ST. LOUIS (MO)
TheMediaReport
David Pierre
Media outlets – both secular and religious – have been falling over themselves to tout the dramatic front-page story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Lilly Fowler that St. Louis Archbishop Robert J. Carlson testified in a recent deposition that he was unaware that the sexual abuse of a child was a crime.
As one might imagine, however, even a cursory look at the actual facts reveals that the entire story is just plain silly at best and malicious at worst.
The Archbishop is obviously well aware that sex abuse of a child is, and always has been, a crime, and to suggest otherwise simply demonstrates how deeply ingrained the mainstream media’s animus is against the Catholic Church and its leaders.
Fowler’s selective facts
Fowler’s story is based entirely on selected excerpts from a deposition that Archbishop Carlson recently sat for in a lawsuit by the hyperbolic contingency lawyer Jeff Anderson. And no doubt the story was another plant by Anderson to pump up the value of his lawsuit by using useful idiots in the media like Fowler to put public pressure on the Church to settle the case on favorable terms to Anderson.
However, even a cursory review of the actual deposition (pdf) clearly illustrates that Archbishop Carlson was not claiming that he did not know that the sexual abuse of a child was a crime.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.