Last week we noted that Bill Donohue of the Catholic League was outraged by the New York Times continuing coverage of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, declaring that the recent article reporting that “top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys” was “the last straw.”
Today, Donohue struck back … with an ad in the New York Times:
As indicated in our New York Times op-ed page ad today, the pope is innocent. Indeed, he is being framed. No one has any evidence that he even knew of the case of Father Lawrence Murphy. Indeed, his office didn’t find out until 1996 and then it did the right thing by summoning an investigation (it could have simply dropped an inquiry given that the statute of limitations had run out). No matter, the pope’s harshest critics are blaming him for not defrocking a man whom he may never have heard of, and in any event was entitled to a presumption of innocence. Or was he? There are not just a few who would deny civil liberties protections to priests.
It is a sad day when al-Qaeda suspects are afforded more rights than priests. That this kind of intellectual thuggery should emanate from those who fancy themselves tolerant and fair-minded makes the sham all the more despicable.
You can see the ad itself here [PDF] in which Donohue tries to blame the entire thing on gays:
The Times continues to editorialize about the “pedophilia crisis,” when all along it’s been a
homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of
them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most
gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.Here’s what’s really going on. The Times has teamed up with Jeffrey Anderson, a radical lawyer who has made millions suing the Church (and greasing professional victims’ groups like SNAP), so they can weaken its moral authority. Why? Because of issues like abortion, gay marriage and women’s ordination. That’s what’s really driving them mad, and that’s why they are on the hunt. Those who doubt this to be true need to ask why the debt-ridden Times does not spend the same resources looking for dirt in other institutions that occurred a half-century ago.
