The Catholic Church's Catastrophe--the press and the pope deserve credit for confronting scandal

[anode]

Peggy Noonan’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal

Peggy Noonan is a loyal, observant Catholic, and a conservative columnist in the Wall Street Journal, a paper with a very conservative, Republican readership.

Her recent piece:

“The Catholic Church’s Catastrophe–the press and the pope deserve credit for confronting scandal”.

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303960604575158310656792820.html?mod=djemWMP_h

 

[Dale_M]

its an interesting take on the sex abuse scandals. Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, is saying that the press has been the best friend of the Catholic Church.

Without this pressure—without the famous 2002 Boston Globe Spotlight series with its monumental detailing of the sex abuse scandals in just one state, Massachusetts—the church would most likely have continued to do what it has done for half a century, which is look away, hush up, pay off and transfer.

In fact, the press came late to the story. The mainstream media almost had to be dragged to it. It was there waiting to be told at least by the 1990s, but broadcast news shows and big newspapers weren’t keen to go after it. It would take months or years to report and consume huge amounts of labor, time and money—endless digging through court records, locating victims and victimizers, getting people who don’t want to talk to talk. And after all that, the payoff could be predicted: You’d get slammed by the church as biased, criticized by sincerely disbelieving churchgoers, and maybe get a boycott from a few million Catholics. No one wanted that.

An irony: Non-Catholic members of the media were, in my observation, the least likely to want to go after the story, because they didn’t want to look like they were Catholic-bashing. An irony within the irony: Some journalists didn’t think to go after the story because they really didn’t much like the Catholic Church. Because of this bias, they didn’t see the story as a story. They thought this was how the church always operated. It didn’t register with them that it was a scandal. They didn’t know it was news.

 

[manygift1spirit]

[Noonan] is saying that the press has been the best friend of the Catholic Church.

Back at or before 2002 or so, she has a point (best friend is probably a little journalistic “license”, but her point has been made). At least in the USA, the exposure really lit a fire under some people’s butts to fix some serious issues within the American espiscopate.

George Weigel makes the same point this week: “During the Long Lent [circa 2002], the press played an important role in dragging into the light of day awful things the Church had failed to confront, or had confronted ineptly”

Now that across the board improvements have been made, it would be nice to think that the press still holds such a meritous position. Alas, the events of the last month have proven it folly to think so. Much of the press’s focus on the Church and these issues is both scandalous to the consumers of their reporting and damaging (in the long run) to many press players’ credibility.

Interesting comment she made regarding a different manifestation of anti-Catholicism I had not considered: "An irony within the irony: Some journalists didn’t think to go after the story because they really didn’t much like the Catholic Church. Because of this bias, they didn’t see the story as a story. They thought this was how the church always operated. It didn’t register with them that it was a scandal. They didn’t know it was news.