Posted on 04/09/2010 8:28:26 AM PDT by NYer
To best gauge the scale of the global media’s defamation of Pope Benedict XVI, look at the cartoons in the major newspapers from Thailand to Brazil, Mexico, the United States, and everywhere in Europe. Such slander, malicious innuendo, and vilification against any other major figure of the global stage would be impossible to imagine.
Clearly, for Holy Week, all the stops have been pulled out in the media campaign against the Holy Father.
Major newspapers, led by the
Timesof London and The New York Times,are publishing fiction as fact in their attempt to discredit Benedict and make him complicit in failing to prevent the sexual abuse of children.
Why?
“At every turn,” suggests C. Joseph Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, “ secular modernity views the Holy Father as a dangerous counterrevolutionary obstacle to their plans for the future. His call to return Europe to its Christian roots, his restoration of theTraditional Latin liturgy, his opening to the Society of St. Pius X, his invitation to traditional Anglicans, and his ecumenical outreach to the Russian Orthodox — all represent resistance to the centuries- long project of de- Christianizing the once- Catholic West.
“They had come to view Catholicism as a defeated enemy, but now, under Benedict, they fear the sleeping giant might be revived across a world that sees the Church as the only alternative to the neocolonialism of the Anglo- Saxon powers.”
It’s clear the media are reaching for anything, no matter how insubstantial, to implicate the Pope.
“The hysterical bigot and pathological Catholic- hater, Margery Egan ofThe Boston Herald, in a Palm Sunday diatribe, said the Pope should not only resign, but give himself up for prosecution. The Holy Father behind bars is the ultimate fantasy of the anti- Catholics,” added Doyle.
The New York Times’ kept Catholic columnist, Maureen Dowd, asked March 31, “ Should There Be an Inquisition for the Pope?” As snarky as ever, Dowd moaned: “ It doesn’t seem right that the Catholic Church is spending Holy Week practicing the unholy art of spin.
“ Complete with crown- ofthorns imagery, the church has started an Easter public relations blitz defending a pope who went along with the perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church’s reputation rather than abused — and sometimes disabled and disadvantaged — children.
“ The church gave up its credibility for Lent. Holy Thursday and Good Friday are now becoming Cover- Up Thursday and Blame-Others Friday.”
The nature of the unhinged journalistic free- for- all was best captured by the London Telegraph’s
Andrew M. Brown, who wondered March 30: “ Why can’t the media treat the Pope fairly?”
A writer who specializes in mental health and in the influence of addiction and substance abuse on culture, Brown observed: “ Intelligent journalists who are normally capable of mental subtlety and of coping with complexities have abandoned their critical faculties. There is an atmosphere of unreason.
“ I cannot help feeling that a lot of it is down to sheer, blind hatred. It amounts to the demonization of a whole institution and its leader. We have come to a stage where nothing good whatever, no good faith can be assumed of anybody involved in the Church — however senior, however greatly respected, loved, admired, including the Pope. . . .
“ Look at the newspaper cartoons, usually a reliable index, if you doubt the unreasoning quality of prevailing attitudes. The cartoons caricaturing Pope Benedict XVI in recent months — with corks stuck in his ears in one paper, with a condom on his head in another — have been pure bile, designed to poison the imagination. Today Gerald Scarfe in the
Sunday Times depicts the Pope as a skeletal figure, a sort ofmemento mori, sheltering under his voluminous robes a group comprised of diabolical, leering priests with horns on their heads and cowering boys in pyjamas. Underneath the word ‘ Hell’ is scrawled in big letters.”
In a live question and answer session on The Washington Post’s
web page March 30, theNational Catholic Reporter’s Vatican correspondent John Allen was asked by a reader in Washington if he believed that the global campaign against the Holy Father might be some sort of plot to destroy his moral authority and scatter his flock, as the United States and Israel plot an attack on Iran, just as some in the media tried to discredit John Paul II in advance of the invasion of Iraq.
Allen demurred, and said he didn’t believe in conspiracy theories.
However, someone calling herself or himself “ auntycensorship” responded to Brown’s Telegraph
column as follows, in part: “ Like John Paul II, the then- Cardinal Ratzinger unreservedly condemned the war in Iraq. Iran has had an arrangement in place for several years whereby the Vatican would mediate in any dispute with the United States should, as is now mercifully most unlikely, . . . matters ever really come to a head.
“ Benedict XVI is, as John Paul II was, a great admirer of Pius XII, under whom the Holy See had quite warm relations with the state of Israel, which was not at that time imposing military law on the Catholics of the West Bank, nor occupying that part of the viable Palestinian State created on both sides of the Jordan at the end of the British Mandate, nor bombarding the Catholics of Lebanon.
“ Well, we can’t have any of that, can we? So the Pope’s moral authority must be destroyed by absolutely any means whatever.”
One Question The Media Are Not Asking
While some Western newspapers are trying to smear the Pope for “ protecting pedophiles,” one question they are not raising is how these predators got into the priesthood in the first place.
History confirms that there have been periods when homosexualscame into the Church in significant numbers.
How does one explain the statistics compiled by the U. S. bishops- commissioned John Jay study on the sex abuse by American clergy, “ The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States”?
