Bill Donohue comments on a front-page story in today’s Washington Post about the visit by Pope Francis to the U.S. next month:
Whenever there is a papal visit to the U.S., those with their own political agenda surface, aided and abetted by members of the mainstream media. Want proof? Read today’s piece by Michelle Boorstein (click here) in the Washington Post. It reads more like an op-ed than a news story.
Though there is no institution in the nation—secular or sectarian—that has a better record of combating the sexual abuse of minors than the Catholic Church, one would never know this by reading Boorstein’s article. She drums up one case from Long Island about a guy who says he was abused by a priest decades ago.
What is remarkable about Boorstein is her incurious attitude. She writes of this alleged victim that “the relationship [with the priest] continued until [the accuser] was 20 and broke things off with the priest.” (My italic.) I didn’t know that victims of sexual molestation had “relationships” with their victimizers. Similarly, never does Boorstein question why the alleged victim stayed in his relationship until he was 20-years-old!
“Although new allegations against Catholic clergy members are less frequent,” Boorstein writes, “there are major exceptions.” She then tells us that following a new state law that lifted the statute of limitations for three years, more than 400 claims have been made by alleged victims against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
If she had done her homework, she would have reported that there were exactly two credible accusations made against 39,000 priests for misconduct that occurred in 2014. Does she know of any institution that can match that number? As for the Twin Cities archdiocese, will Boorstein run a story on how many of these claims will also be discarded? Will she run a story on all the innocent priests who have had their names dragged through the mud? Will she do a story on all the rapacious lawyers who are milking their clients?
Contact: michelle.boorstein@washpost.com
