• A personal note
• A personal note |
| When an esteemed journalist friend took issue with
my newsletter article “Good news for our priests on PBS,” I promised to
respond to each objection, point by point. The full text of my original article which provoked the objections is at the end of this newsletter. 1. Objection number one: “I’m sorry, John, but ‘blame the media’ because
Catholics are feeling disillusioned?” A. In “Good news for our priests on PBS,” I specifically and explicitly discourage the “blame the media” game some play. From my perspective as a communications consultant, I simply recommend that homilists encourage the faithful with humble, honest, and hopeful homilies: Sunday homily responses to media reports of abuse and cover ups have taken four forms, only one of which applies sound and effective communication principles: — Homilies that ignore the
questions in parishioners’ minds and gloss over breaking news as if
nothing has happened only stoke the rumor mill.
Only one approach,
drawing on sound Church teachings and solid communications counsel, has
potential for bringing Christ’s healing touch to those who are
alienated by the unspeakable and incomprehensible actions of a few:— Homilies that deny what has become obvious or has been admitted merely provoke repugnance. — Homilies that attack the media for reporting bad news instead of addressing the bad news itself merely leave doubts in the minds of listeners. — Humble, honest, hopeful
homilies can affirm parishioners’ faith and remind them that the Church
is and always has been composed of saints and sinners, all of whom are
included in God’s love and Christ’s compassionate prayer from the
cross, “Father forgive them; they know not what they do.”
B. Beyond that, I deliberately used the word some in my original newsletter: “Catholics feeling disillusioned and alienated by news reports may receive help and hope from studies that indicate some media reports are simply salacious sensationalism, exercises in priest-bashing and Church-trashing.”
My goal in the newsletter article, as in At The Crossroads: A Vision of Hope, is to provide help and hope for disillusioned and alienated Catholics. I have no interest in agonizing over anti-Catholicism in the media, though I believe it is wise to be aware of it. Evidence of the media bias and anti-Catholic propaganda to which I refer was cited recently by Chronicles executive editor Scott Richert in a June 3 conference of the Rockford Institute in Illinois. He reported that a recent “New York Times/CBS News poll found that 73 percent of all respondents, and 53 percent of all Catholics, believe that ‘child sexual abuse by Catholic priests is a problem that is still going on today,’ despite the very solid evidence to the contrary.” The most recent report on compliance with the U.S. bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People shows the fewest numbers of allegations in dioceses since 2004, with the majority of new alleged abuse — 71 percent — occurring between 1960 and 1984. So effective and far-reaching has been the Church’s crackdown under the direction of Pope Benedict XVI that other institutions look to the Catholic Church for guidance on how to address the global plague. Because the popular perception is so wrong, is so contrary to reality, and because popular perceptions are created by the media, any objective assessment must conclude that biased and misleading media reports are contributing to that distorted and fallacious popular perception. Biased wording of pollsters’ questions also can contribute to that distorted and fallacious popular perception. In an interview with Spero News, Richert, said, “the most egregious example of bias is found in question 25, right in the middle of the New York Times/CBS News poll: ‘Do you think the problem of sexual abuse of children and teenagers is a more common problem in the Catholic Church than it is in other walks of life, or is it just as common a problem in other walks of life?’ Notice what's missing? Those who were polled were given the opportunity to say that sexual abuse is ‘more common’ in the Catholic Church than outside the Church, or ‘just as common’ outside of the Catholic Church as in the Church. ‘Less common’ in the Catholic Church (or ‘more common in other walks of life') was not an option. “ In striving to provide help and hope for disillusioned and alienated Catholics, I believe it is useful to remind them of the admonition, “Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you read.” That is consistent with a media conundrum: “The closer you are to a story, the more you know it has errors in it. Yet the further removed you are from a story, the more you tend to believe it.” 2. Objection number two: “No, this is about abuse of power, not a
‘salacious’ media.” I do not believe there is anything in my original article that denies we are faced — in some cases — with abuse of power. Any adult who abuses a child or any adult in a position of authority who knowingly fails to take whatever steps are necessary to protect every child from abuse is guilty as charged. I know of no one who disagrees. My point is that some journalists and media companies are salacious. They prefer titillation to information. “If it bleeds, it leads” is their motto. They show little concern for accuracy and for persons whose lives are harmed or even destroyed by reckless reporting, as in the film “Absence of Malice.” That film was fiction, but I know the real-life story of a teacher who was falsely accused of abuse by a vengeful student. Perceptions created by media reports forced the teacher to leave teaching and move to another community even after being exonerated. Another painful example is the media circus that followed the bogus sexual abuse charge against Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in Chicago. The mentally unstable accuser recanted, but few doubt that Cardinal Bernardin’s stress and suffering during the ordeal caused or at least contributed to the cancer that took his life. Today some media, unwittingly or deliberately, aid and abet lawyers who have made tens of millions of dollars off the sex abuse scandal and who will lose money if their cash spigot is shut off. More victims, real or fake, mean more money, and they besiege the pope with far-fetched and scurrilous allegations reported as fact by media failing to exercise due diligence in their reporting. Anyone with knowledge of efforts by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, to eradicate sex abuse from the Church and to remove abusers from the priesthood knows how ludicrous are accusations leveled against him — yet some media continue repeating disproven and discredited allegations over and over and over. Where there is an abuse of power, and where there is a deliberate and culpable cover up, removal from office and criminal prosecution are justified. No one disputes that. What is not justified is character assassination and the fostering of a lynch-mob mentality by disseminating mere gossip and by attributing evil intentions to everyone in Church leadership. Men and women of good will can make wrong judgments based on current but wrong information. In the world of medicine, bloodletting or bleeding was a common treatment for most illnesses well into the nineteenth century. Hand-washing by physicians before surgery or child delivery was not recognized as essential and was not required until the early 1900’s, less than 100 years ago. Women were kept bedridden for as long as two weeks after delivering a child even a few decades ago, and the same was true of patients undergoing surgery, patients who today are up and walking only 24 hours after leaving the recovery room. Yesterday’s “modern science” is looked upon as ignorance and superstition in light of today’s expanding knowledge. Science, including science of the mind addressing addictive behavior, can yield wrong diagnoses and wrong prescriptions for treatment. “That was, it must be said, once the case with respect to pedophiles,” wrote Bishop Thomas Doran, in a newspaper column published by the Rockford Diocesan newspaper The Observer. “Not so many decades ago the best science said their obsession could be cured, or at least treated and brought under control, in the same way that people can be freed from the snares of alcoholism and drug addiction. Now we know better.” Today’s practices reflect our new knowledge. 3.
