Is all the news coverage just 'Catholic-bashing'? (Pedophile Priest Scandal)

The Dallas Morning News ^ | June 15, 2002 | By JEFFREY WEISS / The Dallas Morning News

[MeekOneGOP]

Here is another related article that included a list of Bishops involved
and Diocese connected to this scandal:

Two-thirds of bishops let accused priests work:
Catholic bishops and sex abuse - Database of
Diocese & Bishops Involved (Warning: LONG LIST!)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/700708/posts?page=3#3

[ex-snook]

When the media gives the abortion industry equal time, I'll know they are against child abuse and not just Catholic bashing. Every minor girl who has had an abortion has been sexually abused. Let the investigative journalism begin.
===============

Coverup

Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life

The abortion industry is in trouble, and it's time to capitalize on that trouble.

In every state, sexual activity with underage children is illegal. Moreover, if a health care worker suspects that a minor is being sexually abused, or is the victim of statutory rape, that worker is required by law to report the information to the authorities designated by the law. (Remember, statutory rape does not mean an "attack." It refers to the age of the parties.)

For many months, my friends and colleagues at Life Dynamics in Denton, Texas have been gathering more information about what an abortion clinic is likely to do if an underage girl who has been impregnated by an adult asks for an abortion. The fact that the abortion or birth control that the clinic sells is "legal" does not take away the clinic workers' responsibility to report. The requirement under the law, furthermore, for the health care worker is simply to report, not to investigate. In other words, the very fact that an underage girl is pregnant indicates that there may have been criminal activity or abuse. The health care worker does not have to investigate whether there was or not, but simply report that there might be.

What Life Dynamics did is described in their own words on their website, www.childpredators.com: "Life Dynamics conducted a covert investigation in which we called over 800 Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation facilities across the country. Our caller portrayed a 13-year-old girl who was pregnant by her 22-year-old boyfriend. Her story was that she wanted an abortion because she and her boyfriend did not want her parents to find out about the sexual relationship. In every call the ages of the girl and her boyfriend were made perfectly clear. It was also unmistakable that the motivation for the abortion was to conceal this illicit sexual activity from the girl's parents and the authorities. The results were appalling. Even though many of these clinic workers openly acknowledged to our caller that this situation was illegal and that they were required to report it to the state, the overwhelming majority readily agreed to conceal this illegal sexual activity. Some employees of these organizations even coached our caller on how to avoid detection, how to circumvent parental involvement laws and what to say or not say when she came to the clinic."

So what should be done next?

First of all, spread the word. People, especially those who are parents, have a right to know about the risks their children and grandchildren face in legal abortion clinics.

Secondly, legislation can be introduced to stop these clinics and their supporting organizations from receiving state and federal funding. After all, recipients of these funds are required to use the money only in accordance with all state and federal laws.

Thirdly, massive litigation should be launched against the abortion industry for engaging in this illegal activity.

Along with changing laws and hearts, we simply need to put abortionists out of business.

Priests for Life
PO Box 141172
Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. 888-PFL-3448, (718) 980-4400
Fax 718-980-6515
Email mail@priestsforlife.org

Subscribe to Fr. Frank's bi-weekly prolife column (free): subscribe@priestsforlife.org 

[TheDon]

As a non-Catholic, I think the story is news worthy, but I think it has been way overplayed in the media. Again, as a non-Catholic, I'm starting to feel like I'm watching Catholic News channel, when this story is played 24/7, wall to wall on every news channel. I flip from one news station to the next and can find nothing but this same story playing. This story is relevant to some Catholics, but not to the rest of us.

So, all the news coverage on this topic is not Catholic bashing, just 90 to 95% of it is.

[Dajjal]

"New and more efficient media of social communication are contributing to the knowledge of events; by setting off chain reactions they are giving the swiftest and widest possible circulation to styles of thought and feeling."
Gaudium et Spes, 6

"Chain reactions" is right. The bishops should try reading their own documents once in a while. They might learn something.

[Mo1]

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[Dajjal]

Thanks for the post. I'll pray that Life Dynamics and Priests For Life are able to piggyback on the bishops' story to expose the abortion mills' enablement of pedophiles.

[Wolfstar]

The central part of this issue is that some number of priests have been accused of molesting mostly teenage boys, and that some number of bishops and cardinals may have covered some molestations up. This is a legitimate news story. However, a great deal of the coverage has a definite bias against the Catholic Church. Some of the bias is just due to outright ignorance, and some is deliberately malicious.

This article says there are about 65 million Catholics in the U.S. We have a population of about 280 million, which means that some 215 million of us either practice no religion or are members of another faith. The overwhelming majority of Americans describe themselves as Christians and identify themselves as belonging to one of the Protestant denominations. Both the news and entertainment media, which are populated largely by secular Lefties, have long demonstrated a virulent anti-Christian bias. So for them to pile on the Catholics isn't surprising. The worst I've heard has been on local talk radio. Here in L.A., the KFI radio hosts Bill Handel and John & Ken have been especially vicious.

Does pointing out the media bias and piling on in any way excuse priests who have committed such acts? Of course not! But neither should the media be excused for its excesses.

