There was a very interesting review in the National Catholic Register, in which the author came down fairly hard on Rose. Rose responded, and the reviewer responded to Rose.
I was left with the very uncomfortable feeling in reading “Goodby Good Men” that Rose had an agenda. By this, I mean that rather than acting as a reporter, digging up the facts and letting the reader decide how bad “bad” is, he was intending to focus on the emotional and do it in a very polemical fashion. He had numerous statements by individuals whose identity he chose to protect, with little or no evidence independent of the statements to back them up. This makes it somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible to verify the statements he reports.
I do not presume that Mr. Rose is untruthful, but I do know that it is possible to report what someone said without getting corroborating information. If that individual was less than truthful or was skewing the truth either for an ideological end or because they only saw things in a certain way, it leaves the reader frustrated, not knowing if he has been told the truth, or a lie, or something even more dangerous - a partial truth.
Most of Mr. Rose’s writing tends toward the inflamatory and polemical in this book. The critique in the Register particularly focused on the depth, or lack of depth, of Mr. Rose’s research. Mr. Rose’s response was that it was footnoted; the response back was that did not answer the critique.
He also focused a tremendous amount on some of the issues, and where there had been a change subsequently, his treatment left the reader with the impression that, perhaps the change was only cosmetic, or not lasting, or insincere.
I do not doubt the substance of his work, nor the fact that much of what he wrote about was undoubtedly true. I was left, however, with the impression that his view was somewhat skewed, and that could be reflected in his writing.
I felt that George Weigel’s book on the abuse was much more even handed, much more scholarly, much more reliable, and much more even-handed. I do not like anecdotal evidence that is not backed up by other evidence.
Let me put it another way: I felt, after reading the book, the same way I have felt after listening to an individual going through a divorce; the story is definitely skewed. It is not that it is untruthful as in a deliberate lie, but I definitely have been told a story by an individual who feels they have been wronged tremendously, and see themselves as the innocent victim. I have no dobut they are the victim, but I also know that they see it only one way. The truth is usually a bit more than their story.
