Another moral failing in the recent history of the Catholic Church came in response to the death sentence imposed on Salman Rushdie by Ayatollah Khomeini after the publication of The Satanic Verses. From a 1989 New York Times piece by Michael T. Kaufman:

“In the United States, 17 Roman Catholic writers, including William Kennedy, Maureen Howard, Garry Wills and the Rev. Andrew Greeley, wrote a letter critical of statements by John Cardinal O’Connor, the Archbishop of New York. The letter noted the statement Sunday by the Cardinal in which he said that he would not read the book but that he proclaimed ‘his sympathy for the aggrieved position’ of Muslims.

The Catholic writers said they ‘deplore the moral insensitivity to the plight of Mr. Rushdie and an ecumenical zeal that would appear to support repression.’

Gara LaMarche, the head of the freedom-to-write program of American PEN, an international writers’ group, acknowledged that ‘for a short period of time immediately after the death threat there was a great deal of discussion about what was the best way to help Salman Rushdie.’ He said that this may have ‘given an impression of reluctance,’ but he added that in recent days writers have been calling from all over the world to offer their help with petitions and readings.”

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Christopher Hitchens addresses the non-defense of Rushdie, 1989: