Strangely shifting news story title… does it reveal an agenda?

I saw some odd inconsistencies on the CBS site this morning about stories concerning comments made by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, in Chile.

I noted in this Google search that titles of a story seems to have shifted.

It seems… seems to have started as

Pope’s No. 2: Sex Abuse Not Tied to Celibacy

… but they changed to…

Pope’s No. 2: Sex Abuse Tied to Homosexuality

I would appreciate it is some of you readers could dig into this and see what happened.

We also find this inconsistency in the title here.

I am puzzled.

I know that stories are sometimes amended and that we have to compare filing times… but this seems to be a real shift in what the editors want to think as you go in.

Remember… I think the MSM is trying to force the Church to make changes.  It doesn’t help them to have a title that the child abuse problem isn’t linked to celibacy.  Instead, they would rather get homosexuals angry about a different title.

Am I off base?  Am I missing something?

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11 Comments

  1. MarkJ says:

    The story really is about homosexuality, so I think either headline is OK.

    See the following article at LifeSiteNews:

    http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10041215.html

    I think society needs to come to grips with the depravity of homosexual behaviour and its many manifestations and perversions. It is one of the many cancers that have infected the Body of Christ and that need to be exposed to the Light of Christ and healed. Pro-homosexual forces will decry what Cardinal Bertone has said, but they are not friends of the Catholic Faith to begin with.

  2. Grabski says:

    There is a huge move to say a) celibacy is at the root of the problem and b) even though 80+% of the abuse was same sex it’s not homosexual (that is, orientation).

    Tough to pull off. When Bill Donahue noted the homosexuality on Larry King Live (a panel which included Sinead O’Connor for some more context on what this is about) there was a quick response from the homosexualists to have him banned from the MSM.

    They are trying to pull off the idea that there’s merely more opportunity for priests to molest boys, so it’s not about ‘orientation’.

    And the MSM continues to not only play along. For examply they won’t look into the role that the famous homosexualist Rembert Weakland played while actuallyl protecting Fr Murphy for nearly 20 years.

    In fact, it might not be a coincidence that the two bishops who continue to get a pass on this round of attacks on BXVI are liberals, Cummins (Kiesle) and Weakland (Murphy). THere’s a message there, too, IMHO

  3. yatzer says:

    Prayers every day for our good priests, bishops, and especially the Pope. I continue to be taken aback with the venom toward the Church. Not much seems to have changed in 2000 years in some ways.

  4. Lee says:

    “Remember… I think the MSM is trying to force the Church to make changes.”

    That may be the intention, but this steady drumbeat linking sexual abuse to the Church is having a far worse effect. It is driving people out of the Church and destroying our moral authority to speak about anything. Read letters to the editor especially on the online versions of major papers. People are very confused, or rather so angry they can’t see straight.

    That is why making arguments that Protestant and Jewish clergy have a tremendous problem with problem with pedophilia, too, and that therefore celibacy is not the source of our troubles, seems to be somewhat beside the point.

    We are in an excellent position to make the argument that the entire society is hyper-sexualized and sick- as it demonstrably is- and to take the lead in urging repentance on ourselves and the rest of society. We are in a great position to urge Catholics and the whole society to clean up the family home- “Nothing impure in the home” as Pope Pius XII said in an allocution on radio and televsion in 1949. We are in an excellent position to begin the campaign to make immodesty, unchastity of every sort as repugnant to society as a whole as smoking has become.

    This, by the way, is the missing component to our whole pro-life argument. In the chain of causality that leads to babies being torn to pieces, the soft porn that floods into our homes(through the very media that are now our accusers)functions as a kind of entry level drug that has intoxicated our young people and lured them into impurity and “unwanted pregnancies”.

    In other words, we are in an excellent position- ironically- to preach the gospel we should have been preaching all along. The recovered addict has a great deal of credibility, and there is not the slightest doubt that Catholics have been addicted for decades to the media that have fostered and legitimized perversions of every sort.

    These institutions are our mortal enemies. When are we going to pay them the same relentless relentless, hostile attention they have been paying us?

