At last night's Al Smith dinner, Donald Trump used his podium to attack Hillary Clinton for being anti-Catholic. And coincidentally (?!) on today's Fox & Friends, Foxpriest Fr. Jonathan Morris and his nice, Christian pals used their podium to do the same thing.

The Al Smith dinner, named after the first Catholic presidential candidate, is an event that raises money for Catholic charities. During presidential election years, the candidates gently roast themselves and their opponents. It's supposed to be civil and not a platform for personal attacks, but that's just what Donald Trump did. David Litt, of the Atlantic wrote about "How Donald Trump Broke the Al Smith Dinner." Even Al Smith's descendant, Al Smith V, said that Trump "crossed the line and took it a little too far."

But this wasn't a problem for Fox & Friends and their resident priest who, this morning, used Trump's "joke" about Hillary Clinton's "hatred" of Catholics, to advance (for the 3rd time) Fox message that Hillary and all who surround her hate Catholics - a propaganda theme derived from a Wikileaked 2011 e-mail discussion, among those currently on Clinton's staff, about how conservatives like Rupert Murdoch embrace Catholicism for political reasons. There was also some commentary about efforts to modernize the Catholic Church - something that the liberal nuns on the bus (not seen on Fox News) would agree with!

Wasting no time on the Fox message they showed video of Trump "joking" about how, at the dinner, Clinton was "pretending not to hate Catholics." This was followed by loud boos. Doocy: "Yep, a big boo to that joke." (Doocy didn't mention that this is the first time in the dinner's history that a speaker was booed.)

Fr. Morris chimed in that the dinner was "cringe-worthy." Doocy interjected "from both sides" even though Trump was far more cringe-worthy. Morris, to his credit, acknowledged that Trump was "a little bit harder on her." (Ya think!) After he, spoke briefly about the nature of the dinner, Doocy set up the VERY IMPORTANT FOX MESSAGE. He cited the "joke" about Hillary hating Catholics and explained that it was a reference to the Wikileaks in which her staff "said that Catholics should wake up and get out of the dark ages."  He claimed that Cardinal Dolan recently "wrote an op-ed where he said that she needed to apologize." FACT CHECK - Dolan didn't write an op-ed but told a radio station that Clinton should apologize for her staff's comments.

Fr. Morris preached the Fox gospel: "Catholics deserve an apology from her people." On a  network that promotes "Islamophobic vitriol," Morris suggested that if Clinton's folks had said the same thing about Islam, "it would have been huge news." He accused the campaign of "going so low, so low on both sides." 

After the pals gushed over a photo of Dolan, Trump, and Clinton all laughing together. Morris subtly reinforced the anti-Hillary message when he said that people will say that the cardinal shouldn't "be laughing and joking with that woman because she stands for abortion." He claimed that Dolan's response would be that even Jesus ate with sinners. (So not only does Hillary Clinton hate Catholics but she's a sinner.)

Funny. Trump leveled a false attacked on Hillary Clinton and got booed. But that's OK because Fr. Jonathan Morris and his pals say that he was really right. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons? If Fr. Morris is on a mission from his Fox paymasters, I guess we can say mission accomplished.