Notorious anti-Catholic bigot Mike Rezendes of the Associated Press

We have said it many times: It is not about what it claims to be about. Simply put, the media's single-minded obsession over abuse in the Church from decades ago has almost nothing to do with abuse and everything to do with the media's ideological hatred for the Church.

For if the media were really concerned with the issue of abuse, they would also cover the abuse that occurs in Hollywood, the public school system, and the many other places where abuse sadly still happens today.

But sometimes the media blow their cover. Just last week, sleazy Michael Rezendes of the Associated Press – and a famed writer of the phony 'Spotlight' series from the Boston Globe and many follow up hit pieces against the Church – co-authored a 4,100-word screed against the Catholic Church crying foul over the fact that parishes and dioceses throughout the country received federal coronavirus relief money.

Did Rezendes uncover any illegality or improper conduct in parishes receiving funds? Nope. Rather, it seems that Rezendes' piece was simply driven by his anger that he had not already bankrupted every diocese in the country through his nonstop coverage of old abuse claims. Thanks for the insight, Mike, into what really has driven your coverage of the abuse storyline.

Not only did Rezendes not find that parishes committed any impropriety, but, as Church experts observed in an article for the National Catholic Register, Rezendes completely misled his audience about how Church finances operate.

In addition, as pointed out by the Catholic League, despite having easy access to information about many other religious organizations receiving federal funds, Rezendes somehow chose to analyze only the Catholic Church and nobody else. Odd that.

However, Rezendes' crazy screed was a long needed and deeply clarifying event. It finally belied his true motivation for covering the issue of sex abuse in the Church in the first place. After all of these years in which Rezendes claimed to be the good guy, a dogged reporter rooting out abuse in the Church, his latest story finally revealed him to be the simple anti-Catholic bigot that he is.

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[Also recommended: 'AP report on the Catholic Church and COVID relief is misleading and biased' by Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas (Catholic World Report)]

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Check it out! Read about the rampancy of false accusations against priests in the new book by David F. Pierre, Jr. of TheMediaReport.com, The Greatest Fraud Never Told: False Accusations, Phony Grand Jury Reports, and the Assault on the Catholic Church … available at Amazon.com.

Embarrassing journalism: Jim Mustian (l) and Bernard Condon (r) of the Associated Press

In the month of December, the Associated Press published no less than five biased articles attacking the Catholic Church over abuse accusations against priests decades ago. Yet if one actually takes the time to labor through the articles, one sees that the AP only offers its readers only two basic takeaways: 1) Contingency lawyers love the free money that the Catholic Church is doling out, and 2) accused priests are guilty no matter how long ago the accusations are and how nonexistent the evidence may be.

Nothing has changed in the AP's slanted reporting against the Catholic Church since it started reporting on the issue back in the 1980s. What is not even on the AP's radar in any meaningful sense is the question of whether most of these decades-old claims against Catholic priests are even true or not.

Missing the big picture

For example, one the AP's pieces was a lengthy article about Pennsylvania dioceses doling out some $84 million in free money to 564 accusers, yet AP writer Michael Rubinkam did not even blink an eye or bother to question the veracity of a 45 year-old bloke who incredibly claims that a priest somehow abused him "two to four times a week for five years" and who also claims abuse by a second priest who was laicized 55 years ago. Do the math, everyone.

Needless to say, Rubinkam also did not reach out to the accused men to see what they had to say in defense of themselves. Both are long deceased. How convenient.

(And another note to Rubinkam: The 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report did not "conclude" that "more than 300 predator priests had molested more than 1,000 children." We have shown that claim to be completely false.)

This is journalism?

Another meandering AP article – one by Bernard Condon and Jim Mustian – purports to be about a "wave of lawsuits" against the Catholic Church because states are lifting the statutes of limitations. The piece begins with the scene of a Church-suing contingency lawyer looking out of his office window at a cathedral and wondering out loud, "I wonder how much that's worth?"

Yet by the end of the article, readers learn little else and are offered a single takeaway: Suing the Catholic Church is a lucrative practice for tort lawyers. That's it. Powerful stuff, eh?

