Maureen Dowd has an article in today’s New York Times titled, “The Church’s Judas Moment.” Catholic League president Bill Donohue couldn’t resist a rejoinder:

 It is next to impossible for Maureen Dowd to write a piece about the Catholic Church without sounding whiny. Always the victim, Maureen is forever put upon by the boys in robes. That she desperately wants to try one on for size is obvious, but, alas, this is a problem without a remedy. Well, not quite: there are still a few mainline Protestant churches open that might welcome her.

 Maureen confesses that she is so flustered by the Vatican, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and me that she could not write today’s column, and that is why she invited her “devout Catholic” brother Kevin to pen one in her place. That was a mistake.

 Dowd’s brother writes that since Vatican II, laypeople have been “performing the sacraments.” He later writes that “Married people and laypeople giving the sacraments are not going to destroy the church.” Someone needs to inform Devout Kevin that laypeople are not permitted to give the sacraments.  

 Devout Kevin also seems confused about another matter, although this time he is not alone. He cheers the “liberalized rules of the Vatican,” but notes with sadness that celibacy was not dropped. As a result, he says, the Church ended up “drawing on men confused about their sexuality who put our children in harm’s way.” But homosexuals are no more confused about their sexuality than heterosexuals. He does deserve credit, however, for noting that too many of the wrong guys got into the Church following Vatican II.

 We wish Maureen a speedy recovery and hope the R&R will have an alembic effect. And we hope Devout Kevin accesses a copy of Catholicism for Dummies.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains how the Catholic Church can resolve the sex abuse scandal:

The best thing the Catholic Church could possibly do would be to mimic the success of the public schools, especially in New York City. For example, the New York Times, which has a story today about an accused priest from India who was stationed temporarily in Minnesota a few years back, would never have seen the light of day had he been assigned to a “rubber room.”

The New York Post recently described the “rubber rooms” as places where educators accused of wrongdoing sit for months, or even years, at full pay while their case is being investigated. What do they do? They are known for “snoozing at their desks, holding jam sessions, playing board games, and breaking into fights.” Moreover, “Doodling is a popular pastime. Others read every word of a newspaper. Many gulp down cup after cup of coffee.” There are currently 675 teachers in the “rubber rooms,” costing the City over $40 million a year in salaries alone. Some of the accused have been drawing full pay for 12 years.

The good news is that the New York Times doesn’t care about the “rubber rooms,” which explains why it seldom writes about them. Best of all, the Times has never once editorialized against them. Indeed, it doesn’t even like to report on efforts to insure greater rights for the molesters. For example, New York Assemblyman Peter Abbate, Jr. recently introduced a bill to terminate in-house disciplinary inquiries for all civil servants, thus making it easier for abusers to skate. But it never made the Times.

The lesson to be learned is quite simple. The Catholic Church should never remove accused priests from ministry—they should assign them to a “rubber room” where they can do something productive, e.g., finger painting, with no cut in pay. Following the lead of the teachers’ unions, the Church should work against all reform efforts. And when it is criticized for cheering laws making it easier for the accused to get away scot-free, it should just say it is modeling itself on the exemplary work of the teachers’ unions. The Times should understand. Shouldn’t it?

AP is reporting that in the course of a TV interview on Sunday, the archbishop of Santiago, Chile said he was investigating “a few” cases of priestly sexual abuse. We decided to give AP a tip by bringing similar stories to its attention, all of which were reported in the last week in the U.S. (since March 31), but none of which it chose to cover:

• A Milford, Connecticut teacher’s aide pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting a high school student

• A Brookville High School teacher in Pennsylvania was charged with aggravated indecent assault; indecent exposure; corruption of minors; possession of obscene material; sexual abuse of children; and unlawful conduct with minors

• A middle school gym teacher in Athens, New York was arrested on charges of sex abuse and forcible touching

• A Morrisville-Eaton Central School District teacher outside Utica, New York was arrested for forcibly touching a girl over a three year period, beginning at the age of 11, and for endangering her welfare

• A former Teacher of the Year in Bullitt County, Kentucky was indicted by a grand jury on sexual abuse charges

• A teacher at Olin High School in Iowa was charged with sexually exploiting a freshman. This same teacher faced similar charges two years ago when he taught in another school, and was simply moved from one school district to another

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

Every day there are religious and secular leaders, all over the world, who learn of accusations of sexual misconduct, but none are given global coverage by AP unless it involves someone like the archbishop of Santiago. That AP thinks his admission is newsworthy, but does not deem it worthy to cover the above half-dozen examples, is revealing. Now it may be a lot sexier to get the Catholic Church, but serious journalism ought to be guided by more professional standards of inquiry.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on two news stories released today by the Associated Press:

 One of the AP stories on priestly sexual abuse admits that “The overwhelming majority of the victims were adolescents. That means very few guilty priests were pedophiles, a term mental health professionals reserve for those who target pre-pubescent children.” Fine. But then it says something which is positively remarkable: “Even though about 80 percent of victims were boys, the John Jay researchers and other experts on sex offenders say it does not mean the perpetrators were gay.” So what would they be? Heterosexual?

