Bill Donohue of the Catholic League: NOT just one dude with a computer
Creepy douchebag Bill Donohue, professional crank and self-appointed defender of the faith, gets a lot of air time on the major networks and prime op-ed space to complain about the usual crap far-right Christian supremacists decry: gay people, “secular Jews” controlling Hollywood, pro-choice politicians and the hideous oppression Christians are forced to endure in a country relentlessly dominated by their co-religionists.
With Princess and the Pea-like sensitivity, Donohue pores over news articles, opinion pieces, movie scripts, comedy routines, art exhibitions, etc., in search of perceived insults against Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular. He generally produces comic results, as in his semi-famous kerfluffle with comedian Kathy Griffin.
But Donohue’s latest effort to blunt criticism of the Catholic Church as its pedophilia scandal spirals out of control worldwide isn’t funny at all. In fact, it’s the most despicable thing I’ve read in years—and Jesus, Mary and Joseph, people, I occasionally read Free Republic and transcripts from Rush Limbaugh’s show.
Here’s the lede of a Donohue opinion piece currently (and inexcusably) front-paged at CNN:
The rash of stories about priestly sexual abuse in Europe, especially in Ireland and Germany, has put many Catholics on the defensive. They should not be. While sexual molestation of any kind is always indefensible, the politics surrounding this story is also indefensible.
Employers from every walk of life, in both the U.S. and Europe, have long handled cases of alleged sex abuse by employees as an internal matter. Rarely have employers called the cops, and none was required to do so.
Though this is starting to change, any discussion of employee sexual abuse that took place 30 and 40 years ago must acknowledge this reality. Thus it hardly comes as a surprise that Cardinal Sean Brady in Ireland did not summon the authorities about a case involving a priest in the 1970s. What is surprising is why some are now indicting him, acting as if his response was the exception to the rule.
Got that? Donohue is equating child rape to incidents of workplace sexual abuse. And he’s lying about the legality of it, since child rape was certainly illegal and those who covered it up were subject to prosecution even back in the 70s.
Let’s be clear what’s at issue here. Cardinal Sean Brady, now the top church official in Ireland, investigated abuse claims in 1975, interviewing a 10-year-old and 14-year-old, whom he outrageously required to sign an oath of silence.
Brady not only failed to call the cops when he heard the children’s horrifying accounts of rape by a parish priest, he stood by as the Catholic Church shifted the pedophile priest from parish to parish worldwide, where he went on to rape dozens of other children in Ireland, the UK and the US—allegedly 90 kids in all. The pedophile priest, Brendan Smyth, eventually pleaded guilty to 74 counts of sexual abuse and died in prison. And that’s just one incident. There are others.
Now, most human beings would be appalled and saddened to find that their church had been functioning as a child rapist-protection agency for decades (contra Donohue, the priest-shuffling in Ireland continued until 2004 at least). Indeed, they might even be on the “defensive.” The Catholics I know—good people all—are outraged by these horrifying revelations and are demanding answers and accountability, if they’re not leaving their church in disgust.
But not Bill Donohue. To him, the real outrage isn’t priests buggering children on a global scale while the church hierarchy covers it up. To Donohue, the outrage is that some have the temerity to single the Catholic Church out for criticism, an act Donohue has the fucking unmitigated gall to label “immoral.”
The hyper-concentration on the Catholic Church is not by accident. The Church preaches an ethic of sexual restraint—a profoundly countercultural idea—so when a priest fails, it’s tempting to highlight it. Human nature being what it is, that’s understandable. But it’s also immoral. Quite frankly, if sexual abuse is wrong, it should not matter what the identity of the abuser is. Selective justice is the highest form of injustice.
As everyone—including the freaking Pope—has admitted, the pedophile priests scandal isn’t just about individual acts of abuse—it’s about an organized effort to cover it up and force raped children and their families to remain silent. While there’s room for debate on how to address it, there can be no argument that not only were terrible crimes committed, they were compounded by the church’s handling of the incidents, which suggests it was more concerned about protecting its reputation than preventing future crimes.
The Pope admits this, even if Donohue—outrageously—does not. I think it’s time for conservative Catholics and officials to disown this pedophile priest-protection racket apologist.
In responding to Donohue’s freak-out over her “Suck it, Jesus!” Emmy speech, Kathy Griffin noted that the Catholic League is “one dude with a computer.” She’s mostly right, as it is generally Donohue alone who appears on TV and in print to gin up outrage rather than imaginary “legions.”
However, the Catholic League is an organization with identifiable members, including prominent conservatives Brent Bozell, Linda Chavez, Dinesh D’Souza, Alan Keyes and Kate O’Beirne. Are they cool with equating child rape with sexual abuse in corporate America?
And how about the media outlets like CNN and MSNBC who give this crass, raving loony a platform? Are they cool with providing a microphone for Donohue to denounce critics of organized child rape as “immoral” while making excuses for a hierarchy that even the Pope (whose hands are by no means clean in this matter) admits behaved abominably? If not, maybe now would be a good time to kick this cretin to the curb. In fact, it’s long past time.
Posted by Betty Cracker on 03/20/10 at 09:16 AM • Permalink
Categories: News • Politics • Bedwetters • Nutters • Our Stupid Media • Relijun •
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