The study found that 26% of all the clergy sex abuse committed against 4,269 victims since 1890 was committed by 149 priests ( that number includes a few deacons). Fifty- six percent of diocesan priests accused of committing sexual abuse had only one allegation against them.
Another surprising statistic is that 51% of priests with allegations against them were born between 1930 and 1949, and 48% were ordained between 1950 and 1969; 21% of the abusers were born between 1920 and 1929.
The relevant question is: Who were the gatekeepers who allowed the 149 predators into the seminaries and who ordained them? The John Jay report makes clear that some of the priests were already known to be abusers before their Ordination.
In 1991, about a decade before the U. S. clergy sex abuse scandal broke,The Wanderer reported in the “Agony in Albany” series that the Albany Diocese during the reign of Bishop Edwin Broderick was essentially taken over by a group of radical young priests, including its future Bishop Howard Hubbard, future Bishop of Rochester, N. Y., Matthew Clark, and Fr. C. Howard Russell, who eventually left the priesthood. All were graduates of the North American College.
As Agony in Albany also reported, among the first “ theologians” Bishop Hubbard brought into the diocese as guest speakers for adult re- education were this country’s most notorious dissenters from Humanae Vitae and apologists for the homosexual “ lifestyle,” such as Fr. Anthony Kosnik, Fr. Charles Curran, Sr. Margaret Farley, Mary Hunt, and Fr. Robert Nugent.
That’s an angle the secular press won’t touch.
The Cat’Lick church has had to suffer under the Romans, the Barbarians, Muslims, Nazis, and Communists. I seriously doubt the Lamestream media is worst thing that has ever happened to it.
Jesus will be with the Church until the end of time. Why worry about the NY Times. People fail, truth is everlasting.
Being attacked by the media that has ignored Obama’s past lifestyle, all his commie associates, his attendance at a ‘G-d damn America hate whitey church’ - should be seen as ‘yawn’.
“one question they are not raising is how these predators got into the priesthood in the first place”
Does it matter? Once they are identified and the activity is “proven” they should be removed from the priesthood immediately. I think that would go a long way toward restoring trust that the RCC is doing all it can to protect its victims instead of its predators and/or reputation.
Of course, identifying the initial problem can be helpful in preventing its reoccurence if proper steps are taken.
“A stitch in time saves nine.”
That is true. It’s about the Church. Men are mortal and falible and the lynch mobs will get what’s coming to them. Would kind of like to be around when it happens though...
The media is doing the RCC a service, if “she” has sense enough to see it and take appropriate action.
Not that the media necessarily means to do the RCC good, or that falsehoods should not be corrected, but enough of condemning the messenger and ignoring the message that needs to be seriously addressed.
If you read the article, you will notice that most of them are dead.
And they were allowed to die in “good standing” as “priests” of the RCC in spite of their known proclivities and repeat offenses.
Does the RCC currently remove from the priesthood any priests with demonstrated sexual immorality issues, whether or not there has been any action by civil authorities against the criminal activity?
And if the answer is yes, can you point me to the cases/policies that demonstrate this?
Will read and ping this in a bit.
Thank you.
My point is - who is the media to dare attack the Pope and the church when they hide their head in the sand when it suits their commie agenda.
The Pope/RCC should attack the media and we all can give them a bullet list of what the media IGNORES along with their OWN DECEIT.
Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption Into the Catholic Church
Point well taken. And I am no apologist for the media. As a matter of fact, I expect lies, deceptions, and “framing the issue” in a way to make truth look other than it is from the mainstream media.
My point is that it is easier for “evil” to grow in the dark than in the light, and the RCC can use the exposure from the media as impetus to promote healthy change in its ranks. It is more than we would be seeing about the problems that have been allowed to live/grow in the RCC than if left to the church to expose her own shortcomings.
For the RCC to merely claim it is the church of Christ and 1) largely free from error, 2) the victim of abusive priests/bishops over which it had no power and for which it had no responsibility, etc. is not going to play well, especially for those in the Catholic Church who know the real score.
One thing I don’t understand is why the media assumes that were Benedict to resign he’d be succeeded by a liberal. Wouldn’t it be a joke on them if the successor was even more conservative? And wouldn’t it be extra-delicious if the ultra-conservative successor were from the supposedly genetically-Leftist Third World?
The media does not understand the Catholic Church, much less any religious institution. They view the Church as a political organization; it is not. Benedict XVI's election as pontiff is the result of divine intervention, not an election ballot. He is pontiff for life. He wears red shoes
that represent the loving blood of apostolic martyrdom, the only way he will be dethroned.
Of course.
It's hard to find complete statistics compiled anywhere, but this chart was prepared by the NY Times in 2002. You can see in the chart at the bottom, the third column over is headed "Removed or Defrocked", and that refers to priests "removed" (removed from active ministry?) and "defrocked" (forcibly laicized, permanently removed from the priesthood) in calendar year 2002.
(The part that I find most interesting is the histogram at the top breaking down accused abusers by year of ordination. There's a dramatic peak (roughly) between the years 1965 and 1975. Hmmm ... what did that coincide with?)
Placemark.
Great resource. Thank you for posting it.
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