Never missing a chance to attack the Catholic Church

Nasty Nicole:
Nicole Winfield of the AP

In yet another hit piece by the AP's nasty Nicole Winfield – a "Vatican correspondent" whose hatred of the Catholic Church is palpable with every word she types – Winfield somehow sees an injustice that the Catholic Church has not recently telephoned an accuser whose alleged abuser was shipped off to prison over a quarter century ago (shortly after the accuser complained of his abuse) and then died in prison 15 years ago.

What does Winfield expect of Church officials? A phone call to the accuser asking, "How much more money do you want?" Unreal.

Wringing their hands over 'lists'

If it were not already clear already, the Associated Press really, really hates the Catholic Church.

A breathless article by the AP's Claudia Lauer and Meghan Hoyer – both of whom we already cited for a dumb article back in October – frets that the lists of accused priests published on many diocesean web sites are not "complete." Imagine that.

Yet in all the time the pair wasted poring over lists of accused priests, one obvious question never occurred to them: Why is the Catholic Church the only organization on the planet that is expected to compile such lists of its accused ex-employees (including those long deceased)?

Where are the lists of accused former teachers from Chicago Public Schools? Or California public schools? The Boy Scouts? Hollywood? The question is not even on the AP's radar.

It's a free country, and the AP is allowed to hate whomever it wants, especially the Catholic Church. We get it.

But the real story here is the groupthink that has created an overarching mindset that the Catholic Church is somehow failing in its goal to to provide restitution for victims and rectify for its sins from decades ago.

In truth, the Catholic Church has gone far above and beyond what any other organization should be expected to, especially since there has never been any evidence that the Church ever had a bigger problem than anyone else. Yet the media and the AP will never tell you this.

This is a bigotry that everyone can see.

The AP needs to find some new storylines, and we just gave them a bunch of possibilities.

We hope to see better reporting by the media in 2020, but we won't hold our breath.

Journalistic lightweights: (l to r) Reese Dunklin, Mitch Weiss, and Matt Sedensky of the Associated Press

Imagine a large private organization – with a membership of some 70 million people – sought to tackle the issue of sex abuse within its ranks by devoting the resources to voluntarily set up review panels throughout the country made up of lay experts to adjudicate claims of abuse well beyond that required by criminal or civil law.

And the organization even did so decades ago, well before the current "#MeeToo" hysteria and discovery of abuse everywhere in our culture. Would such a large nationwide system still be completely free of criticism by anyone?

Of course not. But that is exactly the premise of a recent piece by journalistic lightweights Reese Dunklin, Mitch Weiss, and Matt Sedensky of the Associated Press: that the Catholic Church review panels have critics! Yikes!

On the hunt for cranks and kooks

Church hater Becky Ianni
from the lawyer-funded SNAP

The AP featured longtime Church hater Becky Ianni and somehow completely failed to mention that she is a longtime leader of the lawyer-funded hate group SNAP.

Ianni also tells a dubious story that when she appeared years ago before a diocesan abuse board in Virginia to air an accusation from many decades earlier, "one member fell asleep and another flipped through a magazine."

The AP also trotted out Joey Piscitelli, whom the AP did not mention was a self-proclaimed "pagan witch" and also a longtime associate of SNAP. Piscitelli once appeared at court in support of a man who employed a ruse to enter a retirement home and then violently attack a 65-year-old priest. A guy of real gravitas.

The article also features nutty Jennifer Haselberger, a disgruntled ex-employee of the Archdiocese of St. Paul – Minneapolis. As we reported years ago, Haselberger once screamed to the media an explosive story that a Minnesota priest possessed "images of pornography," some of which, in her view, "appear[ed] to show children." Yet after police spent months investigating the claim, not a single frame of child pornography was ever found. Haselberger's machination was completely false, and the media firestorm over the case completely destroyed the reputation of an innocent priest.

The AP also presented the case of accuser Erin Brady, who claimed a priest molested her decades ago, as unquestionably true. Yet the AP never mentioned the fact that not only was Brady's claim based on the disredited theory of "repressed memory flashbacks" but also that the accused priest so vehemently denied the charges against him that he actually sued Brady for defamation. (Tellingly, the accused priest had no other claims against him even after several decades in ministry; he died in 2014.)

Lazy journalism

Simply put, the Catholic Church is the safest environment in the world for children today. No other organization even comes close to implementing the measures the Catholic Church has taken to protect children in its care. As rampant child sex abuse continues in our nation's public schools largely unreported, the Catholic Church in the 21st century is the model for other institutions to follow in the safeguarding of youth.

