Q. Did you see Spotlight?
A. Didn't need to. I read the reporting while they were reporting it.
I'm allergic to movies that pretend to deal with complex issues of history, even relatively recent history. I don't trust Hollywood one bit for reasons I'll set out below.
I had heard that Vigano's putsch against Pope Francis was turning out to be a bust due to a. his lies, b. his hypocrisy, c. his lies and those of his fellow putschitsts and their hypocrisy but the automatic Spotlight wannabee practice of the media whenever the search terms are sex abuse and Catholic has kicked in.
Vigano is a liar who is sore because Pope Francis fired him for trying to get him mired in American anti-LGBT politics, he's a liar who has serious issues of protecting clerical abusers, himself. The right wing media, EWTN, Lifeblahblahblah, etc. have about as little credibility. They've been laying for Francis since he started getting rid of corrupt Vatican hacks and thugs, who they had no problem with under John Paul II and Benedict XVI even as THEY WERE THE ONES WHO PROMOTED THE LIKES OF THEODORE MCCARRICK.
The American media has its things to answer for, too, it's spotlight on the sexual abuse of children would seem be focused like a Maglite at narrowest beam, missing the huge majority of ongoing sex trafficking of children, the sexual exploitation of children within secular institutions and contexts, in the media. I turned off my protection and went looking through the freely available online porn universe and the obvious images of children being raped by adult men, the sadistic use of children by porn, pedophile and incest themed porn (which really, truly believes all "models" are 18 or older. really they do) even as the themes of the sites, blogs, Tumblrs, etc. are about Daddies, coaches, policemen, truckers, cowboys, general sleazes of no thematic category, having sex with children. And that's not to mention the allied empire of various sex industries which do a heavy trade in world wide sex tourism when they don't deliver the product right to the rapists.
Certainly it's not that it's just easier to nail Catholic priests than these others, though it's probably a lot safer than to go after the gangsters of the porn empires and sex slavery. So much of the priestly pedophile abuse happens in safe countries to report from with targets who seldom are armed or hire hit men or have business relationships with the wealthy social media companies and entertainment.
I have absolutely no problem with what the Boston Globe Spotlight team or the Grand Jury in Pennsylvania did in exposing crimes by men who raped children and who covered up for them. All of that is good as long as it is accurate. I have a problem with the near complete lack of effective coverage of the large, large majority of ongoing child rape, child abuse, child destruction by men who don't wear a Roman collar, who aren't called Fr. and who aren't an easy target.
So, have you looked into that story? It just takes a few search terms and good malware and the ability to be disgusted, horrified and angered. I haven't smashed my computer yet but it could happen.
Movies = by definition, dishonest.
ReplyDeleteBooks = no problem, everything about them is trustworthy.
Got it.
A. I wasn't asked about a book, I was asked about a movie.
DeleteB. The friggin' Spotlight team reports WERE PUBLISHED IN THE FRIGGIN' BOSTON GLOBE, NOT A FRIGGIN' BOOK, ASSHOLE.
C. Depends on the book, it's possible to lie in a book or to get it wrong through stupidity, indifference to the truth, laziness, passing on gossip instead of fact checking, . . . Wait, I think I just defined Eschaton.
The BBC World Service interviewed a Cardinal identified as a friend of Francis who just traveled to Ireland with the Pope (I'm terrible with names), and the reporter laid into the Cardinal who rejected the allegations in the letter.
ReplyDeleteI gotta say, burden of proof is on Vigano, who is not presenting any evidence of this "ban" by Benedict, or indeed, any evidence of anything at all, and the best question raised against him was: if he knew about this before Francis became pope, why didn't Vigano say anything to anybody? If he had such a duty to report, why didn't he report?
Aside from the fact demanding Francis' resignation is not a solution to the abusive priest problem; it just solves Vigano's problem, which is Francis as Pope. A pretty clear indication, IMHO, that Vigano is not sincere in his expressed concerns, nor in his allegations, either.
I don't find the BBC to be especially credible in any reporting on the Catholic Church, too much Brit Catholic hatred under the brim.
DeleteI am seeing that most of the reporting, so called, is just taking Vigano's accusations as valid, which is why I wrote this piece.
As I said, their failure to do much of any digging and reporting on secular child sexual abuse, only covering it when it's clergy, leads me to believe they aren't really too interested in the protecting children angle of the story.
It's taking Vigano at face value that bugs me; as I say, he so clearly has an axe to grind, it undercuts anything he says.
DeleteBut, of course, Francis says he won't respond, he will leave it to journalists to investigate, so journalists report "FRANCIS SILENT ON ACCUSATIONS!"
Feh.