William Donohue, President of the Catholic League has posted what is most assuredly his most sickening piece to date, no small feat for a man who once said:
“Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.”
But in Straight Talk About The Catholic Church Donohue sets about spinning the Catholic Church’s record on child molestation and harboring of pedophile Priests. And this piece has it all. It’s a virtual word salad of excuse-making and finger-pointing.
Also, no one got raped.They’re just a bunch of old cases:
80 percent of the cases of alleged abuse involve incidences that occurred before 2000.
And it was just Priests who got all caught up in that sexual revolution that we tried to warn you about:
most of the abuse occurred during the heyday of the sexual revolution, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s.
There’s obfuscation, the Church is the real victim, “because too often bishops have been quick to settle” they encourage fraud:
When $225,000 is dished out to a Michigan man who claims he was abused in the 1950s by a priest who died in 1983-and the diocese admits the accusation is unsubstantiated-it encourages fraud.
There’s antisemitism, of course, that’s a favorite topic for Donohue:
Why are priests being singled out when the sexual abuse of minors among other segments of the population is on-going today? …there has been a slew of stories over the past few years detailing the extent of this problem in the Orthodox Jewish community; some rabbis still insist that sexual abuse cases should be handled internally.
And those pop psychologists, it’s their fault we shuttled Priests from parish to parish, from country to country:
How often has the Church been ripped for following the advice of psychiatrists who thought they could “fix” molesters?
We didn’t know what the law was:
Mandatory reporting of sexual crimes is not uniform in law or practice. In New York State, several attempts to blanket the clergy and other professionals have been met with resistance.
Once again, the Church is the victim:
What accounts for the relentless attacks on the Church? Let’s face it: if its teachings were pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and pro-women clergy, the dogs would have been called off years ago.
Don’t forget those cursed, heathen comedians:
The assault on priests as child abusers has become a staple in the arsenal of Jay Leno, Bill Maher, Denis Leary, George Lopez, “The View” panelists, and others.
Besides, isn’t that Joy Behar Jewish?
But the pièce de résistance comes here:
The refrain that child rape is a reality in the Church is twice wrong: let’s get it straight-they weren’t children and they weren’t raped. We know from the John Jay study that most of the victims have been adolescents, and that the most common abuse has been inappropriate touching (inexcusable though this is, it is not rape). The Boston Globe correctly said of the John Jay report that “more than three-quarters of the victims were post pubescent, meaning the abuse did not meet the clinical definition of pedophilia.” In other words, the issue is homosexuality, not pedophilia.When the National Review Board, a group of notable Catholics, issued its study in 2004, the team’s chief, attorney Robert S. Bennett, said that “any evaluation of the causes and context of the current crisis must be cognizant of the fact that more than 80 percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual nature.”
Yep. Blame the gays.
He’s been saying this for awhile. Commonweal magazine fact-checked Donohue’s claims about the John Jay study almost a year ago:
First, John Jay researchers did not measure the pubescence of victims. They collected two sets of data about victims. One, the “Cleric Survey,” recorded the victims in the following age groups: 1-7, 8-10, 11-14, and 15-17. Researchers presumed that victims aged 11 to 14 were postpubescent; according to the Cleric Survey, 50.9 percent of victims were aged 11 to 14. That’s why on page 56 of the “Nature and Scope” study the researchers claim that “the majority of alleged victims were postpubescent.” It’s not clear to me why John Jay would make that claim, given that researchers didn’t collect data on victims’ pubescence and that the DSM-IV defines a pedophile as someone with recurrent sexual desires for prepubescent children “generally aged 13 or younger.” The American Pediatric Society actually says that for males the onset of puberty-not its conclusion-usually occurs between the ages of 10 and 14. So why would John Jay presume that victims between 11 and 14 years of age were postpubescent? What’s more, according to the Cleric Survey, nearly 73 percent of victims were 14 or younger.
Words fail. Some people just need to go away. Homophobic rape apologists to the front of the line, please.




24 Comments


WOW!Clearly the problem is the insitution where image is more important than reality. The Catholic Church is great at revisionist history…it has killed more people than the plague. I must admit though, I love their “come back to the church” commercials. If you miss the the good old days when you weren’t raped, come back for more.