Yet the Associated Press trio is not interested in any of this. The story is the Catholic Church, not sex abuse per se. So if you have to reach out further and further to come up with new, even dumber storylines like this, so be it.

For most journalists, what is easy always comes before what is true.

Journalistic miscreants: Claudia Lauer (l) and Meghan Hoyer (r) of the Associated Press

Imagine you work for an organization and that organization has a non-legal, ad hoc process whereby it decided whether you "could have" committed misconduct in your past. And if you were found "credibly accused" – whatever that means – by your employer of misconduct, your employer followed you around and "monitored" you for the rest of your life, even after you left its employ.

Sound bizarre? Illegal? Wacky? Well, that is the very premise of a headache-inducing screed by the Associated Press entitled, "100s of accused priests living under radar with no oversight"* – written by Claudia Lauer and Meghan Hoyer.

Apparently, as long as you are writing a piece bashing the Catholic Church over old sex abuse claims, the editors will approve any dumb storyline.

Chasing you, too?

Only until one reads deep into the 5900-word piece does one finally learn that Lauer and Hoyer are actually referring to "former priests" and "former employees"; in other words, regular US citizens who have the attendant legal rights including the right not to be stalked by their former employer. One wonders how Lauer and Hoyer might react if they left the AP but the AP chased them around the rest of their lives because of its judgement that they may be a danger to others.

Memo to Lauer and Hoyer: We're not in Stalinist Russia. No organization has the right, much less the duty, to spy on their former employees for the rest of their lives based upon its views of employees' potential past misconduct. We have a government and a justice system for that, thank you.

Hypocrisy alert

Hypocrite: SNAP's David Clohessy

But Lauer and Hoyer completely failed to inform their readers that one of those alleged "100s" of former priests across the country who now live "unsupervised" is Clohessy's very own brother, Rev. Kevin Clohessy, who was removed from ministry nearly two decades ago after it was alleged that he sexually assaulted an innocent boy over a period of nine years!

David Clohessy has openly admitted that he had known "for years" about the allegations against his brother before they became public, but he did not go to the police.

Indeed, the current whereabouts of Kevin are a complete mystery, and David still has not publicly disclosed Kevin's current location. Yet David somehow now demands that the Catholic Church do what he himself refuses to do. How rich.

The hypocrisy and dishonesty are off the charts.

TheMediaReport.com repeatedly reached out to Lauer, Hoyer, and other members of the Associated Press for comment. All refused to respond.

* NOTE: The original headline (jpg) of the AP's article was "100s of accused priests living under radar with no oversight." The AP then mysteriously changed the headline – without comment – to "Without oversight, scores of accused priests commit crimes," even though the AP found that only 31 former priests out of nearly 2,000 surveyed – or 0.0155 (or 1.55%) – have actually been charged with crimes that were sex-related.

Journalistic malpractitioners: (l to r) Garance Burke, Martha Mendoza, and Juliet Linderman from the AP

It is truly hard to imagine a worse piece of sleazy journalism than this week's lengthy hit piece by the Associated Press targeting Opus Bono Sacerdotii, a small nonprofit that has been providing support to accused Catholic priests since 2002.

In fact, if you are actually able to finish the tedious, hopped-up piece, you are left wondering what the point of the article was.

Innuendo replacing news

Rather than employing factual analysis, the AP simply strings together a series of innuendos to portray Opus Bono's mission of merely assisting accused priests as somehow sinister. For example:

• The writers note that the group's name is in Latin, the official language of the Catholic Church, suggesting the plot from a Dan Brown novel.

• They also note that Opus Bono has operated in "unmarked buildings," deepening the illicit mystery.

• The article ominously begins, "The visiting priests arrived discreetly, day and night," further suggesting that something wrongful must be taking place.

• The article also notes that Opus Bono "would meet with accused priests, drive them around town and take them to lunch," as if eating lunch were somehow a crime.

An unreliable source

Opus Bono Sacerdotii

Yet Mary Rose has some serious explaining to do with regards to some pretty explosive charges she made against Opus Bono that turned out to be outright false. Curiously, the writers never get around to addressing Mary Rose's falsehoods despite the length of their article.

For example, Mary Rose dramatically wrote to the Michigan Attorney General's office in 2017 charging Opus Bono with "millions of embezzled dollars." Millions!

