Collusion of the press against the Church

I keep trying to unplug but they keep pulling me back!

A friend sent a link that starts at just the right point in a Ben Shapiro podcast.

HERE

He NAILS the prejudice against the Church in the press.  The MSM goes batshit crazy about reporting on the Church, but when there many many many times more cases of abuse in public schools, they get relegated to some place other than the first pages.

He goes along to talk about blurred gender distinctions.  Funny.

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31 Comments

  1. Malta says:

    Our Lady is weeping, again, over the Church: https://spiritdaily.org/blog/news/16707

  2. Ultrarunner says:

    Let’s extrapolate the results of the PA grand jury report. 6 dioceses and 301 abuser priests per 1.7 million Catholics with over 1000 victims of sexual abuse. The are some 70 million Catholics in the US and 145 dioceses.

    Low range
    145/6 = 24
    24 x 1000 = 24,000 victims of abuse nationwide by priests
    24 x 301 = 7,224 abusive priests nationwide

    High range
    70,000,000 / 1,700,000 = 41
    41 * 1000 = 41,000 victims of abuse nationwide by priests
    301 x 41 = 12,642 abusive priests nationwide

    Please provide the statistics which indicate that between 24k and 41k victims of sexual abuse have occurred in public schools by between 7200 and 12600 school employees in the US.

    Priesly abuse is certainly is not chronicled in weekly Church bullitens, newsletters or criminal courts transcripts. So thank God for freedom of the press which puts the spotlight on these horrific crimes, the people who committed them, and those who uniformly conspired to cover it up.

  3. Atra Dicenda, Rubra Agenda says:

    With regard to how the media failed to handle these issues, I found both of these articles informative (you may have already read them).

    “The scandal of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and why no major media outed him” at Getreligion by Julia Duin

    “Cardinal Mccarrick Everybody Knew” at The American Conservative by Rod Dreher.

    According to Rod Dreher’s info, a NYT journalist was ready to publish a damning on-record article about McCarrick’s homosexual predation of semiarians….until the journalist’s new openly gay (and civilly “married”) editor kept shelving and delaying the article indefinitely. Gays both in and outside the Church seem to protect and abet each other at any expense.

    Also, there is a heart-wrenching personal attestation by a commenter on the Dreher article regarding his own history of sexual/physical/spiritual/pyschological abuse by a priest he names and how he was stonewalled in his years and years of efforts trying to report it (he met with then recently appointed Archbishop McCarrick and his successor Metuchin Bishop Bootkowski…who ignored him). This guy says he eventually wrote letters to EVERY US Cardinal as well as to Rome…and heard back generically from Cardinals Law, Mahoney, Cook, and Stafford. I can imagine there are plenty of other abuse victims who also sent personal letters to many Cardinals…

  4. Grabski says:

    Ultra runner

    That was over 71 years

    Go back to your garret and redo your numbers

    Math is hard…

  5. byzantinesteve says:

    There were probably way in excess of 24-41k sexual assault victims in public schools over the last 70 years. Maybe someone can provide hard statistics. I don’t have time to do research at This exact moment.

  6. Gab says:

    And now a word from a fabulous Australian, Dr Philippa Martyr. Brilliant essay on the subject:

    https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/why-are-we-turning-a-blind-eye/

  7. Gab says:

    Oh and there’s this …

    A February 2012 Slate.com article asked: “How many kids are sexually abused by their teachers?” The alarming answer: “Probably millions.” It’s an epidemic.

    https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-and-unions-tamp-down-news-of-children-abused-by-teachers/

  8. JustaSinner says:

    The pedipervs will ALWAYS gravitate to occupations where they have access to children. Teachers, clergy, youth directors, clowns, daycare providers, baby sitters and the like.

    [The present crisis is NOT just about pedophilia.]

  9. daughteroflight says:

    @ultrarunner, the U. S. Department of education put out a study in 2004 entitled “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature.” It is estimated by that report that 9.6% of children will experience sexual abuse at the hands of an educator by the time they leave the system. If there’s about 50 million public school children, that means almost 5 million children will be abused. Read it. School abuse certainly blows what happened in the Church out of the water. The main difference is that the abuse in schools tends to be heterosexual.

