In some ways, Holy Week is hardly the time I would choose to make the following comments. Still, the matter is so pressing that I feel compelled to address it.
Last week I asked for some fairness in the seemingly unappeasable criticism of the Church over the catastrophe of clergy sexual abuse.
Not to my surprise, if anything, it has only gotten worse, especially in the interminable headlines about the Pope himself.
Last fall I wrote in this blog about anti-Catholicism in the New York Times and other media, providing a list of contemporary examples. A few tried to slap me back into place, suggesting that I stupidly believed the Church to be immune from scrutiny.
Baloney! The Church needs criticism; we want it; we welcome it; we do a good bit of it ourselves; we do not expect any special treatment…so bring it on.
All we ask is that it be fair and accurate.
The reporting on Pope Benedict XVI has not been so.
The first reports were about a shameful priest in Germany three decades ago. I weighed in on that coverage last week.
The second story, sprayed all over the New York Times this week, and predictably copied by the world’s press, is groundless. (I am grateful for Father Raymond de Souza’s excellent piece posted at National Review Online which goes through the story point by point.)
The report accuses Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of preventing a priest whose sins and crimes can only be described as diabolical, one Lawrence Murphy, from facing proper penalties in the Church for the serial abuse of deaf minors.
While the report on the nauseating abuse is bitterly true, the insinuation against Cardinal Ratzinger is not, and gives every indication of being part of a well-oiled campaign against Pope Benedict.
Here’s a summary of the key points:
Nothing in this non-news merits the tsunami of headlines, stories, and diatribes against the Church and this Pope that we have endured this past week.
There was legitimate news last week that should have received much more attention than it did. It was the annual independent audit report on American dioceses on compliance with our own tough Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. For those who profess to be so interested in the welfare of the young, the news should have been trumpeted as stunning progress. Catholics deeply disturbed by lurid tales of wicked behavior twenty or thirty years ago might have been surprised to discover:
This failure to report in similar detail today’s successes and yesterday’s failures suggests the bias I wrote about last fall. This is also about simply telling the truth, or more to the point, about peddling falsehoods to destroy the Holy Father’s good name. It needs to be called what it is – scandalous.
Let me be upfront: I confess a bias in favor of the Church and her Pope.
I only wish some others would admit a bias on the other side.
A blessed Holy Week.