ABC’s religious department twisting the truth again.

Priest denies making claims about mary MacKillop's excommunication

Clare Rawlinson and James Madden  The Australian October 07, 2010

THE priest who spent 25 years lobbying for Mary MacKillop's canonisation has angrily dismissed recent media reports.

The reports said the soon-to-be saint was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for exposing acts of child sex abuse by a South Australian clergyman.

Paul Gardiner, chaplain of the Mary MacKillop Penola Centre, said the claims, published on ABC Online and in Fairfax newspapers last month, were false, and he feared the misleading coverage was an attempt to take a swipe at the church and distract the public in the lead-up to MacKillop's canonisation on October 17.

ABC Online and Fairfax both reported that MacKillop's ousting from the church in 1871 was prompted by her exposure of a Kapunda priest's abuse of local children. The claims were based on remarks made by Father Gardiner in a documentary made for ABC TV's Compass program.

But both Father Gardiner and the program's executive producer deny ever making such an inference. "Early in 1870, the scandal occurred and the Sisters of Saint Joseph reported it to Father Tenison Woods, but Mary was in Queensland and no one was worried about her," Father Gardiner told The Australian.

Father Gardiner, considered the nation's foremost authority on the history of MacKillop, said his words had been twisted to suit the "ill will" of media outlets.

Continue reading Priest denies making claims about MacKillop's excommunication | The Australian

Jon Stewart Misleading the Public about Pope Benedict XVI

Jon Stewart can be a funny guy... A moron too.

In the video below he uses a New York Times story (which is actually false) as the basis for a long skit to ridicule the Pope and the Catholic Church.

The truth is of course out their... Just not in the New York Times (or the Melbourne Age that ran with the same story) or on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show".

Plenty of rebuttals to the lies in the New York Times story that Jon Stewart used for his hate mongering can be found here.

If there's too many to choose from Jimmy Akin's article is a good summary.

Pope Benedict referred to the lies against him as gossip. Gossip like the New York Times story is usually lacking fact. I suppose Jon Stewart needs to resort to lies sometimes in order to get his laughs.

Response to CNN Documentary on the Pope

The Catholic League responses to another slur against the Pope.

William A. Donohue, Ph.D. Catholic League – 1st October 2010

The CNN documentary, "What the Pope Knew," which aired September 25, deserves a response.

The program begins with music and graphics that set the tone: those who think Pope Benedict XVI has been adept at combating priestly sexual abuse must realize that there is "a darker, more complicated story." Dark, yes, but from CNN's perch, the story is not all that complicated: the pope is guilty of "foot-dragging and, perhaps, obstruction."

We learn from CNN host Gary Tuchman that "For decades, before he became pope, Joseph Ratzinger was a high-ranking Vatican official who, more than anyone else beside Pope John Paul, could have taken decisive action to stem the sexual abuse crisis." Similarly, author David Gibson says the pope "always took the stalling tactic."

It is simply not true that Ratzinger was in charge of this issue "for decades." In fact, he wasn't given the authority to police the sexual abuse problem until 2001. What is truly astonishing is that Tuchman concedes as much later in the program. After he notes that "By 2001, the sexual abuse crisis was beginning to engulf the Catholic Church," he says, "The pope gave Cardinal Ratzinger and the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) the power to cut through the bureaucracy and handle all sexual abuse cases directly."

In other words, Tuchman was incorrect the first time when he said that "for decades" Ratzinger "could have taken decisive action." He couldn't have been in charge "for decades" if he wasn't given police powers until 2001 (he became pope in 2005).

Nowhere in the program is there any evidence that the pope was guilty of obstruction of justice. This is a serious charge—the most serious made in the course of the documentary. Yet to throw this out, without ever producing evidence to substantiate it, is malicious. It won't cut it to say that he was "perhaps" guilty of obstruction. CNN intentionally planted this seed and never explicitly addressed the subject of obstruction of justice again.

Continue reading at Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights

Not all Sexual Abuse is Equal

 
Catholic League - October 1, 2010

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a news story about a former priest who molested a male listed as John Doe:

On September 28, the Chicago Tribune reported that "former Chicago priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormick sexually abused him [Doe] while he was a grammar school student." We then learn that the student was really a middle-school student, in the eighth grade, when the abuse began. The abuse reportedly continued for five years. According to the lawsuit, "McCormack inappropriately sexually touched, hugged, rubbed and/or abused Doe."

