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Manhattan Diary by Cahir O'Doherty

Bill Donohue shifts goalposts on Church scandals

Posted on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 03:39 PM

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Bill Donohue is at it again. Today he took out a quarter page ad in The New York Times to defend the Church and Pope Benedict from the seemingly endless glut of sexual abuse stories rocking the Church around the world.

For Donohue, the real scandal doesn't appear to be the abuse, though; it seems to be what he calls a sustained press campaign against the church. If that's true then the abuse was not the problem, the rape, the shaming, the enforced silence; only the revelation of it.

Donohue, the leader of the Catholic League, an organization fellow Irish American Kathy Griffin called “one man in a room in front of a computer,” is switching the goalposts in his effort to defend the Catholic Church from the international, decades long sex abuse crisis it did little or nothing to prevent.

Donohue wants us to ignore or overlook the decades of inexcusable inaction and cover-up’s within the Church’s hierarchy and instead place the blame at the feet of what he calls homosexual clergy, who he says were the instigators of the abuse.

But how is all this the fault of homosexuals exactly? The most shocking abuse case that came to light here recently involved the abuse of 200 preteen deaf boys by an adult man (who was protected, for 30 years, from facing the legal consequences).

In practically every case examined here in the last year the abuse has involved an adult authority figure manipulating the youth, fear and vulnerability of the abused. Consent was never a factor. Where is Donohue getting his figures from? Why does no one else have access to them?

It’s no more honest to pin the abuse of children on homosexual priests than it is to pin it on heterosexual priests. When adults are sexually abusing children it’s called pedophilia. It beggars belief that anyone still needs to have that pointed out at this stage.

Donohue’s says the majority of cases of sex abuse involve post-pubescent boys, as if the fact that many of them had just reached puberty changes anything. None of the victims were adults. If you fail to grasp that then you simply can’t understand what happened to them.

I can appreciate that Donohue wants to protect the Church from the scandals that have engulfed it. But indiscriminately scapegoating others in the hope of concealing the Church’s wider culpability is proof that the Catholic League has learned precisely nothing from the crisis.

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19 comments

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olovely | Apr 05, 2010, 05:32 PM EDT

No such figures exist, BishopSean. You're making them up, so there's no point disputing you. What you fail to take into account is that a priests access to boys (alter boys, choir boys etc) was more frequent than to girls, however many girls were also abused by Catholic clergy. It was a situational crime as much as anything.

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BishopSean | Apr 04, 2010, 01:06 PM EDT

But, Cahir, what do you make of the fact that, according to American Police statistics, some 30% of pedophiles are homosexual while only 2-3% of adult males are homosexual (according to Gutmacher and the U. of Chicago who are not anti-homosexuals)? What of Donohue's statement that 80% of priest pedophiles are homosexual? If true, what does this tell us?

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Watereskhill | Apr 02, 2010, 02:09 AM EDT

I agree with 'garyirish'. This guy looks creepy. His pronouncements sinister dark and slippery. I've known this jolly smirk before today. Members of The St.Vincent de Paul Society in my native parish in Ireland. Eternal batchelors or with wives chirpy and numb. I don't buy his 'Devotion'.

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garyirish | Apr 01, 2010, 07:36 PM EDT

Thank you for using a picture of this fool that shows him at his most evil. The smile (sneer) on his face is truly diabolic. I can almost hear him now saying in his best Jack Nicholson voice "Honey, I'm hoooooooooommmmeeeee."

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sully1167 | Apr 01, 2010, 01:35 AM EDT

haasny007,you must have been brainwashed by Bill Donahue,pedophiles can be heterosexual,homosexual,bi-sexual,trysexual,whatever.Trust me I know what I am talking about, I am retired NYPD I have arrested married men with children who were pedophiles.

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abbaetienne | Mar 31, 2010, 10:28 PM EDT

Partly blame the RC distorted view of human sexuality.

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hollabackgurl | Mar 31, 2010, 05:40 PM EDT

hassny007 is just like Bill Donohue, he wants to kick accountability down the road by blaming others.

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haasny007 | Mar 31, 2010, 03:15 PM EDT

Abusive priests are homosexual child molesters.

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eileenkny | Mar 31, 2010, 01:04 PM EDT

OMG!! What rock did Mr. Donohue live under?

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gocats93 | Mar 31, 2010, 12:52 PM EDT

This is nonsense. The Catholic League has existed for 40 years. Read Bill's incredibly insightful piece on CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/19/donohue.catholic.church/index.html?iref=allsearch

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pat52rk | Mar 31, 2010, 12:31 PM EDT

99% of priests are good god fearing men , it's only a small percentage who are bad apples , just like in the general population.You cant blame Donohue for wanting to protect the church , that after all is his job.

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KMcSinger | Mar 31, 2010, 11:23 AM EDT

Homosexuality is NOT pedophilia!

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Linden Nash | Mar 31, 2010, 10:15 AM EDT

How anyone can belong to a church that condones child abuse, blames parents when the victims are afraid to come forward for years because they won't be believed and blame homosexuality when it is the power that these priests have and men like Donohue that are in denail of the suffering of these children, many of whom resorted to suicide or life long mental issues is beyond me.

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knockatee | Mar 31, 2010, 09:50 AM EDT

If Donohue really wants to help the Catholic Church, he would have a place on his website to report abuse. All he has is a place to report anti-Catholic bias. He didn't come across very well on Larry King last night.

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chesapeake | Mar 31, 2010, 09:35 AM EDT

Much of the fault lies in the seminary... young men want to make their family proud and they depart for the seminary at 13 or 14 years of age to become the priests that their mothers can brag about. They do not have the opportunity to explore their sexuality and choices in life. The sexual urge is present in all of us; and is notto be denied. Let the priests be married and produce children and seek out the gays who cannoy be trusted around our children.

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