This is the article that appeared in the July/August 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.
Whenever there is a whiff of bad news about the Catholic Church, the mainstream media never miss a beat in reporting it. But when there is good news, they go mute. The latest example is the news about the almost complete eradication of clergy sexual abuse. Not one secular media outlet in the United States ran a story on this issue.
Every year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issues an annual report on clergy sexual abuse.
The 2023 report, which covered allegations made between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023, found that there were 1,308 allegations involving 17 current year minors. Four of the allegations were made by males and 11 by females; 2 were listed as unknown. Of the 17, only 3 were substantiated.
During this period, there were 47,987 members of the clergy. This means that 0.006 percent of them had a substantiated case of sexual abuse made against him by a minor. Of the accused, 91 percent are either dead or have been kicked out of ministry.
If there had been a sharp uptick in the number of cases, such a story would have been picked up by the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, PBS, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC—and every left-wing internet and social media site.
Shame on journalists and the talking heads for the total media blackout. Their bias is palpable.