It's time to ask some tough questions. Why did this young man not object earlier? Why did he allow the "abuse" to continue until he was 18? The use of the quotes is deliberate: the charge against the former priest is not rape, but rubbing. While still objectionable, there is a glacial difference between being rubbed and raped.

Here's what we know. We know that this case, like most of them, was the work of a homosexual, not a pedophile. And like most of the cases of priestly sexual misconduct, there was no rape involved. Inappropriate touching is morally wrong, and the offenders should be punished, but the time has come to object to all those pundits who like to say that the scandal is all about child rape. Most of the cases did not involve children—they were post-pubescent males—and most weren't raped.

Why does this matter? Because those looking to sue the Catholic Church for being inappropriately rubbed decades ago are not exactly the poster boys for the victims of child rape. And because those who hate the Church continue to use the term child rape as a way of discrediting the Church. They lie about this being a pedophilia problem and they lie about the nature of the misconduct. That’s reason enough to call them on it.

From Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights

Catholics may be sick of clerical sex abuse stories, but they can't be ignored

 By Greg Erlandson – Our Sunday Visitor

We’ve received several emails and letters from readers, pleading, essentially, “Enough!” of our coverage of the clerical sex abuse crisis. One said she was “weary of the continuing barrage of information on the sexual scandal in the Church. I know that it has happened; I know that the Holy Father is doing everything in his power to respond to it. I just do not think that we need to hear so much about it.”

Even as the co-author of a recent book on Pope Benedict XVI and the crisis, I find myself wanting to agree. We are all tired of this topic. It is a bad news story that won’t go away. Many of us have been dealing with news of the scandals since 1985 — a quarter of a century.

Continue reading Catholics may be sick of clerical sex abuse stories, but they can't be ignored: Our Sunday Visitor

How the New Atheists are abusing the truth | Spiked

Monday 13 September 2010. Brendan O’Neill.

Apparently the British state is about to roll out the red carpet for a seriously evil rape facilitator. Pope Benedict XVI is the boss of a church that acts as a ‘patron, protector and financier of child rape’, says one secularist writer. Last week the UK Independent reported that in America, ‘over 10,000 people have come forward to say they were raped as part of this misery-go-round’ overseen by His Holiness and His Lackeys. In Ireland alone, a tiny country of 4.5million people, ‘Thousands were raped in reform schools’, said a British broadsheet headline last year, ramming home the ugly truth of how many kids have been raped by the Catholic Church’s army of paedophile priests.

But how true is this ugly truth? Were 10,000 children in America and thousands more in Ireland really raped by Catholic priests? In a word, no.

Continue reading - How the New Atheists are abusing the truth | spiked

Has Geoffrey Robertson Lost The Plot?

From a Sydney Morning Herald article 9th September 2010:

THE Vatican should be treated as a kind of ''rogue state'' by the rest of the world until it stops using statehood - and the ancient rules of the canon law - to protect paedophile priests.

So says Geoffrey Robertson, QC, the veteran human rights lawyer and United Nations judge, arguing that the Catholic Church is the only religion permitted under international law to claim the privileges of statehood and its leaders immunity from civil or criminal action.

A response from Austen Ivereigh at America Magazine to similar claims of Geoffery Robertson:

Where to begin? [in addressing the nuttiness of Robertson's claims] (a) the Vatican does not deal with abusive priests, local dioceses or congregations do; (b) Where these have failed to act against abusive priests, it has not been because they have resorted to canon law instead of civil law, but because they failed to resort to either canon OR civil law; (c) the cases which have been referred to the Vatican (since 2001) have been referred precisely in order to ensure appropriate action IS taken; (d) confidentiality is imposed in canonical legal processes in those cases where -- as in solicitation in the confessional -- these are canonical crimes, not civil ones; (e) the canonical process (eg laicisation) only takes place after any civil action (prosecution, trial, sentencing) has taken place; (f) it wasn't the Vatican which back in the 1980s moved priests accused of abuse to other parishes, it was bishops. And so on.

