Keep Hope Alive: Boston Globe Misleads Readers About Annual Abuse Audit To Keep Old Story Line On Life Support

David Clohessy : Brian McGrory : Terry McKiernan

Working tirelessly together against the Catholic Church: SNAP director David Clohessy (l),
Boston Globe editor Brian McGrory (c), and BishopAccountability's Terry McKiernan (r)

The Boston Globe simply will not give up.

The newly released annual audit report by United States bishops about abuse in the Catholic Church amplifies the rampancy of false accusations, unprovable allegations against dead priests, dubious decades-old claims, and the determination of Church-suing tort lawyers and their allies to drain the Church's coffers.

Yet in an article by staffer Matt Rocheleau, the Boston Globe continues to try to convince the public that abuse is somehow still a current problem in the Catholic Church.

The facts the Globe is hiding

Taken straight from the data in this year's audit report, here are the simple facts about the Catholic Church abuse story you will never, ever see in the Boston Globe and which once again only underscore that the abuse story is a Globe obsession borne of animus for an institution which it so abhors:

  • 93% of all abuse accusations last year allege incidents from at least 21 years ago;
  • 41% of all identified priests who were accused in 2015 were already long deceased;
  • 80% of all identified priests who were accused in 2015 were either already deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or simply missing; and
  • less than 14% of all allegations last year were even deemed "substantiated," while nearly three quarters of the accusations were deemed either "unsubstantiated," "unable to be proven," or still under review.

In other words, the story of abuse in the Catholic Church is less "news" and more of an attempt to extend a story line that croaked many years ago.

And the only real reason why lawsuits and accusations are still flying against the Catholic Church is that a number of states have enacted "window legislation" which enables anonymous accusers to make decades-old allegations against now-deceased priests. Naturally, this important aspect of the story was completely left out of the Globe's reporting.

Turning to lawyer-funded haters

In yet another example of the Globe throwing all perspective and objectivity out the window, Rocheleau turns to lawyer-funded "advocates" David Clohessy, from SNAP, and Terry McKiernan, from BishopAccountability, two reliably anti-Catholic sources for the Globe's fodder. (Apparently, Rocheleau was unable to reach the Ku Klux Klan for comment.)

Even though Clohessy and McKiernan did not provide a single shred of documentation to support their wild claims, Rocheleau uncritically relayed the pair's assertions that the Church's annual independent audit reports are somehow "flawed," "deceptive," and that "holes still remain."

But if there are any "holes" in anything, it is in the Boston Globe's reporting. As we reported earlier this year, when Boston station WCVB determined that "in recent years, on average, the licenses of 15 Massachusetts educators are suspended or revoked each year for sexual misconduct," the Globe did not find this the least bit interesting enough to report or even explore further.

Of course not. Because the Boston Globe's reporting has absolutely nothing to do with the "protection of children" or the tragic abuse of kids. It has everything to do with bludgeoning the Catholic Church for what it stands for and earning kudos from others – such as those in Hollywood – who also detest the Church.

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See also:

1. Sins of the Press: The Untold Story of The Boston Globe's Reporting on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church by David F. Pierre, Jr. (Amazon.com)

2. 'Spotlight' Exposed: The definitive 'Spotlight' review.

Comments

  1. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 16th at 1142PM:

    And ‘Dan’ then further attempts to evade the assorted failures of SOL-change legislation to pass (it failed in New York this past week) by trying to blame it on the Church rather than on the inherent dangerousness of the entire weakening-SOLs concept itself.

    And ‘Dan’s phantasmic explanation here is that the Church, by supporting the criminal-process aspect, has … somehow managed to block passage of the SOL-change legislation.

    That the SOL-change Bills create serious and profound dangers to the integrity and praxis of the legal system and may well fail Constitutional requirements … are issues that don’t engage ‘Dan’s attention or skills (such as they may be) at all; but he is a plop-tosser and is only attuned to plop.

  2. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 16th at 1142PM:

    He then tries to reduce the entire article with assorted epitheticals.