Re:And Catholicism doesn’t have a centuries old history of anti-semitism. Nope. Never happened
filed under “whatever”Catholics don’t put any stock in William Donohue and his organization is a hate group. Attempting to put Catholics in that same bag is the intellectual equivalent of judging Baptists after the example of the Westboro crowd.
Ah, well put. It’s the old A is to B as C is to D, soDonohue:Catholics = Phelps:Baptists
Not quiteDonohue is not a priest whereas Phelps is a preacher.
So it would be more like:
The Catholic League is to the Catholic Faith what the Westboro Baptist church is to the Baptist faith.
So it isn’t man:church, it is belief(a):belief(b)
To me the problem isthat the Church doesn’t ever repudiate what he says in their name. Now, I wouldn’t expect them to comment on every remark made by every crank, but this guy has been so high-profile for so long and speaking “for” the Church that the Church in its silence does give the impression that they agree with what he says.
Of course they don’t.Who do you think funds his sleazy little operation? It’s essentially one man and a computer.
Donohue’s Catholic League received over $3 Million in contributions in 2009You can see that for yourself on their most recent IRS Form 990.
In 2009 President Donohue was paid $400,000 in salary and compensation. The VP made about $200,000.
The Catholic League is anything but “one man and a computer”. It is a well-financed organization.
Here is what Church officials say about Donohue’s organization:
Thanks LaurelCan you give me a link to the Edwin O’Brien quote from either the Archdiocese of Baltimore Website or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops?
I’d be happy to address the issue with the archdiocese if you can find an official statement.
This kind of crap is why I left the church when I was 18–and I’ve never missed it for a moment.Moreover, the only reason why most of these cases are “in the past” is because Holy Mother Church was so successful at covering them up for so long. It’s a wonderful legal principle: commit a crime, cover it up for as long as you can, then when it’s discovered whine that you’re being persecuted for something in the past.
The goddamn priest who molested me in high school, then dropped the oh-so-subtle hint that I should kill myself (because I “should have been born a woman,” he said) is still at it, now at a boys’ school in Ohio. Even one such case is horrible, but the Catholic church has paid out more than a billion dollars in settlements and hush money, and there’s no way of knowing how many more cases will come to light–and how many never will. I sincerely hope I live to see this sick, pernicious cult crumble into the dust once and for all.
I agree 100%.The Catholic Church wasted no time firing my friend Father Geoff for speaking from the pulpit in opposition to Prop 8.
But year after year Donohue spouts this kind of bullshit, over and over, and the Catholic Church supports him with money, and never ever repudiates him or asks him to not use the name of the Catholic Church in his organization.
If they want to distance themselves from him, tell me why he has never fended off a trademark infringement lawsuit?
LinkI got those quotes from the Catholic League’s “About” page. Here’s the link.
Oh I see what you’re askingI doubt that this is the sort of comment they’d post on the Archdiocese website. What you’ll probably have to do is contact the Archdiocese and ask them whether they’ve been accurately quotes and if so, whether they still stand behind that statement.
My guess is that Donohue made it up.
He makes a lot of stuff up.
“Catholic” isn’t trademarked,it is a just a word and anyone can use it. It has been co-opted by a lot of groups for that reason.
Why guess?
New York State HAS mandatory reportingfor most professionals, so he is LYING!
Donohue has been endorsed by the USCCB leadershipparticularly Archbishop Dolan of New York who wrote a defence of him and was grateful that Donohue can say things that the Bishops cannot
For all practical purposes, he IS the political voice of the Catholic Leadership in America, particularly the US Catholic Conference of Bishops
A number of Archbishops have endorsed and praised DonohueParticularly Archbishop Dolan of NY, who is USCCB president, as well as 5 other Archbishops.
So , no, Donohue is not at the extreme of the faith, according to the Bishops. He is the median.
They are not silent, LaurelA number of the Archbishops have endorsed him, and Archbishop Dolan has written defences of him and thanked him “for saying things that as a Bishop I cannot say”
Donohue is now mainstream Catholic
From: Washington Independent
Dana LaRocca, here is your answerThere is no denying that the Archbishop of Baltimore approves of Mr. Donohue and his Catholic League.
Thanks LaurelNow I have a new and very interesting project.