Posted on 11/13/2006 6:32:46 PM PST by infoguy
The story: A priest works at a Miami high school as a history teacher and assistant chaplain. Nude photographs of him interacting physically with other men are discovered on the Internet. The priest resigns from his job. Graphic Internet photos are readily available for the media.
In light of the recent media frenzy over Rev. Ted Haggard (5,500 results at Google News), it sounds like everything would be ripe for a story that the media would just love to jump all over. But, curiously, the mainstream media has essentially ignored this story. Why?
The answer may lie in the priest's denomination. Here's the story. You see, Rev. Parry is not a Catholic priest. He's not even a pastor from one of those conservative Evangelical churches. Rev Parry is a priest of the increasingly liberal Episcopal Church in the USA.
When the Episcopal Church recently elected a woman bishop, the media celebrated the event. (Right now (11/11/06) at Google News, "katharine schori episcopal" yields over 1000 results.) The 2003 election of openly gay Gene Robinson as bishop was very widely covered. Many Episcopalians are supporting same-sex "marriage"; women priests are allowed; Episcopal priests can be married; abortion is accepted among many. (Bishop Gene Robinson spoke at Planned Parenthood's 2005 "Prayer Breakfast.")
An unfiltered search at Google News for "Adrian Parry" (the name of the priest) returns a miniscule five results from two media outlets in the entire world (that appear on Google). (Three results are the same source, the Miami Herald; one is the story itself and the other two are letters to the editor in reaction to the scandal. The fourth is an online site covering news in the Episcopal/Anglican world which reprinted the Miami Herald piece. A fifth: A local TV station in Miami covered the story. (A sixth result is a story from the UK involving a man who happens to have the same name.))
Is there honestly any doubt at all that this story would receive a lot more media attention if this had been a Catholic priest or a conservative Evangelical pastor?
File under: Double standard!
As a conservative, orthodox Episcopalian, I'm not shocked at all.
Because it doesn't advance the "action line" (bush bad, rep/cons bad, gay is good, etc etc)
No double standard!
"Rev Parry is a priest of the increasingly liberal Episcopal Church in the USA."
The Episocopal Church, a Catholic Church, ACCEPTS homosexuals as equals so it's not a big deal.
The Episcopal Church is not a version or subset of the Catholic Church.
Given that the Episcopal/Anglican Church doesn't recognize the primacy of the Pope,it's not part of the "Roman Catholic Church"....although I guess it could be a catholic church.
They buried this story just like they buried numerous stories of gay Boy Scout leaders who molested children.
The media is selective. If it helps their side, they report it. If not, they bury it.
Yeah, no surprise here. They're the good church.
I wish Drudge would pick up on this and drive it into the journalistic mainstream. (Yes, I believe Drudge is the most powerful force in modern journalism - he is the source for most talk radio).
What Hi Skool was this?
The Episcopal Church, as you well know, is NOT the Catholic Church. The Episcopal Church, in the US and in England has lost it's collective mind, and become the Church of What's Happening Now.
The Catholic Church has continued to preach what she has always preached, and she teaches that, as God's creation, homosexual persons are heirs to God's grace, but that homosexual activity is sinful. As with all sinners, they have to repent and turn away from their sin in order to be fully in His Grace. The Church tries to help sinners of all stripes to turn from sin, but they can't force anyone to do so, because God has blessed us with Free Will.
In the past 20 years, the Seminaries in this country went off the deep liberal, feminist end, and seemingly rejected much of what the Church stands for. They weren't stopped by Pope Paul VI, and Pope John Paul I didn't get a chance to do anything. Pope John Paul II DID make some changes, and retired some of the older liberal bishops. These men had allowed the formation of priests to become lax, by allowing teachers in the Seminaries to tell the men who were preparing for the priesthood that the Church would probably change her stand against married priests. They didn't teach them to live in a chaste manner, so some priests had not learned to deal with their sexuality, and were ordained along with men who had homosexual leanings, or were openly homosexual, thus creating the problem the American priests had with abusing young people, mostly boys.
But the situation had begun to turn around, even before the first abuse stories hit the media, because the new Bishops appointed by Pope John Paul II had begun instituting changes in the Seminaries, and the new Bishops were beginning to defrock some of the abusive priests. Also, practicing Catholics were tired of the changes they had seen in their Parishes wrought by liberals bent on changing the Church to suit their personal and political whims. They fought back, and are seeing their Church restored to them, with the help of Pope Benedict.
How very true.
Drive-by media (MSM) ignores public school teachers' transgressions against children and teens in favor of Catholic Priest, Foley, Haggard transgressions because it suits their agenda to discredit these people for political gain.
Catholic Priest, Foley, Haggard - most of their transgressions involved consenting adults...but were portrayed as pedophile (only 2 trials in MA for this, Paul Shandley (NAMBLA) still on loose, no one bitches), pederast (Foley was NOT contacting 16 year old pages), or married, bisexual minister's relationship with consenting adult (reported to put the Christian evangelicals in their place).
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