More Anti-Catholic Falsehoods From NYT’s Dowd

Can the New York Times' Maureen Dowd address the topic of the Catholic Church without promulgating falsehoods? It doesn't seem like it. Dowd's recent rant , released on Easter Sunday (Sun. 4/24/11), contains a number of false statements. 1. In addressing the papacy of Pope John Paul II (JPII), Dowd claims that the former pontiff “forfeited his right to beatification when he failed to establish a legal standard to remove pedophiles from the priesthood, and simply turned away for many years.” First of all, long before JPII, there was already a “legal standard” to remove those who abuse children. It is called the Code of Canon Law . As someone who claims to have attended Catholic schools for many years, Dowd already should have known this. And in 2001, the Pope issued a very important document ( “Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela” ) outlining the handling of these serious abuse cases. (Reminder: This was before the scandals erupted in the media in 2002. (Read: CWNews.com , 1/7/02.))

Posted by on April 30, 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.