Yet in a government investigation that lasted over a year (!), the best that prosecutors could do was take issue with the group's fundraising letters and complain that it had used "donated funds to cover such personal expenses as sushi lunches" and more. That's it. In other words, administrative violations for which every nonprofit in the country is likely guilty. No "millions of embezzled dollars."

The call of the Gospel

Indeed, Jesus calls all faithful Christians to help the "least" of those around them (Matthew 25:40). Think about it: Is there anyone more "least" today than an accused Catholic priest? Are they not the lepers and tax collectors of the 21st century? Do accused priests not deserve dignity and assistance for their basic needs after they have been abandoned by all those around them?

Simply put, Opus Bono Sacerdotii is doing the Lord's work – thankless though it may be as evidenced by this attack by these three goons at keyboards.

Resigning in disgrace: SNAP's Barbara Blaine (l) and David Clohessy (r)

For many years at TheMediaReport.com, we have been saying that SNAP and its leadership – so beloved by the media for its constant bashing of the Catholic Church – was little more than a contingency lawyer front group disguised as a victim support group.

Then along came Gretchen Hammond.

A few weeks ago, Hammond, a former director of development at SNAP, filed a blockbuster retaliatory lawsuit against SNAP alleging that SNAP was funded by illicit kickbacks from plaintiff lawyers like Jeff Anderson, had little or no regard for actual abuse victims, and was driven by an ideological hatred of the Catholic Church. What's more, Hammond had a trove of internal SNAP documents to substantiate all of her claims.

Almost immediately, National Director David Clohessy resigned, claiming that that he really resigned weeks earlier but forgot to tell anyone about it. Then, last week, SNAP's very founder, Barbara Blaine, announced her resignation, claiming too that it was in the works and had nothing to do with Hammond's lawsuit. Uh-huh.

Better late than never

In the wake of Clohessy's and Blaine's resignations, we are happy to report that some in the mainstream media have finally acknowledged SNAP's questionable operations and sleazy connections to plaintiff lawyers.

While reporting on the demise of SNAP and its leadership, most of the media did note Hammond's lawsuit and the unusual timing of the resignations. Kudos to the coverage from The Daily Beast and the video interview of Hammond by NBC affiliate WMAQ in Chicago:

Wall of shame

Sadly, however, many in the media downplayed or outright whitewashed Hammond's lawsuit in the coverage of Clohessy's and Blaine's resignations. Some journalists, who for years have practiced extreme cynicism when it came to any statement by Church officials, were happy to suspend their cynicism when it came to Clohessy's and Blaine's explanations for their sudden departures in the wake of Hammond's lawsuit.

Of particular note is the coverage of Mark Mueller at the New Jersey Star-Ledger, who blithely accepted Clohessy's explanation that he resigned in part due to "high cholesterol" (yes, really).

Following closely behind Mueller are Jim Salter at the Associated Press and David Gibson at Religion News Service, both of whom largely sidestepped Hammond's lawsuit and swallowed Clohessy's and Blaine's nonsensical reasons for their departures.

Oh. And, of course, Laurie Goodstein and the New York Times – who have practically acted like publicists for SNAP for the past two decades – have completely ignored the entire story.

Same as it ever was.

Wild-eyed: SNAP's Barbara Blaine and CRR's Pam Spees

When an unknown and powerless group of bureaucrats from the United Nations somehow managed to question officials from the Vatican about the issue of sex abuse in the Catholic Church for several hours, the mainstream media was naturally more than willing to herald the event, which took place in Geneva, Switzerland.

But as is so often the case, the media missed the forest for the trees, reporting the subject with notable inaccuracy and a glaring lack of perspective.

A solution in search of a problem

The most egregious problem with the media's coverage of the UN-Vatican face off was that the issue was presented as if sex abuse is still a significant problem in the Catholic Church today. As we have relayed countless times before, it simply isn't, as much as haters of the Church may wish it to be otherwise.

In truth, in the United States, contemporaneous accusations against priests are extremely rare, and on average, only 8 allegations are even deemed merely "credible" by review boards each year.

Moreover, nearly half of all priests accused in recent years are long ago deceased, and the vast majority of accusations against priests allege activity that took place many decades ago.

But this context was sorely lacking in all the media coverage that we examined.

