NY Times National Catholic Abuse Correspondent Laurie Goodstein

Her gig may finally be up. It has now come to the point that every sentient being now agrees that Laurie Goodstein at the New York Times is something less than an objective reporter when it comes to reporting about decades-old episodes of sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

A recent Times podcast by Goodstein asks the question, "Sex Abuse and the Catholic Church: Why Is It Still a Story?" Goodstein then disingenuously claims, "The answer lies with the victims."

However, it has become crystal clear that Goodstein is really only concerned about victims of one institution, the Catholic Church. As we have repeatedly chronicled, Goodstein has written nearly 100 articles this decade about sex abuse in the Catholic Church, but she has written exactly zero articles about sex abuse in any other religious institution.

Say what, Laurie?

So we were surprised when a reader of this site passed on an email exchange he had with Goodstein in which Goodstein made the following claim:

"I have written about sexual abuse among Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Scientologists and Hare Krishnas."

Really, Laurie? We scoured the archives at the Times searching desperately for these alleged articles about sex abuse "among Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Scientologists and Hare Krishnas." Here is what we found:

• Goodstein wrote a single article 11 years ago about sex abuse in the silly 1970s "Children of God" cult.
• She wrote another single article 15 years ago about sex abuse in the "United Church of Christ" in Massachusetts.
• Goodstein wrote another single article about sex abuse among Hare Krishnas 18 years ago.
• She wrote a couple of articles about sex abuse among Jehovah's Witnesses (1, 2) 14 years ago.
• In 2010, Goodstein wrote another single article about "abuse" in the Church of Scientology, but she made no mention of sexual abuse at all, only of an alleged "abusive environment" (social/emotional/mental).
• The closest Goodstein came to writing about abuse in the Jewish community was "contributing" to a 2012 article, "Ultra-Orthodox Jews Rally to Discuss Risks of Internet."

Notice that not one of these articles was even written in this decade, while Goodstein has penned nearly 100 articles about sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

And as we have repeatedly reported, Goodstein has been radio silent on abuse among Protestant groups. An eye-popping 2002 article in the Christian Science Monitor stunningly reported that in Protestant churches "the pace of child-abuse allegations against American churches has averaged 70 a week."

70 abuse allegations in Protestant churches … per … week.
Yet Goodstein has written exactly nothing about this. Nada. Zilch.

"All the news that's fit to print"? Not even close.

Always on message: Laurie Goodstein from the New York Times

Question: What does a good reporter do when a decades-old story line continues to get old and stale?
Answer: Nothing at all.

Despite nearly $3 billion in settlements, over $80 million in therapy payments, endless mea culpas, and countless apologies to accusers of priest sex abuse from decades ago, the New York Times' National Religion Correspondent Laurie Goodstein continues to trumpet the tired claims from the lawyer-funded attack group SNAP that the Catholic Church and Pope Francis have somehow "ignored" and "infuriated" victims of clergy abuse.

A sea of protesters

The twins: Ianni (l) and Dorris (r)
on the hunt for publicity

After Goodstein first cites Dorris' curious claim that Pope Francis has somehow "ignored" abuse victims, she then locates yet another befuddled SNAPper who claims that Pope Francis "doesn't get it" when it comes to clergy abuse from decades ago.

As we have reported before, no gathering or group is too tiny for Goodstein when it comes to bashing the Catholic Church. Last year, when a tiny fringe group of dissident priests, nuns, and other left-wing zealots formed a group to attack the Catholic Church over decades-old cases of abuse, Goodstein proudly trumpeted a front-page story about the effort, even though the fledgling gang was so unorganized that it did not even have a web site yet.

Keeping hope alive

But Goodstein is most unhinged in her article when she ambitiously claims that "the abuse scandal has hardly died down in the United States."

Goodstein conveniently fails to inform her readers that in the past decade contemporaneous accusations of abuse against Catholic priests have averaged a paltry 8 per year merely deemed "credible" by the lenient standards of diocesan review boards. (There are over 43,000 priests in the United States and nearly 70 million Catholics.)

So despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Goodstein nonetheless still claims that the abuse scandal is still white hot and raging. A triumph of hope over evidence if there ever was.

But for Goodstein and her never-ending animus for the Catholic Church, it is the same as it ever was.