Objection number three: “And, let’s not forget that far more
children are in classrooms than in confession on Saturday morning. The
laws of numbers alone would drive that ‘four times as many’ stat.”
My journalist friend questions numbers in the following paragraph: “Of particular interest is the
U.S. Department of Education study showing that teachers are four times
more likely than priests to sexually abuse children and a Penn State
study finding sexual abuse limited to less than one percent of priests
and showing that Protestant clergy are more than twice as likely to
abuse. No abuse is excusable, and zero tolerance is the best
policy for the Church, but many media persist in focusing most where
abuse occurs least.”
It is both the percentage and the number of predators present,
not just the number of children in the classrooms that accounts for the
horrific level of abuse in our public schools. The operational
word in my original article is “percent.”Let me say it another way. According to the study, if you had 100 teachers in a room, four of the 100 would be abusers. According to the study, if you had 100 Protestant clergy in a room, two of the 100 would be abusers. According to the study, if you had 100 priests in a room, fewer than one of the 100 would be an abuser. The number of abused children is much, much greater in public school classrooms, but it is not merely because there are many more children there. It is because there are more predators there, too, both as a higher percentage of faculty and as a higher total number of predators. What is alarming to objective observers is that the media obsession with the Church scandal focuses most where abuse occurs least, meaning insufficient attention is being addressed to an equally appalling if not more monstrous evil in the schools, effectively covering up a far more widespread and heinous scandal. A study by Virginia Commonwealth University researcher Charol Shakeshaft reported by Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center found 290,000 students were sexually abused in American public schools between 1991 and 2000. “Worse yet, studies indicate that 40 percent to 60 percent of sexual abuse takes place within families — often at the hands of second husbands or live-in boyfriends. Throughout the world, children seem to be the principal victims of lawlessness, wanton cruelty, the sexual revolution, and the hookup culture that treats sex as a contact sport in which everyone of any age is a potential player.” Sensationalism always distracts both journalists and the public away from urgent needs in their own backyard. 4. Objection number four: “Zero tolerance for sure – and it should have come
2000 years ago.” Agreed. That sentiment summarizes the thoughts and feelings of everyone. When the early Church emerged from the catacombs, was allowed to function openly, and began to grow around the world, its governance modeled itself after the royal court system common at the time. Even today some Church rituals and attire and practices and titles are traceable to that system of governance. For example, a cardinal is called a “prince of the Church.” As Pope John XXIII reminded us, that system can foster aloofness or even pretentiousness instead of the Christlike humility and openness so necessary for effective spiritual leadership. Aloofness and pretentiousness encourage unhealthy habits of secrecy and excessive concern for public opinion bordering on institutional narcissism. All of us, from pope to pauper, battle each day against what classical theology tells us are seven ever-present human weaknesses: lust, greed, pride, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. It is evident throughout Scripture, markedly in the Acts of the Apostles and in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Ordination to the priesthood conveys sacramental powers exercised in the Eucharist and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but does not make the priest impervious to temptation in those seven areas of weakness and does not give the priest a pleasant personality or administration acumen or teaching skills or eloquence or even personal holiness. Like everyone else, the priest must work to acquire those positive attributes. Like everyone else, the priest sometimes fails. “Far more than the public schools,” reports George Weigel, distinguished senior fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, “far more than the teachers’ unions, far more than other organizations that regularly work with young people, and far more than countries that turn a blind eye on sex trafficking and childhood prostitution, the Catholic Church has addressed what Pope Benedict XVI has called the ‘filth’ in its own house. One institution has acknowledged its grave failures in the past. One institution has brought perpetrators of abuse to book. That institution is the Catholic Church. Catholicism has cleaned house in America, where the Church is likely the country’s safest environment for young people today. There were six credible cases of abuse reported in 2009, six too many, but remarkably low in a community of 68 million members.” Now the Church is rooting out perpetrators in other nations. Perhaps this crisis will engender a healthier attitude toward the Church and ministry, one described eloquently by author John Keller in Ministering to Alcoholics: “It is important for us to grow in awareness of the realities of our own estrangement and the sufficiency of God’s grace. The story is told of the retired pastor who, looking back upon his ministry, divided it into three phases. In the first phase, the people were in the river and he was on the bank telling them how to get out of the water and up on the bank where he was. In the second phase, he was on the edge of the bank reaching down and out to help the people get up on the bank where he was. In the third phase, the phase of real wisdom and understanding, he ministered with the realization that he was in the river with the people, they were holding him up, he was holding them up, and underneath them all were the everlasting arms of God.” — John Gile |
Original article: Good news for our priests on PBS
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