UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
National Catholic Reporter’s Call for Archbishop Nienstedt to Be Transparent and Accountable: Sauce for Nienstedt’s Goose Also Sauce for NCR’s Gander, in Censoring Jerry Slevin?
As Jerry Slevin pointed out in a posting at his Christian Catholicism site yesterday, in various threads, readers of National Catholic Reporter articles continue to discuss his recent banning by NCR. As I noted in a posting a number of days ago, recently, when Jerry tried logging onto the NCR site to leave comments, he began receiving a message informing him that he had been banned from commenting at the site. Jerry also reported that he had contacted NCR managerial staff to ask why this had been done to him, but had received no explanation.
Dennis Coday, NCR’s editor, did eventually respond to Jerry about his banning, and Jerry published Coday’s email to him several days ago. Discussion of Jerry Slevin’s censorship by NCR has continued at the NCR site (and elsewhere) since that time, and as Jerry notes in a comment here today, a thread has developed just today in response to NCR’s editorial calling on Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis to be transparent and accountable, and to release the report the archdiocese had commissioned to investigate allegations that Nienstedt had had sexual relationships with adult men.
The editorial states,
The health of any organization, especially one holding itself to the high standards of a religious community that regularly presents itself as a public arbiter of personal morality, is dependent on mutual respect and trust. Those characteristics, in turn, are dependent on transparency and accountability, particularly on the part of bishops, who hold almost unlimited authority over the Catholic community.
And so, understandably, some folks responding to this NCR editorial today are asking about NCR’s own commitment to the standard of transparency and accountability as it censors people contributing comments to its website — e.g., people like Jerry Slevin. For instance, Rob Christopher writes,
I agree that report should be made public. This is a position we have consistently defended here. I also agree that people who argue for full disclosure should practice full disclosure, and not conceal information when it seems convenient to do so. I encourage the editors to disclose their reasons why some people have been barred from this site, while others — some of whom do their best to offend those with whom they disagree — are allowed to continue. To demand disclosure from everyone but oneself would be transparent hypocrisy.
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