On the Catholic Church old sex abuse beat: Laurie Goodstein from the New York Times

While the New York Times' travails are well known, it appears that the venerable old newspaper still has the resources to devote a reporter to cover a single story line if that story line happens to dovetail with the paper's political leanings.

As our nearby Scoreboard illustrates, the Times' National Religion Correspondent, Laurie Goodstein, seems to really only cover one story in the vast world of religion today: old sex abuse claims in the Catholic Church.

Now Goodstein is providing free p.r. for another lawsuit against the Church by Jeff Anderson and promoting a flimsy campaign among left-wing crazies to sack St. Paul – Minneapolis Archbishop John C. Nienstedt.

And, as it just so happens, the Times' editorial board later wrote an editorial calling for Nienstedt's resignation.

Calls for resignation: An army of one?

There he goes again:
Church-suing lawyer Jeff Anderson

Goodstein then goes on to recount a disparate litany of other archdiocesan alleged "scandals" – such as the wacky and discredited claim that Nienstedt somehow molested a boy at a public confirmation ceremony – and concludes that there was now a big public outcry for Nienstedt's resignation.

Goodstein claims that "calls for resignation" are now "mounting" against Archbishop Nienstedt, yet Goodstein cites exactly one person who has actually done so.

Ever heard of "Tom Horner"? We haven't either. But, according to Goodstein, Horner is a "prominent Catholic public relations consultant and former Independent Party candidate for governor," and he happens to think the archbishop should resign. Powerful stuff.

Goodstein's flaky sources

Not exactly Deep Throat:
The wild-eyed Jennifer Haselberger

As we reported months ago, Haselberger was the source behind an explosive story which received widespread media attention that a Minnesota priest possessed "images of pornography," some of which, in her view, "appear[ed] to show children."

However, after police spent months investigating the claim, not a single frame of child pornography was ever found. Zilch. Nada.

In the end, Haselberger's machination of child pornography was completely false, and the media firestorm over the case completely destroyed the reputation of an innocent priest. But, of course, Goodstein makes no mention of Haselberger's past propensity for hysteria and overstatement when it comes to her former employer.

Haselberger's new leftist bedfellows

Goodstein also makes no mention of the troubling fact that Haselberger is currently scheduled as a headline speaker at this week's annual conference for SNAP, the notorious anti-Catholic hate group. While Haselberger has claimed she is "pro-life," she is now embracing a group who last year celebrated at its conference one of the country's most radical abortion advocates and outspoken Church bashers, Eleanor Smeal. Go figure.

Indeed, Haselberger has not always been an exactly strong defender of Catholic teaching, despite her position as a canon lawyer. As the Catholic League recently noted, Haselberger has admitted that she is seemingly O.K. with a loopy dissident group called "Rent-a-Priest" using her work to claim that the group does not necessarily violate Church teaching by promoting married priests administering the Sacraments.

The not-so-hidden agenda

Goodstein also defames Nienstedt by repeating the crazy charge that he somehow molested a boy in broad daylight during a public confirmation ceremony back in 2009. Goodstein lends credence to the charge by merely saying police dropped charges against Nienstedt because of "insufficient evidence."

In truth, the claim against Nienstedt was far beyond ridiculous. The charge was so bogus that even the youth at the center of the episode said nothing had happened and told police as much. The investigation into Nienstedt was nothing short of a left-wing witch hunt.

Last year, Minnesota passed a so-called "window statute" permitting decades-old, stale claims of abuse, principally against the Catholic Church, to now be suddenly resurrected for a period of three years. This has naturally thrown contingency lawyers such as Anderson into a tizzy filing new lawsuits in the hunt for big bucks.

And ever at the ready to assist Anderson is Goodstein, especially when the target of Anderson's lawsuits just-so-happens to be a bishop such as Nienstedt best known for his politically incorrect positions such as opposition to homosexual "marriage."

Front and center in the attack on the Catholic Church: The NY Times' Laurie Goodstein

[This post is regularly *UPDATED* to reflect our
LAURIE GOODSTEIN SCOREBOARD on our home page]

TheMediaReport.com has surveyed every article that New York Times National Religion Correspondent Laurie Goodstein has written (or co-written) this decade and has found that while Goodstein has composed dozens of articles about sex abuse in the Catholic Church, she has authored only two articles on abuse elsewhere.

