William A. Donohue, the perennially indignant president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, had no sooner finished a conference call with reporters Wednesday, in which he demanded the firing of a new White House aide, when CNN called.

“CNN wants you to do Rick Sanchez at 3:30 on the Notre Dame thing, and also Bill Cunningham wants you to come on about ‘Angels and Demons,’ ” said his assistant, Susan Fani, in the wood-paneled 34th-floor Midtown Manhattan office from which Mr. Donohue surveys the world  and more often than not finds it rife with anti-Catholic bias.

With urgency in his voice, he replied, “Now, I’ve got to see the movie before I can talk about it, but if he wants me to go on about the distortions and lies in Dan Brown’s book and Ron Howard’s hypocrisy,” he said, referring to the author of the book and director of the movie “Angels and Demons,” “I can do that.” He spoke fast, his words bunching up and spilling over their margins like the notations on the overcrowded desk calendar he was scribbling on.

“But, wait, so you told the people at ‘American Morning’ I can do the taping for them? And Bob Schieffer is tomorrow morning at 10.”