    And the “P.S.” gets itself confused while simultaneously trying to work in a plop-tossy bit about “absconded” and a point about “money” (manipulative scream-caps omitted).

  3. Publion says:

    On then to ‘Dan’s of the 17th at 132AM:

    His entire plop-tossy bit here is based on the manipulatively un-demonstrated presumption that the Regensburg lawyer has pointed out “truths”. Insofar as that lawyer’s facts do not sufficiently lead-to or conclusively-establish the conclusions that the lawyer has drawn from them, and insofar as there thus may be far more rationally-derived and supportable conclusions to be drawn from the facts that the lawyer has presented, then ‘Dan’s epithetical assessment fails here.

    But then – again driven not by any rationality but rather by the overriding need to toss-plop – ‘Dan’ will suddenly turn on the lawyer, who “was commissioned by the choir”, and thus is merely a tool of the Church which runs the choir which commissioned his efforts.

    Yet the lawyer – as we see in the article and in my assessment – engaged in undemonstrated assertions and characterizations to make the charges seem far worse than the facts support.

  4. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 17th at 132AM:

    And we see the plop-tossy irrationality again demonstrated when ‘Dan’ bleats and huffs that the cases were not “brought to the attention of the authorities” but instead are being handled “in house”: the cases a) were of a physical or corporal-punishment nature (whose specifics are still unclear) which may well not have engaged the interest or authority of the police and the legal system (especially 70 years ago); and b) those few sexual cases (whose specifics are still unclear) were either i) not brought to the attention of the police at the time or for quite some time afterwards by the allegants or ii) were brought to the attention of the police and the police did not consider them actionable, for whatever reasons.

  5. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 17th at 132AM:

    Thus, ‘Dan’s effort to then claim that in regard to the lawyer’s “opinions and observations” (the problems with which I have noted above) I am merely being a “creepy excuser[s]” fails as well.

    And I very much indeed do “think” that I can “step in” and point out the problems with the lawyer’s gambits here. Nor has ‘Dan’ demonstrated how my points fail, and he relies instead on mere epithet.

    And there remains – by the very facts that the lawyer presented – every possibility that “the crimes” weren’t “so bad” in the first place (which perhaps the police had also realized).

    And the grippy but profoundly vague term “sexual violence” can indeed encompass a range as broad as I outlined. That’s the very purpose of these Victimist-deployed elastic and vague terms in the first place.

    Thus to the conclusion with ‘Dan’s new favorite term “disingenuous” and his ever-self-revelatory repetition of “creepy”.

    • Dan says:

      http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/world/europe/church-confronts-abuse-scandal-at-a-famed-german-chior.html?_r=0                        

      This was the story the disingenuous deceiver (publyin') preferred in regards to the chior boy scandal, while Pope Rats brother george was in charge. The reason he picks this one is because, unlike the majority of the other stories regarding the child abuse, this story said a dozen were sexual abuse, when the others said at least 40 were sexual in nature.

      Catholics, take a good look at the first story the publiar preferred, and read the complete recounting of Udo Kaiser and what happened to him as an 8 year old child. "First day… struck by a teacher". Punishment escalated over the months to follow. "Singing the wrong note earned a beating with a conductor's baton. Fingers that missed notes at the piano were slammed with the fallboard." Punishment for playing marbles- "priest called .. 'the pickle' .. ordered him to pull down his pajama bottoms and kneel. The priest … placed the boy's head between his legs and took up his rod." "…blows stung his bare flesh, Mr. Kaiser remembers feeling another sensation, of something against the back of his head. While beating him, the priest took advantage of his position to pleasure himself."

      Catholics, how much longer will you listen to the lies and excuses of your fellow catholic hypocrites, as they dream up all kinds of manipulations, excuses and lies in order to justify all the disgustingly nasty things they have done? This is just one account of their repetitive crimes. Let them brainwash you no longer, and stand back, for their destruction draws near. servant

       

  6. Publion says:

    And on the 17th at 232AM ‘Dan’ merely tosses up a bit – perhaps a headline – indicating that the Church has spent money (whether “millions” or not remains to be seen) to resist the highly-resistable SOL changes. As I have said, I would imagine that defense attorney organizations and others also object to the SOL-changes for obvious reasons I have discussed on this and other relevant threads and comments.

