Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in yesterday’s New York Times:

The June 17 editorial in the New York Times on the sexual abuse of minors is aptly titled, “The Children Deserve Justice.” Too bad the editorial board doesn’t really believe it. That’s a strong charge, deserving of proof. Here it is.

The editorial gives half-baked kudos to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo for pressing a new measure that would require college coaches to report child sex abuse (the Times says he could have done more). It also praises New York State Assemblywoman Margaret Markey for proposing a bill that would allow an accuser 10 years after turning 18 to press charges (instead of the current five-year period); it would also allow a one-year window for alleged victims to file suit in civil claims in cases where they were previously barred from doing so.

The editorial is right to say that Gov. Cuomo could be doing more: he could support mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse to apply to all professionals, including counselors. It’s not the bishops who are holding back this needed change: it’s Family Planning Advocates, the lobbying arm of Planned Parenthood, and the New York Civil Liberties Union. Why the resistance? Because Planned Parenthood counselors learn of cases of statutory rape all the time, and they don’t want to be blanketed with a mandatory reporting law. But don’t look for the Times to press for this change. So much for the justice that children deserve.

And don’t expect the Times to tell the truth about the Markey bill: her proposal doesn’t extend to the public schools (under state law, public school victims have only 90 days to press charges, and the Markey bill does nothing to change it). Once again, children will be deprived of the justice they deserve.

Protecting Planned Parenthood and public school employees is obviously more important to the New York Times than the justice children deserve.

As a result of an Oregon Supreme Court decision, 20,000 pages of files kept on suspected perverts by the Boy Scouts of America have been released. Bill Donohue comments on the news:

The most striking aspect of this disclosure is the timeline: the data show the sexual abuse that took place from 1965 to 1985. This is exactly the same period when priestly sexual abuse in the Catholic Church peaked. It also shows the role played by homosexuals.

The sexual revolution began in the mid-60s as a direct consequence of the radical liberal agenda—genital liberation was the goal of libertines. It ended in the mid-80s because of fear: AIDS was uncovered in 1981.

The John Jay Report last year on the “Causes and Context” of sexual abuse by priests found that “three quarters of the priests whom we have data had sexual relations with an adult and/or minor after ordination.” Also, “Priests with pre-ordination same-sex sexual behavior who did sexually abuse a minor after ordination were more likely to have a male child victim than a female child victim.” Moreover, when distinguishing between pre-seminary and in-seminary gay sex, “only in-seminary (not pre-seminary) same-sex sexual behavior was significantly related to the increased likelihood of a male child victim.”

Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist, has spent years treating sexually abusive priests. He says that “every priest whom I treated who was involved with children sexually had previously been involved in adult homosexual relationships.” Notice he didn’t say most; he said every. Even Kinsey found in 1948 that 37 percent of all male homosexuals admitted to having sex with children under the age of seventeen.

While being gay does not cause one to engage in predatory behavior—any more than being Irish causes alcoholism—whenever there is an overrepresentation of any demographic group with deviant behavior, it bears scrutiny. Most of us know this to be true, but because of intimidation, few will say it. Cowardice, however, is not a virtue.

Bill Donohue comments on the push to revise the statute of limitations in civil cases involving the sexual abuse of a minor:

There is a front-page story in the New York Times today on states that are considering laws that would loosen the statute of limitations in civil cases involving child abuse. However, two of the persons cited as defenders of children have actually promoted legislation that allows for child abuse to continue: Marci Hamilton and Joan Fitz-Gerald.

Fitz-Gerald, the former president of the Colorado Senate, introduced legislation in 2006 to lift the statute of limitations in these cases. She is quoted today saying she was horrified to learn of opposition to her bill by the archdiocese [of Denver]. “It was the most brutal thing I’ve ever been through,” she said. “The politics, the deception, the lack of concern for not only the children in the past, but for children today.”

In fact, Fitz-Gerald was responsible for turning a blind eye to the sexual molestation of children, and assisting her was Hamilton. To wit: Hamilton worked with Fitz-Gerald in drafting a bill that intentionally allowed molesting public school employees to escape with impunity (because of the doctrine of sovereign immunity, victims of abuse in the public schools have only 90 days to bring suit). In other words, because the bill was aimed only at private institutions, the target of which was the Catholic Church, it did not apply to the public schools. Not surprisingly, when another bill was introduced that was inclusive of public institutions, the public school establishment went nuts and successfully killed the bill.

Fitz-Gerald and Hamilton could have worked together to combat the sexual abuse of minors wherever it may have occurred. Instead, the “child crusaders” opted to discriminate against children who were sexually abused by public school teachers. It is their politics and deception that is truly nauseating.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

In 2002, the bishops assembled in Dallas amidst a media frenzy to consider reforms to combat the sexual abuse of minors. Today the bishops are meeting in Atlanta to assess them. But there is no media frenzy this time around. That’s because the reforms worked.

