In recent months, the Catholic Church has been the target of severe criticism by the Media. In some European countries, cases of sexual abuse by priests have been reported. The New York Times publishes daily news attacking the pope. They present him as responsible for cases of pedophilia and say he was a cardinal when he hid cases of sexual abuse. The New York Times created this misinterpretation of the situation.
Furthermore, the control and comparison of information carried by many blogs have shown that this interpretation is not true. What exists is a large and well-orchestrated campaign against the pope.
I read the news about these cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in five blogs in four languages Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and English . The information complements each other and reveals the other side of the news, showing the context and giving information about the people involved. Moreover, the statistics show the cases of abuse in the Church in comparison to other segments of society. For example, in the last fifteen years in Germany there were 210,000 reported cases of sexual abuse in the general population. In the Catholic Church, the number of cases involving priests was 94, half of one percent.
The New York Times published on the first page a story about Fr. Lawrence C. Murphy. The source was Archbishop Rembrant G. Weakland, of Milwaukee who provided the documents, but the paper didn’t present the story of the Bishop’s life. The archbishop paid $450,000 to a man not to disclose their homosexual relationship .
In this same case, the journalist cites as a source, text in Italian that was translated from Italian into English with some mistakes in the translation.
“In March, The NYTimes supplied readers with an 86-page dossier of documents about the crimes of Father Lawrence C. Murphy from 1950 to 1974. The key document in supporting its controversial claims was the minutes of a 1998 meeting at the Vatican with Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland and then-Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, who was at the time Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy, and their staffers.
The meeting covered a number of sensitive and complex issues. These were summarized in two pages of minutes written in Italian. One of the American priests at the meeting later ran these through a “computer translator” which he described as pretty “rough”. So rough, in fact, that it left words out and gave the opposite sense in several key places. As the Italian proverb goes, traduttore, traditore – more or less, translation betrays the meaning. But this was the document which the Times used.”
The blog, mercatornet.com/justb16, published an article by David Rosen defending the pope and questioning the reason why the NY Times has published cases of sexual abuse in other institutions, but with more emphasis on cases involving Catholic priests.
“In March 2010, “Rabbi” Baruch Lebovits, a Brooklyn Hasidic Jew, was found guilty on eight of 10 counts of sexually molesting Jewish teens in 2004 and 2005. Lebovits, was the owner of a Borough Park travel agency and faces up to seven years in prison. This story was reported by the New York Daily News, but not by the New York Times.”
The Media aids society when it reports the cases of sexual abuse. In the case of the Catholic Church, it helps the Church in their process of purification. However, it is the responsibility of the Media to publish all of the information about all cases of pedophilia, factually and truthfully, whether it occurs in the Church or in the general population. The media must report the facts objectively and without distortion. They must thoroughly check the accuracy of their source information.
I think you can continue to confront and control the information with the help of blogs, but it will always be a battle of David against Goliath, as many people do not read or have access to blogs.
