On February 18, there was a news story in The Times (of London) about “a study approved by the Vatican” showing that men are more given to lust; women to pride. This story was reprinted in the New York Post on the same day. Both newspapers identified Wojciech Giertych as “the personal theologian” to the pope. The next day, ABC News referred to the work as a “survey.”
On February 18, panelists on the ABC show, “The View,” discussed these news reports and took the occasion to slam Catholicism. Bill Donohue responded with a news release criticizing what transpired. On today’s show, Joy Behar said that Donohue “says in a letter that we read that Barbara [Walters] should be squelching us from this type of thing.”
Donohue replies as follows:
“What a bunch of incompetents. First of all, there is no study that was approved by the Vatican on the subject. There is a book by Dominican Father Giertych, and it was not ‘approved’ by the Vatican: his comments appeared in a Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. He is not ‘the personal theologian’ to the pope; rather, he is theologian of the papal household. Moreover, he did not conduct a survey—he wrote a book. Both the terms ‘study’ and ‘survey’ suggest something scientific, and therefore distort the priest’s work.
“What Behar calls a ‘letter’ was actually a news release. More important, I never said Walters should be squelching them. What I said was that after we hit her with a New York Times ad in 2007 for tolerating anti-Catholicism, ‘she got the message and quieted her panelists.’
“What a media circus: inept journalists feeding anti-Catholic bigots. We contacted one of the two Brit reporters, Jack Malvern, about his story but he failed to reply. It’s time he heard from our side. Let ‘View’ co-producer Bill Geddie hear from you again.”
Contact Malvern at j.malvern@thetimes.co.uk
Contact Geddie at bill.geddie@abc.com
