BishopAccountability.org
	Inquisition for the Pope? Daily World April 1, 2010 http://www.dailyworld.com/article/20100401/OPINION/4010320 UNITED STATES -- It doesn't seem right that the Catholic Church is spending Holy Week practicing the unholy art of spin. Complete with crown-of-thorns imagery, the church has started a public relations blitz defending a pope who went along with the perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church's reputation rather than abused children. The church gave up its credibility for Lent. This week of special confessions and penance services is unfolding as the pope resists pressure from Catholics around the globe for his own confession and penance about the cascade of child sexual abuse cases that were ignored, even by a German diocese and Vatican office he ran. And now the church continues to hide behind its mystique. Putting down the catechism, it picked up the Washington P.R. handbook for political sins. n First: Declare any new revelation old and unimportant. At Palm Sunday Mass at St. Patrick's, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York bemoaned that the "recent tidal wave of headlines about abuse of minors by some few priests, this time in Ireland, Germany, and a re-run of an old story from Wisconsin, has knocked us to our knees once again." A few priests? At this point, it feels like an international battalion. A re-run of an old story? So sorry to remind you, Archbishop, that one priest, the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, who showed no remorse and suffered no punishment from "Rottweiler" Ratzinger, abused as many as 200 deaf children in Wisconsin. n Second: Blame somebody else — even if it's this pope's popular predecessor, on the fast track to sainthood. Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schönborn defended Pope Benedict this week, saying that then-Cardinal Ratzinger's attempt in 1995 to investigate the former archbishop of Vienna for allegedly molesting youths in a monastery was barred by advisers close to Pope John Paul II. n Third: Say black is white. In his blog, Archbishop Dolan blasted church critics while stating: "The Church needs criticism; we want it; we welcome it; we do a good bit of it ourselves," adding: "We do not expect any special treatment. ... So bring it on." Right. n Fourth: Demonize gays, as Karl Rove did in 2004. In an ad in The Times on Tuesday, Bill Donohue, the Catholic League president, offered this illumination: "The Times continues to editorialize about the 'pedophilia crisis,' when all along it's been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay." Donohue is still talking about the problem as an indiscretion rather than a crime. If it mostly involves men and boys, that's partly because priests for many years had unquestioned access to boys. n Fifth: Blame the victims. "Fr. Lawrence Murphy apparently began his predatory behavior in Wisconsin in the 1950s," Donohue protested, "yet the victims' families never contacted the police until the mid-1970s." n Sixth: Throw gorilla dust. Donohue asserts that "the common response of all organizations — secular, as well as religious" — to abuse cases "was to access therapy and reinstate the patient." Really? Where in heaven's name does that information come from? It's absurd. n Seventh: Use the Cheney omnipotence defense, most famously employed in the Valerie Plame case. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed that his lofty position meant that the very act of spilling a secret, even with dastardly intent, declassified it. Vatican lawyers will argue in negligence cases brought by abuse victims that the pope has immunity as a head of state and that bishops who allowed an abuse culture were not Vatican employees. Maybe they worked for Enron.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.