USA Today Religion Blogger Uses Penn State Pedophilia Charges to Bring Up Catholic Church
The arrest of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on pedophilia charges has absolutely nothing to do with the Catholic Church. Neither does an alleged coverup by Penn State officials of repeated allegations of sexual misconduct against Sandusky. Yet religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman found a way to shoehorn the Church into the story in a November 6 "Faith & Reason" blog post at USAToday.com entitled "Catholic bishops' lesson for Penn State: Call the cops!":
A trusted adult, respected by the community, offers special programs for vulnerable boys -- then sexually abuses them. Word travels up to higher authorities, but no one calls the police. They handle it within...
Sound familiar? It's the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal rewritten on a university campus.
This time it's Penn State officials playing the role of the bishops from Boston to Los Angeles and scores of cities in between, from the 1950s to 2002 when the scandal exploded into national headlines. Now, instead of a priest as serial child molestor, a grand jury alleges that former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky preyed on boys he met through his youth foundation and enticed into his control with special access to the university's facilities.
[...]
Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston in 2002, withstood nearly a full year of increasingly shrill calls for his resignation for gross mismangement before finally stepping down.
But coverage of Law was only the beginning of years of revelations -- thousands of priests, thousands of victims, millions of dollars in settlements and the immeasurable losses of victims who suffer for decades or choose suicide.
And it put the white-hot light on the coverup: What did bishops know, and what did they do? What did Penn State officials know and what did they do? What is the right thing for Paterno to do now?
DO YOU THINK ... the Catholic Church and the U.S. bishops have some lessons to offer Penn State?
Maybe Grossman is just a huge college football fan, but we at NewsBusters have noticed Grossman's penchant for giving a decidedly liberal -- political and/or theological -- spin on the news items she covers, more often than not targeting conservative religious institutions or politically active folks like conservative evangelicals.
- Ken Shepherd's blog
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Comments
→ Besides
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Mon, 11/07/2011 - 8:00pm.
Yeah, like Father Whoopi Goldberg could advise them that it wasn't "rape" rape.
And it's like, Woody Allen did marry the daughter he molested.
What about muslim pedophelia?
Submitted by Radical1979 on Mon, 11/07/2011 - 7:13pm.
I guess it's o.k. because it's part of their "faith".
covering pedophilia
Submitted by cocodrie on Mon, 11/07/2011 - 8:15pm.
What better way to whitewash the pedophilia scandals in our government schools than to use the church? Perfect tactic for liberal scum, trash the hated church and protect their own beloved at the same time.
They are also using the crusades (the church defending itself against islam) as blame for today's murderous terrorism by islam, that peaceful religion. Anyone not willing to become a muslim will rest in peace after a violent death.
The media are too stupid to see that they will be the first to go.
Jesus Loves You so much He died for you
No - no similarities here whatsoever
Submitted by Clevenative on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 10:59pm.
So anyone who draws a "swept under the rug" analogy between the Penn State incidents and the Catholic Church scandals must be biased against the Catholic Church? Oh, OK - Got it, NEWSBUSTERS!
There is nothing liberal or conservative about pedophilia. There is nothing biased about making factual analogies. Why do you try to turn everything into a divide and conquer left vs. right issue? Why do you paint all liberals as anti-Christian?
The things you crybabies take issue with is just unbelievable. You put out more worthless trivial articles of pure whine than any website I subscribe to - at least 10 to 1.
What aren’t you publishing articles taking issues with ignorant bigots like this guy?
Public Radio Host Seizes On Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal To Raise Questions About Gay Adoption
Poor cleve*
Submitted by cajun2 on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 11:27pm.
You have been at NB long enough to know we recognize "trivia". From a lib, we call it "strawmen"...Can't even see the trivia in your own post. lol
As a minor assist, you may not wish to get into a brawl with NBers about "bigots". NB does have archives ya' know.
I'm sure your intent is to "assist - more like silence the truth
Submitted by Clevenative on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 3:16am.
No really. Read the opening sentence…
The arrest of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on pedophilia charges has absolutely nothing to do with the Catholic Church.
What kind of a statement is that? Is anyone blaming the Catholic Church for the incidents? At the same time there isn’t a better analogy of a series of incidents that are of “common knowledge” to the general public to make a comparison than the secrecy and cover-up involved in the Catholic Church pedophilia scandal – and the reasons for it also being “swept under the rug” (power and prestige of an institution). How can you get upset at someone for stating the obvious? Do you think this is only something a “lefty” would say? Do you really think most of the world isn’t thinking the same thing?
This Newsbusters article starts with that silly statement then goes on to explain just why there is so much in common. As if to say it’s a lie? (I’m confused really)
To take issue with this USA Today blog is so trivial it’s laughable. Obviously you folks live for trivia. It feeds and entertains you as much as Dancing With The Stars, American Idol, Survival, and The Miss America Pageant. The lust for dog-eat-dog ruthlessness and nitpicking of the right just astounds me – sorry. It’s why I can’t relate – it’s as if we live on 2 separate planets, the things you people think important to whine about.
At least you recognize the debate tactics used for your propaganda. Just as I recognize the 2 things most common to any right wing “debate” (besides hate and fear-monering and straw man arguments) - Hypocrisy and projection. They abound in this room. You folks just live to tear other people down, but in your ongoing paranoia and distrust for all things not like you, are hyper-sensitive and “touchy” to anything that you perceive as an attack against your “values” – whether intended or not.
