clinic workers to stand within the yellow semicircular lines painted 35 feet from entrances of Planned Parenthood clinics in Boston, Springfield and Worcester.

Eleanor McCullen, lead plaintiff in the case, McCullen v. Coakley, said she should be able to speak and offer advice to women going to these clinics. McCullen, a 77-year-old who attends Mass at St. Ignatius Church at Boston College, said when the case was brought to the Supreme Court that she had helped many women decide against abortion.

The Supreme Court, in its opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, said the state law blocked public sidewalks that have been traditionally viewed as open for free speech. It also said the government’s ability to limit speech in those places is “very limited.”

The law in question was put in place in an attempt to prevent violent demonstrations or protests outside clinic entrances. It replaced a 2000 state law that kept protesters from approaching within 6 feet of a person who was within 18 feet of an abortion clinic — similar to a 2000 law in Colorado that the Supreme Court upheld that year.

The Supreme Court’s opinion distinguished protesters from those who “seek not merely to express their opposition to abortion, but to engage in personal, caring, consensual conversations with women about various alternatives.”

The court’s decision “has affirmed the American tradition of basic constitutional rights for all,” said Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

He said in a June 26 statement that the now-overturned legislation “reflects an ominous trend in our society” because it reveals how abortion supporters seek to deny Americans who “seek to protect the unborn” their right to freedom of speech and association as well as the “right to participate in the public square and serve the vulnerable in accord with our moral convictions.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had joined with other religious groups in filing an amicus, or friend of the court, brief for this case.

Tom Brejcha, president of the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based law firm, used the words “fantastic, wonderful” and “great achievement” to describe the court’s decision.

Brejcha is familiar with the notion of buffer zones because his firm has defended pro-life advocates accused of violating Chicago’s “bubble-zone” law, which forbids picketers, protesters or counselors within 50 feet of the clinic entrance to approach clients within 8 feet to talk or give literature.

He said some of the passages of the court’s decision are “almost lyrical,” particularly when it describes how the plaintiff was “trying to communicate a peaceful message.”

He said the court’s opinion that sidewalk counselors are not necessarily protesters — but people who want to engage in one-on-one conversations — confirms the work they do, which he described as “conversations at the edge of an abyss.”

A group that was praying outside a Planned Parenthood facility in Worcester, Massachusetts, on June 26, also was pleased with the court’s decision.

“I’m very excited,” said Nancy Clark of Worcester, one of the plaintiffs in the case, “The Holy Spirit is slowly guiding us in the right direction.”

Mark Bashour, another plaintiff, has been doing sidewalk counseling in Worcester for 30 years. “Obviously I am very pleased,” he said. “Now we can get closer and they can hear us much better.

“It was a long, time-consuming three-year process taking the issue to the Supreme Court,” he said, “but by winning, now no other states will try to pass a law like this. It is very important.”

In a concurrence with the main opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia discusses what he sees as the court’s “onward march of abortion-speech-only jurisprudence.” He was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

Scalia observed that the court’s majority opinion “carries forward this court’s practice of giving abortion-rights advocates a pass when it comes to suppressing the free-speech rights of their opponents.”

He said that the opinion “has something for everyone,” and invalidating the law in question because it is inadequately tailored to circumstances is “certainly attractive to those of us who oppose an abortion-speech edition of the First Amendment.”

But the main part of the opinion moves toward creating a version of the First Amendment that applies only to speech about abortion, he said. By concluding that a statute like the one overturned is not content-based and therefore not subject to strict scrutiny under the law, “the court reaches out to decide that question unnecessarily,” Scalia wrote.

Scalia cited ways in which he says the main opinion singled out abortion-only speech in reaching its conclusion that the law was unconstitutional. And he concluded that although he agrees with what the court decided, he thinks it unnecessarily addressed the issue of whether the law was sufficiently narrowly tailored.

“The obvious purpose of the challenged portion of the Massachusetts Reproductive Health Care Facilities Act is to ‘protect’ prospective clients of abortion clinics from having to hear abortion-opposing speech on public streets and sidewalks,” he said.

“The provision is thus unconstitutional root and branch and cannot be saved, as the majority suggests, by limiting its application to the single facility that has experienced the safety and access problems to which it is quite obviously not addressed,” he concluded.

Justice Samuel Alito also had a separate concurrence. In it he faulted the majority for concluding that the Massachusetts law is viewpoint neutral, but he nevertheless agreed that it is unconstitutional because it burdens free speech more than necessary to accommodate state interests.

Contributing to this report were Patricia Zapor in Washington and William T. Clew and Margaret M. Russell in Worcester.

Catholic News Agency/EWTN News—A federal court has ordered the IRS to pay $50,000 to the National Organization for Marriage due to the leak of confidential tax documents, but the organization has called for further investigation to determine the extent of the wrongdoing.

“Thanks to a lot of hard work, we’ve forced the IRS to admit that they in fact were the ones to break the law and wrongfully released this confidential information,” National Organization for Marriage chairman John Eastman said June 24.

Credit: Fibonacci Blue via Flickr.com (CC BY 2.0) National Organization for Marriage rally against same-sex marriage July 28, 2010, in St. Paul.

“While we are very pleased that the IRS has been exposed as being responsible for this leak of our confidential information to our political opponents, we believe the IRS may still be hiding information from the American people,” he added.

On June 23, a consent judgment issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia sided with the pro-marriage organization’s lawsuit that sought to uncover suspected wrongdoing at the IRS.

The lawsuit concerned the disclosure of confidential documents in early 2012.

Around that time, Matthew Meisel, an activist in Boston, received the National Organization for Marriage’s 2008 tax return and a list of its major donors from a “conduit,” his e-mails showed. Some of the documents were labeled for official government use only.

Meisel then gave these records to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group at the time headed by Joe Solmonese, a co-chair of Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential re-election campaign. The advocacy group published some of the documents, as did the Huffington Post.

The National Organization for Marriage, which supports marriage as a union of one man and one woman, qualifies as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. It is obliged to make public its tax returns, though not explicitly confidential portions such as donor lists.

The organization filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in May 2013 saying that the Department of the Treasury’s inspector general, the Department of Justice and the IRS had been uncooperative in the investigation of how the documents became public.

In May 2013, Eastman said that the Human Rights Campaign had sought the National Organization for Marriage’s donor list “for a long time” so that others could “start harassing our donors and boycotting their businesses.”

At a legal deposition, Meisel invoked Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and refused to say how he obtained the documents.

The National Organization for Marriage is now calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to grant immunity to Meisel in order to “force him to disclose the identity of his conduit.” The organization has also urged Congress to examine the case.

“It’s imperative that all those who have engaged in corrupt practices and illegal acts in the IRS be identified and held accountable,” Eastman said.

The National Organization for Marriage is also seeking an award of attorney fees to help defray the costs of litigation.