The mainstream media: SNAP's enabler

Nicole Winfield : AP Associated Press

In fact, this was SNAP's and CCR's second attempt to garner international media attention over old sex abuse claims. As we reported last June, the International Criminal Court (ICC, aka "The Hague") roundly rejected the pair's wacky petition to prosecute Pope Benedict XVI and other Vatican officials for purported "crimes against humanity" for their handling over decades-old abuse allegations.

The groups' effort was clearly a silly publicity stunt, as the ICC quickly recognized. But since the stunt gained the desired publicity, the groups then apparently decided to try the UN committee in hopes of obtaining even more media attention.

Following the sessions between the UN committee members and Vatican officials, SNAP and CCR presented a long and rambling "live stream" video, which only a die-hard bigot could possibly have seriously appreciated.

In fact, at times SNAP's Blaine appeared so discombobulated by the whole experience that she no longer made any sense in the video. At one point, Blaine uttered:

"I think we have to judge Pope Francis by his behavior, not his actions."
(18:40 on the video)

The media coverage was equally inaccurate and off point. After the Vatican released the statistic that it removed 400 priests over a recent two-year period, many mainstream outlets picked up on the breathless reporting by the Associated Press' Nicole Winfield, who appeared confused about whether the Catholic Church has the ability to jail any of its 400,000 priests worldwide.

Apparently trying to suggest that the Vatican's defrocking of abusive priests was still not a sufficient penalty, Winfield darkly wrote:

"The maximum penalty for a priest convicted by a church tribunal is essentially losing his job: being defrocked, or removed from the clerical state. There are no jail terms and nothing to prevent an offender from raping again."

Winfield may want to familiarize herself with the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Obviously, no organization has the authority to "jail" any of its employees, and unless a priest is a residing citizen of the Vatican, it cannot "jail" anyone.

Rachel Zoll, Associated Press and Andrew Stern, Reuters

The newly released annual audit of abuse in the Catholic Church reports that only seven credible abuse allegations were made against Catholic priests by current minors in all of 2011.

Yet nationally syndicated articles from the Associated Press' Rachel Zoll and Reuters' Andrew Stern might have you believe that child abuse is currently a major problem infecting the Catholic Church.

Both journalists are trumpeting the fact that decades-old abuse claims increased in 2011, but not bothering to mention the status of current allegations.

In truth, the number of credible accusations alleging abuse by a Catholic priest against a current minor went down. For 2010, the number of such allegations was eight. For 2011, the number went down to seven. (If there are roughly 41,406 Catholic priests in the United States, seven credibly accused priests would represent .000169 (or 0.0169%) of all U.S. priests.)

The raw numbers

Here are some other notable figures from the newly released report, most of which you won't see in the national media:

• 45% of all priests who were accused for 2011 were already deceased (this is a record high figure);
• 75% of all priests who were accused for 2011 are either deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or missing;
• over 90% of all abuse accusations last year allege incidents from at least two decades ago (the most common time period was from almost 40 years ago: 1975-1979).

Indeed, current accusations against Catholic priests are rare.

Sound bites from the professional Church critics

Reuters' Stern took an unfortunately lazy route for his article and went to the hysterical anti-Catholic groups SNAP and BishopAccountability.org for comment on the new data. SNAP's media-ready "Outreach Director" Barbara Dorris predictably dismissed the audits as "nearly meaningless," while the punchy director of BishopAccountability, Terence W. McKiernan, called the report a "serious disservice to the public" without any accompanying explanation. Uh-huh.

The pair's huffy responses recall a memorable line last year from C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts: "If the Catholic Church were to put out a press release today saying that they were going out of business, SNAP would say, 'Why didn't they do this sooner?' No matter what the Church does, it will never satisfy SNAP." Indeed.

Trailblazing achievements

Although even a single instance of a priest abusing an innocent minor is an outrage, the Catholic Church has shown that it is achieving exceptional success in its efforts to protect children.

No other organization that deals with youth even bothers to report such statistics publicly, and the newly released figures suggest that the Catholic Church may be the safest environment for children today.

The new report praised the Church for doing "a tremendous job of creating safe environments." In fact, just last year alone, the Church spent an unprecedented $32 million in child protection efforts.

Indeed, the Church's strides in protecting children are unparalleled and unsurpassed. Just don't expect the media to report this.