If only Pope Benedict were an ordinary citizen, he could rightly sue Robertson for his wholly untrue and grossly defamatory claim that clerical abuse was allowed to take place because "Joseph Ratzinger, both as head of the CDF and as Pope, has insisted for the past 30 years that all such cases be dealt with in secrecy under canon law." That is a monstrous lie -- and, given Cardinal Ratzingers record in this area, simply laughable.

PAPAL WITCH HUNT DETOURED

 August 10, 2010 - Catholic League.

Attorney William McMurry, who sued the Holy See for being complicit in the sexual abuse of his three clients, is seeking to end the lawsuit; similar suits are still pending. McMurry won a settlement from the Archdiocese of Louisville in 2003 for $25.7 million.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed this issue today:

McMurry acknowledges that "Virtually every child who was abused and will come forward as an adult has come forward and sued a bishop and collected money, and once that happens, it's over." That's right—once they got their check, they cashed out. But not McMurry: his motives were more primordial. Which is why he continued.

What collapsed yesterday was the heart and soul of McMurry's interest: his attempt to put Pope Benedict XVI on trial. It was his objective to hold men in Rome accountable for the behavior of men in Louisville, simply because they all worked for the same organization. McMurry knew this was a high bar to clear—proving culpability on the part of the Holy See for what goes on in Kentucky—and so he decided it was a futile exercise.

There was one other reason why McMurry quit: he couldn't find any more alleged victims. But it was not for lack of trying. He admits he searched in vain for months looking to find any man who may have been groped. "No one who has not sued a bishop is in a position to help us despite our best efforts over the past several months," McMurry said.

Just think about it. Every day, for the past several months, William McMurry and his colleagues went to work in hot pursuit of finding some adult man who may have settled out of court. It did not matter how trivial the offense, how many decades ago it occurred, or how old the alleged victim was, all that mattered was that the offender had to be a priest. No minister, rabbi, school teacher, coach, counselor or psychologist would do. And now the gig is up.

Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights

Priests Commit No More Abuse Than Other Males - Newsweek

8th April 2010

The priesthood is being cast as the refuge of pederasts. In fact, priests seem to abuse children at the same rate as everyone else.

The Catholic sex-abuse stories emerging every day suggest that Catholics have a much bigger problem with child molestation than other denominations and the general population. Many point to peculiarities of the Catholic Church (its celibacy rules for priests, its insular hierarchy, its exclusion of women) to infer that there's something particularly pernicious about Catholic clerics that predisposes them to these horrific acts. It's no wonder that, back in 2002—when the last Catholic sex-abuse scandal was making headlines—a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests "frequently'' abused children.

Yet experts say there's simply no data to support the claim at all. No formal comparative study has ever broken down child sexual abuse by denomination, and only the Catholic Church has released detailed data about its own. But based on the surveys and studies conducted by different denominations over the past 30 years, experts who study child abuse say they see little reason to conclude that sexual abuse is mostly a Catholic issue. "We don't see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "I can tell you without hesitation that we have seen cases in many religious settings, from traveling evangelists to mainstream ministers to rabbis and others."

Continue reading Priests Commit No More Abuse Than Other Males - Newsweek

Bill Maher and his Bozo Fans

I'm not sure who to feel more contempt for - Bill Maher or his bozo fans in the audience. Maher is simply a lying shit-head and his approving audience must surely have shit for brains. There is no evidence that Pope Benedict XVI has been involved in any cover-up of sex abuse. I'm sure Maher gets much of his information from reading the rants of Christopher Hitchens. But so much of what Hitchens writes against the Catholic Church is easily refuted with the facts.

Tom Piatak from Chronicles Magazine debunks much of what Hitchens writes as does Sean Murphy who includes 80 footnotes in his article tearing to bits the lies of Hitchens.

From about 2:50 into the video Maher continues his lies this time directed at the Catholic League whose public criticism of Maher can be found here. It’s interesting to note the responses the Catholic League received from Maher bosses:

HBO spokesman stated ‘it’s a free country, and people are free to say silly things—even on HBO.’
And from Time/Warner, Maher’s anti-Catholic remarks were a matter of ‘creative freedom.’

Okay, so Bill Maher is a jerk who is permitted to lie and say silly things because comedians are given ‘creative freedom’. But what is funny about falsely accusing Pope Benedict of covering up sex abuse. Maybe Maher’s laughing fans are just bozos.