 The AP article relied on the extraordinary remark by Margaret Smith, a professor who worked on the John Jay study. She said that while Donohue “quoted the study’s data correctly,” I nonetheless “drew an unwarranted conclusion.” What? That most of the molesters have been gay? Here is what she said: “The majority of the abusive acts were homosexual in nature. That participation in homosexual acts is not the same as sexual identity as a gay man.” So if two men sodomize each other, no one really knows if this qualifies as gay sex. Now I must admit that when I was studying for my doctorate in sociology at NYU, they never taught me such logic. 

 Both AP stories say the reason why there were so many male victims is because the priests did not have access to girls as altar servers. Nonsense. There have been girl altar servers in some U.S. dioceses since 1983, and almost everywhere since 1994. The statistics actually show that the more priests have access to girls, the less likely it is for girls to be abused. 

 Here’s the tally. As reported in 2004, between 1950 and 2002, 81 percent of the victims were male; in 2005, it stayed the same; in 2006, it dropped to 80 percent; in 2007, it climbed to 82 percent; in 2008, it jumped to 84 percent; and in 2009, it stayed at 84 percent. 

 In other words, even though priests have less access to males, homosexual priests are molesting them at a higher rate. It’s time to end the gay cover-up once and for all.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue replies to those who are accusing him of defending Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ. Maciel sexually abused seminarians and fathered a child. Here is Donohue’s response:

 Many articles have recently been written claiming that a “who’s who” of conservative Catholic intellectuals once defended Father Maciel from charges of sexual molestation. Cited are the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, Mary Ann Glendon, Deal Hudson, Bill Bennett and me. To include me is positively wrong–I never once defended Maciel against such charges.

 In a 1997 letter-to-the-editor in the Hartford Courant, I took issue with a news story which reported that “Several [of the accusers] said Maciel told them he had permission from Pope Pius XII to seek them out sexually for relief of physical pain.” Here is what I said in reply:

   “To think any priest would tell some other priest that the Pope gave him the thumbs up to have sex with another priest–all for the purpose of relieving the poor fellow of some malady–is the kind of balderdash that wouldn’t convince the most unscrupulous editor at any of the weekly tabloids. It is a wonder why The Courant found merit enough to print it.”

  It is time to set the record straight. My criticism was of the newspaper for giving credibility to some of Maciel’s accusers who said he told them he had gotten the green light from the pope to have sex with them. Indeed, “balderdash” is too kind a word to describe such nonsense.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on recent attempts to censor him:

 TV producers have been telling me for years that my critics have implored them never to invite me back on any program. But they always do. While the media are overwhelmingly liberal, they have an obligation to offer different points of view. Hence, their non-stop invitations asking me to speak.

 The latest attempt to silence me comes from GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), Call to Action and the Interfaith Alliance. The three left-wing organizations have joined hands demanding that the media “ignore Bill Donohue.” Their complaint? My telling the truth about the role homosexual priests have played in the abuse scandal.

 The data collected by John Jay College of Criminal Justice show that between 1950 and 2002, 81 percent of the victims were male and 75 percent of them were post-pubescent. In other words, three out of every four victims have been abused by homosexuals. By the way, puberty, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, begins at age 10 for boys.

 No problem can be remedied without an accurate diagnosis. And any accurate diagnosis that does not finger the role that homosexuals have played in molesting minors is intellectually dishonest. The cover-up must end. And so must attempts to muzzle my voice. Everything I am saying is what most people already know, but are afraid to say it. It’s time for some straight talk.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a statement made by Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

Cardinal Levada directly takes on the New York Times for its coverage of the Fr. Murphy abuse case in Wisconsin. Commenting on the news story by Laurie Goodstein, Levada writes, “The point of Goodstein’s article, however, is to attribute the failure to accomplish this dismissal [of Fr. Murphy] to Pope Benedict, instead of to diocesan decisions at the time.”

Cardinal Levada has it just right. The wrongdoing in this case rests in Wisconsin. Why did the victims’ families wait as long as 15 years to report the abuse? Why were the civil authorities unconvinced by what they uncovered? Why did Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland wait almost two decades before he contacted the Vatican?

Weakland’s record in handling sex abuse cases is a matter of record. In 1984, he branded as “libelous” those who reported cases of priestly sexual abuse (he was rebuked by the courts for doing so). Ten years later he accused those who reported such cases of “squealing.” And, of course, he had to resign when his lover, a 53 year-old man, revealed that Weakland paid him $450,000 to settle a sexual assault lawsuit (Weakland took the money from archdiocesan funds). It’s a sure bet that if Weakland were a theological conservative–and not a champion of liberal causes–the media (including the National Catholic Reporter and Commonweal) would be all over him.

We also need to learn from Laurie Goodstein why she waited until Wednesday, March 30, to interview Fr. Thomas Brundage, the priest who presided over the Murphy trial. Brundage has said that the pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, had absolutely nothing to do with the Murphy case. And we need to know why Weakland never gave Brundage a letter he wrote asking him to call off the trial.

There’s dirt in the Murphy case, but it sits in the U.S.A.–not Rome.