Over the past week, not a single media outlet provided an in-depth assessment of the ten-year anniversary of the reforms, and the few that mentioned it at all were mostly flawed. The Boston Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its work exposing the scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002, but in today’s newspaper its entire coverage amounts to one sentence. And even that is factually inaccurate: it mentions the problem of “pedophile priests.” Ten years ago it correctly noted that nearly 8 in 10 victims were “post-pubescent” males. Which, of course, means we are dealing with homosexuality, not pedophilia. The cover-up is striking.

Similarly, Susan Hogan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s editorial board writes of “Catholic priests raping children.” This is also factually incorrect: most of the victims were not children—they were adolescents—and the most common infraction was “inappropriate touching,” not rape. David Gibson’s piece on the anniversary, written for the Religion News Service, leaves the reader straining to find a single good thing about the reforms.* The CBS affiliate in Chicago uncritically cites an Illinois judge, Ann Burke, to the effect that the scandal continues to this day: not only is Burke factually incorrect, she is on record opposing civil liberties for accused priests.

We don’t expect the media to cheer whenever the Catholic Church, or any organization, does good. But when an institution is put under the microscope for wrongdoing, and subsequently makes yeoman reforms, it smacks of bias not to report it. And it smacks of politics to pretend that while most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay. 

*A previous piece by Gibson did acknowledge progress.

Catholic League president William Donohue issued the following comments today on the opening address of the U.S. bishops’ conference in Dallas by Bishop Wilton Gregory:

“The message has been received.  Never has there been a statement from any bishop that spoke so clearly and unconditionally about the problem of priestly sexual abuse.  Bishop Gregory offered what amounted to a collective act of contrition on the part of the bishops.  He reached out to victims and their families in a way no one else has.  He spoke candidly about the failure of responsibility on the part of the bishops.  He apologized to priests, religious, deacons and the laity for what has been allowed to happen.  By putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of the bishops, Bishop Gregory gave lay Catholics what they were looking for—real leadership.

“This speech was not pure rhetoric.  It set the tone for the entire meeting.  And the tone that has been set is one of utmost seriousness.  Indeed, Bishop Gregory was so magnificent in addressing every aspect of this problem that it is difficult to believe that the final result will not be just as meritorious.  In short, his speech was a home run.  Now the ball is in the court of his fellow bishops to finish the job.”

Bill Donohue assesses the reforms that were authorized ten years ago when the bishops assembled in Dallas:

Tomorrow the bishops will meet in Atlanta, ten years after they instituted reforms to combat the sexual abuse of minors. Though there is room for honest disagreement on why the problem has abated—it has almost disappeared—it is indisputable that the Catholic Church has the best record of any institution today regarding this matter, religious or secular. In the last three years, there has been an average of 7 new credible accusations made against over 40,000 priests.

Millions of employees and children have gone through programs to combat this problem. The “zero tolerance” policy that was adopted has won much praise, though in practice it has had a deleterious impact on the rights of the accused. Moreover, spurious accusations abound. For example, one week ago today an allegation was made in Montana against a nun who was said to fondle a boy in 1943, two years before the end of World War II.

Two years ago we investigated which entities in the media, education, and religion had adopted a “zero tolerance” policy for handling cases of sexual abuse: we found few that did, and none that had anything analogous to the Dallas reforms.

Today attention has turned to the public schools where sexual abuse is still rampant, as well as to elite private schools such as Horace Mann in the Bronx; the Orthodox Jewish community is currently facing dozens of cases. Still, it is old cases involving priests that garner most of the press: in Philadelphia, Lynne Abraham, the D.A. who started the grand jury hearings over a decade ago, never once investigated other religions, though she was explicitly asked to do so. Her bias is palpable.

In all of these institutions, homosexuals account for a disproportionate share of the abuse, yet it is almost never reported. Even now the media (especially in Philly) tag Jerry Sandusky as a pedophile, though yesterday his first accuser identified the former Penn State coach as a homosexual.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

Speaking tonight in St. Louis at this weekend’s conference of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) is Sister Margaret Farley, the nun whose book, Just Love, has been criticized by the Vatican. The CTSA defends Farley, as does Lisa Miller of the Washington Post: Miller says Farley is acting in the grand tradition of the late Catholic feminist Mary Daly. Also speaking at the conference is retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland. Who are these people?

Farley’s intellectual hero is Michel Foucault, a homosexual drug addict who intentionally transmitted HIV to unsuspecting boys and who also justified rape. In the 1970s, the CTSA sponsored a book by Rev. Anthony Kosnick, Human Sexuality, that took a radically nonjudgmental position on homosexuality, swinging, adultery, and bestiality; it was used to teach seminarians at a time when the sexual abuse scandal was in full swing (the book was censured by the Vatican). Mary Daly taught at Boston College for decades, maintaining that Christianity was a form of “phallicism” and oppression; she quit in 1999 when she was told that she could no longer ban men from her classes. Weakland resigned as Archbishop of Milwaukee after it was discovered that his male lover of 23 years was paid $450,000 from church funds to keep quiet.