  5. Rob Cartusciello says:

    I attribute the change to creating a more sensational headline.

    Which is going to sell better: “Abuse Not Tied to Celibacy” or “Sex Abuse Tied to Homosexuality”?

    I’m going with #2.

  6. We need to define terms, here, I believe. Otherwise, we get into a whole morass of confusion and misunderstanding, to say the least.
    I agree with Lee that the hyper-sexualization of our Western culture is the real origin of our problems; this is something that goes way beyond VII, although its misinterpretation and the false “spirit of VII” has done untold damage to faith and morals, as well as disicpline in the ranks of the clergy, religious, and laity (pace: ‘Humanae vitae’).
    The abuse of prepubescent children, male or female, is pedophilia.
    The abuse of adolescent/underage male teens is ebephilia.
    They are different in many ways.
    Homosexual culture, if anyone has even a cursory knowledge of it, has elements of man/boy (teens) attraction; not all homosexually inclined individuals are attracted to young men who are minors, but that element is there. To deny it is to be intellectually dishonest.
    Purity, chastity, the proper direction of sexual desire, are not things that have been taught effectively nor held in esteem, especially in the last fifty years. The “sexual revolution” where an “anything goes” mentality was promulgated and encouraged, esp. in the ’60s and ’70s with all kinds of everybody and everything, has caused a lot of damage. The proliferation of pornography, horrid sex-ed, and attitudes of the most degenerate kind are the “fruit” of this revolution of Judaeo-Christian morality.
    We need to be clear about the definition of our terms in this matter if we are going to effectively communicate our message: Purity of heart and action must be a part of the Christian message and discipleship. The seduction of anyone, minors or adults, is morally wrong and criminal (in the case of minors). The MSM does not “get it”; we, as Catholics, better “get it”…soon. And be able to communicate this most important message to the world.

  7. And I forgot to mention that “consecrated celibacy”, misunderstood in many sectors, is going to be a ‘target’; the whole anti-Catholic movements one hundred years ago and in even more recently (the “Maria Monk” book) about the degenerate clergy and promiscuity between priests and sisters used the incredulity that men and women could like a celibate, pure life as a way to discredit and malign the Church by non-Catholics and non-believers. This is just a re-run; only now with priest pederasts who are not homosexual.
    Committing homosexual acts does not necessarily make one a “homosexual”. But they are still homosexual acts. Before Freud, who coined this term, I believe (correct me if I’m wrong), it was called sodomy. And nobody wants to use that term anymore.
    So the “spin” goes on.

  8. Sorry, it should read: “that men and women could LIVE a celibate, pure life”…but like works, also:<)!

  9. quovadis7 says:

    Lee & nazareth priest,

    I agree with you almost completely. Lee, except for the “hostile” payback to the MSM you propose in your last line (I think that sounds completely counter to Christian charity), I’m with you 100% – “passionate” sounds like the proper term instead.

    One of my traditional Catholic acquaintances thinks that Pope Benedict and the Church need to just let this round of MSM attacks “blow over.” I disagree, and instead agree with you, Lee, that this situation is a golden opportunity which just can’t be allowed to pass by completely untapped. The $100K question is “how” to do just that?

    I have no doubt that Pope Benedict has both the humility and the intellectual savvy to respond in a way that will meet the challenge head-on. I will pray that he will do so….

    It is crucial that a timely acknowledgment of the truth be made of the past prudential mistakes by the Vatican and the Bishops on these sex scandal situations – acknowledging the reasoning which led to those poor decisions/actions (without making them sound like excuses), nor letting the incompetence and/or duplicity of far too many Bishops go unacknowledged or unpunished either. Simply admitting past mistakes and/or presenting corrective actions currently in place will not be nearly enough for the abatement of the feeding frenzy by the MSM.

    While I agree that chastity is a vital aspect of what the Church’s response should be to this dire situation, I think that it needs to be more comprehensive in nature than just that – the problems inherent in western culture are much more profound than issues of sexual immorality.

