Media coverage reflections...

 

 

Thanks to Rob for his commentary and juxtaposition of the Clark Hoyt “Questioning the Pope” (The New York Times, April 24) and Ross Douthat’s “The Pontiff and the Press” (The New York Times, April 21). As is the case with Rob, I am not surprised by the Hoyt piece’s conclusion.

I have stated in the past that sexual abuse of and sexual misconduct with children by anyone is sinful and probably criminal. I also find that the media often do provide an important service to the public by bringing to our attention this plague so that it can be stopped. Most members of the Church have learned some hard lessons in this regard, and I think we’ll be learning some more in the future. But I also hope that the rest of society, including the media, will learn that no one can victimize anyone else, especially children and pretend that these sins and crimes never happened.

Having said this, I think Mr. Hoyt and those who agree with him on the focus of his article need to be asked some additional questions. One of them concerns the role of plaintiffs’ counsels in trying cases in the media—or, more accurately, turning over sensitive documents (probably from discovery) to reporters and other media representatives who may not understand the context or the language in which they are written. This has happened before, and I think it likely to happen again. This is a matter—a grave problem in my estimation—that he quickly dismisses.

Elsewhere, Mr. Hoyt raises a good and obvious question presented by others: “why it (the Times) isn’t giving equal effort to sex abuse in public schools, or in other religions”? But he avoids answering the question he poses, and instead he contends that “it would be irresponsible to ignore the continuing revelations.” It seems that these “continuing revelations” only involve Catholics. I would suggest that, in addition to what happened in cases involving Catholics and sexual abuse and sexual misconduct, it would be irresponsible to ignore the continuing revelations from sources such as the Department of Education’s 2004 report [Download US Dept of Education Educator Sexual Misconduct] synthesizing literature on educator sexual misconduct that include by extend beyond the Church. Tragically, what this report contains is about the present day and the victimization of young people that Mr. Hoyt’s remark dismisses.

His journal, The New York Times, and the Church sometimes share the same or similar perspectives on important issues. However, there are other occasions when the two do not because of different values or different motivations. For example, during the Second World War, the Times praised the efforts of Pope Pius XII; however, in the late 1990s, this influential member of the media ignore its past reporting and was vocal in its criticism of Papa Pacelli without taking stock of what it had said of him a half century earlier. Why, I ask? New values?

On another front, the Times, while generally complimentary of Paul VI’s October 1965 address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, had to criticize him in an editorial published shortly after the pope’s UN intervention by calling the pope’s concerns about artificial birth control “an unnecessarily narrow, old-fashioned interpretation of natural law doctrine.” I, and I know many others, did not then and do not now find Paul VI’s words to be “unnecessarily narrow” or “an old-fashioned interpretation of natural law doctrine.” But, how to explain the disagreement with the Times? A different set of values, perhaps—the pope’s based on the foundation of an objective moral order; and the Times’, well, some other source, I gather.

I hope I am wrong, but I see accumulating evidence that this gulf between the Church’s teachings and the values will continue to grow with the positions of some in the influential media outlets. Should the gulf of values continue to expand, I pray that the Church and her members will stay to serve as counterpoints to the views and values of a contemporary culture that condemn only some sins and crimes but not all others.

 

RJA sj