Kenneth D. Whitehead Sex abuse is a grave sin in Church teaching and a crime in civil law, and so it was a legitimate subject for media attention. What was unusual in the 2010 Easter season, however, was the way in which Pope Benedict XVI somehow got personally blamed for the new wave of charges. Allegedly, [...]
One of the hallmarks of bigotry is the collectivization of guilt. By that measure, much of the criticism against the pope has been nothing if not Catholic bashing. From militant atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins indicting the Catholic Church as a “child-raping institution,” to newspaper cartoons branding all Catholic clergy as molesters, the evidence [...]
Most Catholics, as well as many non-Catholics, were no doubt taken aback when they learned on March 25 that a priest in Wisconsin had molested as many as 200 deaf boys. Not only that, but there were reasons to believe that apparently the pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the time, may have known about it and [...]
We are pleased to note that after we launched a vigorous protest, Tarleton State University in Texas canceled the gay-Jesus play “Corpus Christi”; it was scheduled to be shown on March 27, on the eve of Palm Sunday. On March 24, we blasted Tarleton State for hosting hate speech against Christians on the eve of Holy [...]
Seldom have we seen such delirium over an innocent man, namely Pope Benedict XVI. Christopher Hitchens, the rabid atheist, wanted to know why the European Union was allowing the pope to travel freely. Perhaps he wanted the pope handcuffed at the Vatican and brought to the guillotine. Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald, another big fan of [...]
On March 30, MSNBC libeled Pope Benedict XVI on it’s website, MSNBC.com. As part of “Related Content” to an article entitled, “Losing Their Religion? Catholicism in Turmoil,” readers were invited to click on a story entitled, “Pope Describes Touching Boys: I Went Too Far.” After clicking on the link, the reader was taken to an article [...]
On the blog site of a recent edition of the Orange County Register was a series of questions and answers on the subject of sexual abuse. At the top, under the headline question, “Think you can spot the sex offender in the crowd?”, was a silhouette of a priest: faceless, the silhouette was clearly a male wearing a [...]
The New York Times has recently published numerous stories looking to tie Pope Benedict XVI with various sex abuse cases; one of those stories focused on an incident that took place in Germany 30 years ago by a priest named Peter Hullermann. At the time, the pope, known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was archbishop of Munich. Regarding how [...]
A week after the New York Times ran a front-page story on Father Peter Hullermann, the newspaper did its best to keep the flame alive. “Pope Was Told Pedophile Priest Would Get Transfer,” was the headline the Times used for its piece on the pope. But all it said was that his office “was copied on a memo” about the [...]
On April 7, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a piece entitled, “The Church’s Judas Moment.” We couldn’t resist a rejoinder. It is next to impossible for Dowd to write a piece about the Catholic Church without sounding whiny. Always the victim, Dowd is forever put upon by the boys in robes. That she desperately wants to [...]
