A well written article. The bottom line is people need to stop focusing on priests and on the Pope. If you want the real culprit, in far too many cases it was the local bishops. I am still in awe that not one has been jailed in the United States for covering up serious felonies and endangering children.
My general thought is that journalists using the ‘power of the press/media’ have the potential to great harm and have done great harm.
Many of journalists are ‘unprincipled’ and the ‘principled’ journalists have been slow and feeble in their efforts to challenge the ‘unprincipled’ journalists.
The damage done to our society, its institutions and individuals by journalists who select the facts that they will use and then manipulate them, in addition to creating falshoods, is well known.
And yet, all that a deceitful journalist has to do is to keep on repeating these distortions of the truth and in time, in the minds of many, these ‘distortions’ become the ‘truth.’
I have for some time been unable to trust reporting from the New York Times and from the AP on political matters. This is now extended to religious matters. Lawler’s post summarizes the problem here: the AP didn’t do its homework, doesn’t understand the situation, and so reports wrongly. The problem seems to me to be that the legacy new media disapprove of traditional Christian moral teaching, consider it “bigotry,” and have therefore decided that the world’s most visible teacher of traditional Christian morality, the Roman Pope, must be “exposed.” Among several other actions which have been taken to prevent sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is the prohibition of priestly vocations by men who have a homosexual orientation. This was done because the overwhelming majority of the abuse cases in the ’50s through ’70s were abuse of male children or male adolescents. This action by the Vatican, merited, in my opinion, by the facts, is what the secular news people cannot tolerate. They have lost their objectivity and their ability to see and report facts, and are on a witch hunt to “get” a conservative Pope. All Christians should be outraged by this biased campaign.
It is important – vitally important – to ask why the NYT and
other elements of the MSM exhibit such headlong disregard
not only for the facts but also for the correct interpretation of the
facts. What makes it so important to attack Catholicism and the
pope ? Personally, I think the NYT and the MSM lack the courage
to attack their true object of contempt, Jesus Christ himself. They’d
much rather attack a prelate or a church when their true scorn
is directed at Jesus. Can you imagine the uproar if they ran a
headline such as “Jesus exposed as fraudster !” ? The elites
running the NYT and the MSM would much rather have churches
which have been turned into the lapdogs of secular society, as
some churches have already done.
This will go on until people just start ignoring (or even better, denouncing) the leftwing media in this country. Unfortunately, there are still people out there who don’t realize how corrupt “journalism” has become in this country. In fact, if it weren’t for the internet where sites expose what is really going on, we would be in even more trouble. Watch for the government to try to control internet access in the next couple of years.
I find it interesting that Lawler’s critique makes no reference to Bishop Cummins’ 1982 letter in which he observed: “It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this petition were granted and that as a matter of fact, given the nature of the case, there might be greater scandal to the community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active ministry.”
This was a case in which the offender, supported by his bishop, made the petition (not a recommendation by the bishop opposed by the offender, in which pastoral considerations might well be an issue – the media doesn’t really get how personally [i]responsible[/i] a Catholic bishop is for his priests). Yes, it was eventually granted, but five years – even allowing for Vatican bureaucracy – seems excessive. This, I think, makes it different for other cases – those in Ireland, for example – where things were handled at the diocesan level.
The facts that (a) the then Cardinal Ratzinger clearly didn’t approve of Kiesle’s conduct; and (b) the media have the own agenda for stirring up this particular controversy; do not change this dynamic. I’m not so sure that we should become overly defensive about criticism because it’s voiced about those who are generally right on the issues that matter. That doesn’t make them infallible.
You don’t have to accept the liberal explanation that lack of democracy and hierarchical structure are solely to blame for the travails of the Catholic Church, to recognize that that model does tend to engender certain predispositions, not all of them good ones. Clearly the long-standing cozy relationship between the Irish Church and the Gardai had a bearing on what happened in the Republic. As various people have pointed out this has never been about the crimes themselves – no more frequent than in the population at large – but about the way the cases were subsequently handled by those in authority.
In other discussions on this blog, there have been honest discussions about how congregations deal with the issue of convicted sex offenders seeking rehabilitation. Almost everyone agreed that while it was important to solace the penitent, it had to be done with the full knowledge of everyone concerned. The saga through which we are now living suggests that this was not the manner in which many in the hierarchy elected to operate, and we can see the consequences. The Cummins-Ratzinger exchange suggests that there was an institutional dimension to this, which, even in the context of the time, was flawed.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
Father Joseph Fessio, S.J. has posted commentary over at Insight Scoop at The Ignatatius Press Blog that brings some insight into this matter. He mentions several facts that the press and the local Bishop of the time fail to mention. The link is way to long so I will not post it but I hope people can find it with a web search.
One thing that I think everyone is forgetting and which gets to the crux of the matter of laicization being a cure all for keeping children safe from abusing priests is this: “Further, as if to prove this point, the priest in question continued to abuse children after he was “defrocked” and had married.”
An action from the Vatican laicizing a priest is not required for a Bishop to remove any priest from duties and to place restrictions upon him and yes even report suspected criminal behavior to the civil authorities.
