Raymond Arroyo Interview With Bill Donohue

On December 6, Raymond Arroyo interviewed Bill Donohue of the Catholic League on his World Over show:

Donohue has been criticized as something of a squish on the matter of "priestly abuse", but I think what he does in this interview is perhaps unintentionally cast a light on the breadth and complexity of the Second Crisis, whose focus is only partly on the "priestly abuse" that was the nominal issue in the First Crisis. I think he makes several worthwhile points:

• Traditional media hasn't been transparent in accusing Catholic bishops of "inadequate response" to accusations of abuse. At about 3:30, he outlines a number of problems: media tend to favor "victims' groups" that often have an anti-Catholic agenda or simply serve as fronts for class action lawyers, while failing to cite the sources of the statistics they quote or define more specifically what an "adequate" response from bishops would be.
• At about 7:00, he brings up the inability of individual priests accused of abuse to rebut charges against them in grand jury reports -- which do not constitute legal determinations of guilt or innocence, but do in fact serve to destroy reputations nevertheless.
• At about 10:15, he makes the important point that the campaigns by state attorneys general are often selective, doing things like removing statutes of limitations only for Catholic institutions, but not treating public schools -- where abuse is statistically more prevalent than in Catholic institutions -- equally. He refers to Pennsylvania, but the same thing has happened in California and elsewhere.
• At about 13:30, he acknowledges that the Second Crisis is not about pedophilia, it's about homosexuality, something the media will not acknowledge.

I think Donohue is perceptive in recognizing that the media will continue to push the Second Crisis as simoly a replay of the First, that it's about "priestly abuse" of pre-pubescent children, when Donohue makes it plan that he understands as well as other Catholic laymen that it's about a subculture particularly in seminaries and chanceries, as well as cliques of gay prelates who promote their own. It seems to me that the appropriate response is to insist that media coverage be precise in its reporting, just as much as we insist that the bishops be responsive in addressing the full scope of the problem.

Nevertheless, it's also worth noting that in creating these related scandals, the bishops have given ammunition to the very real anti-Catholic strain in modern culture. The laity have just as much interest in protecting the faith from people with an anti-Catholic agenda, and I can't disagree with Donohue over this.