TheMediaReport.com has identified all articles written or co-written by Laurie Goodstein in the New York Times between January 1, 2010, and September 1, 2018.

Imbalance at the Grey Lady

110 of those articles have specifically trumpeted the issue of sex abuse in the Catholic Church. 2 have addressed sex abuse in other religious institutions. (The two articles were simply a pair of articles Goodstein wrote about an evangelical pastor allegedly harassing another adult at his church.)

This decade Laurie Goodstein has almost completely ignored sex abuse in other religious organizations. Nothing from Goodstein about child abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community. Nothing about abuse in the Muslim community. Nothing about child abuse among Baptists.

In other words, being the "National Religion Correspondent" for the New York Times is really code for being the Times' principle obsessor – among the many there who obsess – about old cases of sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

The disparity is glaring.

Ignoring other aspects of the abuse story

Also notably absent from Goodstein's recent coverage are other important aspects of the Catholic Church child abuse narrative:

• the widespread prevalence of false accusations and the fact that nearly half of those accused nowadays are dead;
• the troubling financial and operational relationship between Church-suing contingency lawyers and the anti-Catholic group SNAP;
• the injustice that accused priests find themselves in trying to defend against acts alleged to have been committed many decades ago;
• the sordid histories and hateful motivations of dissident priests and SNAP members who have attacked the Church; and
• the unprecedented measures that the Catholic Church in the United States has taken in the last two decades to make the Church the safest environment in the world for children today.

As we have often stated before, it is well known that the New York Times editorial policies stand in heated opposition to the Catholic Church on nearly every "hot-button" social issue, whether it be gay "marriage," abortion, or birth control.

And in the end, Laurie Goodstein is simply carrying the water for her struggling employer, which proudly boasts of its animus for the Catholic Church and is using the issue of decades-old cases of abuse to bludgeon it for not being sufficiently left-wing on issues of sexuality.

[Important note: There was an article published by Goodstein on March 7, 2010, entitled, "Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse." However, the "abuse" cited in the article has nothing to do with sex abuse. Sex abuse, rape, and molestation are not mentioned in the article at all. Instead, the article addresses the alleged "abusive environment" (social/emotional/mental) of the Church of Scientology.]

Jeff Anderson mouthpiece: The New York Times' Laurie Goodstein

Background

• After the New York Times published three articles suggesting that Cardinal Dolan committed wrongdoing – possibly even criminal wrongdoing – as Archbishop of Milwaukee, the Times did not publish even a single story of a federal judge's later decision completely vindicating Dolan;
• Weeks later, however, the Times' Laurie Goodstein published a story about Church-suing contingency lawyers filing an unimportant motion to disqualify the federal judge who had rendered the very same decision that the Times had completely ignored.

As we reported back in July, the New York Times published three different articles aggressively attacking its local bishop, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, for merely transferring diocesan monies in 2007, when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee, to a cemetery trust fund to ensure that the monies were going to be used as intended by the original donors: for the future care and maintenance of Catholic cemeteries.

The Times and other professional anti-Catholics, such as those at SNAP, claimed that the $55 million transfer to the trust fund was a part of a diabolical plot by Dolan to "protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation" by moving the money away.

"Suing the sh&@ out of the Church":
contingency lawyer Jeff Anderson

A few weeks later, a federal judge vindicated Cardinal Dolan and declared that Dolan's transfer was completely proper.

Yet the Times did not publish a single article about the judge's decision and the huge victory for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and Cardinal Dolan.

End of story? Not quite. It turns out that the main Church-suing lawyer in this case is the notorious Jeff Anderson, who has an extensive record of theatrics and questionable behavior in his self-described pursuit of "suing the sh#^" out of the Catholic Church.

In his typical bombastic fashion, the losing Anderson filed a meritless motion to reverse the judge's decision, claiming that because the ruling judge happened to have some deceased family members in some of the 100+ archdiocesan cemeteries, the judge somehow had a conflict of interest in the case.

The NYT carrying water for the usual suspects – again

Professional anti-Catholic:
lawyer Marci Hamilton

And, not surprisingly, the author of the Times' story was none other than the predictable Laurie Goodstein, who always appears at the ready to lend the Times' reputation to advance Jeff Anderson's legal career and raise money for SNAP.

