Sad, Disturbing News Reporting

Looking for thorough analysis from the news media today may be expecting too much -- the resources for newsroom budgets being what they are.  However, what might be an unrealistic expectation is almost an ontological impossibility where the news involves the Catholic Church in general and the Holy See in particular.

 

A recent story in the New York Times by Laurie Goodstein and Michael Luo entitled “Pope Put Off Punishing Abusive Priest” (here) which Michael P. linked to on MOJ under the provocative “Sad, disturbing news” (here) is a case in point.

 

The article attempts to paint of picture of a recalcitrant Vatican official, Joseph Ratzinger, who as head of the CDF approached the problem of pedophile priests with "little urgency" notwithstanding the "pleas from American bishops." 

It is somewhat surprising to see an American bishop portrayed so favorably where clergy sexual abuse is involved, but where the current Pope is also involved, the media’s prospective seems to change.

 The story concerns a 1985 letter by Ratzinger to Oakland Bishop John Cummins recently leaked by plaintiffs’ attorney Jeff Anderson.

 

The story does at least acknowledge the comments of Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J., who "said it was wrong to draw conclusions based on one letter without carefully understanding the context in which it was written" and quotes Lombardi as saying that "It's evident that it's [i.e. the use of the leaked document by plaintiffs' attorneys in the news media] not an in-depth and serious use of documents."

 

But then Goodstein and Luo proceed not to seek to discover the context for a proper understanding of the documents.  Although Lombardi’s comments would seem to challenge the journalists to provide “an in-depth and serious use of documents” they seem content with something less.  They seem content to report that Ratzinger’s decision to laicize former Oakland priest Stephen Kiesle “did not come for two more years, the sort of delay that is fueling a renewed sexual abuse scandal in the church that has focused on whether the future pope moved quickly enough to remove known pedophile priests from the priesthood, despite pleas from American bishops.”

 

Sometimes, it seems, to get the kind of analysis about the Church that one would hope to receive from the news media, one has to instead turn to . . . well, the Church, or part of the body that is the Church.  For just such an analysis I would recommend that MOJ readers see Rev. Joseph Fessio, S.J.’s comments here.

 

As Father Fessio notes the premise that “defrocking” Kiesle had “anything to do with protecting victims and preventing further abuse” is “completely mistaken.”  Indeed, where serious sins like Kiesle’s are involved nothing “at all prevents a bishop from: removing a priest from all ministry; removing his faculties; reporting him to civil authorities.”

Oakland’s Bishop Cummins had already taken or should have taken these steps.  Sadly “the priest in question continued to abuse children after he was ‘defrocked’ and had married.”

 As Fessio also makes clear, the letter, which Michael P. says is “sad, disturbing news” “did not mean that Ratzinger was not taking the priest’s sins seriously” and that “[i]f Ratzinger took part in ‘stall[ing]’ a ‘pedophile case’, the worse that one can say is that the wanted care taken in a canonical trial.”  The right to due process, even for one who as it were, pleads guilty, would seem to be a high concern of the NYT, except where the Church’s ecclesial law is concerned.

 

Phil Lawler’s analysis of the story can be found here, and commentary by Rev. Zuhlsdorf on the initial AP story can be found here.

 

Perhaps to ensure providing the necessary context in her future reports Ms. Goodstein would consider putting Fathers Fessio and Zuhlsdorf’s numbers together with Phil Lawler’s on her Rolodex?