Fr. Roger J. Landry
The Anchor
Editorial
November 13, 2009
Two weeks ago New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan captured the attention of Catholics across the country by writing a compelling critique of recent examples of anti-Catholicism in the New York Times. The national daily ironically augmented the publicity of the article by refusing to print it. Archbishop Dolan responded by publishing a slightly expanded version on his new blog, “The Gospel in the Digital Age,” and then it took on a life of its own in cyberspace.
It would be big news whenever the most famous newspaper in the country is directly criticized by the occupant of the most famous Catholic see, but the Archbishop’s article is noteworthy for several other reasons, too.
First, Archbishop Dolan has a reputation for being what he calls an “engager,” rather than a “confronter,” of those who disagree with the Church. That he took on a more combative tone in a scathing op-ed is a sign, minimally, of how serious he takes the Times’ infractions. He seemed to respond with the fervor of a husband whose wife is being falsely maligned.
Second, as a priest with a doctorate in U.S. Church history and therefore very much aware of the history of American anti-Catholicism, he intimates that what the Times is doing is more than innocuously calling the Church bad names. It is an ugly prejudice that, whether by design or unintentional effect, is harmful to the Church’s reputation and ability to fulfill her mission. He fought back, therefore, like a good shepherd must always respond to wolves endangering the flock.
The main reason why his op-ed was remarkable, however, is because it was the boldest high-level response yet to a new wave of ugly anti-Catholicism that has arisen since the clergy sexual abuse scandals in 2002. While it is obviously fair to criticize many in the Church for their sinful conduct with respect to protecting the young from those who were trying to harm them, some have used the revelations of the scandals as a broad license to justify almost every attack on the Church, however outlandish. Many Catholic clergy and faithful have been so beaten down by the constant waves of vitriol — not to mention natural shame at the sins of their spiritual family members — that they’ve almost started to behave like battered spouses who grow to believe, falsely, that they somehow deserve whatever abuse that comes. Archbishop Dolan’s article is important and timely because it demonstrates not only that Catholics no longer need to remain reticent in the face of such prejudice but how they should respond to it.
“It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime,” Archbishop Dolan begins his October 29 article. “Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as ‘the deepest bias in the history of the American people,’ while John Higham described it as ‘the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.’ ‘The anti-semitism of the left’ is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins subtitles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.” Archbishop Dolan then illustrates this bias, paranoiac agitation and leftist anti-Semitism by mentioning four articles from the Times.
The first “exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community.” Last year alone, the article stated, there were 40 cases in this tiny community. “Yet the Times did not demand,” Archbishop Dolan charged, “what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize ‘religious sensitivities,’ and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases ‘internally.’ Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so, but I can criticize this kind of ‘selective outrage.’” There is, in short, a double-standard at work, which focuses so much energy on the sexual abuse in the Church while ignoring it or downplaying it in other contexts, like Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn or the huge problem in the nation’s public schools. “Papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs,” Dolan concluded.
The second example was an October 16 front-page story on a Franciscan priest who fathered a child 25 years ago in Wisconsin. “Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son,” he noted, “this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation–genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention.” It’s not unfair to cover such a story, the Archbishop is saying, but to put a 25 year old story on the front page above the fold evinces a biased editorial choice to feature Catholic transgressions far beyond the sins of those in any other religious group.
The third article concerned the decision of the Vatican to welcome into the Church Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. The article was framed as if the “Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans,” the Archbishop commented. “Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, ‘We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.’ Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism.” The Church’s actions, in other words, are routinely treated as suspect, which is contrary to journalistic objectivity and once again demonstrates the Times’ bias.
The fourth and last example seemed to be the one that really stoked Archbishop Dolan’s Irish ire. It was a “combustible,” “intemperate and scurrilous” opinion piece by disgruntled Catholic columnist Maureen Dowd. Archbishop Dolan says that her “diatribe” would have “never passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue.” Whereas Dolan notes that there’s sensitivity to all those other groups, editors selectively allow such attacks only on the Church. He notes that Dowd “digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription — along with every other German teenage boy — into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.” He adds that “the matter that triggered her spasm — the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives — is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning,” but stated that “her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, The Menace, has no place in a major publication today.” That Archbishop Dolan compared the New York Times’ standards to those of the The Menace is a telling criticism at how low he believes the Times’ standards have fallen.
The Archbishop concludes, “ The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody.”
It’s important for all Catholics to echo that demand.