Just in time for Holy Week, the New York Times has escalated its war with Pope Benedict XVI over the “pedophile priests” scandal in a series of harsh attacks, both in the pages of the newspaper and in its editorial and op-ed columns. Here’s Maureen Dowd:
The Catholic Church can never recover as long as its Holy Shepherd is seen as a black sheep in the ever-darkening sex abuse scandal.
Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, nicknamed “God’s Rottweiler” when he was the church’s enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys.
The church has been tone deaf and dumb on the scandal for so long that it’s shocking, but not surprising, to learn from The Times’s Laurie Goodstein that a group of deaf former students spent 30 years trying to get church leaders to pay attention.
The Vatican fired back today:
It launched a frontal attack on the New York Times on Wednesday night by posting a long statement on its website by Cardinal William J. Levada, who succeeded the pope as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal department.
Levada asked the newspaper “to reconsider its attack mode about Pope Benedict XVI and give the world a more balanced view of a leader it can and should count on.”
The Vatican has denied any cover-up over the abuse of 200 deaf boys in the United States by Reverend Lawrence Murphy from 1950 to 1974. The New York Times reported the Vatican and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, were warned about Murphy but he was not defrocked.
The Times said its reports were “based on meticulous reporting and documents.”
This one is fraught with subtext, so please keep your comments on point and collegial.
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