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Whatever can be the matter? In the olden days (a year or two ago, before our local liberal News-Times changed management) I would write an occasional letter to the editor. Mary, the opinion editor, would call to see if I had actually written it, offer her criticisms, and eventually it would see the black of print. We often had some pretty lively dialogues going!
Last month something in the News-Times prompted a letter to the editor which I sent off by email. No response. I sent it again. More silence. A third time – nothing. I mentioned that people sometimes ask me why they haven’t seen any letters from me lately and I have to tell them the new letters editor won’t give me the courtesy of a reply. As a last resort, I sent my letter to the managing editor. Dead silence.
What can be the matter? Here is my letter. What do you think?
TO THE EDITOR:
It sure would be nice if the News-Times would do a real news story and put its Catholic priest-bashing in proper perspective. (Oct 6, p A5). Just because old records have been released does not mean they have to be paraded in print yet again!
Some little understood facts:
1. A Washington Post survey found that over the past four decades, less than 1.5 percent of the estimated 60,000 priests have been accused of child sexual abuse.
2. An Associated Press report in 2007 found 2500 cases in the previous five years of public school students being molested. Suspended teachers are commonly passed from one school district to another. “So frequent is this phenomenon that it’s called ‘passing the trash’” This is not covered by big media, including the Boston Globe which broke the Catholic scandal. They don’t really care about the molested, only the identity of the molester.
3. Again, the National Review Board in 2004 noted that 81 percent of the victims were male, most of whom were post-pubescent, saying “we must call attention to the homosexual behavior that characterized the vast majority of the cases of abuse observed in recent decades.” While most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters are gay. The board correctly stressed that ‘there are many chaste and holy homosexual priests who are faithful to their vows of celibacy.’
4. The most recent John Jay report tries to cover-up the homosexual reality. It uses the word pedophile 14 times, ephebophile 12 times (meaning a sexual preference for mid to late adolescents — i.e. homosexuality.) There were almost twice as many alleged victims aged 15 or over as there were those aged 9 or less. The problem is not primarily pedophilia but homosexuality – chicken hawk stuff.
5. By a margin of 81-19 — the exact figure found in the report covering the years 1950-2002 — the molesters still prefer the boys. You don’t hear about the priests hitting on the altar girls.
6. National Review Board board member Dr. Paul McHugh, a former psychiatrist-in-chief at John Hopkins Hospital is quoted as saying “This behavior [the priest abuse scandal] was homosexual predation on American Catholic youth, yet it’s not being discussed.”
We all know, of course, why the homosexual connection is not being reported. The Catholic church (like other denominations, public schools, the armed services, etc.) has a homosexual problem but because of “political correctness” the media refuse to call it that. In this day and age, pedophilia is considered perverse and horrible, but homosexuality is cool and wonderful.
Tar all the priests with the pedophilia feathers but don’t dare to hint that it is naughty to seduce adolescent boys because that is what homosexuals do – and we all know that homosexuals are great! All priests are suffering from this scandal when actually very few are involved, and most of those involved are homosexuals rather than pedophiles. And it is the mainstream media doing the cover-up.
Here is Michael Voris on homosexual priests:
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Pilate said to him “What is truth?” — John 18:38
(Note: Some facts above are taken from publications of the Catholic League. I urge readers to visit their site for documentation and more data.)
It’s obvious to anyone reading this letter the outrageous prejudice it contains against gay people (oh, excuse me) homosexuals, so I would say to you, “keep it up, and see how many more of your ‘letters’ get published” at the Times. Naturally the Republican American did, because their editors, too, are ignorant, and that is no surprise to the literate among us.
Homosexual “predation”?? Outside of the the Catholic Church or Evangelical nuts, no one else would relish your ignorance on the subject of human sexuality (except maybe a controversial shrink looking for attention). Pedophilia, however is a crime. And your comparisons regarding the scope, priests vs teachers, is weak. Wasn’t it Savonarola who said, “if gold rusts what will silver do?” (had to quote one of yours), though I think your Church leaders are profoundly ignorant and “closeted” on the entire subject of human sexuality.
If you’re looking for truth, I think the last place to look is within the political structure of the RC Church (Catholic League) or the Republican TeaBag Party. Though they’re as close to you as Right Wing Radio or FOX “News”. (you’re just loaded with the Palin/Beck/Limbaugh/O’Reilly crap like, whoo, “mainstream media”.
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Ron says, “It’s obvious to anyone reading this letter the outrageous prejudice it contains against gay people…”
Hey Ron, it’s not “prejudice” if it’s facts. Do you have a disagreement or problem with the facts, or do you just reflexively don the same ol’ victim dress for every party?
At some point I wish the Gay Mafia would stop worrying about their image and braying about their vicitmization and start worrying about the young men being raped.
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Excellent piece from Historical Christian (in part):
While it may hardly be politically correct to say so, there is a fact that is much more important: over 80 percent of paedophiles are homosexuals, that is, males who abuse other males. And – again citing Jenkins – over 90 percent of Catholic priests convicted for sexually abusing minors have been homosexual. If a problem has sprung up in the Catholic Church, it is not due to celibacy but to a certain tolerance of homosexuality in seminaries, particularly in the 1970s, when most of the priests later convicted for the abuses were ordained. This is a problem that Benedict XVI is rigorously correcting. More generally, a return to moral principles, to ascetical discipline, to meditating on the true greatness of the priesthood are the antidotes to the real tragedy of paedophilia. The Year of the Priest must also help.
Compared to 2006, when the BBC broadcast a trash-documentary featuring the Irish parliamentarian and homosexual activist Colm O’Gorman, and to 2007, when the Italian media personality Santoro broadcast an Italian version on his program Annozero, there is little new — except for increased severity and vigilance in the Church. The painful cases of recent weeks have not been invented, but they go back 20 or even 30 years.
However, perhaps, there is something new.
Why are old and very often well-known cases being exhumed in 2010 on a daily basis, always attacking the Pope? This is paradoxical if one considers the great severity of then Cardinal Ratzinger and of Benedict XVI on this very theme. The moral entrepreneurs who organise the panic have an agenda which is increasingly clear and which is not essentially the protection of children. This is a time when political, juridical and even electoral decisions in Europe and elsewhere are being made about the abortion pill RU-486, euthanasia, the recognition of same sex unions. Only the voice of the Pope and the Church is being raised to defend life and the family. The reading of certain articles in the media shows that very powerful lobby groups are seeking to silence this voice with the worst possible defamation — and unfortunately an easy one to make — that of favouring or tolerating paedophilia.
These more or less Masonic lobby groups show the sinister power of technocracy which was raised by Benedict XVI himself in his encyclical Caritas in veritate and in the denunciation of John Paul II, in his Message for the World Day of Peace of 1985. They warned of “hidden aims” – alongside others which are “openly promoted” which are “directed at subjecting all populations to regimes in which God does not count”.
This is truly a dark hour. It takes one back to the prediction of a great Italian Catholic thinker of the 19th century, Emiliano Avogadro della Motta (1798-1865). He predicted that after the devastation caused by secular ideologies an authentic “demon worship” would spring up which would attack the family and the true concept of marriage. Reestablishing the sociological truth about moral panics over priests and paedophilia will not of itself resolve the problems and will not stop the lobby groups. But it is a small and proper tribute to the greatness of this Pope and to a Church which is wounded and defamed because they will not be silent on the issues of life and the family.
Massimo Introvigne is an Italian sociologist of religion. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR). This article from the CESNUR website has been reprinted and translated with permission.
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