  7. Jim Robertson says:

    Dan, well said! This clown P is a lying creep who does spin everything to make the church and it's behaviors try to appear "perfect" or "rational', when exactly the opposite is true. The sexual abuse of children is what he supports and defends. Why ? Because he's a kid screwer himself. Good job Dan!

  8. Dan says:

    This is for those who have an ear to hear, for the light and not for those of darkness.

    "If you can hear Me, please learn My word. Take My love to heart and keep My faith strong in the soul. My arms are always there to protect you from this devilish world. A darkness will come over those who have lost all hope in Me, for they have no fear of My judging them. All things they have in this world will be gone on the last day. There will be no more greed. Love will take the place of money. Faith will come in abundance and give you strength that can not be compared. My word is hope, you can invest in until the end of time. If you hear Me, please learn My word, it just may be too late."    Thus saith the Lord

    Don't let the wicked deceive you and try to convince you otherwise.

  9. Publion says:

    We come to ‘Dan’s of the 19th at 132PM:

    The link which he has put up yields the ‘Page Not Found’ message when I clicked on it.

    In my comment of the 17th at 348AM I had posted the link that came up when I did what I could with the incomplete link that ‘Dan’ had provided back then. The story which I found and linked-to on the 17th at 348AM was the story that ‘Dan’ picked, although he had provided an incomplete link.

    He now tries (on the 19th at 132PM) to make it seem as if I had chosen that story on the 17th, and instead now proffers what he apparently wants us to accept as the story that he has picked.

    But the link leads to nothing.

    As best I can determine, the actual link for this new proffer from him now would be this one

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/world/europe/church-confronts-abuse-scandal-at-a-famed-german-choir.html

  10. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 19th at 132PM:

    Readers will note that this second article of ‘Dan’s carefully – and cagily – refers mostly to “abuse” and only rarely to “sexual abuse”.

    And that after eight months of research – even in the archives – the best that the attorney can come up with is an assumption.

    Is Monsignor Ratzinger wrong to propose that trying to count the number of slaps administered as corporal punishment decades ago is “insanity”?

    The article makes reference to a single “concrete case of sexual abuse” that the lawyer claims to have uncovered (and even then, we don’t know just what that ever-elastic term “sexual abuse” is supposed to denote here).

    But first, that would be an allegation, and not that deceptively legal-sounding “case”;  and second, “sexual abuse” can cover a broad spectrum, perhaps even broader than anyone could reasonably imagine. Beyond that, the lawyer – or the article, certainly – does not venture to go.

  11. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 19th at 132PM:

    And that’s part of the game-plan with this type of ‘reporting’: it a) tries to inflate the (alleged) problem to crisis proportions by b) rhetorically crafting the ‘report’ so as to incite readers’ imaginations into making their own leaps of imagination to fill in the blanks, thus manipulating readers into participating in the project of inflating.

    All of which fits in perfectly with plop-tossy purposes such as those of the Abuseniks in the Stampede or of ‘Dan’s.

    But such purposes are deceptive and manipulative from the get-go.

    And whether there were a dozen or at least 40 allegations of sexual abuse, both articles were chosen by ‘Dan’; I merely responded to the material he put up.

    And the variance in that number of allegations reflects, I would say, nothing more or less than the actuality that there really aren’t any solid numbers at all, especially for the sexual abuse (as opposed to physical abuse) allegations. And that’s not surprising since the lawyer’s own rather obvious efforts to inflate the matter relies mostly on manipulating the mushy mechanisms of imagination and presumption and inference.

  12. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 19th at 132PM:

    But all of ‘Dan’s stuff in his first paragraph – starting with his jaw-dropping effort to construct me as the chooser of the first story – is then used as merely the base and stage for ‘Dan’s hortatory and monitory performance in the discourses that begin “Catholics …”.