[Camber-G]

I'm catholic ... while I wouldn't call the media attention "catholic-bashing", I think there are two reasons why this scandal gets more attention than those in other faiths or other professions.

1) Other churches do not have the world-wide strict hierarchy and organization of the catholic church ... for many people, not just catholics, the Roman Catholic Church represents Christianity in general ... there's a direct line of reporting from every priest to the pope himself, and every priest acts as a representative the entire RC church. It's easier to dissociate ministers from other churches from the church itself than it is to dissociate priests from the Roman Catholic church.

2) While there are other cases of homosexual sex scandals in other churches, most of those reported are heterosexual, and most between adults.
Though those sins can be just as terrible and damaging to the victims, the underage and homosexual nature of the Roman Catholic scandal makes for a much greater focus of attention, in my opinion, in addition to the long-standing and well organized cover ups by the bishops and cardinals.

[RightWhale]

Some Catholics say the coverage represents nothing less than a frontal assault on a faith tradition

I'm not RC. Nevertheless I watch the Church from a respectful distance. The Corporation is big, but in trouble, and it has been in trouble for hundreds of years. They will have to clean up their act, or decline or stagnation is unavoidable. Who knows where this will lead, there is still a need for religion, but does it have to be RC in its current version?

I view the current problems in Islam, the terrorists, in a similar way. Islam lacks the organization that the Church has, but it will have to reform as well.

[daffyduct]

The media has been bending over, (no pun intended) to the homosexual community to minimize the gay aspect of this crisis. The american Catholic Church leaders have in many cases ignored the right teaching and direction from Rome and have twisted the documents of Vatican II to practice the flawed doctrine of modernism. Pope Paul VI stated that the Smoke of Satan has inflitrated the Church. We are now reaping what was sown in the last two score years. One of the rubrics of Ash Wednesday has the priest marking the faithful with an ash cross on the forehead with the words: "Repent and return to the Gospel". Maybe it's time for the laity to mark each Priest, Bishop, Cardinal, Nun, CCD instructor, Catholic school teacher and administrator, Seminary professor and american theologian with the ashes of the failed herecy of modernism and say..."Repent and return to the Gospel".

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

I have thought for some time now this story has become no more than a conduit for open attacks on religion rather than just the sex abuse accusations.Mark my words,when the story slows or comes to an end if not before, the attacks will shift into the other denominations so the American hating media and it's contributors can give organized religion a trashing.

[Free_at_last_-2001]

Is all the news coverage just 'Catholic-bashing'? - The media attacks from without - the homosexuals attack from within - both push the anti-Christ agenda!

[Cicero]

There's no doubt that Catholic-bashing is exactly what the news media originally intended. As you can tell if you read the original articles in the Boston Globe and elsewhere, the idea was to embarrass and weaken the Church and undermine its moral positions in regard to sexuality. They hoped to put an end to priestly celibacy and bring in woman priests.

But the results have been very different from what the media intended. The propaganda attack got out of hand and took on a life of its own. I think it's now obvious to many Catholics that the problem is not priestly celibacy but priestly homosexuality. Likewise, the problem does not result from the ancient rules of the Church but from the violation of those rules by liberal dissenters and their bishop protectors.

More recently, the scandal has seriously undermined the power of liberal, dissenting bishops to cover up homosexual networks in their dioceses. That certainly is not what the press intended, but the story has escaped their control.

So, the original intention was ill, but, Deo volente, the final results may be good.

[maryz]

More recently, the scandal has seriously undermined the power of liberal, dissenting bishops to cover up homosexual networks in their dioceses.

Hasn't undermined it quite seriously enough to date, but I'm hoping.

[dsutah]

Boy, are you right! I'm fond of Fox News Channel; but even they
are making me mad. Every time I turn around, there is someone
talking about it. Then I get on this page, and people are talking
about it. I swore up and down I wouldn't look at posts where they
were talking about it, because of rude and disrespectful individuals
slamming RCs on them. But here I am again, I must be a fiend for
punishment! Seriously, It's depressing. I thought FNC was different
from CNN, but in this, they're not.

[Be active]

The Catholic Church has been covering up for years. Most, not just a few of Priests, are pedophiles. And now they think they are above the law. It's like a cop going bad.

What a sick religion. People who are Catholics better remember that they are supporting perverts.

[Rollee]

It isn't the religion that is sick, it is a few individuals in it's hierarchy that are sick. There are many, many priests that are decent, who would never dream of doing what the sick ones have done. The anti-Catholic, anti-Christian media have been playing this up for months now, and have painted all priests with the same brush. Uninformed people do not know enough to make that distinction, and go along with what the media says. Some go along with the Catholic bashing willingly.

[Lady In Blue]

As a proud and practicing traditional Catholic,I take strong exception to your ignorant rant against our Catholic Priests.Most of them are fantastic men.The priests in my parish give 100% to the parish and teach strong,traditional Catholicism.What's sick are the ignorant,and uninformed comments from anti-Catholics.I think they have a very low idea of what a Christian is.

[EdReform]

BTTT

[redhead]

"Most, not just a few of Priests, are pedophiles."

You have proof of this? Otherwise, it's just a lie. Stop it.