To lend credibility to Anderson's silly, attention-getting motion, Goodstein turns to none other than lawyer Marci Hamilton, a well-known anti-Catholic bigot, who also happens to be financially involved with Anderson in the case.

Goodstein waits until the very end of her article to quote Prof. Stephen Gillers of New York University School of Law, who trashes Hamilton's legal analysis of Anderson's nonsensical motion to disqualify the judge:

"An appellate court is going to say, if you could learn these facts after the ruling, why couldn't you do it before the ruling? Why all of a sudden did you become interested in whether this judge could sit, other than the fact that you lost. That's something they have to explain."

Bingo.

Goodstein as Jeff Anderson's and SNAP's unpaid PR machine

Yet the most troubling aspect of Goodstein's article is that it was published at all.

Goodstein's never-ending obsession with old abuse claims in the Catholic Church makes it quite clear that she is nothing but a mouthpiece for Church-suing lawyers like Jeff Anderson and anti-Catholic groups such as SNAP.

In 2010, when Goodstein published a high-profile series of articles about a Wisconsin priest who abused boys over a half a century earlier, it was no secret that Anderson funneled court and Church documents to Goodstein, which she then dutifully published. There is no doubt that her reporting resulted in the value of Anderson's cases being increased greatly.

In 2012, when a judge ordered SNAP president David Clohessy to merely sit for a deposition involving a lawsuit in Missouri, Goodstein naturally leaped to the defense of Clohessy with a front-page story decrying that Clohessy was being unfairly persecuted for simply being asked to testify truthfully about his relevant knowledge.

It is well known that the New York Times' editorial policies stand in heated opposition to the Catholic Church on nearly every "hot-button" social issue, whether it be gay "marriage," abortion, or birth control.

And with every successive article, Goodstein – the Times' purported "National Religion Correspondent" – only makes it more evident that her main role at the Times is to endlessly recount old stories of sex abuse occurring in a single institution – the Catholic Church – in order to advance the agendas of contingency lawyers like Jeff Anderson and other Church haters.

Church cranks find a new forum: "Catholic Whistleblowers"
(l to r): Marci Hamilton, Fr. Thomas Doyle, Anne Barrett Doyle, Patrick Wall, and Robert Hoatson

In all of 2012, there were exactly six credible abuse allegations made against Catholic priests by current minors in all of 2012 (out of some 40,000 active priests), and the "fewest allegations and victims" ever were tabulated since statistics began to be compiled.

In fact, in a body of 77 million people, contemporaneous accusations of abuse against Catholic clergy in the United States are extremely rare, recently averaging 8 allegations merely deemed "credible" each year.

Yet a new group being trumpeted by the New York Times, "Catholic Whistleblowers," is trying to dupe the public into believing that abuse is somehow still rampant in the Church today.

Same old players with a different team name

Most notably, Catholic Whistleblowers is composed of tired Church bashers whose hatred for the Church has already been well documented before:

• Fr. Thomas Doyle: In addition to a troublesome background, Doyle has essentially admitted that he is not really even Catholic by declaring that he has "nothing to do with the Catholic Church," he has "nothing to do with the clerical life," he is "not associated with the Church in any way," and his beliefs are "about as far away from the Vatican as you can get";
• Marci Hamilton: Hamilton's venom against the Catholic Church cannot be overstated, and one of the leading constitutional scholars in the country once said that her work contained "no substance of scholarship" and exhibited "a reckless disregard for truth";
• Anne Barrett Doyle: Doyle is the director of BishopAccountability.org, an anti-Catholic hate group that masquerades as a library with documents pertaining to Catholic sex abuse;
• Patrick Wall: Wall is an ex-priest who has been promoted as a "canon lawyer," but he isn't. His work in the field of canon law has also been discredited; and
• Robert Hoatson: Hoatson is another angry ex-priest who never met a microphone he didn't love. He recently claimed just weeks ago that he is "dealing at the present moment with 'repressed memory' of abuse that is just coming to mind again in my Catholic grammar school."

In other words, Catholic Whistleblowers is composed of the same-old, tired Church cranks looking to keep the depleted issue of Catholic sex abuse alive in the media.

Goodstein's ongoing obsession

Cheerleader for Church cranks:
The NYT's Laurie Goodstein

Catholic Whistleblowers has accomplished absolutely nothing except put up a weak-looking web site and alert the media about itself. Yet the Times' Laurie Goodstein has treated the formation of this band of old riff-raff as it were some major achievement.