German inquiry into top cleric ends with no proof

The Associated Press 22nd July 2010

BERLIN — German prosecutors say investigators have found no proof that would justify holding the country's top Roman Catholic cleric responsible for hiring a priest known to have sexually abused minors.

Prosecutor Christoph Hettenbach says in a statement released Wednesday that the investigation into Freiburg Archbishop Robert Zollitsch has been closed.

The southwestern city of Konstanz had been investigating an unidentified complaint that alleged Zollitsch was responsible for hiring a priest in 1987 known to have sexually abused minors. Zollitsch now heads the German Bishops Conference and at the time was in charge of human resources at the Freiburg diocese.

The archdiocese has rejected the allegations.

The Associated Press: German inquiry into top cleric ends with no proof

Gerard Charles Wilson has about 20 links to articles defending Pope Benedict.

That so many in the Media would follow the New York Times in promoting outright lies to attack the Pope is truly despicable and an indictment on the quality of so many journalists. 
Link to Gerard Charles Wilson’s blog page linking to numerous articles showing the lies of so many journalist and editors.

New Vatican rules on sex abuse

July 14, 2010.

The new Vatican rules against sex abuse are a set of processes and sanctions exclusively internal to the Church.  The rules are not intended to replace state laws, which the Vatican has ordered to respect as well.

Accused priests must undergo two processes: one canonical, or internal to the Church, and another with the state, where laws dictate.

The Church will now proceed internally against an accused priest up to 20 years after the victim's 18th birthday; the previous statute was 10 years after the victim turned 18.  The statute for criminal law varies, but the Church can still sanction an accused priest even after the civil period has passed.  In severe cases the accused likely will be expelled from the priesthood.

The new norms are an update to the document about offenses against morality and the sacraments titled “De delictis gravioribus.”  The majority of the new norms are converting prior provisions into law.

These are not the only changes.  Possession of child pornography, abuse of mentally disabled adults and the recording of confessions using new technologies are all now considered “serious offenses.”

Internal sanctions against accused priests can range from a ban on appearing in public as a priest or celebrating Mass to expulsion from the priesthood in serious cases.  The Vatican insists that the penalties for these crimes are internal and will not interfere or replace state sanctions.

Another important change now makes the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responsible for trying cardinals, patriarchs and bishops.

From “Rome Reports” New Vatican rules on sex abuse are independent from civil laws. (Video will start automatically after jump).

Courier Mail journalists have trouble putting a coherent story together.

One of course does not take seriously the reporting  in Brisbane’s Courier Mail. One does not so much read the Courier Mail to become informed of facts but to simply maintain an vague awareness of what is happening out in the world. Not surprisingly it’s reporting on things Catholic are generally inaccurate and unhelpful, today being no exception.
The story in today's Courier is in olive and my response is in white.

Headline for story:

Female priests as unwelcome as child abuse: Vatican

Wow, the Vatican actually said that? Well no, but what the heck. We’re the Courier Mail and we often make-up “facts” for our stories.
THE Vatican placed the ordination of women as Roman Catholic priests on the same level as child abuse in the eyes of the Church.
“on the same level”??? What level is the Courier Mail talking about? Is it a bit like how stealing a million dollars is a serious crime as is assaulting someone with a baseball bat even though the two types of crimes have nothing in common?
The Canon Law’s revision to the laws on sexual abuse of children by priests included the “attempted ordination of a woman,” with future cases to lead to immediate excommunication at the hands of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Shouldn’t that read “The Church’s revision of Canon Law…”. My 10 year old daughter seems to agree with me. And why does the Courier Mail conflate to separate areas of Canon Law – those dealing with the treatment of sex abusers and those dealing with attempted ordination of a woman? Was it because the Vatican released the two separate revisions on the same day.
The Catholic Church teaches it cannot ordain women as priests because Christ chose only men as his apostles.
Well I think there’s a bit more to it than just that, but they get some points for getting something right.
Many respected scholars argue that Mary Magdalen was an Apostle
Well I suppose there are Apostles and apostles. Saint Paul’s writings(the earliest New Testament writings) don’t seem to indicate any such thing. And who are this “respected scholars”, and who are they respected by.
but her [Mary Magdalen] role in the early Church was downgraded by male writers with an agenda of promoting the all-male priesthood.
“downgraded”? If you think being elevated to the status of Saint (with her own Feast Day)and having many churches named after you equates to being downgraded so be it.
But maybe the Church has an all-male priesthood because that’s what Jesus intended. Priestesses where a dime a dozen in the Gentile world into which the early Church was growing. I would hardly think Gentile converts to Christianity would have had hang-ups over Christian Priestesses unless of course they understood that Jesus did not envisage women to be priests.
The pop star Sinead O’Connor is among a number of Catholic women who were illicitly ordained priests.
I wish Sinead O’Connor well. She seems to have had a terrible childhood. I’m sure there is a connection between the type of upbringing she endured and her rebellious and bitter nature.
The new “substantive norms” on “delicts against the faith” came days after the Church of England General Synod voted in favor of legislation to ordain women bishops.
It also came days after I had a wisdom tooth removed. But I’m sure there’s no connection or relevance.
The Vatican's changes, its first in nine years, also included new legal procedures to speed up the handling of priests who abuse children.
Well that’s gotta be good.
“This gives a signal that we are very, very serious in our commitment to promote safe environments and to offer an adequate response to abuse,” said Monsignor Charles Scicluna, a Vatican doctrinal official who helped revise the norms.
“If more changes are needed, they will be made.”
I would expect nothing less from Monsignor Scicluna, and nothing more from the Courier Mail.
Anyone interested in the facts the Courier Mail should have been reporting instead of the drivel it actually reported can find the said facts at Catholic Culture.

Report Cites Fewer Sex Abuse Cases in US. Only 6 new cases of sexual abuse of minors for the year 2009.

23 March 2010, Zenit.

Numbers relating to the sexual abuse of minors by clergy are at the lowest they've been since 2004, and most allegations in 2009 were regarding earlier decades.
This is one of the positive trends reported in the 2009 annual report on compliance with the U.S. bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
In 2009, there were 398 allegations and 286 offenders reported to dioceses. Of these allegations, six regarded children under the age of 18 that year. By the end of 2009, almost 50 of the allegations had been determined false or were unsubstantiated.
The data was collected by the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).
“For the majority of new allegations (71%) brought to dioceses, the abuse began between 1960 and 1984. The most common time period for allegations reported in 2009 was 1975-1979,” CARA noted.

Continue reading at ZENIT - Report Cites Fewer Sex Abuse Cases in US

The Selective Outrage of the New York Times

 NEW YORK TIMES HAS NO MORAL AUTHORITY
Catholic League - July 9, 2010

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in today’s New York Times:

When New York State was considering two bills dealing with the sexual abuse of minors, the New York Times endorsed the one that did not apply to the public schools. And today it has the nerve to lecture the pope for not having a universal policy on this issue. Too bad the pope didn’t hold a news conference saying he is taking his cues from the New York Times and has chosen to adopt the weakest of all measures.

When Family Planning Advocates, the lobbying arm of Planned Parenthood, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, blocked a bill in New York State mandating that all cases involving the sexual abuse of minors be reported, the New York Times said nothing! Looks like it saves its condemnatory language for the Catholic Church. By the way, the two liberal groups did so because they know that Planned Parenthood learns of cases involving statutory rape on a regular basis.

Does the New York Times want to compare the record of the Catholic Church to all other religious and secular institutions on this issue? Not for a moment. Indeed, when it was reported a few months ago that there were exactly six allegations made against over 40,000 priests between 2008 and 2009, the newspaper gave it a whopping 92 words.

The Times wonders why the Catholic Church doesn’t have the same policy everywhere. Does the Boston Globe, which the Times owns, have the same policies on misconduct as the Times? What about all the other companies the Times owns? Does it have even a clue as to how incredibly decentralized the Catholic Church is?

Finally, let’s get it straight, one more time. There is no “pedophilia scandal” as the Times says today. It’s always been a “homosexual scandal,” but the gay-happy New York Times doesn’t have the guts to tell the truth. In short, its moral authority is spent.

Yes anti-Catholics really are very stupid.

