Eugene Robinson, an editorial page writer for the Washington Post, recently wrote that “practically every day, there are new revelations of pedophile priests having been transferred to other parishes rather than being defrocked and reported to authorities.” A statement that was factually wrong.
It would have been more accurate to say that every day there are old revelations of molesting priests, most of whom were homosexuals. What Robinson did was to feed the prevailing anti-Catholic frenzy. No wonder there are those like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Frances Kissling who want the pope arrested—they wallow in dirt about the Catholic Church, and draw on people like Robinson to support their hatred.
Unlike the scandal of 2002, which was based on honest reporting of current cases of abuse, as well as previous ones, this time around it’s been a media-driven scandal of old cases being trotted out to embarrass the Catholic Church. The fact that the media have absolutely no interest in uncovering the history of sexual abuse in other religious and secular circles speaks volumes.
