Dave Pierre's blog

Check out the following alarming headline for a story from National Public Radio (NPR):

“Catholic Church Still Hiding Sexual Predators?”

Wow. That is a provocative and disturbing headline, indeed. The thought that the Catholic Church is “still hiding sexual predators” in 2012 is very troubling. It surely seems to be an article worth investigating.

Years after President George W. Bush has left office, Chris Matthews still cannot resist taking a cheap and groundless shot at the former president. In his latest effort, Matthews has implied that the 43rd President did not write his own memoirs.

On this weekend's The Chris Matthews Show (Sun., 1/15/12), Matthews began his weekly "Tell Me Something I Don't Know Segment" by turning to one of the members on his panel, Michael Duffy, Time magazine's executive editor.

District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, of Kings County, New York, recently announced that in the last three years 85 accused child predators have been arrested in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community. The cases involve at least 117 alleged victims.

One man, Andrew Goodman, has been charged on 144 stomach-turning counts of sexually abusing two Orthodox boys – one from 11 to 15 years old, the other 13 to 16.

Recent reports suggest that the Hollywood community has a monstrous child abuse problem on its hands, and the New York Times is remaining silent.

Yet when it comes to decades-old allegations against long-deceased Catholic clerics overseas, the paper is all over it.

Imagine if a newspaper disproportionately and endlessly harped upon decades-old crimes committed by black people. Even if the stories were all true, people would be rightfully outraged at the paper’s overt racism in consistently and repeatedly targeting the past misdeeds of people of one particular race. The public would never allow such blatant bigotry.

Such a comparison can be applied to the Boston Globe and the Catholic Church, except this bigotry is real, and there is no public outrage.

Is the Boston Globe endangering the life of an Icelandic woman who led the FBI last June to capture the notorious and dangerous Boston gangster, James “Whitey” Bulger?

Today (Sun., 10/8/11), the Boston Globe has published a compelling, behind-the-scenes story of the capture of Bulger, who was high on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for several years.

The Globe, however, raises eyebrows in its story by publishing the name, background, and picture of the woman who recognized Bulger and his female companion, who hid for several years in Santa Monica, California.

For the second week in a row, the New York Times has embraced the mission of trumpeting the fruitless cause of female "priests" in the Catholic Church. What gives?

As faulty as Laurie Goodstein's article was last week, the offering from Dirk Johnson (Sun., 7/31/11) doesn't fare much better. Johnson's one-sided piece omits a number of important facts in reporting the issue.

This past month, Philadelphia magazine published what can only described as a vulgar, unfair, and reckless piece of yellow journalism designed to shock readers and lambaste the Catholic Church. Utilizing anonymous and discredited sources, writer Robert Huber authored a lengthy article seeking to portray the Church as a callous cabal that is oblivious to the pain of child sex abuse.

Enter Donna Farrell, Director of the Office of Communications of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

When reporting stories concerning the Catholic Church, the New York Times' Laurie Goodstein has had a very troublesome track record with the facts. (For starters: 1, 2.)

Unfortunately, Goodstein's record only gets worse after another faulty and misleading front-page article (Sat., 7/23/11).

In attempting to trumpet the case for "female priests" in the Catholic Church, Goodstein and the Times profile a small number of dissident and ignorant Catholics who seek "change" in the 2,000-year-old institution. And in doing so, Goodstein misleads her readers in a number of ways:

If anyone still has any doubt about the utter distaste that many in the media have for the Catholic Church, one does not need to look any further than the "question and answer" session during the press conference in Philadelphia today (Tue. 9/19/11) welcoming the region's new Archbishop Charles Chaput.

Earlier this month, the Archdiocese of Boston felt that a special mass at St. Cecilia's Church in Boston to "commemorate Boston Pride 2011" would give parishioners and the public the false impression that the Church was endorsing the city's annual Gay Pride festivities and its accompanying messages (e.g., acceptance of gay 'marriage'). It therefore asked the parish to postpone the liturgy to a different date. The priest, obedient to his local bishop, obliged.

End of story? Not for the Boston Globe.

