Another Anti-Catholic Media Hoax Exposed: News of ‘Unmarked Graves’ In Canada Revealed As a Fraud

60 Minutes : Anti-Catholic unmarked graves hoax : Anderson Cooper

Bigoted mouthpiece: Anderson Cooper of CBS' 60 Minutes

It is yet another case of media hysteria getting ahead of the facts.

In May of 2021, media outlets around the world broadcast shocking news: Catholic-operated schools for indigenous children in Canada had years ago dumped hundreds of dead children into unmarked graves. Weeks later, the media then claimed that some "751 unmarked graves" had been found behind a single residential school.

The predicted frenzy ensued, with Canada's clownish publicity-seeking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordering the country's flags to be lowered to half-mast and initiating a "National Day for Truth and Reconciliation" as an acknowledgement of the Church's guilt. Outlets like the New York Times predictably trumpeted the news, and last February, CBS' 60 Minutes got in on the act with a long, condemnatory segment hosted by Anderson Cooper bludgeoning the Church. (The 60 Minutes segment was repeated just this past Sunday.)

So worked up by the media frenzy, people torched and vandalized dozens of Catholic churches across Canada, which the media tacitly acknowledged was justified.

And then the facts arrived

60 Minutes : Anti-Catholic unmarked graves hoax : Anderson Cooper

Hate theater: 60 Minutes' Anderson Cooper actually saw nothing while looking at "ground-penetrating radar."

It was only several months later that scholars and journalists began to actually take note of some important facts: Not a single body had ever been exhumed from the so-called "unmarked graves." Not one. And neither was there any evidence of any unmarked graves to begin with.

Story after story had claimed that the use of so-called "ground-penetrating radar" had detected "abnormalities" in the soil below. And based only on these so-called "abnormalities" in the ground, the claims of "mass graves" was born. Of course these aberrations in the soil could have been anything, but it was enough "evidence" for the media launch another campaign of hate against the Church.

It seems that John Daniel Davidson at The Federalist was the first journalist to report what scholars began to discover:

"Professor Jacques Rouillard, professor emeritus in the Department of History at the Université de Montréal, recently published a detailed essay in The Dorchester Review on what has been found at this and similar sites – and what hasn't. There is no evidence, writes Rouilliard, in any of the historical records kept by the government, that deaths of indigenous children at these schools were ever covered up, or that any corpses were ever deposited in mass, unmarked graves which were kept secret, and parents of the children were never informed, as tribal groups repeatedly charged and the media dutifully repeated last summer."

A 'pernicious lie' into the wind

Davidson concluded, "In a healthy society, this would be a scandal. A story that grabbed headlines for a week and inspired arson attacks that destroyed dozens of churches in Canada turns out to be based on flimsy, unexamined evidence at best, and an outright, pernicious lie at worst."

Unfortunately, we no longer live in a healthy society, and the media will surely never fully correct the record. Long ago, it seems the media abandoned any regard for the truth to the detriment of us all.

————————-

Recommended reading:
- "Not One Corpse Has Been Found In The 'Mass Grave' Of Indigenous Children In Canada" by John Daniel Davidson (The Federalist)
- "'Biggest fake news story in Canada': Kamloops mass grave debunked by academics" (NY Post)
- "The year of the graves: How the world’s media got it wrong on residential school graves" (National Post)

See also:
- SHOCKER: Widespread Media Claims of Sadistic Abuse at Ireland’s Famed Magdalene Laundries Determined to be Completely Bogus (TheMediaReport.com, Feb. 2013)

Comments

  1. Matt M. says:

    Thanks so much Dave for covering this story! I think you're one of the few orthodox Catholic reporters who has covered this story except for the National Catholic Register and Lifesite News. EWTN's "World Over" never covered the story at all! Unfortunately, my former Parish experienced the repercussions of this fake news first hand as my Parish, the downtown Cathedral, was vandalized with red paint multiple times last summer causing insurance premiums to go up! There were also protestors outside the Church at least one or two Sundays  with signs, some saying the Church should be taxed. My former Parish Priest also ended up being smudged, an Indigenous ritual which is really pagan. 
    A few things that need to be considered in light of this story is that first of all, it was not only the Catholic Religious Orders who ran these schools, but also the Anglican Church, Presbyterian Church, a few Baptist Churches and some non-denominational Churches as well. Second: the media in Canada is desperate to portray the Catholic-run schools as the equivalent of the Concentration Camps in Auswitz as if Children at the school were lined up and shot with AK-47 by evil Nuns and Priests. Now, make no mistake, horrific sexual and physical abuse happened in these schools, but to try and portray them like Nazi Concentration camps with claims of babies being thrown into a furnace by evil nuns is heinous! It should also be noted that a majority of the accusations made of sexual abuse are against Priests who are now dead, hence a trial cannot happen so the abuse can be proven in a court of law. Some Priests were charged with abuse but by and large most accused are dead. Again, thanks for covering this and God bless you! 

  2. Fr Eric says:

    When the good do nothing, we are doomed.  Thanks for the story.  IN the US, we hang on by our fingernails to the needed freedoms to have a democracy. Truth is buried in deeper graves than were ever said to have existed in Canada.  

    There are three deaths: spiritual, moral, and physical.  In that order death of society will occur.  Witness Europe, many cities in Canada and US.

  3. David Dunagan says:

    I have lived long enough to have the discernment regarding the "media". This story always smelled of media hype that was false. It happens over and over and they are almost never held accountable. 

    The price the media pays is that it is getting to be that  the majority of the public has no faith in the "media". They have squandered their creditabilty with the public. That is truely tragic.