A woman from the Associated Press stood with a question for the new archbishop. (I am unable to confirm 100%, but I am almost certain the woman was Maryclaire Dale, who submitted this article about the event.) Paraphrasing her words, the AP woman essentially asked, "If you are all about justice and compassion, as you've said in the past, then why did you oppose a proposed law in Colorado lifting the statute of limitations for abuse claims?" (Before arriving as the new archbishop of Philadelphia today, Abp. Chaput was Archbishop of Denver since 1997.)

Archbishop Chaput gracefully answered the question. He correctly noted that the proposed law in Colorado, first brought forward in 2005, deliberately and unfairly singled out the Catholic Church. The law would have allowed any individual to sue the organization for a claim of abuse, no matter how long ago the accuser claimed the abuse happened. However, this proposed lifting of the statute of limitations did not apply to other institutions, such as the public school system (where abuses and cover-ups are still extremely rampant, by the way). The proposed law was essentially a surly attempt by anti-Catholics and greedy attorneys to open up lawsuits against the Catholic Church and fleece its coffers. (Read Archbishop Chaput's excellent 2006 response to the proposed law.)

A writer for such a large organization as the Associated Press should most certainly have been cognizant of the blatant unfairness of the proposed Colorado law. One cannot help but conclude that the AP deliberately set out to portray Abp. Chaput in the most negative light with its question. And that's not cool. Not cool at all.

The tone with which the woman asked her question was notably spiteful, condescending, and disrespectful. American Papist Thomas Peters tweeted about the AP's query – he was actually in the room at the time – and relayed that the AP "really broke the civility of the q&a." —

AP: Absolutely Prejudiced – against Catholics.

Rev. Joseph Fessio is the editor-in-chief of Ignatius Press, which is publishing the interview book Light of the World, from which the Pope's notable remarks are gleaned. Fr. Fessio is quoted in the New York Times, "It would be wrong to say, 'Pope Approves Condoms.' He's saying it's immoral, but in an individual case the use of a condom could be an awakening to someone that he's got to be more conscious of his actions."

Dr. Janet E. Smith at Catholic World Report has an excellent explanation of the Pope's remarks. She also provides the actual interview exchange from the upcoming book.

Dr. Smith's piece is a must-read for those who wish to examine this story. Although the following snippet from Dr. Smith does not do justice to her entire piece, here is part of what she wrote:

We must note that the example that Pope Benedict gives for the use of a condom is a male prostitute; thus, it is reasonable to assume that he is referring to a male prostitute engaged in homosexual acts. The Holy Father is simply observing that for some homosexual prostitutes the use of a condom may indicate an awakening of a moral sense; an awakening that sexual pleasure is not the highest value, but that we must take care that we harm no one with our choices. He is not speaking to the morality of the use of a condom, but to something that may be true about the psychological state of those who use them. If such individuals are using condoms to avoid harming another, they may eventually realize that sexual acts between members of the same sex are inherently harmful since they are not in accord with human nature. The Holy Father does not in any way think the use of condoms is a part of the solution to reducing the risk of AIDS. As he explicitly states, the true solution involves "humanizing sexuality." …

Would it be proper to conclude that the Holy Father would support the distribution of condoms to male prostitutes? Nothing he says here indicates that he would. Public programs of distribution of condoms run the risk of conveying approval for homosexual sexual acts. The task of the Church is to call individuals to conversion and to moral behavior; it is to help them understand the meaning and purpose of sexuality and to help them come to know Christ, who will provide the healing and graces that enable us to live in accord with the meaning and purpose of sexuality.

Is Pope Benedict indicating that heterosexuals who have HIV could reduce the wrongness of their acts by using condoms? No. In his second answer he says that the Church does not find condoms to be a “real or moral solution.” That means the Church does not find condoms either to be moral or an effective way of fighting the transmission of HIV. As the Holy Father indicates in his fuller answer, the most effective portion of programs designed to reduce the transmission of HIV are calls to abstinence and fidelity.

In other words, there's a lot more to this than meets the eye. Careful analysis is needed in examining what the Holy Father said, and careful analysis is something that is too often lacking when the major media reports on issues related to the Catholic Church.

As Phil Lawler, from CatholicCulture.org reports: "Did the Pope really say that condom use is sometimes justified? No; that's not what he said."