You can't relate, Clevenative, to conservative ---
Submitted by matthewdean on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 4:31am.
thought, conservative ideas, or conservative values, because you are a dipshit elitist liberal.
QED - as per your moronic posts.
MD
Thank You- Wingnut bloggers always tend to make my points for me
Submitted by Clevenative on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 12:11pm.
Yeah liberals are dipshits and elitist morons – but the embrace of ignorance and self-righteous indignation of conservatives is a valued trait. There is nothing elitist about their perception as morally superior to everyone else. Liberals and progressives who put science and logic over 1st century comic book myths are all a bunch of haters and the whacked out far-right Christian extremist who have taken over the Republican Party, and are hell-bent on turning the world into a “Seven Mountains Dominionism” theocracy, are just doing Jesus’ work. Do I got that right? You people and your vengeful judgmental voodoo religious end-of-days Rapture crap scare the shit out of me. Everything about you is so “un-Christlike” that I can’t believe you call yourselves “Christians”. God forbid you should ever gain any real power.
Oh my darling....
Submitted by MrShy on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 1:23pm.
Clevenative, or Clementine, or whatever it is.
Your three or four posts in this thread cumulatively have about 2% substance on the issue/topic of this particular bit of liberal bias, and 98% -- wait, make that 1% and 99%, since you're a "99 percenter" anyway :p -- typical liberal drivel of very bad, stale, heard'em-a-zillion-times, totally-out-of-touch conservative stereotypes.
- shy on vinyl
Join Mr. Shy and The 1* Percent
Good morning Cleve
Submitted by cocodrie on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 1:23pm.
Someday take the time to enlighten me how to properly follow Jesus. Where did He tell me to lead a perverted life of homosexuality, murder babies, unjustly accuse others and insult them with profanity?
Jesus Loves You so much He died for you
Good morning Clevenative
Submitted by cocodrie on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 7:18am.
You were very good at ignoring the main point of the article.
When the guilty party in something of this sort is a liberal member of the teaching profession or a politician Y'all always manage to turn attention away from the guilty party and shift it to a conservative, preferably a christian. Usually it's "Ignore the teacher, let's crucify a priest" to put the blame away from liberals.
Since you brought up the Miss America Pageant, y'all did a bang up job on Miss America. Aren't you proud?
Jesus Loves You so much He died for you
Your reading comprehension positively sucks
Submitted by Dave. on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 12:23pm.
But what more can one expect from government "educated" idiots like you.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Try. Reading. Very. Slowly, Clevenative
Submitted by Blonde on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 12:46pm.
It may come to you. Let me help.
Sentence 1: The arrest of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on pedophilia charges has absolutely nothing to do with the Catholic Church.
Ken Sheperd, the blogger, writes this declarative statement as the opening/introduction to the rest of his piece. It is a straightforward sentence. Not nuanced at all. In fact, I think you may have understood it, yes?
Sentence 2: Neither does an alleged coverup by Penn State officials of repeated allegations of sexual misconduct against Sandusky.
This sentence requires a little bit more thought on the reader's part. Again, it is Ken making a declarative statement, that the cover-up had nothing to do with the Catholic Church...but you have to be a bit grown up in your reading comprehension to understand that the "Neither does" refers back to the first sentence. With me so far?
Sentence 3: Yet religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman found a way to shoehorn the Church into the story in a November 6 "Faith & Reason" blog post at USAToday.com entitled "Catholic bishops' lesson for Penn State: Call the cops!":
Now, THIS is the sentence that gets to the meat of the story, if you will....that a columnist working for the USAToday actually tied the two unrelated things together (Sandusky Pedophilia and the Catholic Church), where there is no linkage.
PAY ATTENTION HERE.
The next seven paragraphs, which are indented to indicate it is the actual text from the article referenced in the link (orange type) in Sentence 3, was written by Grossman, and is the actual text which Mr. Sheperd finds to be erroneous (and liberally biased).
The final paragraph is Ken Sheperd's conclusion (again, note the indentation...the lack of which indicates it is Mr. Sheperd).
I know you liberals have a hard time with reading comprehension and all, but if you take it slowly and break it down into it's component parts, it really isn't all that difficult.
Oh, and here's another helpful hint. You're not going to last long when you throw around insults and "you people" and whatnot. We are happy to debate with people on the other side of the aisle, but we won't tolerate your insults and name-calling for long.
Now, why don't you take my helpful hints and try to apply the lesson(s) to another blog post here. You can do it if you try. I just know you can. And if you have any questions, just ask.....we big bad mean conservatives are SMART, and helpful, too.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Please excuse Clevenative.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 1:04pm.
It is the mating season for Ohio moonbats.
Obviously Sto'bought, SoL
Submitted by Blonde on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 1:06pm.
As caj would say.
Not an original thought in the little liberal fever brain, is there?
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Cleve
Submitted by Radical1979 on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 1:15pm.
If you want to talk about hypocrisy, let's have a go at the left shall we? We have JayZ making Occupy Wall Street t-shirts to sell, but he's not giving any of the profits to OWS. We have Michael Moore, a millionaire, speaking at these protests as if he's one of the "99%" when he's clearly not, we have Al Gores screeching about global warming while none of his homes are at all eco-friendly. So before you get on that high horse, examine the hypocrisy of the left.
"There is nothing liberal or conservative about pedophilia."
Submitted by Dave. on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 12:20pm.
Then why are lefties working to make it legal in Europe and winking at it here in America, you lying, ignorant POS troll?
-Dave
Vote for the American in November