Child Rape Victims " Pitiful Bunch of Malcontents" : Catholic Group
By Paul Canning
Catholic League President Bill Donohue has called victims of priest abuse and their advocates and supporters a "pitiful bunch of malcontents" and "professional victims." He made the comments on the League's website in response to a conference organized to mark a decade since the Boston Catholic Church abuse scandal emerged. The comments are illustrated with an image of a crying baby. He also said that Catholics had "moved on" and were not "wallowing in negativity." Donohue has been criticized multiple times for comments seen as lacking any sensitivity towards the victims of abuse by the church. He characterized as "hysterical" the response to the Ryan Report, the result of a lengthy inquiry into the abuse of children in Ireland over decades. He called the abuse "homosexuality." Last April the League took out a full page advert in the New York Times which blamed the abuse crisis on the media, scammers and gay people. Other figures, including Rick Santorum and Rush Limbaugh, have attempted to place the blame for the abuse anywhere but with the Church. Santorum said in 2002 when the scandal broke that it was "no surprise that the center of the Catholic Church abuse took place in very liberal, or perhaps the nation's most liberal area, Boston." The Boston Catholic Church itself has issued a report on the tenth anniversary of the scandal detailing what they had done in response. "Since the time I was named Archbishop of Boston in July of 2003 our highest priority has been to provide outreach and care for all the survivors of clergy sexual abuse and to do everything possible to make sure this abuse never happens again," Cardinal Sean O'Malley said. "As an Archdiocese, as a Church, we can never cease to make clear the depth of our sorrow and to beg forgiveness from those who were so grievously harmed," he said.
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