The New York Times' Maureen Dowd's most recent anti-Catholic hit piece (Sun., 5/19/11) contains a number of falsehoods. However, her article's biggest eye-opener is her apparent claim that homosexuality is a direct cause of child sex abuse.

An analysis of the New York Times' response (a May 19, 2011 editorial) to the Vatican's recent clergy abuse guidelines reveals yet another ill-informed and skewed attack on the Catholic Church.

1. The Times writes that bishops once oversaw "hush payments to victims and relocation of abusive priests."

While all decent people demand compassion and justice for victims of clergy abuse, there is compelling evidence to believe that portions of the recent high-profile Philadelphia grand jury report have unfairly maligned the Catholic Church.

No media outlets have taken note of the report's glaring contradictions, notable omissions, and unfair characterizations of Church officials. (Maureen Dowd certainly didn't.) The report also routinely assigns the most sinister motives to actions by archdiocesan employees, even though an objective assessment would conclude otherwise.

"It seems long past time for reputable news sites to clamp down on the gutter talk."

That is James Rainey, the "On the Media" critic at the Los Angeles Times, fretting in an article today (Sun., 2/27/11) about the tone of readers' comments that are posted on news web sites.

If Rainey wants to "clamp down on the gutter talk" by readers, he needs to take a closer look at his own employer's site, latimes.com.

On Saturday (2/19/11), the Los Angeles Times published an article, "Ex-high school principal gets 8 years for molesting four girls." The case involved Jonas Vital Silverio, who had pleaded no contest to 10 counts of lewd acts on a child 14 or 15 years old.

At first blush, the story seems to be just another stomach-turning account of child abuse in our nation's public schools. But buried in the middle of the article was a troubling detail:

[Los Angeles County] Prosecutor Stephanie Chavez said Silverio had a history of sexual misconduct.

In 1995, Silverio was placed on probation for a misdemeanor conviction of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

If you need any more evidence of the blatant animus that a mainstream newspaper like the Boston Globe can have for conservative Republicans, here you go. Compare the following:

• Sean Bielat was the Republican challenger to Rep. Barney Frank in the 4th Congressional District in Massachusetts last November. While spending ten months to run for the seat, he paid himself a salary of $10,000.
• Mac D’Alessandro, a self-identified "progressive Democrat," was a primary challenger in the 9th District. The Globe heartily endorsed D'Alessandro, a "public-interest attorney," "community activist," and political director for the SIEU. Even though his campaign barely lasted five months (he lost the primary), he collected stipends totaling nearly $27,000.

On Friday (2/4/11), the Los Angeles Times' Patrick Goldstein published a blog post with the title, "Bill O'Reilly on science: Why is Earth the only planet with a moon?"

Well, it would be somewhat noteworthy if O'Reilly actually asked such a question, considering the fact that most people know that several other planets in our solar system have moons. The problem is, as an accompanying video clearly shows, O'Reilly neither said nor implied any such thing.

Several media outlets are trumpeting a recent study out of Denmark that asserts that having an abortion does not increase the risk of mental health problems for women. Yet there are serious problems with the study that major media are not reporting:

1. The Danish study flies in the face of over 30 professional studies just in the past five years that conclude that there is a serious negative mental health impact on women who have abortions. The list of those studies is at the site of the Elliot Institute, TheUnChoice.com. Not one major media outlet reported this.

Media outlets have uncritically trumpeted a story that claims a 1997 letter is a "smoking gun" that proves that Vatican officials warned Irish bishops not to report child abuse to civil authorities.

In fact, as a cursory look at the letter reveals, it shows no such thing. This "smoking gun" story exhibits all the hallmarks of just another hit job by the media, so-called victims advocates, and dishonest lawyers seeking to portray the Catholic Church in the worst light possible.

In a stunning ten-page declaration recently submitted to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, veteran attorney Donald H. Steier stated that his investigations into claims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have uncovered vast fraud and that his probes have revealed that many accusations are completely false.

Counselor Steier has played a role in over one hundred investigations involving Catholic clergy in Los Angeles.