    As far as the lawyer’s own claim of childhood sexual abuse (which itself remains shrewdly vague): we have nothing but his story and his (shrewdly vague) claim. Which was a problem pointed out to him by the choir management  or the Diocese of Regensburg.

    • Dan says:

      Go back to 6/13/16 @ 4:31pm to find that you chose this article, deceiver. And your false accusation of my "jaw-dropping effort to construct [you] as the chooser of the story", turns out to be true and a little melodramatic there, girly. I wasn't aware that the Third Reich was allowing women among their ranks, Kraut.

  13. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 19th at 132PM:

    But I urge all readers – Catholic or not – to indeed “take a good look” at these articles.

    And as was almost always the case with articles from Pravda or Izvestia back in the Soviet era:  read what is not there as well as what is there; read with a concern for what is not said and for aspects of the subject that are not discussed, as well as for what is said and for what points are – with whatever creaking and clanking mechanisms of rhetorical manipulation – simply repeated and shouted.

    Once the Stampede is ‘read’ in this way, i.e. as another in the line of the species of agitprop developed long ago, then things will proceed to a level where the actual proportions of any genuine sexual-abuse can be approached. And we won’t simply be trapped in the night and fog (Nacht und Nebel, as the old Nazi law pithily put it) generated by the machinery of agitprop manipulation.

    • Dan says:

      I wrote a two page response to all your garbage and for more than the tenth time it came up Error, and I've become extremely tired of responding to your nonsense. I'll just summarize. You are the biggest lying, deceiving, excusing, Nazi, Kraut, disingenuous creep I have ever met and I would have to say that your cult of perverts and pedophile creeps is a perfect fit for you. Keep up the good work.   servant

    • Dan says:

      Publyin' describes how his sick agenda works and suggests others follow his lead. "But I urge all readers – " to "read what is not there as well as what is there; read with concern for what is not said and for aspects of the subject that are not discussed".

      If you are to do so in this manner, then under the guise of an assessment, you can add to the story whatever "lies" you might prefer and make everyone believe that your false facts are how things really went down. "A leopard cannot change it's spots", so just think how a deceiving lyin' would have trouble, when it has no spots to change. Once a liar, always a liar.

  14. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 19th at 132PM:

    And consider the slyly manipulative efforts to sensationally exaggerate the corporal punishments that almost any kid of that era would undergo from those old European music and singing teachers … anyone familiar with ‘lawsuit dramatics’ can recognize this gambit in the various bits from the lawyer that ‘Dan’ quotes in his second paragraph.

    The whole purpose of ‘lawsuit dramatics’ is to take whatever action is even minimally ‘actionable’, and describe it in the most emotionally and sensationally vivid way you possibly can manage, so as to manipulate the jury in your favor.

    But the whole hash – had you been waitttinggggg forrrrr ittttttt? – serves to platform another plop-tossy plate-full of ‘Dan’s usual hash and preferred soap-box denunciations and epithets against the Church and so forth in the third paragraph.  Which – as always – is Dan’s abiding purpose and object. That’s what he really likes to do; as the argot would have it, it’s what he ‘gets off on’. And he likes – and needs – to do it in public, whether at the schoolyard fence or on the internet.

    • Dan says:

      I'd like to inform you that your cult's leader of perverts and pedophiles (pope), grabs, kisses and handles innocent babies and you have no problem with that, yet you won't let go of your disgusting assessment of myself walking on a public street, next to a schoolyard with a cyclone fence, in broad daylight, breaking no laws. Unlike more than half of your hierarchy, who should be on Megan's list, I am not and have every right to walk and talk wherever I please. This is America, you lying, disingenuous, Nazi creep.

    • malcolm harris says:

      On the 20th, at 12.26 pm, Publion uses the words "soapbox denunciations". Well, certainly in Australia, it is surprising how high-profile bigots mount that soapbox to make damning accusations.  In May last year a prominent author and social commentator Peter Fitzsimon wrote in the Sun-Herald newspaper… that Cardinal Pell lived in a luxury 30 million dollar mansion in Rome. He has consistently ignored challenges to prove his assertion. Just recently Gerard Henderson, in his blog, offered $20,000 donation towards Fitzsimon's pet political cause if he produced evidence. But silence from the soapbox?  Guess  the facts don't matter in a witch-hunt. Any ignoramus can just join in… with his burning torch or pitchfork.

