Bill Donohue comments on who is to blame for the government shutdown:
It is important for the bishops to know that the National Catholic Reporter is giving high profile to the pernicious notion that they are to blame for the partial government shutdown. To be specific, on the homepage of the newspaper’s website today, prominently displayed on the top left, is an article by Adele Stan blaming the bishops for the shutdown. It was chosen by the editor of the weekly, Dennis Coday, for publication.
Stan’s attack is so vicious that I wrote a news release about it two days ago, “Radical Leftists Trash Bishops.” I listed five articles blaming the bishops, pointing out that “Adele Stan is leading the pack.” I chose her over the other authors for two reasons: she was the first to start this assault on the bishops; it was also the most inflammatory. It is hardly news that the National Catholic Reporter rejects the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexuality, but it is the height of irresponsibility for its senior editor to feature an article that savages the bishops. That Stan’s screed was first published on a pro-abortion and anti-Catholic website, rhrealitycheck.org, is even more alarming.
As I pointed out on Tuesday, Stan accuses the bishops of wanting to “block access” to “health care for the masses, food for the hungry, and shelter for the homeless.” She charges that “they wouldn’t mind seeing the global economy brought to its knees.” She adds that not only do the bishops discriminate against women, “no bishop ever endured the pain, blood, and terror of a life-threatening labor.”
Stan’s piece is titled, “At Any Cost: How Catholic Bishops Pushed for a Shutdown—and Even a Default—Over Birth Control.” Coday introduced it, saying, “Are bishops to blame for gov’t shutdown?” He should have been more manly: Of course he and the Reporter believe the bishops are to blame. Why else would they float it?
