Comments on: Twisted Logic at Minneapolis Star Tribune: Old Abuse Claims Hinder Bishops’ Religious Liberty

By: Phil Steinacker

Phil Steinacker — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:12:55 +0000

recovered cathlick, you and Bender are ignorant of facts - even more so Bender, who works a bit harder to expose his foolishness. Bender, you lie when you suggest anyone puts off reponsibility by suggesting that other institutions have the same problem. Rather, the truth is that MANY other institutions are FAR WORSE, and NO ONE else has matched the safeguards which we put into place years ago to protect our children.
YOU CANNOT PROVE OTHERWISE – because the FACTS are on our side.
Contrary to your assertions, there are a number of studies which have found the incidence of sexual abuse of children (a broad term because pedophilia is NOT the correct term; it is pederasty, which reflects victims' average age of 15) in Protestant churches and Jewish synogogues outstripped those in the Catholic Church.
Worse, in a significant 2005 U.S. Dept. of Education study the problem was found to exist in a major cross-section of western culture – at least, here in America. The lead investigator of the study claims that such abuse throughout the American public school systems across the nation occur 100 to 1 when compared to those incidences in the U.S. Catholc Church.
Furthermore, the overwhelming number of accusations against Catholic clergy refer to alleged occrances 20 yers ago or more which were only filed in recent years. That CANNOT be said by the Protestant and Jewish houses of worship, and certainly not by the teachers' unions and school boards.
Yet, the problem in the public schools continutes to be buried from sight by those same school boards and teachers unions. I don't see you or your ilk attacking those entities with the same venomous gusto with which you deride the Catholic Church.
Instead, let's place full responsibility on the shoulders of the perps, who are MOSTLY homosexual predators drawn to positions of authority and trust which also provide opportunities to abuse children. We know such predators also like to be teachers, counselors, coaches, Scout leaders, and such, for the exact same reason. Yes, there are heterosexual perps, also, but 85-90% olus are definitely homosexual, and liberal attempts to bury that truth whild focusing on the Church has elevated whatever fault there is in moving these perps around (exceeded in culpability by school boards and unions doing the same thing) to a criminal level much higher than that of the homosexual predators committing the actual crimes.
While anti-Catholicism by the news media accounts for much of the ignorance of the widespread national scope of this problem, it is clear by your verbiage (and that of others like you) elsewhere that you inhabit a cesspool of hatred. It is nothing short of twisted to turn a blind eye to the victims in our public schools while spewing your vile hatred for the Cathoilic Church..
You have no idea how bad you make yourselves look when you post such tripe.

By: Andre

Andre — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:35:48 +0000

This is not only about attacking the Catholic Church for Hogan, but primarily the purpose is denigrating anyone who stands in the way of the marriage amendment that is up for vote this November. The Star Tribune, it could be said, is the gay agenda's most important ally in Minnesota. Hardly a day goes by where they don't either a) actively promote the homosexual lifestyle, b) demonstrate how regular marriage is failing, or c) denigrate or intentionally skew the views of local religious types, not limited to the Catholic Church.
Please pray for us in Minnesota, we need all the spiritual help we can get to make sure this amendment passes.

By: Las Navas de Tolosa Archbishop DiNoia Cathedral Rectors Fr. Geoff Hilton | Big Pulpit

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 05:02:55 +0000

[...] Twisted Logic at Minneapolis Star Tribune – Dave Pierre, The Media Report [...]

By: Bender

Bender — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 11:38:23 +0000

Hogan is right. You should [abbreviation for expletive deleted by moderator] about anticonceptives in healthcare.

By: Bender

Bender — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 11:37:33 +0000

Yes you are. And pretty childish ones. "Oh, there is abuse in OTHER institutions". That doesn't excuse the catholic church.

By: annika

annika — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 09:19:06 +0000

"[A]lthough bishops have repeatedly offered public assurances and data to demonstrate their efforts at dealing with abusers among the clergy, the statistics are unreliable because they include only the information the bishops were willing to provide. Not everyone cooperated."
the evidence if all over the news, is coming out in criminal trials and has been presented from Day 1 by victims that show the MO of the entire Roman Catholic organization has been repeated over and over in every diocese in ever state, county, province, and country.
Do you think we live under rocks?

By: Julie

Julie — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:30:42 +0000

Don't be ridiculous. We are not pedophile protectors. Just because we are concerned about sex abuse in OTHER institutions as well as the Catholic Church, we are pedophile protectors? Go read your New York Times.

By: recovered cathlick

recovered cathlick — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 16:09:33 +0000

I agree 100% with Hogan. The rest of you are pedophile protectors!

By: Dai Yoshida

Dai Yoshida — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:03:58 +0000

Susan Hogan is not ignorant. She just ignores facts to further her agenda, which is the distruction of the Catholic Church. She is angry that the Church is unwilling to worship the mother goddess and allow liturgy presided by lesbian priests.

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:12:30 +0000

From the Catholic League:
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

In 2002, the bishops assembled in Dallas amidst a media frenzy to consider reforms to combat the sexual abuse of minors. Today the bishops are meeting in Atlanta to assess them. But there is no media frenzy this time around. That’s because the reforms worked.

Over the past week, not a single media outlet provided an in-depth assessment of the ten-year anniversary of the reforms, and the few that mentioned it at all were mostly flawed. The Boston Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its work exposing the scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002, but in today’s newspaper its entire coverage amounts to one sentence. And even that is factually inaccurate: it mentions the problem of “pedophile priests.” Ten years ago it correctly noted that nearly 8 in 10 victims were “post-pubescent” males. Which, of course, means we are dealing with homosexuality, not pedophilia. The cover-up is striking.

Similarly, Susan Hogan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s editorial board writes of “Catholic priests raping children.” This is also factually incorrect: most of the victims were not children—they were adolescents—and the most common infraction was “inappropriate touching,” not rape. David Gibson’s piece on the anniversary, written for the Religion News Service, leaves the reader straining to find a single good thing about the reforms. The CBS affiliate in Chicago uncritically cites an Illinois judge, Ann Burke, to the effect that the scandal continues to this day: not only is Burke factually incorrect, she is on record opposing civil liberties for accused priests.

We don’t expect the media to cheer whenever the Catholic Church, or any organization, does good. But when an institution is put under the microscope for wrongdoing, and subsequently makes yeoman reforms, it smacks of bias not to report it. And it smacks of politics to pretend that while most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.