In yesterday’s edition of the Spokane, Washington newspaper, the Spokesman-Review, a headline was run entitled, “Nazi priest promotes his book.” The story called attention to a talk and book signing by Rev. Robert Spitzer, president of Gonzaga University, at a local bookstore. Neither Father Spitzer’s talk nor book has anything to do with Nazism.
Upon learning of this, Catholic League president William Donohue called the editorial office of the newspaper. When he was told that this was an error and that an apology would be printed in the next edition of the Spokesman-Review, Donohue replied that this was insufficient: nothing less than the guilty party’s termination was acceptable, he said. Donohue emphasized that this was done intentionally, and he even explained the motive behind the Nazi label by charging that it had been done in response to Father Spitzer’s decision last spring to ban a Planned Parenthood representative from speaking at the Jesuit school.
In today’s Spokesman-Review, there is a story that discloses that a 24 year-old intern copy editor, Robin Moody, was asked to resign from the newspaper at the request of the editors. Moody is a Gonzaga graduate who was president of the women’s studies club last spring that attempted to bring a speaker from Planned Parenthood to the campus.
Donohue issued the following statement today:
“We flooded the Spokane media yesterday with our news release on the ‘Nazi priest’ story. We now have confirmation from the electronic media in Spokane that the Catholic League was alone in demanding the termination of the person responsible for this act. We are delighted with this outcome because anything less would have been a travesty of justice. But we don’t buy the current line that this was a mistake. On the contrary, Ms. Moody’s decision was as deliberate as it was ideologically driven. She got what she deserved.”
