The August edition of Jane magazine—out on newsstands this week—features a satirical article about how people can use the same tactics as pedophile priests to have casual sex. Titled, “How to get laid like a priest,” the article contains a disclaimer that asserts it is targeting only pedophile priests, not the Church in general. The accompanying photographs show a storefront and a display counter of a sex shop that have Catholic imagery added, including a priest blow-up doll. Catholic League president William Donohue commented on the article today:
“Despite the disclaimer, the article, written by Jeffrey Johnson, is nothing short of an attack on the Catholic faith. Holy Communion, Confession, Baptism and celibacy are all targeted for ridicule. Of Our Blessed Mother he writes, ‘The Bible is full of stuff about seas parting, water turning into wine and women getting pregnant without penetration—topics that, if mentioned on daytime TV, would get you taunted by the audience.’ He describes the crucifix as an image ‘of a nude bearded dude nailed to a couple of pieces of driftwood.’ None of this has anything to do with pedophile priests.
“Indeed, if Jane wanted to satirize the scandal in the Church, it could have done so by attacking homosexual priests who are responsible for 82% of the cases. But that would have evoked cries of homophobia from those in the social pages where editor-in-chief Jane Pratt can usually be found. Instead, Johnson seizes on the few cases of pedophilia and uses them as a guise to attack the entire Church.
“Johnson writes in the disclaimer that pedophile priests are ‘the scum of the universe.’ We agree with that assessment. But the rare cases of pedophilia in the priesthood don’t give Jane a license to attack the tenets of the Catholic Church.”