  10. OK_doc says:

    Dear Ultrarunner:
    Please use the correct methodology for your statistics. You have used the numbers of abusers/victims over 70 years and the current number of total priests and Catholics. For this to be an accurate, you should use either current numbers for both or total number over 7o years for both. Otherwise you run the risk of over-estimating the number of abusers/victims. I am certain that is not your intention so just wanted to let you have the opportunity to correct your calculations.

    That said, ONE abuser priest and ONE victim are too many.

  11. AA Cunningham says:

    Please provide the statistics which indicate that between 24k and 41k victims of sexual abuse have occurred in public schools by between 7200 and 12600 school employees in the US. Ultrarunner

    Easily found the following. If damage awards were not capped by statute, the monetary damages levied against public school districts would be in the hundreds of billions.

    Sexual Abuse by Teachers is on the Rise

    * Of children in 8th through 11th grade, about 3.5 million students (nearly 7%) surveyed reported having had physical sexual contact from an adult (most often a teacher or coach). The type of physical contact ranged from unwanted touching of their body, all the way up to sexual intercourse.

    * This statistic increases to about 4.5 million children (10%) when it takes other types of sexual misconduct into consideration, such as being shown pornography or being subjected to sexually explicit language or exhibitionism.

  12. DeGaulle says:

    The media obsession with abuse in the Catholic Church, while ignoring that which has been objectively documented as occurring in other denominations and religions, in education, in sport and in virtually every institution that involves an interface between adults and children, makes it easier for abusers in these latter institutions to continue their behaviour. It is difficult not to suspect that the media’s prority is less that of the welfare of children and more that of attacking the Catholic Church.

  13. Joy65 says:

    We’re the easy target because we (The Catholic Church) is the big mean institution run by men who doesn’t let the “poor” liberals do whatever they want. We have too many rules. So when someone in the Catholic Church in authority falls it’s fodder for all those news hungry media people to pounce. They wait ready to put out anything and everything they can in the news so it makes sensational headlines for ALL the world to see but especially our non Catholic brothers and sisters so they will have fuel for their criticisms.
    As a cradle to grave/womb to tomb 100% conservative practicing Catholic of 53 plus years I am ashamed of what our clergy members and non clergy members did. They were wrong 100% wrong. They are abusers and abusers need to face their crimes and be dealt with and justice served. I am not in any way trying to lighten the severity of what was done. It was done and it was done by Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, lay people, nuns and others to those who could not defend themselves. And when they did try to seek help by reporting the abuse it was ignored or worse the abusers weren’t removed from active ministry they were moved to other places or even promoted to higher positions. What a terrible complete lapse of their positions and trust as Shepherds of the Church. I leave them to God. I pray for them to feel true remorse and to repent and confess all they’ve done and ask forgiveness. I pray for their immortal souls. BUT I mostly pray that those they abused can find it in their hearts BY THE GRACE of God to forgive their abusers and look to God for the Grace to go on with their lives. There needs to be healing.

    Dear Father Son Holy Spirit, Blessed Mother Mary, All Holy Saints & Angels I pray that you can surround and protect from satan and all his evil ways, ALL Priests, Religious Brothers and Sisters, Deacons, Seminarians, our Pope, Bishops, Cardinals and all discerning vocations to and preparing for the Priesthood and the Religious Life. Help them to always turn to YOU LORD and not the ways of the world. And for all victims of abuse I pray for the healing of their bodies, minds and souls that they can have full happy lives and forgive those who harmed them. AMEN!

  14. frjim4321 says:

    I’ve yet to hear any news outlet report on the success of our Safe Environment programs since 2002.

    There is no safer place for children and youth today than the Catholic Church.

    Of course that sounds like an excuse, so you can’t say it very loudly.

  15. Lurker 59 says:

    The media spin is indeed going around and around, but it is all in one direction, thus a giant buzzsaw.

    Not much can be done or accomplished if one rails against the spin. Rather, give that buzzsaw a target and let it rip out the problem or at least a part of it. At this stage, it seems to me that an internal solution isn’t going to happen. As Card. Burke pointed out, the Church already possesses the internal mechanisms to deal with abusive clerics, and has so for hundreds of years. Failure to implement, failure to live out and teach the Gospel, is a failure of authority and a corruption of that authority.

