As I said to a friend just yesterday, if I don't seem angry about the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, it's only because when I'm angry and disgusted, my tendency is to be flip. In that I must doff my hat to the queen of flippantry Maureen Dowd. Yesterday's column is right on target.
It doesn’t seem right that the Catholic Church is spending Holy Week practicing the unholy art of spin.
Complete with crown-of-thorns imagery, the church has started an Easter public relations blitz defending a pope who went along with the perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church’s reputation rather than abused — and sometimes disabled and disadvantaged — children.
The church gave up its credibility for Lent. Holy Thursday and Good Friday are now becoming Cover-Up Thursday and Blame-Others Friday.
. . .
If church fund-raising and contributions dry up, Benedict’s P.R. handlers may yet have to stage a photo-op where he steps out of the priest’s side of the confessional and enters the side where the rest of his fallible flock goes.
Or maybe 30-second spots defending the pope with Benedict’s voice intoning at the end: “I am infallible, and I approve this message.”
The whole thing is a must read.
As I said on Sunday, what makes the church's tack particularly galling is that in resorting to this Nixonian assault on media critics, it insults members of its own flock and revictimizes the victims of horrific abuse. The Survivors Network explains:
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