Here are two stories from this past week:

1. "A [newly released] General Accountability Office (GAO) investigation has found that people with histories of sexual misconduct are still getting hired by school systems across the [United States] ... The biggest problem may be 'passing the trash.' These were cases GAO found in which school systems just let suspected sexual offenders resign, and even wrote them glowing letters of recommendation, so they could find teaching jobs elsewhere."

2. "The Dublin (Ireland) Archdiocese should have taken action years earlier against Tony Walsh, probably the most notorious child sexual abuser among its priests, according to [a] commission investigating clerical child sex allegations in the archdiocese." The Church laicized Walsh (removed him as a priest) in 1995.

[HT: Thomas Peters, American Papist at CatholicVote.org] Following a debate the other night with Maggie Gallagher on the topic of gay "marriage," pundit Andrew Sullivan has been cited for airing a number of falsehoods and lies about the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict.

1. The most egregious and malicious falsehood in the debate from the openly gay Sullivan was his claim that Pope Benedict, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, opined in 1986 that homosexuals "deserve violence" given their "desire to change society."

In fact, in his 1986 letter "On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the complete opposite of what Sullivan claims:

The media is practically falling over themselves with a report, propagated in part by the flimsy Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press, that Pope Benedict XVI has "justified" the use of condoms. (See this enormous (and misleading) headline at HuffPo, for example.) But is it true? In a word, no. Nowhere in his remarks does the Pope talk about "justifying" anything.

Rev. Joseph Fessio is the editor-in-chief of Ignatius Press, which is publishing the interview book Light of the World, from which the Pope's notable remarks are gleaned. Fr. Fessio is quoted in the New York Times, "It would be wrong to say, 'Pope Approves Condoms.' He's saying it's immoral, but in an individual case the use of a condom could be an awakening to someone that he's got to be more conscious of his actions."

Dr. Janet E. Smith at Catholic World Report has an excellent explanation of the Pope's remarks. She also provides the actual interview exchange from the upcoming book.

(HT: Phil Lawler/CatholicCulture.org) Major news outlets delivered a collective message about the Catholic Church this week. Here were the headlines:

• "Pope orders sex abuse summit" (Boston Globe)
• "Pope to Hold Sex-Abuse Summit" (Wall Street Journal)
• "Italy: Cardinals to Ponder Response by Church to Sexual Abuse Cases" (New York Times)
• "Pope summons cardinals over abuse: Vatican" (AFP)
• "Cardinals to address sex abuse" (UPI)
• "Pope calls meeting of cardinals on sex abuse" (Washington Post)

From what is presented, one would guess that Pope Benedict XVI called Cardinals and said, "Hey, let's get together and discuss the sex abuse scandals."

The problem: It didn't happen.

The Associated Press' Nicole Winfield is at it again with erroneous and slanted reporting of the Catholic Church. In an article about Pope Benedict XVI's dedication of a basilica in Spain this weekend (Sun. 11/7/10), Winfield writes:

As [the Pope] headed to the basilica, about 200 gays and lesbians staged a 'kiss-in' to protest his visit and church policies that consider homosexual acts 'intrinsically disordered.' Later, a few hundred women marched to protest their second-class status in the church and the Vatican's opposition to birth control.

First: Winfield tells us that "some 250,000" supporters attended the dedication. If there were 200 gay demonstrators, that would represent 0.08% (or 8/10,000ths) of all who were in attendance. At most, this minuscule "kiss-in" merits a passing mention. Yet with the article's headline, "Pope defends family as Spanish gays hold 'kiss-in'," the AP practically gives the gays equal billing.

In the past eight days, ABC News has filed two shocking stories about "a serious epidemic" of sexual abuse and rape of children in Kenya. Not only did the network report that "over 1,000 teachers have been fired for sexually abusing girls over the last two years," but it also relayed systemic cover-ups, police corruption, and perpetrator interference.

And while the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe have frantically and endlessly trumpeted decades-old abuse allegations in the Catholic Church from anywhere in the world, neither paper has found a single square inch to dedicate to these sickening new revelations.