    An external source is needed, even if imperfect. Many are praying for God to intervene, as an external source of authority to clean the mess up. When the rot has historically so deeply set into the authorities of the People of God, God has sent the State, in the form of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, etc.

    That the Episcopate wants to sit around and have another committee indicates that they do not want to and cannot deal with the issue at hand. So RICO it is (?), and perhaps where we should point the buzzsaw of the media.

    It is said that Card. George prophesied that his successor would die in jail. We assumed an innocent bishop in jail, but what if said bishop was justly in prison? Yes, such a RICO investigation into the Church would hurt massively, destroy much, and send the Church into exile. And yes, such would increase “God’s name becoming a curse amongst the nations”, but what if such an exile is the only way?

    Should we go into exile, to the waters of Babylon? Is the means for being delivered from “this perverse generation” the willing crucifixion of the Church?

    What is better, this endless forming of committees that only result in the advancement and protection of clerics who are abusers of men (both physically and spiritually), or the willing choosing of a path that leads to the need for priest holes?

    Is it better to write demanding that our local bishop do something, or write to the State AG?

    I grow impatient in waiting for defrocking and the continued existence buildings still named after my local abusive bishop, still there over a decade and a half later.

  16. Southern Catholic says:

    Lurker 59,

    As soon as you give the government the power over the Church, then that power will never be given up.

  17. Ultrarunner says:

    If 300 priests have historically abused 1000 kids in each of the 50 states as has occured in 75% of the dioceses in PA, then by extension, how many priests have abused kids in the US and how many victims are there? Is that a simple enough question to mentally ponder?

    Also, with respect to the central critisism of the article claiming media bias against sexually abusive priests in light of massive unreported school abuse, well, it’s painfully obvious that the catholic church owns a significant portion of the student/teacher sexual abuse pie chart as a leading provider of education in the US. So the argument that teacher/student sex abuse gets buried by the media due to some kind of bias completely fails to acknowledge the fact that Catholic schools equally benefit from the phenomena, if it even exists.

    But if it makes priests and bishops happy to use the diversionary tactic of dragging the entire Catholic educational system (which they manage) into the mud along with the filth of their peers and superiors, its not at all unexpected, because at the end of the day, priests and bishops never want to be held solely accountable for their actions, the laity are always at the bottom of the Catholic hierarchy, and batstuff rolls downhill.

  18. Southern Catholic says:

    Ultrarunner,

    How do you get that 300 priests abused 1000 kids in each state? How do you logically get to that conclusion?

    US Department of Education only gather statistics on public schools, so Catholic schools would not be reported in their reports. It is fact that teacher abuse is rarely reported and is at higher levels is more recent than what has happened in Boston and PA. Both are horrible crimes, but you can point out the hypocrisy. Fr. Z has a rule that you should think before you post.

  19. george says:

    Ultrarunner: All private schools account for less than 10% of students: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jack-jennings/proportion-of-us-students_b_2950948.html

    But remember, the McCarrick situation which blew this all open again, was not about abusing school-aged children. It was homosexual predation by abuse of authority.

  20. hilltop says:

    You ninny nitpickers, you espy a mathematical error in Ultrarunner’s statements (based on your own math) and miss THE point. Ultarunner ain’t wrong. The press may very well be biased against the Church, they may very well hate the Church and everything She teaches. They may very well hate Christ Himself. When that same press reports the truth, it’s not bias; it’s truth from a biased source. It’s truth. Ultrarunner welcomes the truth. So do I. So should we all.
    I’d rather have truth from a source I am expected to hate than have lies, obfuscations and prevarications from a source I am expected to honor and respect. How’s my math?

  21. hilltop says:

    Grabski, Byzantinesteve, Gab, OK_Doc and George (all above) offer comments suggesting that the press should lay off the Catholics because 1) the press is biased against Catholics and/or 2) that the Catholics should not be bothered by the press unless the press also bothers non-Catholics, and/or 3) that there really is no issue because, after all, everyone else abuses children too (especially those filthy public schools), and/or 4) when the really smart people like them amortize abuse over the actual duration of 70-something-earth-circuits-around-sun then it really does not amount to all that much abuse as it may seem at first.
    I’m with the other people…

  22. Gab says:

    @hilltop. You’ve got it all wrong. I don’t believe I said that at all. Someone made the contention that there are very few cases of child abuse in public schools. I never commented about the media reporting on the current Church abuse, just that there are never reports on the statics of child abuse in schools being re[ported ad nauseum by the media. Nor, for that matter, on abuse occurring by Anglican clergy (remember they can marry) which research has shown is on par with those of Catholic clergy.

