What is a "no truth”? A no truth is when factual information is provided however there is the elimination of elements of that factual information in order for the reporters to skew information so people see what the reporter wants them to see. In other words, they don’t want to tell the whole story because they know their readers will form an opinion other than what they want. The Catholic scandal is consistently in the “no truth” department when it comes to the MSM, however, the New York Times likes to take it to that fine line of no truth and lies.
Here are highlights from a WalStreet Journal article by William McGurn published in the opinion section on 4-6-2010:
(T)he front page (of the New York Times) carries a story headlined "Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Deaf Boys," …..
Written by Laurie Goodstein and published March 25, the thrust is twofold. First, that the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, a priest who abused children at St. John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee from the 1950s to the 1970s, went unpunished. Father Murphy, she wrote categorically, "was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system."
Ms. Goodstein would know that this isn’t true if she disclosed all the paperwork associated with this case. However, she picked and chose what to report in order to tell the ‘no truth’.
First of all, let’s deal with the attorney’s who advised her on the story. Ms. Goodstein neglected to mention the connection Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan have to this case. This should have been important considering they were the ones who provided the documentation that the NY Times is proudly displaying on their website, minus the information that shows they are lying, of course. So who are these two men?
When it comes to suing the church, (Jeff Anderson) is America’s leading plaintiffs attorney. Back in 2002, he told the Associated Press that he’d won more than $60 million in settlements from the church, and he once boasted to a Twin Cities weekly that he’s "suing the s–t out of them everywhere." Nor did the Times report another salient fact about Mr. Anderson: He’s now trying to sue the Vatican in U.S. federal court….They (Anderson and Finnegan) are described as "lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee."….
(When Ms. Goodstein was) Asked about the omissions in an email, Ms. Goodstein replied as follows: "Given the complexity of the Murphy case, and the relative brevity of my story, I don’t think it is realistic for you to expect this story to get into treating other cases that these attorneys have handled."
So, it is fair to say that the more scandalous the story is, the richer these attorney’s become. The readers deserve to know where the information comes from. Martin Nussbaum, an attorney who had defended that Catholic Church in court provided Ms. Goodstein with 4 letters from Bishops that did not make it into her story nor on the NY Times website.
In fact, the letters from these bishops—three in 1993 and one in 1995, after fresh allegations of Murphy’s misconduct—variously informed the priest that he was not to celebrate the
sacraments in public, not to have any unsupervised contact with minors, and not to work in any parish religious education program.
It’s accurate to say Murphy was never convicted by a church tribunal. It’s also reasonable to argue (as I would) that Murphy should have been disciplined more. It is untrue, however, to suggest he was "never" disciplined. When asked if she knew of these letters, Ms. Goodstein did not directly answer, saying her focus was on what was "new," i.e., "the attempts by those same bishops to have Father Murphy laicized."
As for Rome, it did not get the case until 1996, when the archdiocese of Milwaukee informed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Back then, the CDF handled abuse cases when they involved a breach of confession (Murphy was accused of using the confessional to solicit boys). At that time, too, the only real option for reducing Murphy to the lay state was a church trial. And the bishops in Wisconsin did begin a trial……
A few years later, when the CDF assumed authority over all abuse cases, Cardinal Ratzinger implemented changes that allowed for direct administrative action instead of trials that often took years. Roughly 60% of priests accused of sexual abuse were handled this way. The man who is now pope reopened cases that had been closed; did more than anyone to process cases and hold abusers accountable; and became the first pope to meet with victims.
Everything about the Murphy case reeks and it deserves to be reported. However trying to focus on the Pope and blaming him his Yellow Journalism at it’s best. The current Pope has done more than anyone else to change the policies of the Church to stop the cover ups and to allow justice to prevail. Instead of focusing on that, Ms. Goodstein and her follow yellow journalists have decided to tell no truths in order to make the Pope look bad. They should be focusing on the Diocese that took more than 2 decades before information the Vatican of the problem and suspending Murphy of his priestly duties. They should be focusing on the way the Catholic Church worked at a snails pace when it came to these priests. However, that would be accurate reporting which is something we don’t have in America anymore.
Hat Tip: Dear Ol’ Dad
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