On Benedict and the Media

Mark Shea takes the media to the woodshed for the current reporting on Benedict and the sex abuse scandal. Links in the original.

I think the thing that is most repulsive about the current media feeding frenzy on Benedict is the appalling combination of slovenly malice with the sheer self-congratulatory demand of the character assassins that Catholics should be grateful for their vendetta. You know: "Oh, we make some mistakes now and then, but where would you be without us exposing the corruption?"... Yes, yes, MSM. By all means, find the criminal and expose the corruption. But don't kid me that you are doing anything of the sort when you launch off on ill-documented campaign to malign Benedict on the flimsiest of pretexts while ignoring the actual corruption. You're full of crap... Let's get some of the more egregious stuff out of the way first. Sorry, but it's not a "mistake" when a major news organization runs a headline like "Pope Describes Touching Boys: I Went Too Far" and then links a story that has absolutely nothing to do with a claim of sex abuse against the Pope. It is libel. Malicious libel. But we will not see any demands for the resignation of the clowns responsible because the Vatican does not issue fatwas... But Catholics must not complain about this. Because, you see, it would be journalistic malpractice for reporters to ignore the non-story that they themselves have whipped themselves into a frenzy about concerning the Monster in Rome. Any Catholic who objects to the media kangaroo court is an apologist for priestly abuse. Because, you see, there was real abuse, you know. Ergo, Benedict is guilty, guilty, guilty of whatever an hysterical editor is saying today... Here, after all the hysteria has settled, is where we still are. Once the "filth" (Benedict's word) started pouring out of his fax machine, he started to grok the problem and became a zealot for cleanup (more, alas, than his predecessor). So attacking the guy after his conversion seems to me to be obviously counter-productive... Now it could be that the episcopal good ol' boy network is all about Protecting One's Own. Indeed, I have no doubt that this explains a lot. But there is another, radically unconsidered, possibility here, particularly in the case of somebody like Benedict, who does not really strike me as the monster the media so very much wants to make him out to be: namely, that the real place to look for dealing with criminals harshly is not the one institution in the world tasked with bearing the mercy of God to the most desperately wicked. See, I prefer a world in which the cops take care of the jailing and the Church takes care of the forgiving. So I *like* a Church which is slow to throw even a nutjob like Milingo under the bus. I like a Church that is slow to excommunicate, slow to damn. Conversely, I like a justice system that actually prosecutes and jails criminals. I think that the solution to many of these problems remains what it has always been: if we laypeople think that somebody like Fr. Lawrence Murphy belonged behind bars, then hey! We own all the cops, guns, lawyers, courts, and jails. But, in fact, we laypeople opted to do nothing about Murphy when we knew bloody well what sort of creep he was. Instead, we are bizarrely eager to believe the NY Times when it reports, without knowing what it is talking about, that Benedict is somehow responsible for the guy... I would very much like to see Benedict bite the bullet and start inflicting some sort of penalties on bishops who behaved so irresponsibly for so long (particular on eels like Mahony). I'm skeptical that will happen. But that's the biggest problem I can see with Benedict's choices, and I'm not altogether convinced I'm right. It may well be that he has chosen the better part by being merciful. As to the the rest of the Annual Easter Media Feeding Frenzy on the Church? It only serves to muddy the water with its malicious calumnies, its absurd claims that Benedict is a pervert, its grotesque color commentary from assassin wannabes, and its grossly inept reporting that is transparently aimed at whipping the public into a frenzy of hatred against him for patently false charges. Benedict will remain where he is till the end of his papacy: in the white hot glare of media hostility from jackals who give not a tinker's damn about him, the faith, or abused children who aren't usefully Catholic. But nobody will ever call to account MSM jackals who smear people with outrageous slanders for the sin of being Catholic and actually believing what the Church teaches. That reckoning will have to be put off for a higher court at a later time.