Well done – I just put the link on the post below. This is essential reading for balance and fairness. My own thoughts are here
http://sbarnabas.com/blog/2010/04/10/annus-horribilis-for-the-western-church/
A well written article. The bottom line is people need to stop focusing on priests and on the Pope. If you want the real culprit, in far too many cases it was the local bishops. I am still in awe that not one has been jailed in the United States for covering up serious felonies and endangering children.
My general thought is that journalists using the ‘power of the press/media’ have the potential to great harm and have done great harm.
Many of journalists are ‘unprincipled’ and the ‘principled’ journalists have been slow and feeble in their efforts to challenge the ‘unprincipled’ journalists.
The damage done to our society, its institutions and individuals by journalists who select the facts that they will use and then manipulate them, in addition to creating falshoods, is well known.
And yet, all that a deceitful journalist has to do is to keep on repeating these distortions of the truth and in time, in the minds of many, these ‘distortions’ become the ‘truth.’
Bravo!
It’s too bad there isn’t a forum for demanding Maureen Dowd’s resignation.
I have for some time been unable to trust reporting from the New York Times and from the AP on political matters. This is now extended to religious matters. Lawler’s post summarizes the problem here: the AP didn’t do its homework, doesn’t understand the situation, and so reports wrongly. The problem seems to me to be that the legacy new media disapprove of traditional Christian moral teaching, consider it “bigotry,” and have therefore decided that the world’s most visible teacher of traditional Christian morality, the Roman Pope, must be “exposed.” Among several other actions which have been taken to prevent sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is the prohibition of priestly vocations by men who have a homosexual orientation. This was done because the overwhelming majority of the abuse cases in the ’50s through ’70s were abuse of male children or male adolescents. This action by the Vatican, merited, in my opinion, by the facts, is what the secular news people cannot tolerate. They have lost their objectivity and their ability to see and report facts, and are on a witch hunt to “get” a conservative Pope. All Christians should be outraged by this biased campaign.
It is important – vitally important – to ask why the NYT and
other elements of the MSM exhibit such headlong disregard
not only for the facts but also for the correct interpretation of the
facts. What makes it so important to attack Catholicism and the
pope ? Personally, I think the NYT and the MSM lack the courage
to attack their true object of contempt, Jesus Christ himself. They’d
much rather attack a prelate or a church when their true scorn
is directed at Jesus. Can you imagine the uproar if they ran a
headline such as “Jesus exposed as fraudster !” ? The elites
running the NYT and the MSM would much rather have churches
which have been turned into the lapdogs of secular society, as
some churches have already done.
This will go on until people just start ignoring (or even better, denouncing) the leftwing media in this country. Unfortunately, there are still people out there who don’t realize how corrupt “journalism” has become in this country. In fact, if it weren’t for the internet where sites expose what is really going on, we would be in even more trouble. Watch for the government to try to control internet access in the next couple of years.
I find it interesting that Lawler’s critique makes no reference to Bishop Cummins’ 1982 letter in which he observed: “It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this petition were granted and that as a matter of fact, given the nature of the case, there might be greater scandal to the community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active ministry.”
This was a case in which the offender, supported by his bishop, made the petition (not a recommendation by the bishop opposed by the offender, in which pastoral considerations might well be an issue – the media doesn’t really get how personally [i]responsible[/i] a Catholic bishop is for his priests). Yes, it was eventually granted, but five years – even allowing for Vatican bureaucracy – seems excessive. This, I think, makes it different for other cases – those in Ireland, for example – where things were handled at the diocesan level.
The facts that (a) the then Cardinal Ratzinger clearly didn’t approve of Kiesle’s conduct; and (b) the media have the own agenda for stirring up this particular controversy; do not change this dynamic. I’m not so sure that we should become overly defensive about criticism because it’s voiced about those who are generally right on the issues that matter. That doesn’t make them infallible.
You don’t have to accept the liberal explanation that lack of democracy and hierarchical structure are solely to blame for the travails of the Catholic Church, to recognize that that model does tend to engender certain predispositions, not all of them good ones. Clearly the long-standing cozy relationship between the Irish Church and the Gardai had a bearing on what happened in the Republic. As various people have pointed out this has never been about the crimes themselves – no more frequent than in the population at large – but about the way the cases were subsequently handled by those in authority.
In other discussions on this blog, there have been honest discussions about how congregations deal with the issue of convicted sex offenders seeking rehabilitation. Almost everyone agreed that while it was important to solace the penitent, it had to be done with the full knowledge of everyone concerned. The saga through which we are now living suggests that this was not the manner in which many in the hierarchy elected to operate, and we can see the consequences. The Cummins-Ratzinger exchange suggests that there was an institutional dimension to this, which, even in the context of the time, was flawed.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
Father Joseph Fessio, S.J. has posted commentary over at Insight Scoop at The Ignatatius Press Blog that brings some insight into this matter. He mentions several facts that the press and the local Bishop of the time fail to mention. The link is way to long so I will not post it but I hope people can find it with a web search.
One thing that I think everyone is forgetting and which gets to the crux of the matter of laicization being a cure all for keeping children safe from abusing priests is this: “Further, as if to prove this point, the priest in question continued to abuse children after he was “defrocked” and had married.”
An action from the Vatican laicizing a priest is not required for a Bishop to remove any priest from duties and to place restrictions upon him and yes even report suspected criminal behavior to the civil authorities.