    In my vocabulary, the response should rather be an emphasis on what the Church has always stood for and has always promoted – namely, the striving for “human excellence”, especially in the family. Certainly, our Savior, the Blessed Mother, and the Saints are the pinnacle models the Church should use in promoting that message. Touting objective sociological statistics to back up our positions/beliefs (e.g. how couples who pray together regularly have a divorce rate barely measurable, something like 0.5% or so) would give “objective” support to the message too, and might even “turn on the light” for at least a few of our opponents.

    Presenting to the world who true Catholics REALLY are – humble and modest in admitting our mistakes and shortcomings (when we have fallen far too short of living up our own standards of “human excellence”), while unreservedly still promoting the foundational truths of our faith and about humanity – HAS to be the message delivered NOW to the entire world. I will hope and pray that Pope Benedict will step up to the challenge and do just that in his upcoming visit to the UK.

    Any other dispassionate or incomprehensive response, or a lack of a response altogether, WILL lend unintended and undesirable credibility to the half-truths, falsehoods, and alterior motives that the MSM are asserting in their attack on the Church and Pope Benedict.

    Pax et benedictiones tibi, per Christum Dominum nostrum.

    Steve B
    Plano, TX

  10. Lee says:

    Steve,

    Of course we want to be charitable to persons, but institutions are a different story. Instead of hostile, I would accept ferocious, or implacable.

    Two weeks ago Abp. Vlazny of Portland asked his people to cancel their subscription to the Oregonian because of its insulting treatment of the pope and of the Church. This is on the right track. It is particularly on the right track because many of these papers, the New York Times comes to mind, are in a very fragile financial situation. Should we push them over the edge? WHY NOT?

    In 1904, Michael Munley, then editor of The Catholic Sentinel, Portland’s Catholic paper, wrote:

    “The Catholics of this section have long ago learned that the daily and the Sunday Oregonian have very little regard for them or for that which they prize above all things: their religion. It very seldom touches matters Catholic unless to speak unkindly. It has a blunt way of its own in speaking of persons and thins it dislikes, which becomes perfectly savage when it undertakes to deal with anything pertaining to the Catholic religion.”

    After 106 yrs of this, the bishop finally said, “Enough!” We have established that we are a patient, long-suffering people, have we not? Now let us give them a glimpse of the Church militant, implacably militant.

    Also in 1904, James Jeffrey Rocke of the Boston Pilot addressed the ill treatment of Catholics by the secular press of his day:

    “Some amiable Catholics will pooh-pooh this as a trifling thing, and say that we should not be so sensitive. Possibly. The well-fed and independent man of means, perhaps, can afford to despise such things. Nobody is likely to taunt him with the lies or scandals. But how about the boy in the office, the mechanic in the workshop, the laborer in the field or street, to whom the noon hour, with its gossips and chafing and argument, is his clubhouse and his forum? They are not protected from insult and innuendo, like their more fortunate brethren. They have no answer ‘to what the paper says in black and white.'”

    EXACTLY. Our fellow Catholics are at the water cooler or the bar, at the soccer game or the athletic club fighting for their faith and the faith of their families- and with precious little truth with which to respond.

    They NEED the bishops of this country to crank up the Catholic press and get a sixteen page special issue delivered to every residence in their diocese dealing with every aspect of this mess, and especially underlining the mendacity of the press and its intent to take us out as spokesmen for life and decency, apologizing once again and super profusely, and addressing also the terrible state of our whole society on the sexual issues.

    Yes, this would cost a lot of money. Sell something. Have a special collection. Have silent auctions. Get the youth groups to deliver it. But make our case door to door, to every home in the country.

  11. chironomo says:

    Hmmm… as though the Church has never been under attack before? At least the Pope isn’t having to put on armor and physically go get on horseback, sword in hand to fight the enemies this time (although that is a really cool image to think about…)! As for driving people out of the Church… I have had this conversation with a very prominent liberal/progressive blogger over the last few days. My questions are: Which “Catholics” would leave the Church over this kind of issue? What would the Church look like after they leave? What will the Priesthood look like after all of the purges are finished? I have every confidence that there will be a Church at the end of this and that it will be a stronger Church for it’s trials…

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