Goodstein is billed as the "National Religion Correspondent" for the New York Times, yet her focus is almost solely aimed at the Catholic Church. Of the 20 articles she has authored or co-authored so far in 2013 for the Times, 18 of them (or 90%) have spotlighted the Catholic Church, and almost all of them portraying it in a negative light.

Goodstein's animus against the Catholic Church has already been well documented, and her glowing profile of this tiny enterprise only adds more to show that the New York Times is the most anti-Catholic newspaper in the country.

Misrepresenting documents: New York Times' Laurie Goodstein

[Click here for the complete index of our review of Mea Maxima Culpa.]

Mischaracterizing facts – again

One interview subject that plays a prominent role in Mea Maxima Culpa is New York Times National Religion Correspondent Laurie Goodstein, who wrote obsessively about the decades-old Fr. Murphy case during Lent of 2010.

Goodstein has a long record of animus against the Catholic Church, and one popular blogger once dubbed her "the least competent major religion reporter I've ever read."

In talking in the film about the Catholic Church's handling of the Fr. Murphy case, Goodstein wildly claims:

"And the response from the Vatican is to have compassion for the priest and almost no thought at all about the victims, and you see that in these documents."

First of all, the Vatican had nothing to do with Murphy or his horrible crimes. The Vatican's involvement in the Murphy case came over two decades after the abusive priest's crimes, in 1996, when the Archdiocese of Milwaukee sought to laicize him.

Most importantly, however, even a cursory look at available documents shows that Goodstein's claim is false. The most extensive document from the Vatican concerning the Murphy case is a summary memo of a May 1998 meeting at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) between Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of the CDF, and two Milwaukee Church officials, including Archbishop Rembert Weakland.

The memo about the Vatican meeting plainly acknowledges the Church's concerns for the victims of Murphy's crimes:

• "there have turned out to be many victims of the abuses by Fr. Murphy, all of them deaf";
• "the deaf community is now experiencing great indignation because of this case";
• "Fr. Murphy has no sense of remorse and does not seem to realize the gravity of what he has done" (bold type in original);
• "penal remedies" should be implemented, and they may include penalties "not excluding dismissal from the clerical state" (italics in original).

In other words, Goodstein's claim that the Vatican showed "compassion for the priest" and "almost no thought at all about the victims" is demonstrably untrue.

In addition, a number of other documents pertaining to the Murphy case (including some which were conveniently not included in the large trove of papers once posted online by the New York Times) stress the grave effect that Murphy's abuse had on his victims and note the importance of "pastoral care for the deaf community."

Looking at the 1950s sex abuse through a 2012 lens

Another glaring problem in Mea Maxima Culpa is that the film applies a current-day perspective of the handling of child sex abuse to a case from a half century ago.

Sadly, our society did not nearly have the same heightened awareness of child abuse decades ago as it does today. This fact is undeniable.

(For example, take the disturbing 1977 case of popular Hollywood director Roman Polanski. After plying an innocent 13-year-old girl with illegal drugs and alcohol, Polanski then raped her by forcibly performing oral, genital, and anal sex upon the weakened youth. Polanski's initial sentence from a judge was merely a 90-day psychiatric evaluation. A psychiatrist then concluded that the director exhibited "good judgement and strong moral and ethical values" and "incarceration would serve no necessary or useful purpose." Such a determination would be completely unthinkable today in 2013. [Read more])

In truth, bishops' practice years ago of sending abusive priests for "treatment" was very much in line with widespread societal practice. As Dr. Monica Applewhite has explained:

"From the 1950's to the 1980's, [] treatment-based interventions for sexual criminals were not only enormously prevalent in the United States, but surveys of ordinary citizens showed that they were enormously popular …

"[T]he science of human sexuality and sexual offending is extraordinarily young. Virtually all of the information we utilize today regarding the treatment and supervision of sexual offenders has been discovered since 1985."

This honest historical perspective is glaringly absent from Mea Maxima Culpa.

