Bill Donohue issued the following remarks today:
There are two scandals going on in Philadelphia, and both involve injustices done to the Catholic Church. One is legal, and the other is journalistic.
The legal scandal involves the prosecution of three Catholic priests, and one Catholic layman, in a case so incredible that it would be turned down as too fictional a script for a TV crime show. The other involves the Philadelphia Inquirer’s decision to keep the public in the dark about this case.
The statement that I wrote was submitted to the Philadelphia Inquirer on May 14, 2013; it was to run as a two-page ad on May 20. On May 15, we were told that a decision was made by those “at the top” not to run it; when we asked for an explanation, we were told there would be none.
By turning down the ad, the newspaper forfeited $58,000, not an insignificant sum, especially for a paper that filed for bankruptcy in 2009. It suggests that those “at the top” would rather forego the money before ever disseminating a defense about the way three Catholic priests, and one Catholic layman, were treated in court.
One of the reasons why these Catholic men were treated so unjustly is the failure of the Philadelphia media, led by the Inquirer, to raise serious questions about what happened.
The Inquirer can stop us from running this statement as an ad in its newspaper, but it cannot stop us from blanketing the print and electronic media in Philadelphia and Harrisburg. Nor can it stop us from getting it into the hands of every parish in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. We are also going national with this story.
To read the ad that the Inquirer does not want you to read, click here.
Contact Philly Inquirer exec. ed. Stan Wischnowski: swischnowski@phillynews.com
