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	Catholic Church Targeted by Media By Paul Murty The Independent Florida Alligator April 2, 2010 http://www.alligator.org/opinion/columns/article_b92bab86-3e06-11df-b749-001cc4c03286.html There’s been yet another scandal in the Catholic Church. It seems that every few years, there’s something else that comes out about a number of priests involved in pedophilic relations and a subsequent Church cover-up. Of course, the national media eats this up and has something to talk about for another week. The scandals in the Church are indubitably wrong in every sense of the word and so are the cover-ups — though those have pretty valid reasons — however wrong they are. The Church is strapped for priests as it is, and I know this from personal experience because my hometown of West Haven, Conn., used to have two Catholic Churches with a few priests each, but they now must share a single priest. The situation is dire and drastic, but this does not excuse the cover-up. The thing that frustrates me the most about these situations is that people seem to think that these problems are only in the Catholic Church. Catholic priests have a stigma attached to them that they are pedophiles, that they fraternize with pedophiles or that they covered up some pedophilic activities. According to “Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis,” a book by Philip Jenkins, statistics show that Protestant ministers are involved in many more pedophilic crimes than Catholic priests. Jenkins wrote that between 0.2 and 1.7 percent of Catholic priests are involved in sexual misconduct — not necessarily pedophilia — whereas in Protestant ministers, it ranges from 5 to 10 percent. Incidents like these are covered in the media, but they don’t cause a huge debate that goes on for weeks on major news channels. They are simply reported and forgotten in the blink of an eye. There is a simple explanation for this: The Catholic Church has a very visible and public hierarchy. I mean, practically every news station around the world went to the square in the Vatican while looking for the white smoke after Pope John Paul II died. It is a big organization that has a figurehead, and thus, it is an easy target. Protestant religions aren’t grouped under one figurehead; they are instead composed of many different belief systems and different churches. It is much easier to attack an organization with a single leader — the pope — than one without a leader. To relate it to something we all know very well, try to imagine al-Qaida without Osama bin Laden as its figurehead. It would be a lot tougher to garner up support against that organization without bin Laden. However, just because there is an explanation for this doesn’t make it right. The Catholic Church has been made fun of and criticized throughout the 2000s — which is as far as I can remember — while other churches are seemingly forgotten. Perhaps the media focuses on the Catholics because of the celibacy rules in the priesthood. And not only are the priests violating moral and federal laws, but they are also violating the celibacy laws. I know many Protestant groups don’t require celibacy of their leaders, so perhaps the media is criticizing celibacy in general. Perhaps there is simply a vendetta against the Catholics that comes out whenever something like this goes wrong. Perhaps the media just focuses on what it deems more important stories. Who knows? What I know is this: The media should be treating everything equally. If there is a scandal in a Protestant religion, focus on it for a week and criticize it afterward. If there is a scandal in any religion, do the same thing. But don’t attach a stigma to Catholics when they aren’t even the greatest offenders of the abuse scandals. I understand that it is wrong, and I’m not making excuses for it at all. But I believe that it is irresponsible for the media to target a specific group as it has done with the Catholic Church.
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