The fact of the matter is that some on the Catholic left are prepared to embrace virtually every expression of sexual deviance, no matter how perverse. Worse, after contributing to the root causes of the priestly sexual abuse scandal, they have the audacity to blame the Vatican, as well as the American bishops. Moral depravity on a large scale does not spring from a social vacuum—it is driven by a milieu that invites it.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Sister Margaret Farley’s book, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, which has been criticized by the Vatican:

No one who ever heard of Margaret Farley and stumbled across her book, Just Love, in a bookstore would consider her a nun. Nor would anyone think she was a nun if he consulted her official Yale biography. That’s because she does not identify herself as a nun. But Maureen Dowd calls Farley a nun, and, alas, she is right. More than that, Farley is a nun in the news for writing a book that contradicts Catholic teachings on sexuality. She was also in the news in 1984: she signed a statement paid for by the anti-Catholic organization, Catholics for a Free Choice, that said it was okay to be Catholic and pro-abortion.

In Just Love, Farley makes it clear that she thinks very highly of Michel Foucault [pronounced FOO-CO]. She likes the way he taught that sexuality was nothing but a social construct, having no roots in nature. Foucault also taught that AIDS was a social construct, not a disease. He died of this “social construct” in 1984 at the age of 57.

In my new book, Why Catholicism Matters, I recount his lifestyle as an example of what happens when the Catholic virtue of temperance is condemned. “The French Nietzsche,” as he was called, declared God, and man, to be “dead.” This drug-addicted philosopher had sex with males of all ages, cruised the San Francisco gay scene with abandon, indulged in sadomasochism, intentionally infected as many young boys as he could, and even justified rape. This is Sister Farley’s intellectual hero.

It would be instructive to know if Foucault is also Maureen’s hero.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

Timothy Cardinal Dolan is being criticized for inducing suspected miscreant priests to exit the priesthood while he was the Archbishop of Milwaukee. The attack is phony: if the issue were how to handle sex abusers, his critics would have previously commented on the following:

• In California, all government employees convicted of any crime receive a full pension
• A Los Angeles teacher charged with 23 counts of lewd acts with children aged 6-10 was paid $40,000 this year to drop his appeal
• In the state of Washington, a teacher accused of sexual misconduct was given $55,000 to withdraw his termination appeal this year
• A teacher in New York State (NYS) convicted this year of downloading child porn was awarded nearly $22,000 a year
• A convicted sex abuser in NYS serving up to 50 years is receiving a pension of more than $52,000
• Another sex offender in NYS convicted of child porn possession is receiving $49,210 in a pension
• In 2012, a New York City teacher convicted of a sex offense was paid over $100,000 a year while sitting for ten years in a rubber room; he is entitled to $85,400 a year in a pension; and he will also receive $55,000 for unused sick days
• A Queens guidance counselor accused of molesting a learning-disabled student has been receiving $102,852 a year since 2003
• A Queens teacher who allegedly molested and then married a girl (after he impregnated her) has been receiving $94,145 a year since 2003 (he was previously accused of molesting two 12 year-olds)

None of these incidents—and there are hundreds like them—will ever get the goat of those taking cheap shots at Cardinal Dolan. He inherited a big problem from the disgraced Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, and did what he could to correct matters. Moreover, unlike public school employers, he didn’t grant lifetime salaries and benefits to suspected offenders. He should be commended, not condemned, for doing so.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the state constitutional amendment being weighed in North Dakota that would ensure religious liberty protections:

On June 12, voters in North Dakota will decide whether to pad their religious liberty protections, or essentially ratify the status quo. Working to deny enhanced religious freedom are radical secular forces that have tirelessly fought these First Amendment rights: Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Feminist Majority, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the ACLU.

The latter two legal organizations have long resisted the call for new religious liberty protections, so it is hardly surprising to see them fighting this proposed state constitutional amendment. But what about the others? Why are they so exercised about religious liberty? Because much of their agenda, which includes the right to abortion through term, as well as gay marriage, often collides with the conscience rights of practicing Catholics, Evangelicals, Orthodox Jews, Mormons, Muslims, and others. This explains why Planned Parenthood has laid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to stop this initiative.

North Dakotans are entitled to an honest debate on this issue, but unfortunately some of what they are being treated to is pure demagoguery. For instance, the Feminist Majority is floating the idea that “this measure will open doors for violence and discrimination against all women.” Really? If that were true, then this should have already happened in the 31 states that have similar protections in place. Of course, this is nonsense.

What this state constitutional amendment does is to lock in the religious rights of North Dakotans; those rights would be protected from tampering unless there is a very good reason for doing so. Like all rights, religious rights are not absolute, and this amendment would not make them so. But it would bring the state into line with the majority of other states by strengthening their religious liberties.