  23. Grabski says:

    @hilltop. I made no excuse for anyone. It was 300 priests over 71 years. It is what it is. Ultra runner tried to make a “statistical” argument which needed polite correction

    Reading is hard….

  24. MrsMacD says:

    Why now? They’ve known for years so why are they reporting on it now? What are they trying to hide. Where is the slight of hand?

    What Father Z seems to be getting at, and I agree, is that we can’t turn on all priests because of the sins of a select few, even if the number were 10% and I assume it’s not that high that still means that 90% are innocent.

    I’m also not 100% certain what it means to ‘cover up’ perversion. As a rule these perverts hide and lie. Someone I know, call her T, has a daughter and T is living with a lesbian. I can’t report her for being a lesbian and having a child but I could see the pain and the revelation of knowledge in her daughters eyes and she told me that her mother was sleeping with this woman. She must know a little bit about sexual abuse and she’s frightened. How can I know she’s safe? I can’t. Who would I tell? How could I know that the little girl wouldn’t end up in a worse place if I did report T and had some action?

    I was at a hospital with my baby boy and a nurse that set of all my gay alarm bells examined my baby boy and took his rectal temperature. I wanted to run and scream but I don’t have any rights and they have all the rights.

    I was at another hospital, my mother had, what seemed to be a heart attack and I took her to the hospital. Almost every staff, nurse and orderly set off my gaydar. These sick people were being cared for by sexual perverts. Sexual perversion is on the rise.

    Good people are being routed out of all occupations including the Catholic Church.

    This is a society wide problem that is being caused by the transmafia.

    Jesus, son of Mary, have mercy on us!

  25. Lurker 59 says:

    ~Southern Catholic

    Three points

    1. The Church doesn’t teach that the State has no power over the Church or its members (including the clergy). The State is a separate sphere of authority, hierarchically lower, but quite competent in civil matters. What is Ceaser’s is Ceasers for Ceaser’s authority comes from God just as the authority of the Church comes from God. While the State should not lay its hands upon a cleric, a cleric by engaging in abuse of such a horrid nature, has himself handed his person over to the jurisdiction of the State for punishment. Same reasoning as to why the Catholic Faith is that the State has the moral duty to use the death penalty (notwithstanding Pope Frances’ personal opinion on the matter) and does so without violating human dignity.

    2. Historically, the State has checked abuses by those in authority of the People of God — whether that by the Assyrians or by the Roman Emperors convoking Ecumenical Councils.

    3. It is not like the Church in the US hasn’t already sold its authority to the State by acting like the “Democratic Party at Prayer”. (Also what is up with the Vatican selling the authority of the Church to China?)

    BUT YES, I do take your point as “bad things will happen” if the State uses RICO against the US Church. My point was that these “bad things” perhaps are the price to be paid — the crucifixion of the Church. Perhaps.

    Still waiting to hear about defrocking and removal of certain bishops names from buildings.

  26. Nigelteapot says:

    Lurker,

    So you say that because the Church doesn’t explicitly state that the government shouldn’t have power over the Church, then the government should have power over the Church? What happens when the crime is just being Catholic, as all governments salivate over? More-so what will save you from this?

    you say the Church must be crucified. Why? For your sake or for your ego? What will save you from being crucified along with the Church?

  27. Lurker 59 says:

    ~Nigelteapot

    No I said, “The Church doesn’t teach that the State has no power over the Church or its members (including the clergy). The State is a separate sphere of authority, hierarchically lower, but quite competent in civil matters. ”

    No, I said “perhaps the crucifixion of the Church is the price to be paid”.

    The point, let me stress it again, is that the situation is intolerable from a moral point of view but also an institutional point of view. This isn’t a situation where the Church needs to be protected from an overreach of the authority of the State, but the State should be rightfully outraged at the abuse of its citizens and the abuse of authority within an institution that is supposed to be acting towards the sanctification of the State. The degree to which the State is pro or anti-Catholic doesn’t diminish the State’s rightful duty and moral outrage.

