(International) New York Times With Anti-Christian Bias
The New York Times set firmly on Pope Benedict in its front page coverage of the fallout of the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. Poor journalism with anti-Christian bias.
(Report by LifeSiteNews.com) The New York Times has set its sights firmly on Pope Benedict in its front page coverage of the fallout of the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, which has been reignited in recent weeks and months after revelations of abuse by priests and religious in Ireland and Germany. In recent days the U.S. paper has published a series of articles claiming to have unearthed information personally implicating the pope and/or "top Vatican officials" of having allowed a known child abuser to be put back into pastoral service, and having ignored requests to defrock a known child sex abuser.The Vatican in turn has blasted the NYTimes coverage - claiming in one case that the coverage included no new information that has not already been soundly refuted, and, in another, that the paper had unfairly targeted the pope and the Vatican for having declined to defrock a priest whose alleged crimes had occurred over two decades previous, and who was dying at the time the Vatican was informed about his misdeeds.
At the same time L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said this week that the Times' coverage evidences a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."
"The prevalent tendency in the media is to ignore the facts and stretch interpretations with the aim of spreading the picture of the Catholic Church as the only one responsible for sexual abuse, something which does not correspond to reality," the Vatican newspaper charged.
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The other case that the NYTimes has zeroed in on is the one involving Rev. Peter Hullermann, who was accused of molesting boys in Germany in 1979. The case has received a great deal of attention of the past week, due to the fact that Hullermann was subsequently sent from Essen diocese to the Munich archdiocese, which was then headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, where he was to receive psychological treatment.
While in Munich the priest was returned to active ministry, despite the fact that he still presented a risk to children - a concern that was proven valid as the priest later reoffended. Attempts have been made in recent weeks to connect the decision to allow the priest to continue ministry on the pope. However, thus far the media has been unable to unearth any clear evidence that the pope knew the specifics of Hullermann's crimes, or that he was involved in the decision-making process in his case.
Any effort to put the decision on Benedict has been severely undercut after then-vicar general, Msgr. Gerhard Gruber, publicly stated that he was fully responsible for the decision to transfer Hullermann.
On Thursday, however, the Times ran a story with the headline "Pope Was Told Pedophile Priest Would Get Transfer." That headline was later downgraded to "Memo to Pope Described Transfer of Pedophile Priest," apparently due to the paper's inability to confirm that the pope had been "told" about the priest.
The main piece of evidence that the Times coverage touted as evidence for the pope's role in the decision, is that he was copied on a memo about the issue. "The future Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised of a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have suggested," wrote the Times, "raising fresh questions about his handling of a scandal unfolding under his direct supervision before he rose to the top of the church's hierarchy."
But according to Rev. Lorenz Wolf, the judicial vicar at the Munich archdiocese, the memo was routine and was "unlikely to have landed on the archbishop's desk." The Times reports, however, that Wolf could not "rule out" that the archbishop had seen the memo.
The Vatican also responded rapidly to Thursday's article, observing that it "contains no new information beyond that which the archdiocese has already communicated concerning the then archbishop's knowledge of the situation of Father H."
"The then vicar general, Msgr. Gerhard Gruber, has assumed full responsibility for his own erroneous decision to reassign Father H. to pastoral activity."
According to the Vatican statement, the archdiocese, " rejects any other version of events as mere speculation." We thank John Jalsevec and lifesitenews.com for this report.
Read full story at: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10032612.html Related stories on NYTimes bias on LifeSiteNews.com: BBC, NY Times and Guardian Appear to Have Stage-Managed Muslim Anti-Pope Hatred
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