  15. Publion says:

    We need make only a quick note of JR’s and ‘Dan’s most recent bits:

    On the 18th at 1029AM JR will pull out his pom-poms and do a little dance on the field in praise of ‘Dan’. A dance which includes the usual epitheticals and the mere claim that in regard to my points “exactly the opposite is true” – an assertion for which he proffers nothing except his own credibility. And readers may judge it all as they will.

    And on the 19th at 1027PM from ‘Dan’ we get … ‘Dan’ in his god-wig trying to channel a divine authority that – had you been waitttingggg forrrr itttttt? – just happens by the most amazing coincidence to back up ‘Dan’ and all his pomps and all his works.

    • Dan says:

      Jealous are we because God has my back. So who can we say has your back, using your fondness for plop-tossing, since you're so full of ..it, Satan. Keep mocking, Mephistopheles.

  16. Publion says:

    In the New York Daily News print edition of June 16th on page 9 there is an article entitled “Hard case to prove in Florida” by one Ginger Adams Otis.

    The article concerns an alligator’s killing of a child at one of the Disney resorts in Florida – although I am not focusing on that element of the article here.

    Rather, there is an interesting small bit at the end of the article, quoting a legal expert: “As a general rule, Disney does not settle cases, because Florida laws so heavily favor the [resort and tourism] industry”.

    • Dan says:

      "As a general rule, Disney does not settle cases, because Florida laws so heavily favor the [resort and tourism] industry."

      I don't think you could have picked a better quote to describe how your cult was previously treated and unfairly favored by the courts, police and authorities in the past. Now the cat is somewhat out of the bag and you creeps couldn't keep your hands off of young flesh and are just beginning to get your just deserts. Glad that I'm going to be around to see your destruction. Revelations chapter 17 & 18. Read 'em and weep. Servant and prophet of the Almighty, and could care less what you think about that, Mocker.

  17. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment of the 21st at 1037AM:

    This point goes to the entire legal strategizing of settling or fighting a lawsuit, a significant element of the Stampede.

    If a Party-Defendant’s counsel can be reasonably sure of a chance at winning a case, then counsel will recommend fighting the lawsuit rather than settling it. And if not, not.

    It was precisely the sly genius of the Stampede (and the Victimism that spawned it) to ensure that a) public opinion would be already so stampeded against the accused (individual or organization) and b) laws themselves would be so changed (or – if you wish – deranged) that the fundamental legal problem of evidence which is so central to all sex claims and allegations would be not only neutralized but actually changed to favor the allegant by either i) ignoring the need for actual evidence or ii) even making the lack of evidence appear as a form of evidence itself.

  18. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment of the 21st at 1037AM:

    Needless to say, the weakening or elimination of Statutes of Limitations will only enhance all this.

    The role of presumption – which I discussed recently on this thread in regard to the lawyer’s efforts in the Regensburg choir matter – is vital here.

    By making his charges so vivid he tries to move people beyond i) the glaring lack of evidence and ii) his many presumptions and assumptions and – not to put too fine a point on it – self-serving speculations.

    At which point it is hoped that people themselves will pre-consciously imagine scenarios that will fill in the glaring blanks of (i) and (ii). And then thus consider the ‘case’ to be what is really nothing more than their amalgam of what the attorney has provided and what their own imaginations have filled-in.

    And that’s how the Game is played and how the Game has been played all along.

  19. Jim Robertson says:

    The Catholic bishops; cardinals and pope's soap boxes are called pulpits and are made of gold. Gold raised by the tax dollars the religious enterprises including "Scientology" don't pay.

    What a deal you lying religionists have.

    You're the penultimate Leona Helmsleys of America.

