UPDATE: John Jay report: Catholic press gets no respect from USCCB
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
By Bryan Cones
Comments (17)
UPDATE: Thanks to Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service for pointing out that David Gibson got a leaked copy of the report (and so presumably did Laurie Goodstein of The Times). You can check out his comment below. Still, I think the point stands that the bishops would do better--whether officially or through back channels--to see the Catholic media as the place even bad news should go.
Amazing: Catholic News Service stories on the John Jay report are embargoed until 2 PM Eastern, but Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times and David Gibson of Religion News Service get pre-release copies. Journalists for Catholic pubs get to wait.
I complained about this re: the sex abuse crisis at the last meeting of the Catholic Press Association. Bishops didn't trust their own journalists to handle the crisis, so it was left to a far less sympathetic Boston Globe. Had the bishops trusted Catholic journalists to cover the crisis fairly in the pages of diocesan newspapers and magazines, the damage may not have been as great.
We who work in Catholic journalism are serious about both our craft and our church. We should at least have the same crack at information that our colleagues in the secular press get when covering what is important to us both as professionals and people of faith.
Posted in: In preview mode
Oh Good Grief
By ex Catholic (not verified) on Thursday, May 19, 2011Lets get one thing perfectly clear:
There are heterosexual sexual preditors.
There are bisexual sexual preditors.
There are homosexual sexual preditors.
There are heterosexual priests.
There are bisexual sexual priests.
There are homosexual sexual priests.
And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Absolutely nothing. But it has everything to do with red herrings.
What is not a red herring is that this study assidiously stays away from the true cause of all this: The inaction, denial and evasions of Cardinals and Bishops. Period, full stop.
This study is the Bishops once again saying:
"Look at all that we are doing to solve this problem!!" -as they throw out elaborate red herrings and crank up their smoke screen.
For what it's worth, neither
By Kevin Eckstrom (not verified) on Thursday, May 19, 2011For what it's worth, neither RNS nor David Gibson were given a "pre-release" copy of the report from the USCCB. We weren't given anything under embargo. David was leaked a copy of the report by a church leader (and I have no idea who that was), but we weren't given an official version earlier than anyone else.
Cheers,
Kevin Eckstrom / Religion News Service
Thanks, Kevin
By Bryan Cones on Thursday, May 19, 2011. . . for correcting my factual error. A little inside baseball here, but I've been complaining for some time that the US bishops don't trust Catholic media, when we are in some ways better equipped (and in some ways less well equipped) to handle and make available this kind of material.
Sympathy? Damage?
By ScottNY (not verified) on Thursday, May 19, 2011How about sympathy for the VICTIMS? How about the damage done to the VICTIMS? Screw the church and its financed by bishops report. There is NO excuse for any of this. NONE. People in any sort of power have no excuse for taking advantage of anyone at any age especially entrusted spiritual leaders. Whiny press morons worried about how your handlers will perceive your delivery of the news that the swinging sixties made priests-straight priests-act out.
"Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive of children; organized religion ought to have a lot on its conscience."
You all know who's quote that is.
I do not. So it carries no
By Anonymous (not verified) on Thursday, May 19, 2011I do not. So it carries no weight with me.
Who is Christopher Hitchens?
By Anonymous (not verified) on Friday, May 20, 2011Who is Christopher Hitchens?
Maybe they're finally learning PR
By Anonymous (not verified) on Wednesday, May 18, 2011I just read it in the New York Times: "1960's Culture Cited as Cause of Priest Abuse".
As much as I'd like to agree with you Bryan maybe the Church is finally getting something right by going to the secular media before Catholic media as they should have gone to civil law enforcement before canon lawyers when predator priests were discovered.
The study's findings that the abuse was caused by the 60's and celibacy has nothing to do with it won't make liberals happy but neither will its finding that gay priests didn't cause it. The "get rid of the gays and everything will be fine" chant of conservatives doesn't wash according to the study. It says that after gays who entered seminaries "in large numbers" in the 70's entered the priesthood in the mid-80's reports of clergy abuse began to level off and decreased as more came along. In a weird reprise of Church statements it puts the age of prepubescent children as 10 and under reducing the percentage of child victims to "only" 22%. The American Psychiatric Association classifies prepubescent children as 13 or younger. As the father of two teenage boys and a tween girl I'd say that's closer to the truth. None of my kids at 10 were anything other than prepubescent.
None of this is really a surprise. It's what the bishops have been saying all along. What is really concerning is that the study says it's impossible for the Church or anyone to identify predator priests in advance, that they don't show any characteristics that differ from non-abusing priests. It's concerning because it seems to say that the much bally-hooed increased screening of candidates to the priesthood won't help.
The study seems to say that the only thing that will reduce the number of predator priests is increasing distance from the 60's, a perfect way to say we should put the whole thing in the past along with our love beads.
Blaming it on Woodstock...
By Bryan Cones on Wednesday, May 18, 2011I'm not totally surprised by any of the findings either, and I actually think we have the 70s to thank for the uptick in reports of child sexual abuse; in other words I don't think there was any change in behavior, just a sudden change in the ability and willingness of victims to come forward. I'll bet that's about the same time as reports of other sexual crimes (rape, for example) began for the same reason--a shift in the culture that made it possible for victims to come forward, although the majority of these crimes still go unreported.
My beef w the bishops is that they don't see Catholic media as part of the solution to their "PR" problem. I think if they gave Catholic pubs--their own diocesan pubs and national pubs like USC--the same information and let us do our jobs without censoring, etc., the sex abuse crisis would have been a different reality. Instead of secular journalists having to wring it out of bishops (and thank God they did), the church's own journalists would have been reporting it. What the bishops lack is transparency, and transparency is one of the main values of journalism, including Catholic journalism.
I agree that the 70's allowed
By Anonymous (not verified) on Wednesday, May 18, 2011I agree that the 70's allowed more victims to come forward. I agree that abuse has no doubt been going on since the beginning of the Church.
I disagree that Catholic media would have broken the story about the rape/abuse/cover up, at least not as thoroughly as the secular media. Catholic media will always have some element of conflict of interest with the Church that secular media doesn't. I think this is why so many conservative Catholics in particular can't stand secular media and see it as out to get the Church. Every time I read "Enemies of the Church" I know it's coming from a conservative. They would only be satisfied with a Catholic-friendly news source that put things "in perspective". Posters on this site are examples.
I agree that the bishops should give Catholic pubs everything they need including free snacks and drink specials.
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