In the Huffington Post is a rousing defense of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Pius XII and their relations with the Jewish people.
You might think you have entered the Twilight Zone but perusing the comments show you that you are in the same universe. As you would expect in the comment section you get the ill-informed rants that will dismiss all evidence and trump it with “SEXUAL ABUSE OF MINORS BY PRIESTS!!!!!!!!” Well at least we know where the Know-Nothings went. Funny how the same crowd that would demand you put the words alleged in front of any murderer or terrorist see all priests as guilty immediately.
To this I refer to Anderson’s Law.
Catholic blogger Jay Anderson reacted by proposing a Catholic equivalent to the Internet rule known as Godwin’s Law “for invocations of ‘the Scandal’ as a rhetorical device.”
“It would go something like this: ‘As a debate involving the Catholic Church (either a discussion about the Church specifically, or a discussion in which the Church is taking a position) grows longer, the probability of someone mentioning the sex scandal approaches one.’
“And then there’s its corollary: ‘Once such reference to the Scandal is made, whoever mentioned the Scandal has automatically “lost” whatever debate was in progress,’
Unfortunately we are seeing Anderson’s Law in effect pretty much daily.
Yesterday Jimmy Akin put the smack down on the irresponsible reporting that Pope Benedict transferred a paedophile preist. This type of reporting always reminds me of the attack on bloggers that they don’t have editors to hold them accountable.” Yes the editor of the TimesOnline really checked the facts on this one.
In related news Sandro Magister prints an Interview with the CDF’s “prosecutor” of priests who commit “graviora delicta”, via Father Z
Hat tip to Londiniensis on Twitter and Joanna Bogle on the HuffPo article.
6 comments
Scratch “paedophile” and insert “predatory homosexual” and the article is accurate. Lets call it what it is. The John Jay College report stated that 70 percent of the abuse was against pubescent teen boys.
It’s funny how with all these laws, the corollary is always that the invoker loses the argument… yet in real arguments, the person who invokes it doesn’t think that at all.
I think it is more of a case of the old “Any old stick to bash the Catholic Church will do.”
Until the Catholic Church confronts its problem with sexual abuse forthrightly and without concern for “scandal” (which has become nothing but a synonym for “image”), it will always lack moral credibility. True, some people will never accept or appreciate Christianity (let alone Catholicism) but they are a separate issue. Catholics have to stop viewing themselves as victims of secular media and culture, and start demanding accountability en masse from the episcopal leadership. Besides, this problem has infested the Church for centuries, at least since the days of Alphonsus Ligouri, who recommended castration for sexual perverts! The old bromides about “the gates of Hell will not prevail” will not work because to whom much has been given, much will be expected. If Christ indeed founded the Catholic Church, then He will judge its leadership far more harshly — and, might I add, justly — than any secular pundit or scholar. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God!
@ Joseph
While it is true that discussion of how the Church handles the Sexual Abuse scandal can have a valid place, to use it as the commentators on the article Curt Jester sites have used it are essentially ad hominem and tu quoque fallacies. The topic was on a certain subject (anti-semitism) and the invocation of the abuse scandal was entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
So maybe the Church should do itself a favor and get rid of a weapon that others can use to beat it? Ad hominem and tu quoque attacks should be expected against all Christians, sadly, because of who controls “the power of the air.”
@Joseph
I think you fail to understand the meaning of the concept “any old stick…” It isn’t to say that the issue shouldn’t be addressed. It is to say that on an article discussing issue of the Pope in relation to the JEWS, bringing up the issue of abuse is entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Basically the commentator on HuffPo completely ignored the topic at hand and made an irrelevant appeal for the purposes of a cheap shot at the Church. because he had nothing to attack on the issue at hand, he chose this issue.