The latest glut of “news” stories by the media hitting the Catholic Church for abusing children has much more to do with anti-Catholicism than actually protecting children.
Proof? Pretty simple actually.
The media has claimed that it’s reluctantly reporting on the sex abuse crisis but is forced to because of the rampant institutionalized system of covering up sex crimes by adults against minors.
But if that’s the truth, why then has the media not reported on the numerous videos by Live Action’s Lila Rose which has proven time and again that abortion clinics routinely cover up the reporting of the sexual abuse of minors. The abortion clinics, in fact, profit from it.
And it’s all on video. Could you imagine if someone had snuck a video camera into a Cardinal’s office and the cardinal on video covered up the abuse of a minor? I think it’s safe to assume that it would get more airtime than the lunar landing.
But for some reason the institutionalized system of covering up abuse by abortion clinics has been absolutely ignored and even shunned by the media.
The mainstream media doesn’t give a hoot about children. It cares about tearing down the Church and it cares about keeping abortion legal.
And whereas the Church has actually responded to the sexual abuse of a small percentage of priests there is no indication that the abortion industry is changing anything. Yet the attacks continue on the Church by the media which reports decades old abuse claims as new news while completely ignoring actual new videos revealing crimes committed by Big Abortion.
April 23, 2010 at 9:38 pm
@ Craig,
How any rational person can conclude there is not anti-catholicism in the MSM after reading this is unintelligable:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100035776/you-stitched-up-the-pope-and-this-is-how-you-did-it-law-professor-tells-new-york-times/
Until justifiable evidence is brought forth on a Global Church coverup by the current pope, I will not believe in conspiracy theories. You, Craig, should do the same.
April 23, 2010 at 9:43 pm
I live in a diocese that has had procedures in place for some time. My diocese was zero tolerance before it was mandated. If the former bishop was aware of an abuser, that person was out. We have long screened seminarians with every tool that is available. There is no one still is in ministry who has been charged. My worry is this:I know two priests in this diocese who were accused and the accusations were without merit. Websites have still got them up as accused despite the fact their names were cleared; both are broken men who now have a scarlet letter forever afixed to them…and one is only 45. The MSM's relentless pounding of just Catholic priests on this issues has left a mark on all of us. I know we should embrace the suffering, but it does get old being continually swatted like a pinata by the MSM for the sins of other priests' sins. The uneven coverage makes recruiting strong candidates harder (like the abuse wasn't enough already) because they know there is a popular stigma attached to it. I just want you to consider this: look at every depiction of a priest in the movies and on TV…we're portrayed as either perverts, clueless, gay, hypocrites, villains, heartless, or criminals. You see a priest on the news and more often than not they are belittled, accused, hounded or expected to do so to the church to prove they are a good guy. While I agree with you that those who did these crimes and their enablers should be locked up, cut some slack to the 96% of us priests who would never dream of preying on our flocks. Even the strongest man will flinch after being hit enough times.
Also remember that a lot of bishops in the 60's 80's trusted the psychological community who said pedophiles and ephibophiles were treatable and/or curable, something we now know not to be the case. Many of these bishops accused of shifting molesters around had shifted 'treated' individuals, operating on the consult of the psychological community, acting in somewhat good faith. I, personally, liked the attitude of my diocese which dismissed a guy as untrustable once that boundary was crossed. But not all were. We are paying for that over and over again..and to some degree we should. But there does come a point where you're just allowing bigotry to mask as caring for victims.
Craig, you know well…were the Church pro-choice, pro-gay, and pro-contraception not near the hype would exist. It is easier to want to expose your enemy rather than your friend.
April 23, 2010 at 9:49 pm
@ Craig…
4% is not a large number.
April 23, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Craig,
If the only progress that you see is updates on the diocesan website, then you are not paying much attention. I remember when things started to change in the 80's, and it has continued. Extensive psychological screening for seminarians, background checks on all employees and volunteers who work with children, new structures of mandatory suspension and investigation on credible accusations, transparency… The reform of policies has made the Catholic Church probably the safest place for children. It's no reason that the instances of abuse have plummeted so much from their peak in the 70's and 80's. If all you see is updates on a website, then you need to get more involved in the life of the Church and find out what is really going on.
But more than this, injustice does not justify injustice. The fact that some of the Catholic clergy committed heinous acts and others covered it up does not justify biased and even deceitful coverage by media. The fact that some Catholic clergy committed heinous acts and others covered it up does not justify the media effectively ignoring the countless others who are committing heinous acts or those who are covering that up. In fact, the media's biased and un-evenly applied coverage is actually *aiding* in the cover-up of other abuse, is actually standing in the way of reform and justice for them. Whatever blame the Church deserves – and it is not insignificant – the other victims of abuse do not deserve this relative media blackout. What are we to say to the victims of teachers, or doctors or fathers, or the victims of Protestant pastors or rabbis who can't get the bright light of public scrutiny on their plight because the media is spending all its time and attention on desperately trying to spin 30 year-old bureaucratic slowness into Papal complicity? "Oh, the Church deserves what she is getting so you should just deal"?
And this smear job of the Church is hurting others,. not just the Church. Our ability to witness the Gospel is already compromised by this scandal, by these crimes. Yes, we must accept that and try to heal it. But now we are also being hindered from effectively witnessing the Gospel by bias and even deceitful media coverage. That means that not only the Church, but those who need the Gospel are suffering the consequences of the injustice of the media's bad reporting.
The Church deserves to face justice, but the Church does not deserve to face injustice. And the Church is needed now as much as ever. We're hindered enough by our own sins, we don't need the extra hindrance.
April 24, 2010 at 3:43 am
Father Bill P,
I disagree with "were the Church pro-choice, pro-gay, and pro-contraception not near the hype would exist."
As I said previously, the hype is all about the Benjamins. Whatever draws consumers eyeballs to the MSM is what will be bleated repeatedly in the media until some other balloon boy comes along to draw their attention away.
Unfortunately for the Church, there was a mountain of dirt swept under a child abuse carpet which spanned the globe.
There is no shortage of material for the stenographers to regurgitate and the Church has made plenty of enemies that will not hesitate to vent their spleen if MSM gives them the opportunity.
MSM loves to report on controversy without worrying about fact-checking and that applies to any and all topics reported in the MSM, not just the Church.
April 24, 2010 at 3:47 am
Christina,
Tell the victims of the abuse that 4% isn't a large number. Not me.
April 26, 2010 at 7:35 pm
The fact that children are being sexually abused outside of the Church does not mean they get a pass on foolishly/stupidly trying to cover it up within their own ranks.
In 2002, the story broke that there was extensive abuse in the Catholic Church which was covered up by certain Bishops.
Then Cardinal Ratzinger (currently Pope Benedict XVI) took decisive action to stop the abuse, punish and even laicize the offenders. I currently am background checked every 5 years and have to be certified to work with children.
Since then, there has been a handful of abuse cases, and they have been caught, the perpetrators punished and removes, and the victims cared for.
The reports that are happening now is the rehashing of old news, just in a different location.
Breaking news!!! In the 80's Catholic priests abused children (mostly teenaged boys) and some Bishops covered it up!!!
Yawn. Old news. Yup, it happened. It was a terrible thing phycisally, emotionally and most importantly spiritually.
If they'd like to cover new cases that have been mishandled, I'm all for it. If they want to show that the protections put in place by this pope are ineffective, I want to know about it. If they want to beat this particular dead horse over and over with old news from different locations, I say "Get over it". Give us NEWs, not OLDs. 😛