    We all work for "Religion Inc.; because we have to pick up with our taxes what you don't pay. All because children are scared and/or sugared into believing in "God".( Santa get's 'em in (He knows who's naughty and nice) and Satan keeps 'em there. Fear of Hellfire.) Child abuse on an international plane. And all done with such pride on your part. The clerics even have you believing you're under attack. Gay people know better. If you don't have to pay taxes you rule. Gay people not only used to pay our own taxes but all the taxes not paid by our oppressors. What a country!

  20. Dan says:

    Hey Malcolm, Oh yeah! Big "witch-hunt" and don't forget the "burning torches or pitchfork[s]". Again Malcolm, pretty disingenuous when vatican recently fired "The Bishop of Bling" because he spent 43 million to remodel his mansion and Cardinal Porky Dolan of N.Y. and his 30 million dollar tax-free mansion. And all the other Cardinals and bishops living high on the hog. The only gluttony bigger than their greed is their lust for young boys. Quit making excuses for the creeps, especially when they are the worst bigoted hypocrites to walk the earth.

  21. Publion says:

    On the 20th at 540PM we are now treated to the internet version of ‘the dog ate my homework’: ‘Dan’ claims that he had written “a two page response” to my material but – doncha see? – “it” (whatever that may be) “came up error”. And – doncha also see? – this has happened at least ten times before.

    So – right up there with the 50 page term paper he wrote on evolution in the eighth grade – we have possibly 20 pages of ‘Dan’s responses. Of course, just as that term paper from the eighth grade remains merely an assertion, so too the perhaps 20 pages or so that have never gotten up on the site here.

    And are we to presume that all of ‘Dan’s rational and competently presented material was lost in the ‘error’-verse, while his stuff that we actually have in the record here (clearly not of such high quality) was the only material the error-mechanism let through?

    And the epithetical repertoire has now been expanded to include “Nazi” and “kraut”. Such progress.

  22. Publion says:

    In regard to ‘Dan’s of the 20th at 604PM:

    On the 12th at 1055PM he had assured one and all that one need only “google ‘george ratzinger 231 choir boys’”. I did so and at the top of the list was the New York Times article to which I linked.  And since the NYT is clearly not Church-friendly in these matters, I took it to be one that ‘Dan’ instructed one and all to discover and read.

    Upon examination, the NYT article turned out to have some serious problems as to reliability and credibility, as did the one ‘Dan’ proffered as his own (once we got past the link problems).

    And the gender-bendy epitheticals seem to be common to both Abuseniks and fundies.

  23. Publion says:

    On the 20th at 807PM ‘Dan’ will try to evade his own behavior by pointing out that popes are known to ‘grab’, ‘kiss’ and ‘handle innocent babies’.

    He would like to inform one and all that I “have no problem with that”. No, I don’t; just as I don’t have a problem with politicians doing the very same thing.

    The difference is that with popes and politicians people put their babies forward to be hugged and kissed and such. In ‘Dan’s case, nobody responsible for the children wanted him around and nobody put the school-children forward for his attentions.

    It’s not – to put it gently – a small difference.

  24. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 20th at 807PM:

    Clearly ‘Dan’ – in exercising his various American freedoms – has run afoul of the law on six or perhaps seven occasions (that we know of). Whether the police arrested him or whether “citizens” did so, the fact remains: he does things that elicit the concerns of police and/or “citizens” and arrests follow.

    And adults who choose to accost unknown school-children – physically or verbally – are most certainly candidates for some acute consideration as to just why they are drawn to exercise their assorted freedoms upon unknown school-children.

    That such an accoster might appear to observing adults as a “creep” cannot come as a surprise to any rational adult. That this is so seems to come as a surprise to ‘Dan’. And perhaps that is not so surprising.

  25. Publion says:

    On then to JR’s of the 21st at 253PM:

    Merely a rehashed hash of his usual hash.

  26. Jim Robertson says:

    Religion was the first "Magic Kingdom". Disney was a piker compared to the priests from any faith. (They're all bullshit.) They were the first "Imagineers".  No proof for "God" ? No problem. Just believe. (Or, as in Peter Pan, just clap if you "believe" in imaginary beings and bring them, by your child like belief, back to life.) Fantastic? Indeed.

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