Facts, balance missing in media coverage of abuse scandal

It takes a real New Yorker to speak the truth.

Former Mayor Ed Koch, a Conservative Jew, wrote recently: “I believe the continuing attacks by the media on the Roman Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI have become manifestations of anti-Catholicism.”

He continues, “Many of those in the media who are pounding on the Church and the Pope today clearly do it with delight, and some with malice. The reason for the constant assaults is that there are many in the media, and some Catholics as well as many in the public, who object to and are incensed by positions the Church holds, including opposition to abortion, opposition to same-sex marriage, retention of celibacy rules for priests, exclusion of women from the clergy, opposition to birth control measures involving condoms and prescription drugs and opposition to civil divorce.”

One of the many challenges of this whole gruesome business is that it is far more effective for non-Catholics than for Catholics to offer an opinion. Particularly so in the case of Koch because he’s pro-choice, pro-gay marriage and rejects most of the Church positions that he claims are the reasons for the intensity of the current campaign. And to an extent the public suspicion of a Catholic’s explanation is justified — the abuse scandal is a filthy stain on the Church and its leadership. It’s neither appropriate nor Christian to pretend otherwise. The Church failed and in doing so allowed the lives of myriad people to be ruined.

But while contrition, compensation and absolute openness are essential, we must not abandon justice in the attempt to be honest about what happened. While some in the media have performed fine and important work in exposing the guilty, too many reporters now seem obsessed with smearing the innocent as well. Illustrated by the absurd attacks on Pope Benedict who, if anyone, stands as a champion of accountability and responsibility in this hellish mess. We would not libel U.S. President Barack Obama if an American soldier committed a war crime, not demand the resignation of the Prime Minister if a Canadian diplomat broke the law.

More than this, the Pope as cardinal understood the scandal and campaigned for its appropriate handling more aggressively than most in the Vatican. Facts and balance, however, matter little when the people who have been at war with Catholicism for decades taste blood. Christopher Hitchens, for example, intends to try to have the Pope arrested when he visits Britain later this year. This from a man who made a documentary about Mother Teresa 20 years ago entitled Sacred Cow.

Come on Chris, I remember working at the New Statesman magazine in London with you almost three decades ago. Is it the victims of abuse who concern you or the opportunity to bash an institution that has become a fetish in your life? I don’t recall such empathy and compassion when it was Palestinian kids being blown apart by rockets from the Israel you refuse to criticize.

The media has hurt the abused because, with some exceptions, it has shown no interest in getting to the truth of the crimes. We need precision shooting at the abusers, not shotgun blasts at an entire Church. Remember, many of the molested young people are still faithful Catholics — true saints — and know that the blanket attacks are so painfully wrong.

I write this not as a partisan defending my cause but as a Catholic who is deeply ashamed at the failures of leadership and the hideous crimes of a tiny percentage but still significant number of clergy. Also as a member of a profession whose weaknesses and hypocrisies I have seen for years. Believe me, the ignorance about and malice towards the Catholic Church within mainstream media is perhaps unprecedented in modern journalism.

What we have to explain is that the Church has already reformed itself, that these tragedies are of the past, that we failed miserably but that we are still a voice of moral clarity and authority in a confused world that claims to condemn the sexual abuse of young people while simultaneously glorifying adolescent sexuality for profit and titillation and reducing human dignity to flesh and meaninglessness.

It will be difficult. Then again, perhaps it should be.