AOL NEWS WRITER COMPARES POPE TO TERRORIST
Catholic League - July 9, 2010

Recently, CNN fired Octavia Nasr for praising Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah on her Twitter account. Following his death, Nasr wrote that she was “sad” to hear of his passing and said that he was “One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” While commenting on this story on AOL News, contributor Paul Wachter asked whether CNN should be consistent and fire anyone who praises Pope Benedict XVI “who covered up the clerical rape of young boys and whose anti-contraception proselytization has contributed to the deaths of millions from AIDS?”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on this today:
The fact that Paul Wachter would compare Pope Benedict XVI to the anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist Fadlallah is despicable. But his ignorance makes his commentary truly astounding. Despite the ceaseless efforts of those in the media—in particular the New York Times—there is absolutely no evidence that the pope has covered up any instances of priestly sexual abuse.
Wachter is also wrong in saying that the pope has contributed to millions of deaths for denouncing the indiscriminate distribution of condoms. In fact, as Harvard professor Edward C. Green has said, “Many countries that have not seen declines in HIV have seen increases in condom use, but in every country worldwide in which HIV has declined there have been increases in levels of faithfulness and usually abstinence as well.”
It’s so nice to learn that Wachter praises Fadlallah for being pro-woman. Inconveniently for him, his hero is also pro-terrorist.

Advance warning: inaccurate news reports coming soon

By Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture | July 08, 2010

Be prepared.

Sometime in the next few days the Vatican is expected to release new norms for the handling of sex-abuse complaints. Dozens of news reports will undoubtedly follow, saying that the Vatican has changed policies in response to public pressure. Those reports will be wrong.

The norms are changing. The policies are not.

According to reports that have leaked extensively this week, the Vatican will change a few norms of canon law, bringing the law into conformity with the policies already in use by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. To date these policies have been authorized-- first by Pope John Paul II, then by Benedict XVI-- as allowable exceptions to the canonical rules. Now they will become the rules.

So-- unless the leaked reports are all wrong-- the rules will change, but not practices of the CDF.

It's not that hard to understand, if you pay a bit of attention to the details. But recently reporters have been rushing into print without making the effort to understand Church law.
The norms are changing. The policies are not.

Jay Leno playing it safe for his audience

From Bill Donohue Catholic League - July 8, 2010
On last night's "Tonight Show," Jay Leno said the following: "Oh, and a Catholic priest in Connecticut has been charged with stealing $1.3 million in church money and using the money for male escorts. Of course, his parish is very upset about this—except the altar boys. They're going, huh, dodged a bullet on that one. Yeah, he spent $1.3 million on male escorts and, of course, the other priests were very confused. They said: Why buy the escort when the altar boys are free?"

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented as follows:
Jay Leno called many years ago to apologize for insulting Catholics. I accepted his apology and told him why he crossed the line. At that time, he was making fun of the Eucharist. He got the point, and the conversation ended amicably. But now I know the man is insincere.

For the past several years, wayward priests have been fodder for his material; miscreant rabbis and imams never seem to get mentioned. Occasionally, he sticks to the culprit, which is not necessarily objectionable, but most of the time he indicts all priests. He did that last night in a most vicious way.
The priest he was talking about was a homosexual; so are most of the abusing priests. Does Jay Leno have the guts to tell jokes about gay priests? Not that he should, but he doesn't. So he takes the cheap way out and sticks it to over 40,000 priests.

Jay Leno's jokes painting all priests as child abusers is not comedy. It is bigotry. He has crossed the line too many times.

Tough competition in the media-bias department

By Phil Lawler from Catholic Culture – 7th July 2010

A German rag, Der Spiegel has produced a story that rivals the coverage of the New York Times in its flagrant bias against Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church.

The headline provides sets the tone: Pope Benedict XVI Lashes Out at Secular Justice. You get the message: the Pope is opposed to justice. Subtle. If you read past the headline, you see that the Pope really didn't "lash out" at secular justice at all. He objected to the aggressive police raid on the Belgian bishops' headquarters. But as even the Spiegel story concedes, he "argued in favour of cooperating with the secular justice system." So the headline is roughly 180° off from the facts contained in the report.

It goes downhill from there. How much misinformation can you cram into a single paragraph? Let’s see:

Continue reading at Catholic Culture

And ditto for the Melbourne Age.