A warped view of the priesthood

Does the Catholic Church really teach that its priests are perfect and beyond reproach, which director Alex Gibney appears to imply throughout the film? Well, once again, here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) actually teaches:

CCC 1550 "[The] presence of Christ in the minister is not to be understood as if the latter were preserved from all human weaknesses, the spirit of domination, error, even sin. The power of the Holy Spirit does not guarantee all acts of ministers in the same way. While this guarantee extends to the sacraments, so that even the minister's sin cannot impede the fruit of grace, in many other acts the minister leaves human traces that are not always signs of fidelity to the Gospel and consequently can harm the apostolic fruitfulness of the Church."

Indeed, Catholic priests can commit abominable sins and wreak immeasurable harm upon other people. The case of Fr. Lawrence Murphy aptly illustrates this.

Unfortunately, Mea Maxima Culpa repeatedly warps Church teaching in order to advance its anti-Catholic agenda.

[Click here for the complete index of our review of Mea Maxima Culpa.]

New York Times vs. The Catholic Church: Religion Editor Laurie Goodstein,
Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal, Reporter John Eligon

If anyone needed another example of the New York Times' obsession with blasting the Catholic Church, one does not need to look further than the paper's coverage following the guilty verdict of Kansas City–St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn.

One cannot help but wonder when a misdemeanor conviction (with a suspended sentence) has ever resulted in two front-page stories (1, 2) and a breathless editorial in the Grey Lady before.
[UPDATE: And if that were not enough, the Times also added an op-ed from Frank Bruni on September 11!]

Indeed, the guilty verdict in the Bishop Finn trial was historic, but a sense of perspective is in order. The diocese delayed in reporting that a priest had lewd photographs of children on his computer. But there is plenty of evidence, either ignored or downplayed by the Times, that Finn took the hit for the failures of the people who worked under him.

Criminal failures

Many in the public are unaware that two computer technicians, a diocesan lawyer, a monsignor, a vice-chancellor, a psychiatric doctor, and a deacon all allegedly saw the disturbing images from Fr. Ratigan's computer, but none of them officially alerted law enforcement.

According to an independent report of the entire Ratigan episode, known as the Graves Report, Bishop Finn stated that he "never saw the images" from the priest's laptop. Indeed, as the Graves Report concluded:

"As soon as the photographs were discovered on Fr. Ratigan's laptop, police should have been formally notified. Although various individuals undoubtedly believed that someone else would make the call, the fact remains that a phone call could have been made by anyone and everyone with knowledge of the pictures."

The failures of Bishop Finn and the diocese are obvious. Under no circumstances can any wrongdoing be defended whatsoever. As the bishop himself stated following his trial, "The protection of children is paramount, and sexual abuse of any kind will not be tolerated." Amen.

Some sex abuse more newsworthy than others

However, while the Times hyperventilates over this misdemeanor conviction, the paper continues to turn a blind eye to massive sex abuse and cover-ups occurring today in our nation's public schools – much of it in its own backyard.

As we have relayed several times before, it has been reported that just in the first three months of 2012 alone in New York City public schools, there were "248 complaints of sexual misconduct involving school employees."

Where's the outrage?

The glaring double standard only shows that the Times' coverage of sex abuse in the Catholic Church has nothing to do with sex abuse and everything to do with plastering the Church for not adhering to the paper's "progressive" secular agenda.

'Mea Maxima Culpa,' indeed! (l to r) HBO VP Sara Bernstein, Disgraced cleric Rembert Weakland,
NY Times' Laurie Goodstein, Dissident priest Thomas Doyle, and Filmmaker Alex Gibney

[Click here for the complete index of our criticism of Mea Maxima Culpa.]

The trailer for an upcoming film about an abusive Catholic priest in the 1970s appears to rehash the bogus attack on Pope Benedict XVI in March 2010 by the New York Times' Laurie Goodstein.

MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD, produced by HBO Documentaries, is slated to make a big splash at the prominent Toronto Film Festival in early September, and the trailer for the film is now making the rounds on the Internet.

New York Times/Goodstein vs. the facts

The film is based upon the same story as the much-heralded, March 25, 2010, front-page article in the New York Times, in which the paper managed to reach a journalistic low in its obsession of smearing the Catholic Church.

The story essentially accused Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, of somehow refusing to promptly laicize an abusive Milwaukee priest who had already been removed from ministry. The criminal priest, Lawrence C. Murphy, had been accused of abusing scores of boys at a Wisconsin school for the deaf through 1974, the year he was asked to resign from his position at the school. Murphy later retired in 1992 and died in 1998.

