A Response to the New York Times [Father Raymond J. de Souza]
The New York Times on March 25 accused Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, of intervening to prevent a priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, from facing penalties for cases of sexual abuse of minors.
The story is false. It is unsupported by its own documentation. Indeed, it gives every indication of being part of a coordinated campaign against Pope Benedict, rather than responsible journalism.
Before addressing the false substance of the story, the following circumstances are worthy of note....
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Thank you Fr. Raymond. It's good to know the truth.
Fr. Tim
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- Fr. Tim Moyle
- A Roman Catholic Evangelical Priest of the Diocese of Pembroke, Canada. Shown in my profile photo with my canine companion, Mateo.
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What a good idea! Toss the wolves the faggot bishop. Ya know, the one that's already been yanked out of his red satin closet anyway. Blame it on him.
ReplyDeleteIf that does it for ya, go for it, Tim. I don't know if it will do much for anybody else but it's worth a try.
reddog: Surely you're not suggesting that people are not open to the facts ? (grin)
ReplyDeleteFr. Tim
I think you may have stumbled on one of the world's worst kept secrets... the New York Times doesn't like the Catholic Church. Coordinated attack? Only insofar as a lynch mob is ever coordinated.
ReplyDeleteThe recipe is fairly simple. Begin with the conclusion... "The Catholic Church is evil."
Publish anything that supports that conclusion. Dig up whatever you can... everyone has some dirty little secrets lurking somewhere. With over 400,000 priests worldwide, if only 1% are dirty you have 4000.
Trot out the victims whenever possible... anything that moves the discussion from the rational to the emotional is useful. No one can argue rationally with a suffering victim.
Distort, suppress or obfuscate where necessary. People will not sort through reams of documents nor will they turn to the back pages of the paper. They will likely believe what they are told to believe in headlines and sound bites.
Once you have your lynch mob properly whipped up, turn them loose. Let the feeding frenzy begin! Do not worry if some supposed innocents get caught up in the stampede... you have already painted all members of your target group with the same brush. Any who are unfortunate enough not to distance themselves from the rage of the mob no doubt deserve their fate.
This is not about truth and justice for either the victims or their abusers. This is about the willful use of propaganda to achieve specific ends.
Once you have the notion that "all Catholics are perverted pedophiles" firmly entrenched in the public mind it is a small matter to use that to advantage. Dismantling the separate school system in Ontario becomes easy. Reducing the Church's influence in matters of public policy becomes possible.
There is one aspect of this that is perhaps most interesting. In at least two cases of widespread, institutionalized abuse the government was a willing partner. I am of course speaking of the residential schools in Canada and the situation in Ireland.
I have to ask who benefits most from having such a convenient scapegoat as the Catholic Church?
One of the great advances in society in my lifetime has been the coming together in respect and brotherhood of all religious communities in America. There is none of the distrust and alienation one from another that was so common in my childhood and youth. Catholics are part of this phenomenon. We all strive toward being good neighbors, friends, co workers and Americans. I do not think that news organizations have a bias against members of specific religious groups per se.
ReplyDeleteI do think that in so far as religious leaders attempt to alienate and separate the members of their organizations from the affection and esteem of others, there is bias, not only by news organizations but by many institutions that bond us together as Americans.
The institutional Catholic Church sees too much inclusion and homogeneity of their members within the whole of society as a detriment to itself and a threat to its authority. They seek to weaken the bonds that hold us together as Americans and reintroduce the distrust and insularity thet most of us have discarded.
Maybe its different in Canada, Tim. I don't think so. I think it is even more true there.