    Consider for a moment the historical ways God has saved His people from “this perverse generation”. It is better to willingly mount the cross, especially as an act of reparation, than to be lead there kicking and screaming by the indiscriminate strong arm of the State.

    I see really only two options: defrockings and reparations or RICO. Perhaps, though, both are what will happen.

  28. Nigelteapot says:

    Lurker,

    you have repeatedly stated a desire to put an arm of the United States government over the Church. Dodging my pointing out of this will not change what you or I have said. My question is why you desire this, even going so far as to claim it is their divine right to do so; even going so far as to claim that the US government is an agent of chastisement. Once more, what will save you from your government-imposed “chastisement” should they come after you?

    Secondly, there is your absurd fixation on the “crucifixion of the Church.” Why and for what end? Once more, what will save you from this crucifixion yourself?

    All I can see here is what is called “negative transference.” It is the term for when people live vicariously through the tyranny of government, feeling powerful by association.

  29. Lurker 59 says:

    ~Nigelteapot

    Again, not what I said.

    The modern mind sees an antagonism between Church and State overcome by wholesale separation between powers and spheres of authority. This antagonism between spheres of authority exists throughout the modern metaphysical construct — between religion and spirituality, between faith and science, between man and woman, between ethnicity and patriotism etc. The tendency is towards absolute separation or assumption of all authority under one aegis, typically the State, with the former tendency becoming the latter in practice.

    In this, the modern mind has no room or concept of complementary separate but overlapping spheres of authority and power that part of a Christian view of society. In a Christian worldview, the Chuch and State are not antagonistic towards each other but rather each forms part of the matrix of what is a society. Each has a role to play — different yet complementary.

    It is very much a misapplication of the word tyranny to consider that an example of such is the rightful exercise of the authority of the State in doing its God-given duty to ensure the safety of its citizens, promote virtue, and to punish vice. These are not simply ecclesial crimes but also crimes against the citizens of the State and of the well being of civil society.

    That is important to remember — this is the abuse of those that the Chuch has a “duty of care” over sanctioned and promoted institutionally by those in power. It is not a PR crisis or an “oops, our bad.” It was and is intentional and malicious.

    Citizens, of both Heaven and an earthly State, and the right to demand that the authorities that govern their houses are not corrupt and abusive. All authority stems from God and has God as its source and foundation. If we are praying for the abuse to stop, then God’s authority shall stop it, in one form or another.

  30. Nigelteapot says:

    Lurker, that is a lot of writing to just dodge a few simple questions that practically answer themselves.

    To repeat myself for the third time:
    – Why do you claim the government has a divine right?
    – Why do you claim the government is an agent of chastisement?
    – What will save you from the government that you put all of your faith into?
    – Why must the Church be crucified by the government?

    Now let me add some new ones:
    – Are you saying the usa, a fundamentally masonic country, is divinely created?
    – What basis do you have for saying that the state is to “promote virtue” and “punish vice?”
    – What basis do you (I’m assuming a Catholic) have for saying that the us government has equal authority to the Church?
    – What basis do you have for saying the the us government is headed by God?
    – Do you know that americanism is a genuine heresy?

    The Church is founded by God. The Church is headed by God. ONLY the Church is founded and headed by God. The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ.

    I truly want to know where you came up with the idea that any earthly government is equitable to that, to the point where you openly advocate that the us government is in a symbiotic relationship with the Church to the point that the us government can (and MUST in your desperate view) be placed over and above the Church to “chastise” us. From there the us government can “promote virtue” and “punish vice” as you claim is a divine right authority that God Himself gave the us government.

    There is no valid authority on Earth, just things that God permits with His Permissive Will; it seems you have confused God’s Permissive and Divine Will. When it comes to your government, God merely permits it to exist; God does not actively desire that country to exist. Least of all is virtue or vice or chastisement the purview of any earthly institution.

    This brings me back to my point on “negative transference.” One of the main reasons why stalin was loved so much despite his mass murder is because of this negative transference. People honestly lived vicariously though stalin, and so therefore felt that stalin’s attempt at usurping God’s Order was their own attempt.

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