The Catholic League on the investigation in Ireland:

http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1616

Thanks to Scooby who posted this on the Syracuse forum. I'd be interested in knowing others' responses to this report, and to the Catholic League's response.

Any takers?

comment even though I am not a Roman Catholic?

If so, I think the abuse was terrible.

I also agree with Herald Angel from the Syracuse Forum. Something I think the man from the Catholic league should just shut up.

First, there's no question that the abuse cases, of whatever severity, are awful.

Second, there's no question that the Catholic League is right that the media unfairly and unjustly amplifies the problem to be sensationalistic.

People rightly observe, however, that the Catholic League seems to be working to minimize the church's culpability at a moment when self-reflection and some mea culpas would be more humane.

On the other hand, if the data really shows what Donahoe says it does, that 12% of the cases were rape, and that 12% of the perpetrators were priests, that means that around 1.5% of the abuse cases reported were of priests raping children.

It's needless to say that this is hardly a "tolerable margin." It's sickening, and certainly nothing to crow about.

But it's also true that the way things get reported, the headline will read "Irish priests guilty of rape, report says," while the text of the story will say that the study uncovered 10,000 cases of abuse, never bothering to clarify that they do not mean 10,000 cases of priests raping children (but more like 150).

So the headline and general media coverage is unduly anti-Catholic and unjust to the church and to priests, misleading the public and fueling anti-Catholic bigotry by withholding key information and by refusing to clarify the data they pass on, as we've come to expect in every bit of reporting on the church. Conversely, while the Catholic League puts out some salient data, it comes across as more an apologist for crimes against children by offering its "rebuttal" so quickly and so forcefully.

So here's where it gets a bit meta. The mainstream media has so often betrayed Catholics and so often unjustly and unfairly attacked the church that Catholics have become reasonably suspicious of any negative reporting they do on the church. (The Catholic League provides them with a different "half" of the story, one more comforting and less hostile.) The mainstream media also feeds to virulent bigotry of real bigots like those over on the other forum, people who don't have a fair bone in their bodies and who would never in a million years analyze the data to do justice to those involved, but who would always spin the report to put the church in the worst possible light.

The effect is that the mainstream media has tended to turn Catholicism into something of an armed camp. We find ourselves dreading the release of reports like this NOT because we dread hearing the truth, but because we dread the kind of bigoted half-truths that will get told about our church, and because we dread the truly evil uses that your virulent bigots (again, see other forum) will find for such reports. Ready for attacks by the media and ready for attacks by bigots, we find ourselves on alert.

Does it need to be said that this is NOT the posture for self-reflection or analysis?

Thus, as the media does its usual hatchet job on the faith, it tends in fact to keep Catholics from looking at their church, demanding explanations from it, pursuing change. Were they just to the church, were they more fair and less sensationalistic, the mainstream media might serve the good purpose of inspiring needed reforms and needed contemplation. Instead, they tend to create a siege mentality.

Joe, well put. The media fuctions by tossing gasoline on the extremes. By keeping the fire going they make money. By helping to instiute real change and solve a problem is to put out the fires. They are not going to do that.

This is a no win situation. As an institution, the Irish Catholic Reformatories, were responsible fro 1,200 rapes. The tempting thing to do is to compare this institution to other institutions over the same period of time, secular and religous. Mental institutions, goverment controlled reformatories, ect.... The problem with that is, are we going to feel any better is the incidence of rape per capita in the same time period is the same or slightly lower? When I hear the RC state the number of clergy pedophliles is the same as the general populace, I want to throw up.

On the other hand, I understand perfectly well the point Joe is making. There is a general assult on the Catholic Faith and all Christianity for that matter. The best we can do is walk the tight rope and point to the truth.

in every thing he said. I'm not a big fan of Bill Donohue, and agree with HeralAngel, sometimes this guy should just keep his mouth shut. No matter what the facts and figures are, he seems to be trying to explain it away. I think it would be better to say, "yes it happen, we apologize". Does this mean it was any worse in public institutions, absolutely not. But it is my opinion that the Catholic church will never win a war (and I don't think there should be one in this case) with the media, they are just too biased.

The instances of abuse were/are much higher in public education but as I've seen in the past, if you bring this up, you are seen as trying to excuse it away.

The instances of abuse were/are much higher in public education but as I've seen in the past, if you bring this up, you are seen as trying to excuse it away.

Yes.

One of the things we need to face up to, as Catholics, is that fair or not we're held to a higher standard from an outsider's perspective. Our perception of our church as a "hospital for sinners" is not the perception others have of us. I continue to be amazed, actually, by just how much time is spent by the media of the (fading, unpopulous, irrelevant) RCC. My sense is often that people are looking for reasons not to believe in Christianity, which is still symbolized to them in some way by the RCC. So every flaw will be magnified in the press.

It reminds me of the way that Americans beat themselves up, and get beaten up, for, say torture incidents, when in comparison to the rest of the world we're hardly the worst of the lot. But it's kind of like what I say to my kids: I don't care if the other kids are all flaking off and cheating and you think you should get praise for cheating less: I expect better of you.

It's not wrong of us to expect better of our church, or of our country, for the matter. We set the bar high, so failure on our part will come across as hypocrisy. Fair? Perhaps, no, but to me it makes sense.

I think the report from the Catholic League can be useful to Catholics to help put things into perspective, so we know what reality we're facing, and what we're not. It's fairly useless in the wider public-forum, because it does sound like excuse making. I think we need to resist the posture of defensiveness. An exchange I just read comes to mind: a preacher asks a parishioner how he is, and the parishioner responds, "Fine, under the circumstances." The peracher then asks,"what's a Christian doing under the circumstances inthe first place." We need to step back, and take a deep breath--criticism of the church isn't going anywhere: we'll continue to be a lightning rod.