In truth, no one at the Vatican even heard about the abusive Fr. Murphy until 1996, over two decades since he last abused his students and at a point where the priest was in poor health and would die only two years later. By the time the Archdiocese of Milwaukee brought the Murphy case to the Vatican's attention, the guy was already out of full priestly ministry, as he had been given no official pastoral assignments since 1974 and was living with family.

No role by Pope Benedict

But in her article about the abusive Fr. Murphy, Goodstein tried to tie Pope Benedict to the case. At the end of May 1998, the Vatican was aware that Fr. Murphy was in frail health and that he would not live long enough for a lengthy and complicated canonical trial to laicize him. So it simply recommended that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee strengthen the restrictions it already had on the priest's ministry, instead of proceeding with a trial that would likely prove useless.

On August 19, 1998, Archbishop Weakland authored a reply letter to the Vatican indicating that he would follow its recommendations. However, Murphy died on August 21, just two days after the date on Weakland's letter, rendering the entire matter moot and showing the Vatican was correct in its judgment all along.

But Pope Benedict had no personal role in any of this. Had Goodstein taken the time to talk with Fr. Thomas Brundage, the former Judicial Vicar in Milwaukee, who supervised the Murphy case and probably knew more about the case than anybody on the planet, she would have learned:

"[W]ith regard to the role of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), in this matter, I have no reason to believe that he was involved at all. Placing this matter at his doorstep is a huge leap of logic and information."

In other words, Goodstein's attack on Pope Benedict – which was uncritically relayed by hundreds of media outlets around the globe during Lent of 2010 – was bogus.

Also notably, Ms. Goodstein relied on information planted by the notorious Minnesota Church-suing contingency lawyer Jeff Anderson, who stood to make big money from the splashy New York Times coverage of the matter.

A revealing trailer: Twisted facts

The trailer for the upcoming film gives a good idea where the production is heading. Over a collage of Church imagery, a compilation of voices airs a blatant falsehood:

"We don't turn our priests in. That's the worldwide policy: to snuff out scandal."

In truth, there has never been any document or anything in the Code of Canon Law that has prohibited clerics from reporting criminal child abuse to law enforcement. Never. The statement that it has been a "policy" of the Catholic Church to not report child abuse to the police is simply false.

Questionable sources used

The trailer also reveals that the film portrays a number of personalities who have notable records of open dissent, misinformation, and/or animus against the Catholic Church. For example:

• Rembert C. Weakland: The former Archbishop of Milwaukee has been described as "the most discredited and disgraced bishop in the United States, widely known for mishandling sexual-abuse cases during his tenure, and guilty of using $450,000 of archdiocesan funds to pay hush money to a former homosexual lover who was blackmailing him." Weakland reportedly once characterized the reporting of abuse as "squealing," and he even admitted in a 1993 deposition that he shredded copies of reports of abuse by priests. He is hardly an authority to speak on the handling of clergy abuse cases.
• Rev. Thomas P. Doyle: Doyle has a very long record of open dissent and profound animus against the Catholic Church. Most recently, while addressing his friends at the anti-Catholic group SNAP, he acknowledged that he has "nothing to do with the Catholic Church," has "nothing to do with the clerical life," is "not associated with the Church in any way," and his beliefs are "about as far away from the Vatican as you can get." Doyle is hardly an objective source.
• Contingency lawyer Jeff Anderson: The notorious Anderson certainly has a problematic history with the facts and has happily proclaimed his pride of "suing the sh**" out of the Catholic Church. Like Doyle, Anderson is a close ally of SNAP. In fact, he was the enthusiastic leader of SNAP's fundraising effort at the group's annual conference last month, at which he also donated over $43,000.

[Addendum, January 2013: See also our post on the appearances in the film by angry ex-priest Richard Sipe.]

'Deliver Us From Evil' redux?

'Mea Maxima Culpa' appears to bear a striking resemblance to the 2006 Academy Award-nominated film, Deliver Us From Evil, which profiled the serial California pedophile priest Oliver O'Grady, who, like Wisconsin's atrocious Fr. Murphy, wreaked immeasurable harm on numerous innocent victims and disgraced the Church.

However, the Amy Berg-directed film was rife with misleading and false information, and it ultimately served as little more than an anti-Catholic hit job.

'Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God' appears to be heading in the same direction. The film will likely be a big hit with critics, even though it is likely problematic with its facts.

[Click here for the complete index of our criticism of Mea Maxima Culpa.]

]]> https://www.themediareport.com/2012/08/21/mea-maxima-culpa-silence-in-the-house-of-god/feed/ 79 https://www.themediareport.com/2012/06/17/on-front-page-ny-times-trumpets-efforts-catholic-church/ https://www.themediareport.com/2012/06/17/on-front-page-ny-times-trumpets-efforts-catholic-church/#comments Mon, 18 Jun 2012 02:39:26 +0000 TheMediaReport.com http://www.themediareport.com/?p=5080

Dreaming of bankrupting the Catholic Church? NYT's Laurie Goodstein and Erik Eckholm

Several states are mulling legislative efforts to lift the statutes of limitations in cases of sex abuse for a one or two-year period. These so-called "window statutes," pushed by left-wing legislators and left-wing pundits, would enable people to sue organizations for abuse no matter how long ago the alleged incidents occurred.

These "window statutes," if enacted, would have a devastating financial impact upon the Catholic Church, as scores of anonymous claimants would line up to make decades-old allegations against now-deceased offenders.

But there's a catch: Public schools are exempt from these legislative proposals. So if a teacher raped, sodomized, or molested a student – even in recent memory – the victim has no legal recourse whatsoever. (In New York, for example, the statute of limitations to file a civil suit against a public school institution is a mere 90 days.)

But if a person alleges that a Catholic priest – even one that is now long ago deceased – molested him 65 years ago, that accuser could receive a sizable cash settlement.

This imbalance sounds unfair, doesn't it? Not according to the New York Times. Just over a month ago, the paper published an editorial in support of these "window statutes" and never mentioned this outrageous discrepancy.

Now, in a front-page story, the Times' Laurie Goodstein and Erik Eckholm follow their paper's editorial cue. The pair attempt to provide both sides of this issue, but, upon closer inspection, it becomes clear which side of the debate they stand on.

Misdirection play

Near the beginning of their article, Goodstein and Eckholm explain that the time limits imposed by the statutes of limitations have prevented criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits "against all kinds of people accused of child abuse – not just clergy members, but also teachers, youth counselors and family members accused of incest."

This statement early in the article gives the misleading impression that the legislative efforts to lift the statutes' time limits apply to all kinds of organizations.

One has to read much farther down the article to see that the writers have buried the critical single fact that "public schools, the site of much abuse, and municipalities have fought successfully to be exempted" from any legislation affecting them.

That brief and buried fact is a big deal. It puts the Church's opposition to this legislation in perspective. The Church feels – and the media coverage of the past decade bears this out – that any new laws are designed almost exclusively to single out the Catholic Church for punishment.

As we relayed just recently, 248 complaints of sexual misconduct involving school employees were reported in New York City public schools just in the first three months of 2012. That's an average of 2.75 sex-related complaints per day, including Saturdays and Sundays, in one city's school system.

Does 90 days seem to the Times a sufficient period of time to bring a lawsuit for sex abuse while claimants against the Church are given several decades? Apparently not. The story of the 248 complaints has never gone further than one of its blogs.

Marci Hamilton – again

Goodstein and Eckholm also give some ink to attorney Marci Hamilton, whom we recently profiled.

The Times doesn't mention it, but Hamilton has a troubling record of legal scholarship, and she has a long history of attacking the Catholic Church. She is a dogged lawyer for the anti-Catholic group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) and has closely collaborated with members of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office in its decade-long aim to prosecute the Church.

Not telling the other story

If Goodstein and Eckholm really wanted to present a balanced piece, they would have asked Hamilton some obvious questions:

• "Do you think 90 days is a sufficient period of time to bring a lawsuit against a public school employee?"
• "If this legislation is really not about punishing the Catholic Church, why not insist that the new rules include public schools?"
• "Why should one class of victims (those abused by Catholic priests) be treated differently than another (those abused by school employees)?"

But the Times' piece does not include such questions. Why? Because the Times has already taken a stand on this issue, and Goodstein's and Eckholm's piece simply reinforces the paper's efforts to attack and punish the Catholic Church – all under the guise of journalism.

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